Late Medieval History

This article investigates the deliberate use and manipulation of chivalric culture and iconography by James IV of Scotland to position the Stewart dynasty's claims to the English throne in contest with the concurrent consolidation of Tudor dynastic security. This resulted in a dialogue developing between the two kingdoms concerning the relationship between sovereignty, dynasty and chivalry. This article argues for a new approach to the study of chivalry, by considering it as a meaningful language in political communication. It finds that chivalry had a strong currency in diplomatic discourse and was used to transact political issues of sovereignty and dynasty.

The well-known classical abbreviation SPQR has acquired many spurious expansions over the centuries. One version popular with resentful locals in the early nineteenth century was soli preti qui rregneno, or “only priests reign here” in the local dialect; and even today non-Romans like to claim it means sono pazzi, questi Romani, or “they're crazy, these Romans.” The more canonical explanation is that SPQR stands for senatus populusque Romanus, “the Roman Senate and people,” which was the traditional description of the state in imperial as well as republican ancient Rome. The phrase is attested in classical authors such as Cicero, Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus; it appears in numerous official acts and in Augustus's Res gestae. The popularity of the abbreviation beyond that of the phrase from which it derives is most likely the result of its use in epigraphy and numismatics, since senatus populusque Romanus appeared in initial form, that is, SPQR, in monumental inscriptions throughout the city, as well as on the Roman coinage.

Although recent work has begun to establish that early modern plagues had selective mortality effects, it was generally accepted that the initial outbreak of Black Death in 1347-52 was a ‘universal killer’. Recent bioarchaeological work, however, has argued that the Black Death was also selective with regard to age and pre-plague health status. The issue of the Black Death’s potential sex selectivity is less clear. Bioarchaeological research hypothesizes that sex-selection in mortality was possible during the initial Black Death outbreak, and we present evidence from historical sources to test this notion.

Between April and July 1413, a large group of Parisians led the violent Cabochien Uprising. This revolt has been positioned primarily as an extension of civil war politics between the Burgundians and the Armagnacs. I argue that it was far more than that; it was a meaningful example of political resistance and an extraordinary event that nonetheless borrowed from everyday practices of civil autonomy and agency. In drawing from but moving beyond the civil war narrative, I examine the importance of urban spatial tactics, voice and violence in this rebellion. This approach enables us to discern what opportunities were available to early fifteenth-century Parisians to directly challenge their exclusion from politics, and to carve out a place of importance for their voices. Moreover, the same source material for the rebellion also illuminates the established systems, the spaces and the habits that empowered Parisians in the day-today. It was these conditions that provided the scaffolding for their rebellion, and they reveal strong tension between the king's sovereign authority and his subjects' autonomy. These complicated dynamics limited the king's actual power in the streets, and suggest that Parisians could lay claim to more independence than we have previous considered.

The root cause of the Burgundian-Armagnac civil war was the brutal assassination of Louis, Duke of Orléans on the orders of John, Duke of Burgundy. From the outset, emotions - specifically grief and anger - were at the centre of the conflict. Reports on the emotional responses of those impacted by the death became crucial discursive elements in the narratives that developed alongside the feud, all of which invariably took sides in the civil war. Furthermore, the way by which grief and outrage were described and performed (or not performed) by the parties, their peers, and their followers, and judged by those witnessing them, either affirmed alliances or established formal enmities. Therefore, grieving had an important political role in the escalation of the conflict. Grieving (or not grieving) was one of the declared inducements for the feud from both sides, it gave voice to each party and permitted other parties to articulate their judgment, and finally, it helped each party rationalize their violence. In privileging only the power vacuum the king's mental illness caused and the personal ambition of powerful political figures as the origins of the civil war, the traditional historiography has overlooked the critical role that emotionality played in constructing party narratives and in complicating political relationships. This void must be addressed given the importance historians acknowledge emotions play in structuring, straining, and frequently altering social relations. Public displays of mourning were as important as political ambition in the escalation of violence.

