The question of what medieval "courtliness" was, both as a literary influence and as a historical "reality", is debated in this volume. The concept of courtliness forms the theme of this collection of essays. Focused on works written in the Francophone world between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, they examine courtliness as both an historical privilege and a literary ideal, and as a concept that operated on and was informed by complex social and economic realities. Several essays reveal how courtliness is subject to satire or is the subject of exhortation in works intended for noblemen and women, not to mention ambitious bourgeois. Others, more strictly literary in their focus, explore the witty, thoughtful and innovative responses of writers engaged in the conscious process of elevating the new vernacular culture through the articulation of its complexities and contradictions. The volume as a whole, uniting philosophical, theoretical, philological, and cultural approaches, demonstrates that medieval "courtliness" is an ideal that fascinates us to this day. It is thus a fitting tribute to the scholarship of Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner, in its exploration of the prrofound and wide-ranging ideas that define her contribution to the field.
Author(s): Daniel E. O’Sullivan, Laurie Shepard (eds.)
Series: Gallica, 28
Publisher: D. S. Brewer
Year: 2013
Language: English
Pages: 312
City: Cambridge
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgements xi
Introduction / Daniel E. O’Sullivan and Laurie Shepard 1
Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner: A Bibliography 15
Part I. Shaping Real and Fictive Courts
A Perfume of Reality? Desublimating the Courtly / Peter Haidu 25
Shaping the Case: the 'Olim' and the Parlement de Paris under King Louis IX / Donald Maddox 47
Charles d’Orléans and the Wars of the Roses: Yorkist and Tudor Implications of British Library MS Royal 16 F ii / Michel-André Bossy 61
Part II. Shaping Courtly Narrative
'Meraugis de Portlesguez' and the Limits of Courtliness / Kristin Burr 83
The Art of 'Transmutation' in the Burgundian Prose 'Cligés' (1454): Bringing the Siege of Windsor Castle to Life for the Court of Philip the Good / Joan Tasker Grimbert 95
Thomas’s 'Raisun': Désir, Vouloir, Pouvoir / David Hult 107
Humanimals: The Future of Courtliness in the 'Conte du Papegau' / Virginie Greene 123
A Matter of Life or Death: Fecundity and Sterility in Marie de France’s 'Guigemar' / Logan Whalen 139
'Le Roman de la Rose', Performed in Court / Evelyn Birge Vitz 151
III. Shaping Women’s Voices in Medieval France
Lombarda’s Mirrors: Reflections on PC 288,1 as a Response to PC 54,1 / Elizabeth W. Poe 165
Na Maria: Courtliness and Marian Devotion in Old Occitan Lyric / Daniel E. O’Sullivan 183
From Convent to Court: Ermengarde d’Anjou’s Decision to Reenter the World / William Schenck 201
From Chrétien to Christine: Translating Twelfth-Century Literature to Reform the French Court during the Hundred Years War / Nadia Margolis 213
IV. Shaping the Courtly Other
The Favorable Reception of Outsiders at Court: Medieval Versions of Cultural Exchange / Laine Doggett 229
Shaping Saladin: Courtly Men Dressed in Silk / E. Jane Burns 241
'Force de parole': Shaping Courtliness in Richard de Fournival’s 'Bestiaire d’amours', Copied in Metz about 1312 (Oxford, Bodl. MS Douce 308) / Nancy Freeman Regalado 255
The Poetic Legacy of Charles d’Anjou in Italy: The Poetics of Nobility in the 'Comune' / Laurie Shepard 271
Envoi / Sarah White 285
List of Contributors 287
Index 291
Tabula Gratulatoria 297
