Article
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Royal Feuds and the Politics of Sanctity in Anglo-Saxon England and Ottonian Saxony
Laura WANGERIN
Published in Pleasure in the Middle Ages
Keywords: Anglo-Saxons, Feud, Legal History, Ottonians, Royal Saints.
This paper is an examination of sanctification and politics in Anglo-Saxon England and Ottonian Saxony. The evidence suggests that a feud culture and feuding behaviours were the reasons for the proliferation of sanctified murdered Anglo-Saxon kings in the late-eighth through mid-ninth centuries, a phenomenon unique to England in this time period. An investigation of the nature of royal feuds in England, in contrast to those in Saxony, further suggests that the sanctification and cults of these Anglo-Saxon murdered kings were a strategic part of feuding interactions and negotiations between families. It also supports arguments for the relationship between a feud culture and the proliferation of legislative activity by the Anglo-Saxons, and offers new possibilities for understanding the dearth of legislative activity by the Ottonians.
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Preachers and Preaching in Bede’s Commentary on the Apocalypse
Maria NENAROKOVA
Published in Pleasure in the Middle Ages
Keywords: Apocalypse, Bede, Biblical Commentary, Preachers, Preaching.
The present article is dedicated to the Commentary on the Apocalypse by Venerable Bede. The close reading of the commentary shows that the leading topic of Bede’s commentary is missionary work. By the beginning of the eighth century, the idea of preaching Christianity to the heathens on the continent was widespread in England, especially in Northumbria. While commenting on the verses of the Apocalypse, Bede also expresses his views concerning various aspects of preaching. In the case of Bede’s commentary, the genre in question turns out to be lively and full of allusions to current events.
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Philosophy as a Way of Life in the Platonism of Imperial Age and in Plotinus
Bernardo Lins BRANDÃO
Original title: A Filosofia Como Modo de Vida no Platonismo da Era Imperial e em Plotino
Published in Mulier aut Femina. Idealism or reality of women in the Middle Ages
Keywords: Ascension, Neoplatonism, Philosophy as a way of life, Plotinus, Therapy of passions.
Philosophy is generally understood nowadays as a discursive practice, in which philosophers elaborate doctrines and arguments. But that is not the only possible view. In some contexts of Antiquity, it was also conceived as a way of life. In this paper, I analyze how the platonism of the Imperial age, specially Plotinus, saw this philosophical life and how doctrine and argument, ascension of the soul and therapy of passions was part of it.
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Medieval Misogyny and its echoes in the Lais of Marie de France
Ruy de Oliveira ANDRADE FILHO, Ligia Cristina CARVALHO
Original title: A misoginia medieval e seus ecos nos Lais de Maria de França
Published in Mulier aut Femina. Idealism or reality of women in the Middle Ages
Keywords: Chivalric literature, Female images, Maria of France, Misogyny.
The Lais of Marie de France are a specific type of historical record about the medieval aristocratic society and enables us to decipher the hierarchies that govern the relationship between men and women in the period. As well explains Georges Duby, medieval society tends to present coated with a male character because, among other factors, its latent misogyny. Women were placed under male authority, convinced of their natural superiority , the men despised , mocked her sex , meanwhile feared them, after all, women were Eve’s daughters. So, Lais offer female images that cannot be ignored , since it express the author women’s idea. However , as we seek to demonstrate in this article, Maria of France reflects the representations of the Christian society aristocratic. One note here that this article does not aspire to reach the actual circumstances, but the historical significance of female images present in the Lais.
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For Man’s Ruin or Salvation. Archetypes of Feminine Power in the Poetry of G. K. Chesterton
Santiago ARGÜELLO
Original title: Para perdición o salvación del hombre. Arquetipos del poder femenino en la poesía de G. K. Chesterton
Published in Mulier aut Femina. Idealism or reality of women in the Middle Ages
Keywords: Chesterton, Gleam, Grail, Tennyson, Woman.
The paper consists in the analysis and translation of the poem of Chesterton, “The White Witch”. In it the author sets up a contrast between two heathen goddesses –Diana and Hecate– and the Virgin Mary. Chesterton takes the issue up to criticize the interpretation of Tennyson about the medieval Grial. From it, he is able to show the connection between the Puritan model of woman with the heathen model, in contrast with the medieval one.