Überlegungen zu Handlungsarten und Handlungsräumen Heinrichs VII. (1308-1313) in Deutschland und Italien Der Zusammenhang zwischen öffentlichem Raum, Verfassung und Beurkundung lässt sich von Seiten der Geschichtswissenschaft aus unterschiedlichen Perspektiven betrachten. Die in diesem Beitrag gewählte ist die des Herrschers in der Stadt unter Ausübung seiner "klassi schen" Aktivität, nämlich der des Ausstellens von Urkunden bzw. der Beteiligung am Beur kundungsgeschäft. Als Protagonist für diese Studie wurde Heinrich VII. gewählt, einer der ersten spätmittelalterlichen deutschen Könige und erster römischer Kaiser nach dem Ende der Staufer. Er war der Begründer der Luxemburger als einer von drei spätmittelalterlichen deutschen Königsdynastien neben Habsburgern und Wittelsbachern. Sein Enkel Karl IV. und seine beiden Großenkel Wenzel und Sigmund folgten ihm mit Unterbrechungen als römisch-deutsche Herrscher. 1 Bei seiner Königswahl Ende November 1308 war Heinrich etwa 30 Jahre alt, er starb keine fünfJahre später. 2 Als König weilte er nur etwa zwei Jahre in Deutschland und brach im Herbst 1310 nach Italien zur Kaiserkrönung und Durchsetzung seiner Herrschaft in diesem Reichsteil auf. Der dreijährige Aufenthalt verlief dramatisch; Heinrich verlor im Süden seine Ehefrau Margarethe sowie seinen jüngeren Bruder Walram. 3 Zwar gelang es ihm, am 6. Januar 1311 in Mailand zum König von Italien und am 29. Juni des Folgejahres in Rom zum Kaiser gekrönt zu werden. Es war die erste Kaiserkrönung seit 92 Jahren, doch sollte Italien für ihn zum Schicksal werden. Nach langen kriegerischen Aus einandersetzungen starb Heinrich VII. am 24. August 1313 in Buonconvento, einem klei nen Ort an der Via Francigena südlich der toskanischen Stadt Siena, ohne nach Deutsch land zurückgekehrt zu sein. 4 Im Folgenden soll besonders der Aufenthalt in Italien in den Blick genommen werden. Dies hat verschiedene Gründe. Nicht nur für Kunsthistoriker ist die fortgeschrittene Urba nität der Apenninenhalbinsel um 1300 von besonderem wissenschaftlichem Interesse. 5 In den Augen der Zeitgenossen handelte es sich beim deutschen König um den angehenden Kaiser, dem trotz seiner mehr als seltenen Anwesenheit in Italien im Rechtsdenken der Zeit eine hohe Autorität zukam und der seinen Anspruch auf Anerkennung auch einforderte. 6 Dies führte in der stark differenzierten Staatenwelt der Apenninenhalbinsel häufi g zu hefti gen politischen Erschütterungen, wie sie nicht nur für den Aufenthalt Heinrichs VII., son dern auch für seine Nachfolger zu beobachten sind.7 Doch sprechen darüber hinaus auch

This article argues that the focus on three drops of milk issuing from the Virgin's breast in The Virgin in Front of a Fire Screen was inspired by contemporary representations of the Lactation of Saint Bernard. This latter iconography provides the visual context for the vivid address of eroticized depictions of the Madonna's "one bare breast" in Flemish art and shows the intricate connections between visuality and materiality in fifteenth-century Flemish religious art. Some depictions of Saint Bernard's Lactation transform the Madonna's jets of milk into rays of light aiming for his eyes, stressing the interchangeability of materiality and visuality as modes that were expected to facilitate miraculous appearances of the Madonna.

One of the most distinctive endowed structures of the Mamluk period, the eponymous madrasa of Umm al-Sulṭān Shaʿbān, was built in the wake of several attempts to remove her son, the 13th Qalāwūnid sultan al-Ashraf Shaʿbān (r. 764– 78/1363–77), from the throne. Several powerful amirs, occupying the expanding office of atābak al-ʿasākir during the early period of al-Ashraf Shaʿbān’s reign, attempted to replace the sultan with a more pliant Qalāwūnid relative. The most powerful amir during the 1360’s, Yalbughā al-ʿUmarı̄ (d. 768/1366), unsuccessfully attempted to replace al-Ashraf Shaʿbān with his younger brother Anūk (d. 793/1390–1). The amir Asandamur al-Nāṣirī (d. 769/1368), who briefly succeeded Yalbughā, similarly attempted to enthrone Khalı̄l Ibn Qawṣūn (d. 778/ 1376). Asandamur’s failed attempt and al-Ashraf Shaʿbān’s neutralization of the threat posed by the Yalbughāwı̄ya provided him with the ability to develop his own household powerbase.3 Soon afterwards, al-Ashraf Shaʿbān, his mother Khawand Baraka (d. 774/1373), and her second husband Uljāy al-Yūsufī (d. 775/ 1373) were involved in the creation of the madrasa of Umm al-Sulṭān Shaʿbān. Khawand Baraka was the formal founder of the madrasa (wāqifa), and both the sultan and her husband were named as future administrators (nāẓir).

