1st Edition

Courtly Pastimes

Edited By Gloria Allaire, Julie Human Copyright 2023
256 Pages 21 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

256 Pages 21 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

256 Pages 21 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

The modern concept of passing leisure hours pleasantly would, in the Middle Ages, have fallen under the rubric of Sloth, a deadly sin. Yet aristocrats of past centuries were not always absorbed in affairs of state or warfare. What did they do in moments of peace, "downtime" as we might call it today? In this collection of essays, scholars from various disciplines investigate courtly modes of... Read more

Introduction

Gloria Allaire, University of Kentucky

1. The Emergence of Courtliness in Wace᾿s Roman de Brut and Roman de Rou: Pastimes of the Rulers of Brittany and the Dukes of Normandy

Laurence Mathey-Maille, Université du Havre

2. Performing the Embrace: Intertextuality in Bernard de Clairvaux’s Sermons on the Song of Songs and Chrétien de Troyes’ Erec et Enide

Jeanne A. Nightingale, Miami University of Ohio

3. Tower, Bower, Garden, and Forest: Hide-and-Seek for Courtly Lovers

Janina P. Traxler, Manchester University, Indiana

4. Marie de France at Play: Equitan as Courtly Diversion or Carnivalesque Subversion?

Monica L. Wright, University of Louisiana at Lafayette

5. Courtly Pastimes and Nature in Gottfried von Strassburg’s Tristan: Reading Ecology and Hybridity

Christopher R. Clason, Oakland University

6. Sî jehent er lebe noch hiute: Courtly Play and Places of Imagination in Thirteenth-Century German Mural Cycles

Alexandra Sterling-Hellenbrand, Appalachian State University

7. Fishing for Meaning: Immersive Reading and the Codex Manesse Frontispieces

D. Lyle Dechant. DePauw University

8. The Apotheosis of Provençal Fin’amors in Alfonso X’s Marian Poetry

Joseph T. Snow, Michigan State University

9. The Performance of Courtliness in the Dits of Guillaume de Machaut

Sara Sturm-Maddox, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

10. Blind Man’s Buff: From Children᾿s Games to Pleasure Gardens in the Late Middle Ages

Kristen M. Figg, Kent State University

11. Amorous and Poetic Games in Christine de Pizan’s Queen’s Manuscript

(London, British Library, MS Harley 4431)

Lori J. Walters, The Florida State University

12. Medieval(ist) Pastimes, or What’s a Belle dame Doing in a Place like Hatfield House?

Joan E. McRae, Middle Tennessee State University

13. Performative Courtliness in Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur

Shawn Phillip Cooper, Oakland Community College

14. Ritual, Public Pageantry, and Urban Justice: The Seizaine de mai of Bourges

Donald Maddox, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

15. Ritterspiele: The Spectacle of the Courtly Tournament in Late Medieval Germany

Natalie Anderson, Independent Scholar

16. Bayard / Baiardo: The Equine Protagonist from French Chansons de geste to Italian Chivalric Poems

Maurizio Mazzoni, Independent Scholar

List of Contributors

Biography

Gloria Allaire is Associate Professor of Italian at the University of Kentucky. Her primary research interest has been Italian chivalric literature of the late Middle Ages. She has presented over 50 conference papers and published 45 articles or book chapters. Her seven books include Andrea da Barberino and the Language of Chivalry (University Press of Florida, 1997); two Italian prose Tristan editions with facing-page English translations (D. S. Brewer, 2002 and 2015); The Arthur of the Italians [. . .], co-edited with F. Regina Psaki (University of Wales Press, 2014); and an essay collection, The Italian Novella (Routledge, 2003).

 

Julie Human is Associate Professor of French and Francophone Studies at the University of Kentucky, where she directs the French language program and teaches courses ranging from accelerated beginning French to graduate seminars on medieval literature. Her research focuses on the intersections of pedagogy and gender in medieval French literature, particularly Arthurian romance. She has recently published on teaching the lais of Marie de France through performance and is currently working on a project on specularity in medieval French romance.