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Woman and eroticism in the Galician-Portuguese troubadour lyric
Pedro Carlos Louzada FONSECA, Márcia Maria de Melo ARAÚJO
Original title: Mulher e erotismo na lírica trovadoresca galego-portuguesa
Published in Mulier aut Femina. Idealism or reality of women in the Middle Ages
Keywords: Cantigas de amigo, Eroticism, Galician-Portuguese troubadour lyric.
It is an approach of the female images reproduced in the cantigas de amigo “Fui eu, madre, lavar meus cabelos” by Johan Soarez Coelho and “Levou s’ aa alva, levou s’ a velida” by Pero Meogo, both outstanding troubadours Galician-Portuguese. In the cantigas de amigo, eroticism appears as the theme of the possibility of satisfaction, of promise, of desire or its negation, and of the closeness of happiness. In this sense, it is intended in this paper to reflect on the recurring images in the lyricism of these minstrels and how ethical elements of loyalty, courage, tenderness are treated by an erotic-cultural aspect that makes the medieval nobility capable of transforming the sufferings of love into beauty, offering in this way a meaning and a suitable value for feeling.
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Feminine elites in Galician towns during the Late Middle Ages
Miguel GARCÍA-FERNÁNDEZ
Original title: Las élites femeninas en las ciudades gallegas de la Baja Edad Media
Published in Mulier aut Femina. Idealism or reality of women in the Middle Ages
Keywords: Galicia, Late Middle Ages, Towns, Urban elites, Women.
Women from different social groups lived in medieval towns. However, historians have studied more closely women working outside their homes in various trades and, far less, women that were part of the urban oligarchies. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to analyze female elites in Galician towns during the Late Middle Ages, indicating who they were and what their role within the oligarchy was. So, we will know some names, places, relationships, public actions and attitudes to death of those female elites.
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The Alfonsine Guzman ladies. A feminine dynasty in Castile, 13th-14th centuries
Pablo MARTÍN PRIETO
Original title: Las Guzmán alfonsinas. Una dinastía femenina en la Castilla de los siglos XIII y XIV
Published in Mulier aut Femina. Idealism or reality of women in the Middle Ages
Keywords: Alfonso X, Beatriz of Portugal, Blanca of Portugal, Guzman, Mayor Guillen.
From the mid-13th century, the relationship between Alfonso X of Castile and his mistress Mayor Guillen de Guzman gave rise to a veritable feminine dynasty, beginning with their daughter Beatriz − later Queen of Portugal through her marriage − and continued through the latter's daughter, Princess Blanca of Portugal, the grand-daughter of Mayor Guillen, well until the 1320s. In this time, the ladies belonging to this illegitimate line of Alfonso X's descent kept a special commitment to the Castilian crown, as well as to certain interests of piety and power related to this king. The continuity along this Alfonsine line of the important noble family of Guzman stands as a showcase of the public relevance of women set in a high environment.
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Buona e leale, esprovata e quieta: Aspects of feminine image in political-pedagogic literature at XIII Century. The treaty of De Regimine Principum from Giles of Rome
Fátima Regina FERNANDES, Eliane Veríssimo de SANTANA
Original title: Buona e leale, esprovata e quieta: Aspectos da imagem feminina na literatura pedagógico-política no século XIII. O tratado De Regimine Principum de Egídio Romano
Published in Mulier aut Femina. Idealism or reality of women in the Middle Ages
Keywords: Castity, Feminine, Giles of Rome, Pedagogical treaties, Temperance.
The aim of this text is to analyse that the theorist Giles of Rome (1243/47-1316) constructs of the femenine in his pedagogical treaty De Regimine Principum (1277-81) for the instruction of Philip IV of France (1268-1314). Although this is a speculum that aims the royal education, Giles dedicates the First Part of the Second book for the formulation of an ideal model of women. Author of Aristotelianism-tomist influence, he considers the man, full of knowledge, natural lord of woman. The feminine image is built based on marriage, procriation, loyalty, castity and temperance.