This paper argues that the involvement of al-Ashraf Shaʿbān, Khawand Baraka and Uljāy al-Yūsufī in the creation of the madrasa and its endowment was a logical extension of household politics in the late Qalāwūnid period (1341– 1382). The madrasa provided a mechanism outside the formal structure of the Mamluk polity, whereby these individuals could pursue private agendas while simultaneously cementing the legitimacy of the royal household from which they derived their authority and influence. The madrasa offered an opportunity for al-Ashraf Shaʿbān to accomplish multiple objectives within a single framework. Not only did it fulfill the probable request by his mother for its construction, but it also functioned as a showcase of his authority and legitimacy within the constraints of his position after having recently removed two senior amirs and the threat of the rank-and-file mamluks. Capitalizing on his mother’s regal pilgrimage in 770/1369, al-Ashraf Shaʿbān used the public display to highlight the reassertion of royal control over pilgrimage affairs that had been usurped during the early part of his reign. Building on this event, the madrasa allowed al-Ashraf Shaʿbān to extend the hegemony of Qalāwūnid architectural display that played an integral role in ritual ceremonies incorporating Mamluk officers into the royal household. The endowment also bound a senior amir, Uljāy al-Yūsufī, closer to al-Ashraf Shaʿbān and the success of his regime. The endowment provided Uljāy al-Yūsufī an avenue for greater influence and power through his growing connection to the sultan upon Uljāy al-Yūsufī’s marriage to Khawand Baraka. The unfortunate general lack of information on women of the royal household in contemporary sources makes it difficult to gauge Khawand Baraka’s motives; however, sources make clear her political importance.

Traditionally it is assumed that "modern" civil society originated in the associations, clubs, and public sphere of the eighteenth century as a result of the "liberation" of the individual from the "shackles" of absolutism, religious intolerance, and the patriarchal family. However, recent research goes further back in time. Scholars such as Robert Putnam (sociologist), Antony Black (political scientist), and Katherine Lynch (histo-rian) associate the origins of civil society with the heyday of confraternities and guilds in the late Middle Ages. This has serious consequences for our understanding of the characteristics and functions of civil society. Given that confraternities were permeated by religious devotion and crafts were inextricably bound to the (often undemocratic) political establishment, fundamental questions arise about the importance of religion in civil society and the role of associations in the political participation of individuals. This article suggests that several long-term trends can be observed when broaching civil society from the perspective of guilds (or brotherhoods). In early modern guilds, the fraternal ideals related to mutual aid and equality appear to have gradually disappeared. Craft guilds stopped being "brotherhoods" and "substitute families" and transformed into formal and bureaucratic juridical institutions, while retreating into a sphere separate from household and family.

FULL PDF HERE. This article examines the expertise and duties of clerks in medieval English towns, particularly their roles in creating custumals, or collections of written customs. Customs could regulate trade, office-holding, prostitution and even public nuisance. Many clerks were anonymous, and their contributions to custumals understudied. The careers of relatively well-known clerks, however, do provide insights into how some clerks shaped custumals into civic repositories of customary law. By analysing their oaths and known administrative practices, which involved adapting material from older custumals, this article argues that town clerks played critical roles in transmitting customary law to future generations of administrators.

You may view article here: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0963926818000287

The article examines the operations of the property market in late medieval Old Warsaw during a period of economic expansion. Two major professional groups (merchants and craftsmen) are distinguished to indicate fundamental differences in their interest in the property market. While craftsmen accumulated goods, merchants sought profit in a quick resale. In addition, the consideration of separate groups such as nobility, clergy, peasants, and Jews, and the analysis of the size of the urban market revealed that the property market in Old Warsaw was dominated by burgesses. The comparison of the number of transactions with the number of newcomers granted citizenship revealed a fact overlooked in the literature, i.e. that the vast majority of migrants had a low economic status and could not afford to purchase their own property just after arriving in the town. This suggests that the rental market played an important role in providing accommodation for newcomers. The analysis also shows the steady and dynamic development of the property market in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. This evidence conflicts with suggestions of an economic crisis affecting late medieval Polish towns, at least for Old Warsaw.

This study presents the reform of the Royal Council of Navarre, which took place during the reign of Catherine of Foix and John of Albret. the different measures carried out established the foundation of a new modernized and efficient Royal Council. Its organization, composition and rules and regulations, represented a change with respect to the models which had characterized this Council in medieval times.

This article focuses on the maritime cultural landscape of the former Zuiderzee (AD 1170-1932) in the central part of the Netherlands. Since the large-scale reclamations from the sea (1932-1968), many remains have been discovered, revealing a submerged and eroded late medieval maritime culture, represented by lost islands, drowned settlements, cultivated lands, shipwrecks, and consequently socio-economic networks. Especially the northeastern part of the region, known today as the Noordoostpolder, is testimony to the dynamic battles of the Dutch against the water. By examining physical and immaterial datasets from the region, it is possible to give a modern-day idea of this late medieval maritime cultural landscape. Spatial distribution and densities of late medieval archaeological remains are analysed and compared to historical data and remote sensing results. This interdisciplinary approach has led to the discovery of the remains of the drowned settlement of Fenehuysen.

