Throughout the medieval period, the popular classes were always reckoned as a potential force in society even though it was usually dangerous for them to articulate divergent social, political and religious opinions. Sources on medieval political and social life seem to show us a world of order, acquiescence and consent. Otherwise, they reveal a picture of bloodshed and violent strife. During times of intense conflict, however, the human tongue was always the most frequently used weapon, much more so than the sword or the dagger. The 'vox populi', though often difficultly retrievable in the sources, was a ubiquitous one within the realm of later medieval politics. The essays collected in this volume deal with such speech acts of political rebels, with political languages of the 'popular classes' in medieval society but also with the subversive twists to speech situations such as preaching, mockery and insults.
Author(s): Jan Dumolyn, Jelle Haemers, Hipólito Rafael Oliva Herrer, Vincent Challet
Series: Studies in European Urban History (1100-1800), 33
Publisher: Brepols
Year: 2014
Language: English, French
Pages: 276
City: Turnhout
Jan Dumolyn, Jelle Haemers, Hipólito Rafael Oliva Herrer & Vincent Challet / Medieval Voices and Popular Politics 1
Part I. The People and their Voices in Politics
Jan Dumolyn / Guild Politics and Political Guilds in Fourteenth-Century Flanders 15
Hipólito Rafael Oliva Herrer / Popular Voices and Revolt. Exploring Anti-Noble Uprisings on the Eve of the War of the Communities of Castile 49
María Antonia Carmona Ruiz / The Perception of Popular Discourse in Late Medieval Chronicles: the Case of the 'Relación de Las Comunidades de Castilla' 63
Patrick Lantschner / Voices of the People in a City without Revolts: Lille in the Later Middle Ages 73
Part II. Political and Symbolic Languages
Christopher Fletcher / What Makes a Political Language? Key Terms, Profit and Damage in the Common Petition of the English Parliament, 1343-1422 91
John Watts / Popular Voices in England's Wars of the Roses, c. 1445 - c. 1485 107
Vincent Challet / Un village sans histoire? La communauté de Villeveyrac en Languedoc 123
Alessandro Stella / 'Racconciare la terra': à l’écoute des voix des 'Ciompi' de Florence en 1378 139
Jonas Braekevelt / Popular Voices within Princely Legislation: Assessing the Discourse of Flemish Petitions and Burgundian Narrationes 149
Igor Knezevic / The Green Banner of La Feria: Popular Revolt and Municipal Politics in Early Sixteenth-Century Seville 167
Part III. Dialogues of Power
Frances Andrews / Preacher and Audience: Friar Venturino da Bergamo and 'Popular Voices' 185
Hannes Lowagie / The Political Functions of Oral Networks in the Later Medieval Low Countries 205
Claire Judde de Larivière / L’ordre contesté. Formes, objets et discours de l’action politique des gens ordinaires à Venise (XVe-XVIe siècles) 215
Martine Veldhuizen / Guard your Tongue. Slander and its Punishment in a Late Medieval Courtroom 233
Jelle Haemers / Filthy and Indecent Words. Insults, Defamation and Urban Politics in the Southern Low Countries, 1300-1550 247
