In my last post I looked at artworks from the castle at Runkelstein in what is now northern Italy inspired by popular courtly romances and epics. In this piece, I turn to murals from around the same period in Vienna inspired by the rather different court poet, Neidhart von Riuwental, and in rather less grand surroundings…
What is it like to be a second son in a late medieval princely family? In this post, Christophe takes us through the example of James of Coimbra (1433 – 1459), who harnessed the political influence of his allies to aid his rapid rise to power.
In the first of two blogs on courtly display, David Murray looks at aspirational living in the Middle Ages, how murals are useful for historians, and why you should always visit the castle privy….
On 5-7th April 2018, project member Laura Slater attended the ‘Association for Art History’ annual conference in London, held at the Strand campus of King’s College London and The Courtauld Institute of Art. She gave a research presentation on ‘Devotional Soundscapes in the Psalter of Queen Philippa’ as part a thematic strand organised by Margit Thøfner and Tim Shephard. More excitingly, she contributed to a live musical event held at The Courtauld Gallery, organised by Dr Charlotte de Mille, founder and curator of the music programme at The Courtauld Gallery.
On the 16th and 17th February the MALMECC team welcomed an international gathering of medievalists to Oxford for a workshop focused on ecclesiastical courts as places of cultural production, performance, reception and dissemination. The team hoped that assembling scholars of many different disciplines (including historians, musicologists, art historians and literary scholars) would both illuminate this important but understudied social milieu or setting, and facilitate future theorization.
In her last post, Laura introduced us to the elaborate tombs of the Hastings family at St Mary’s priory Abergavenny, and showed what they can reveal about attitudes towards memorial and self-image amongst late-medieval nobles. This time, Laura turns her attention to other tombs at St Mary’s, and the difficulties of studying medieval art in Britain.
In the second of her posts on commemoration, Laura shows the role that effigies could play in creating dynastic identity.
In the first of a series of posts on commemoration, MALMECC’s art historian Laura Slater looks at the phenomenon of the ‘Eleanor Crosses’ – a very visible memorial to Eleanor of Castile…
For a medieval French knight, being a courtier was just as important as being a tactician and military leader. Here, Christophe investigates the many facets of knighthood, inspired by his recent article in a special edition of Revue du Nord.
In this post, Christophe discusses how authors wrote about military defeat in 15th Century Burgundy. Was the victor the captain who remained on the battlefield, or the one who captured the largest amount of prisoners and goods? In an era of knightly ideals, the most important thing was how you framed it….