Study of the conflicts developed in the Castilian Mudejar aljamas during the Fifteenth Century, with special emphasis on the analysis of the disputes associated to the presence of privileged groups integrated in clientelar networks which transcended the framework of the local Muslim community. For this purpose we have considered two representative cases of study. On the one hand, the analysis of the dispute held between the Trujillo aljama and the Plaza family allows us to deepen our knowledge of the exclusion forms founded by the Islamic community against privileged groups integrated in urban factions. On the other, we have studied the disputes developed within the Mudejar community of Guadalajara between the privileged members of the Mendoza lineage clientele and the aljama, and its connection with the conflicts held between Mudejar factions at the end of the Fifteenth century.

En la política de promoción de las monjas mendicantes que desarrollaron los reyes de Castilla se percibe una tipología de “fundaciones en relación” con mujeres. Alfonso X y Pedro I colaboraron con sus amantes, Mayor Guillén y María de Padilla, y el segundo también con sus hijas, Beatriz e Isabel, para dar origen a monasterios de la Orden de Santa Clara o de sus formas previas. Estas páginas analizan unos procesos de fundación que enlazan lo personal y lo familiar con lo político, visibilizan formas de interacción entre los sexos y desvelan algunas de las fisonomías adoptadas por las religiosas que constituyeron la institución clarisa, una orden religiosa exclusivamente femenina en la que tuvieron gran peso las mujeres como agentes históricos.

The remittance of the custom duties due on a consignment of Italian military equipment imported into England provides valuable information on the type of equipment used by men-at-arms during the Wars of the Roses. It offers insights into royal procurement during the early part of the reign of Edward IV and evidence of a revival of the use of heavy cavalry in English warfare.

The multiplication of the capacity of the royal
power to raise information by means of an
increasingly complex judicial apparatus made
the writing war of memories very uneven
in the second half of the fifteenth century.
Princes, however organized by means of
leagues, letters, seals, and promises, faced
an increasingly intrusive royal power well
informed by spies and commissioners,
economically hegemonic and militarily far
superior. Despite the effort to preserve the
high-nobiliarchic honor and the reasonable
fidelity shown by the faithful of Nemours,
the ability to produce legal truth from the
extraordinary inquiry was profound. Inquiring,
comparing, classifying, coercing, shaping
perceptions were, together, a powerful
weapon in those of real power.
Keywords: Medieval Monarchies, High
treason, Revolt of the Public Well.

The purpose of this study is to present the ways of multicultural noble community formation on the territory of Podillia (Podillya), and starting from 1434 – of Podolian voivodeship, which was the easternmost province of Polish Kingdom at the time. The research methodology follows the principles of systematizing the materials and applying interdisciplinary lenses. It utilizes a number of general methods of historical studies: historiographical, terminological, biographical, prosopographical, genealogical, and linguistic analysis. Based on the analysis of probable sites of origin of the nobles who received land assignations on the territory of Podolian voivodeship under the rule of Władysław III in 1434–1444, the study traces specific regions in Polish and Czech kingdoms, from which the nobles relocated to the eastern border of Europe of that time. The main regions of the incoming to Podolian voivodeship nobles’ origin include Lesser Poland, Greater Poland, Mazowia, Moravia, and Silesia. The farthest site of origin of these nobles were Moravia and Wieluń district of Sieradz voivodeship in Greater Poland. The rest of the sites of origin, which can be identified, lie at the 500 to 700 kilometre distance from Podillia. For the period of the 15th century, the study differentiates several ethnic and socio-professional groups that added to the noble Podolian community. These are mercenaries, coming mostly from the territory of Czech Kingdom where the Hussite War was coming to an end at the time, who pursued noble titles by means of military service. In the middle and during the second half of the 15th century the majority of "new Podolians" settled in Podillia and already in the 2nd and 3rd generations were considered native in the local noble community. Conclusions. Determination of the probable places of origin of the nobiles incoming to the territory of Podillia in the 15th century demonstrates that they were coming from practically all the regions of the Polish Kingdom. Military people became quite a distinguished group in Podillia. The Polish king’s inability to supply the military with his own subordinates made him draft people coming mostly from the Czech Kingdom. A share of them stayed in Podillia after completing their service. It is notable that at the time there was a possibility to change their social status and use the privileges granted through military service to become nobles.

Little attention has been paid by historians to the production of firearms in the Tower of London in the fifteenth century, before the reign of Henry VII. This is due to the lack of surviving records for the office of the Ordnance prior to the 1490s. The discovery of the earliest surviving set of accounts by a Master of the Ordnance based at the Tower, however, means that it is now possible to examine the manufacture and refurbishment of guns at the Tower in the early 1470s. This evidence demonstrates that Edward IV was responsible for the re-establishment of the Tower as the principle facility for the production and storage of firearms in England, which laid important foundations that his Tudor successors built upon.

