How did people in the late medieval period perceive and express social status? This volume brings together multi-disciplinary perspectives on representations of social difference in the Low Countries during a time of dynamic social change. The premise of the volume is that medieval social change may only be fully understood if hierarchies of wealth and power are examined alongside literary and artistic sources. Medieval texts and material culture expressed social standing and gave meaning to the experience of social change. The aim of the study is to recognise and translate the language of symbols used to encode and display status in the late Middle Ages.
Author(s): Wim Blockmans, Antheun Janse (eds.)
Series: Medieval Texts and Cultures of Northern Europe, 2
Publisher: Brepols
Year: 1999
Language: English
Pages: 500
City: Turnhout
Preface ix
The Feeling of Being Oneself / WlM BLOCKMANS 1
PART I. POSITIONING BY MILIEU
Showing off One’s Rank in the Middle Ages / Raymond van Uytven 19
Attitudes and Social Positioning in Courtly Romances: Hainault, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries / Danielle Queruel 35
Gifts of Mourning-Cloth at the Brabantine Court in the Fifteenth Century / Robert Stein 51
Self-Representation of Court and City in Flanders and Brabant in the Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries / Wim Blockmans and Esther Donckers 81
Marriage and Noble Lifestyle in Holland in the Late Middle Ages / Antheun Janse 113
On the Nature of True Nobility: Views from Dutch Courtiers in the Early Fifteenth Century / Jeanne Verbij-Schillings 139
Rich Men, Poor Men: Social Stratification and Social Representation at the University (13th-16th Centuries) / Hilde de Ridder-Symoens 159
Around Saint George: Integration and Precedence during the Meetings of the Civic Militia of The Hague / Fred J. W. van Kan 177
Ownership of Graves in Medieval Parish Churches in Holland / Koen Goudriaan 197
PART II. VISIONS AND PROBLEMS
Love and Marriage: Fictional Perspectives / Annelies van Gijsen 227
Functions of Fiction: Fighting Spouses around 1500 / Wim Blockmans and Tess Neijzen 265
Visual Comments of the Mutability of Social Positions and Values in Netherlandish and German Art of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries / Hans-Joachim Raupp 277
The Wearing of Significative Badges, Religious and Secular: The Social Meaning of a Behavioural Pattern / Jos Koldewed 307
Treacherously Significant Woodcarving: Woodcuts in Dutch-Language (Post-)Incunabula as a Source for Socio-Historical Research / Hanneke de Bruin 329
PART III. POSITIONING BY SOCIAL FUNCTION
Jan van Ruusbroec and the Social Position of Late Medieval Mysticism / Geert Warnar 365
The Position of the Artist in the Fifteenth Century: Salaries and Social Mobility / Maxtmiliaan P. J. Martens 387
Artist and Patron: The Self-Portrait of Adam Kraft in the Sacrament-House of St. Lorenz in Nuremberg / Johann-Christian Klamt 415
Rebels with a Cause: The Peasant Movements of Northern
Holland in the Later Middle Ages / Peter Hoppenbrouwers 445
To Appear or to Be / Wim Blockmans 483
The Authors 489