[Now available through open access from Speculum: http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1017/S0038713415002316]

Among those witnesses of John Gower's works that are known to have been produced during his lifetime, the Trentham manuscript (London, British Library, Additional MS 59495) stands out for its remarkable design as a seemingly planned trilingual collection. The manuscript, usually dated to the first year of Henry IV's reign, exclusively contains Gower's poetry—showcasing his virtuosity in English, French, and Latin. A number of its poems are either addressed to or invoke Henry, yet nothing is known about the history of this manuscript before the seventeenth century. As a result, scholarship on the Trentham manuscript (henceforth Trentham) tends to foreground the question whether this compilation was ever presented to Henry. I will adduce fresh evidence to establish the early provenance of Trentham and show that the manuscript remained in Southwark until the middle of the sixteenth century. Second, I will offer a new context for the composition of Trentham by reading the collection against the background of Anglo-French relations during the first months of Henry's rule. Finally, I will argue for Gower's personal involvement in and continued ownership of this manuscript.

Sebastian Sobecki (2015). Ecce patet tensus: The Trentham Manuscript, In Praise of Peace, and John Gower's Autograph Hand. Speculum, 90, pp 925-959. doi: 10.1017/S0038713415002316.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0038713415002316

Serving the state. The regional officers of Holland and Zeeland in the Burgundian period (1425-1482).

This is a summary of my phd-thesis, a prosopographical study into the officers of the Council and Chambre des Comptes of Holland and Zeeland in the Burgundian period (1425-1482)

In de jaren 1425-1433 kreeg de Bourgondische hertog Filips de Goede via een diplomatiek en militair offensief de graafschappen Holland en Zeeland in handen. In dit boek beschrijf ik op welke manier de ambtenaren van de hoogste bestuurlijk-juridische en financiële instellingen van Holland en Zeeland, de Raad en de Rekenkamer, hebben bijgedragen aan de integratie van deze gewesten in de Bourgondische personele unie. In het eerste deel wordt onderzocht welke institutionele vernieuwingen het gewestelijk staatsapparaat onderging in de vijftiende eeuw en passeren alle ambtenaren de revue. In het tweede deel bekijk ik welke strategie de vorst volgde bij de recrutering van zijn ambtenaren en met welke middelen hij trachtte hun dienstbaarheid en loyaliteit te bevorderen. De intermediaire positie van de ambtenaren - ingeklemd tussen de belangen van de hertog en die van de onderdanen - is het onderwerp van het derde deel. In een bijlage zijn biografische notities van 170 ambtenaren opgenomen met gegevens over hun herkomst, familie, carrière en netwerk.

A key strand of research for social and economic historians of the pre-industrial period is the relationship between city and countryside. Sometimes urban and rural environments enjoyed mutually beneficial relationships, though in other cases cities reduced their rural hinterlands to poverty and decay – the question is, why? By focusing on late-medieval Florence and Tuscany, this paper moves away from approaching this question through an ‘urban bias’, and suggests the answers can be found within the structural configuration of rural societies themselves. Essentially, some rural regions were well set up to repel urban predatory tendencies, while other societies were susceptible to exploitation.

As a consequence of Flemish tutelage at the end of the thirteenth century the process of transformation from demesne authority into a territorial authority in Guelders accelerated. Moreover, the first signs of the town's involvement in governmental affairs broke through and formed an important impulse to the development of a political representation of estates. Foundations were laid for a reorganization of government and financial administration. Direct taxation by way of levying extraordinary 'aids' was used as a means towards new revenues. Gradually the ducal finances developed into public finances, although private and public finances for a long time remained connected with each other. The Burgundian occupations (1473-77 and 1481-92) confronted the duchy with administrative, juridical and financial novelties. They functioned as eye openers for the necessity of changes and improved control of state expenditure. Extraordinary aids were more frequently requested and conceded and assumed a more regular character. Intensification of taxation caused an aggravation of the fiscal burden.

rom the Contents:
Acknowledgements; I. Introduction: Objective, Concepts, Method and Literature; II. The General Italian Historical Background; III. The Manifestation of Power, Magnificenza, Reinassance and Humanism; IV. The History of the Farnese Family until 1534; V. The Manifestation and Incipient Magnificenza of the Farnese Family; Isola Bisentina. "Farneseland" and the Palazzo Farnese in Rome (Until 1534); VI. The Farnese Family in the International Politics. Paul III, the Papal States and Nepotism (1534-1558); VII. The Manifestation and Magnificenzia of the Farnese Family (1534-1558); VIII. The Ducheies of Parma and Piacenza Restablished and Consolidated (1558-1630); IX. State and Ducal Magnificenza 1558-1630. Palace Bulding and Town Planning at Piacenza and Parma, in Caprarola and Roma; X. The Farnese and the Other Italian Princely Houses; Summing up and Conclusion; Reference and notes on the individual Chapters; Note on the Illustrations; Unpublished and Special Sources; Bibliography; Annexes.

Uno de los rasgos más llamativos de la vida religiosa de la Baja Edad Media fue el espectacular incremento de las mujeres consagradas a Dios, la diversificación de sus formas de vida y el gran peso de lo femenino en la simbología y el lenguaje religiosos. En estas páginas se analiza la complejidad del fenómeno partiendo de su característico vínculo con la ciudad por considerarlo factor decisivo. Se muestra el papel ejercido por las mujeres religiosas en la construcción y evolución del entramado sociopolítico urbano bajomedieval, tanto en una dimensión de libertad y autoridad que dio origen a nuevas formas de socialización e incidencia política femeninas, como de control por parte de los sistemas de poder institucionales y oligárquicos. El trabajo se centra en el contexto andaluz por la gran riqueza de sus manifestaciones religiosas femeninas considerando que ello tiene mucho que ver con la acción de las mujeres en la configuración de las nuevas cristiandades urbanas nacidas tras la reconquista. La amplitud del marco cronológico permite percibir su evolución y los cambios en el tránsito a la Edad Moderna.

Until recently, literary texts produced either in manuscript or printed form between c. 1400 and 1600 were assumed to neglect the interests of children and young people. A selection of didactic texts from this period, however, discusses children and attitudes to the time of 'childhood', with these motifs relevant to both elite secular or ecclesiastical households. The interests of children and young people are addressed within these didactic examples, which in turn reveal developments occurring in the creation of non-elite, nuclear family audiences primarily in the late fifteenth century.

This article treats the first entry of a new prince as the start of a series of exchanges between the prince and his subjects. On the occasion of an entry, gifts in all kind of forms, subsistence, luxury and symbolic goods, were exchanged with the intention of establishing a bond between the new ruler and the subjects. These gifts were not standardized in the Burgundian Low Countries. There was a wide range of gifts, from wine to silverware and from money to horses. Some gifts can be linked to the princely right of lodging in places he passed on his itinerary, whereas others refer to marks of honour offered by the host. However, not all gifts were given spontaneously, but were the result of a negotiating process between the town and the prince’s officials on the one hand and between the different towns of a principality on the other. Those officials benefited as well from entry gifts that trickled down to lower levels in the official hierarchy. Therefore, the gifts can be considered as personalized items in a bigger process of exchange and as a confirmation of the outcome of political negotiations.

Nachtschwärmen, Lärmen, Zechen, Zücken, Raufen und andere deviante Verhaltensmuster spätmittelalterlicher Rostocker Scholaren im Spiegel von Bittschreiben an den Papst Als die Rostocker Universität im November 1419 feierlich eröffnet wurde, geschah dies nicht etwa durch einen einzigen festlichen Gründungsakt, sondern mit einer aufwändigen, wohldurchdachten Abfolge feierlicher, ritueller Handlungen. 1 Die Zeitpunkte, Orte und handelnden Personen waren absichtsvoll gewählt und genau aufeinander abgestimmt. Dass der Termin für die feierliche Eröffnung bewusst festgelegt worden war, geht aus dem Geleitbrief der Herzöge von Mecklenburg Johann IV. (1395 -1422) und Albrecht V. (1417 -1423) für die Universitätsbesucher vom 8. September 1419 hervor, mit dem sie allen Christgläubigen kundtaten, dass Papst Martin V. (1417 -1431) ihrer Bitte entsprochen, in ihrer Stadt Rostock ein Generalstudium mit verschiedenen Fakultäten errichtet und es mit ewigen Vorrechten ausgestattet habe. In diesem Studium werde es Magister und Scholaren geben, die akademischen Handlungen und die Lehrveranstaltungen begännen sofort nach dem Fest des Hl. Martin (11. November), das demnächst bevorstehe. Gemeinsam mit den Bürgermeistern und Räten ihrer Stadt Rostock sowie ihren anderen Beamten nahmen die Fürsten die An-und Abreisenden zum Studium samt ihren Gütern und Sachen unter ihren sicheren Schutz, versprachen, die allgemein üblichen kirchlichen und weltlichen universitären Privilegien, Immunitäten und Freiheiten zu bewahren, und baten alle, die Kenntnis von dieser Mitteilung erlangten, den Mitgliedern des Studiums ebenfalls wohlwollend und großzügig fördernden Rat und schützende Hilfe zu gewähren. 2 Der Festtag des Hl. Martin könnte als Ehrerbietung gegenüber dem Papst ausgesucht worden sein, der das Privileg für die Gründung einer Universität in Rostock erteilt hatte. 3 Martin V. (Oddo Colonna) war erst zwei Jahre zuvor, am 11. November 1417, auf dem Konzil in Konstanz gewählt worden und hatte als Papst den Namen des Tagesheiligen seines Wahltags angenommen. 4 Mit der Erhebung Martins V. zum alleinigen Oberhaupt der westlichen Kirche hatte das seit 1378 bestehende Große Abendländische Schisma beendet werden können. Die Erinnerung an diesen Tag war mithin nicht nur für Martin V. bedeutungsvoll, sondern für die gesamte westliche Christenheit. Ein weiteres Motiv für die Terminwahl, das möglicherweise von Seiten der Universität her eine Rolle gespielt hat, könnte in der Bezugnahme auf den Festkalender der Prager Universität zu finden sein, der ältesten Universität im Reich, die personell und dadurch auch institutionell auf die Rostocker Gründung direkt und indirekt, über die Universitäten Erfurt und Leipzig, 83

The House of Mendoza´s relations with religious institutions from the last third of the fourteenth century through the end of the fifteenth, when the lineage ascended politically, in their own lordships as well as in royal cities-especially Guadalajara-where they had interests. The mutual benefits that those relationships entailed.

This article discusses the medicinal remedies consumed at the court of the Yorkist kings of England in the light of a lawsuit in the court of common pleas (edited in an appendix) between John Clerk, king’s apothecary to Edward IV, and Katherine Neville, Duchess of Norfolk, over the partial non-payment of the apothecary’s bills. It argues that the consumption of apothecaries’ wares in large quantities was not merely a direct result of the excessive diet of the late medieval aristocracy, but in itself represented a facet of the conspicuous consumption inherent in the lifestyle of this particular social class. The remedies supplied by Clerk over a period of several years and listed in the legal record are set in the context of contemporary collections of medical recipes, particularly a ‘dispensary’ in the British Library’s Harleian collection generally attributed to the king’s apothecary.

Bauch, Martin, The Day the Sun Turned Blue. A Volcanic Eruption in the Early 1460s and its Possible Climatic Impact – a Natural Disaster Perceived Globally in the Late Middle Ages?, in: Schenk, Gerrit J. (ed.), Historical Disaster Experiences. A Comparative and Transcultural Survey between Asia and Europe, Heidelberg 2017, S. 107-138

Article about the reception of a putative volcanic dust veil across Europe in September 1465 and the hypothesis it might be the infamous Kuwae eruption, long time dated to 1452, now recently to ca. 1457. The contribution aims to reconstruct the possible impact of the eruption in the second half of the 1460s, but makes also clear that it might be wrong to assume all volcanic mega eruptions behaved like Tambora 1815. Finally the article puts forward the assumption (and gives examples) that volcanic events of the kind might be a good starting point for a medieval environmental history with global aspects.

While the early Bristol expeditions to North America have always been thought of as a purely English phenomenon, this article demonstrates that they were partly funded by Italian capital. Following the slight leads left behind by a deceased historian, documents have been found which demonstrate that a payment of fifty nobles was made in 1496 to the Venetian explorer, John Cabot, from the London branch of a Florentine company: the Bardi. This article discusses the significance of the payment for Cabot and his expedition, the reasons why the funding might have been advanced, and the position of the Bardi within London's Italian community.

The idea that, from the end of the thirteenth century, Pisa underwent a process of inexorable economic decline and progressive subordination to the interests of the Florentines has already been contested by Federigo Melis, Marco Tangheroni, Giuseppe Petralia. On these bases, this article propose a definitely « optimistic » view of the economy of Pisa at the end of the fourteenth century, by taking into consideration the activities of two categories of operators, integrated, in various forms, into the networks of international commerce : merchant-bankers and ritagliatori, i. e. merchants specialized in the trade of wool clothes. The evolution of the city’s economy is put into connection with wider transformations in the circuits of international commerce and finance in the second half of the fourteenth century. This phase was characterised by a structure of markets and commercial networks which seems to be much more fragmented, fluid and acentric than that of the first half of the century. This change favoured the integration, at various points of the system, of merchant groups of different origin and with a different background ; between them the Pisans played an important role.

This article discusses the material and spatial features of the tournaments on the Grote Markt, the central market square in Brussels, in the fifteenth and first half of the sixteenth century. It investigates how the tournament acquired meaning in the urban space where it was organized, and how the chivalric event in its turn altered that urban space. These Brussels tournaments, for which both archival, iconographical and narrative sources are available, show us the dynamics of an inherently courtly festival within an urban setting. Recent historiography has stressed that these tournaments, just like other urban festivals, for example joyous entries, demonstrate the submission of the town to the ruler. Indeed, the prince and his household used the public space of the GroteMarkt and the facilities of the town hall to organize tournaments and festivities. However, they could not do this on their own. They needed the town government for the organization and logistics of the tournament and for its hospitality. Moreover, the town managed to put its own stamp on the architecture, both permanent and ephemeral, emphasizing the responsibilities that the duke had towards his town, as well as the long tradition of subservience and loyalty of the town to the duke.

Nella tradizione storiografica le ricerche sui radicali mutamenti politico-istituzionali che interessarono le città comunali italiane nel Duecento, e che si manifestarono soprattutto nell'affermazione dei movimenti di Popolo, e quelle sul ruolo centrale svolto dai mercanti italiani nella rivoluzione commerciale duecentesca sono per lo più procedute parallelamente, senza incontrarsi. Eppure i protagonisti dei due fenomeni, la "rivoluzione politica" del Popolo e la rivoluzione commerciale duecentesca, sono gli stessi. Questo libro è il tentativo, applicato a un case study specifico, la città di Lucca, di integrare le due prospettive. Esso è cioè uno studio sul cambiamento sociale che caratterizzò il Duecento lucchese, del quale furono parte il cambiamento economico e il cambiamento politico, la rivoluzione commerciale della seta e la rivoluzione politica del Popolo, e anche il mutamento delle strategie di affermazione individuale e familiare e dei canali di mobilità sociale. I diversi cambiamenti sono analizzati nel loro complesso intrecciarsi e nel loro imperfetto sovrapporsi, come elementi di un unico processo di trasformazione del tessuto sociale cittadino.
Ricollocate nel contesto delle loro interazioni, sia l'espansione economica duecentesca che l'evoluzione politico-istituzionale sono apparse in una luce in parte nuova. Il diverso punto di vista, cioè, ha consentito di giungere ad alcuni risultati inediti tanto sulla storia dell'industria e del commercio di Lucca quanto sulle vicende del Popolo nella città toscana.

This is the table of contents of my forthcoming book, Political Theology of International Order, Oxford University Press, 2020. It investigates presuppositions of international order that originate in medieval theology. The main argument is that international order understood in terms of individuals—either states or human beings—and artificial relations, established by the operation of an impersonal mechanism or the adoption of positive rules, is a worldly application of a theological pattern. The book uncovers these presuppositions as they emerged in a medieval dispute about the nature of God and the extent of his power and its traces their assimilation into modern politics and law.

La llamada cuestión morisca está íntimamente unida a nuestras grandes polémicas ideológico-políticas. El «ser de España», las luchas entre «reacción» y «progreso» y otras de las más apasionadas controversias que dividieron a nuestros pensadores y a los historiadores de generaciones pasadas no pueden concebirse sin la tragedia de las minorías conversas de origen musulmán.

Analysis of justificatory and legitimating elements of the process of promoting royal fiscal sovereignty, as well as the king’s role as a distributor of wealth, through the arguments in preferably Castilian legal, political, religious and literary sources, between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries.

From November 1st 1395 up to August 25th 1396, Ermine de Reims, a peasant widow from Northern France, went through one of the most extreme religious experiences of the Late Middle Ages: for about a hundred nights, she was systematically beaten and tortured by the devil and his minions. This is at least the content of what the woman told her confessor, Jean le Graveur. This religious experience takes place only 30 years before the formal beginning of the witchcraft repression in the Continent. For that reason, we have opted to explore in this article a historical problem that lies at the very heart of Ermine’s story: the image of the devil on the eve of the great European witch hunt. The overlap we find in Jean le Graveurs’s manuscript between: (1) an Augustinian conception of the evil spirits that highlights the restrictions and limits imposed to Satan; (2) a Thomistic demonology which enhances the paradoxical capacity of disembodied demons to act in the material world; and (3) a radical demonology under construction, in which we can already perceive the conspirative theory that gives full consistency to the idea of the devil worshippers sect, contributes to demonstrate that the image of the devil that prevails in times of the great european witch-hunt was not necessarily built in opposition to previous demonological paradigms.

Corrupt or courtly behaviour? Gifts and the political network of a late medieval town in the county of Holland.

This article (in Dutch) shows that during the late Middle Ages bribery, one of the types of corrupt behaviour of state officials, formed part of a larger gift culture. This is demonstrated through an analysis of the accounts of the town of Leiden, one of the urban centres of the late medieval county of Holland. In the first place the distribution of gifts was intended to enlarge the town’s honour or symbolical capital. However, the town was also concerned about its network of contacts, its social capital. The most important beneficiaries of the gifts were those who could provide the town access to information that was crucial for its relationship vis- à-vis the prince and his state-apparatus. Messengers, doorkeepers, clerks and in- formation brokers all received different types of gifts, both incidental and struc-tural, sometimes directly financed through the tax-system.