Renaissance Studies Commons^™

The Reception Of Tacitus’ Germania By The German Humanists: From Provence To Empire, Thomas Renna

Quidditas

It is well known he German Humanists (1490-1540) used Tacitus’ Germania to advance their notion of the German nation in response to Italian criticism. But less attention has been given to the German nature of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation (1509). I argue that Humanists after Conrad Celtis (Bebel, Wimpheling, Cochlaeus, Brant, Irenicus, Franck, Hutten) emphasized the Germanness of the empire by reinterpreting the traditional Translation of Empire, the Germanic migrations out of Germania after Constantine, and the designation of a new national purpose (the protection and expansion of the Church and the faith). They grafted the …

Full Issue

Quidditas

No abstract provided.

Allen D. Breck Award Winner (2016)

Quidditas

The Breck Award recognizes the most distinguished paper given by a junior scholar at the annual conference.

This year’s recipient is Samantha Dressel, doctoral candidate in English at the University of Rochester.

Front Matter

Quidditas

No abstract provided.

Small Mid-Tudor Chronicles And Popular History: 1540-1560, Barrett L. Beer

Quidditas

This essay examines twenty-two editions of little-studied small Mid-Tudor chronicles that were published by printers at Canterbury and London. They demonstrate the important role of printers in historical scholarship and offer a significantly different perspective on English history than the better-known, larger contemporary works of Robert Fabyan, Edward Hall, and Thomas Cooper. The chronicles also shed light on the readership of historical works by non-elite readers who presumably could not afford larger and more expensive chronicles. The short chronicles present a simplified view of the past, avoid propagating the well-known Tudor myths including the tyranny of Richard III, and demonstrate …

Master William’S Hamnet: A New Theory On Shakespeare’S Sonnets, Juan Daniel Millán

Quidditas

This essay suggests the Fair Youth in Shakespeare’s Sonnets is Shakespeare’s son, Hamnet, to whom he later dedicated the cycle. Nevertheless, the larger claims of the essay are independent of the biographical details of Shakespeare’s life, and even independent of the particular ordering of the Sonnets as they have come down to us.

“The Man In The Shyppe That Showeth The Unstableness Of The World”: Social Memory And The Early Modern English Sailor, 1475-1650, Vincent V. Patarino Jr., Ph.D.

Quidditas

Both medieval and early modern English writers described the tumultuous, raging sea as the epitome of chaos and evil. By the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, both manuscript and print documents connected seething storms with the power and influence of evil, especially the devil. As the Reformation advanced, this link included Satan’s supposed minions, witches. In addition to these texts, woodcut illustrations confirmed in very stark terms, a direct association between the devil, the sea, and sailors’ supposedly anti-religious behavior and beliefs. One powerful image revealed “the man in the shyppe” tormented by the devil; others depicted the devil steering a …

Delno C. West Award Winner (2016)

Quidditas

The Delno C. West Award recognizes the most distinguished paper given by a senior scholar at the annual conference.

This year’s recipient is Ruth Frost, Associate Professor of History, the University of British Columbia Okanagan in Kelowna, BC.

Richard Iii: Beyond The Mystery, Daniel Hobbins

Quidditas

He is not the likeliest theme for an American undergraduate classroom: his reign lasted barely two years; he contributed nothing of lasting significance to history; he is more memorable for his spectacular final defeat than for any victory; he was accused of murdering children; and he was after all an English king, as far removed as possible from the typical experience of an American undergraduate. Even the times he lived in are against him. In the immortal words of Mark Twain, his century was “the brutalest, the wickedest, the rottenest in history since the darkest ages.”1 Yet he continues to …

“Like To My Soft Sex”: Female Revenge And Violence In The Fatal Contract, Samantha Dressel

Quidditas

The Fatal Contract by William Heminge is not a good play. Its critical afterlife is essentially non-existent, with Fredson Thayer Bowers being one of the only critics to discuss it, criticizing its lack of “inspiration” and “ethical spirit.”1 I argue however, that the play is both inventive and moral, despite its many derivative aspects and narrative foibles. I suggest a new reading of the play as deeply innovative in terms of gender and revenge. Bowers criticizes the play’s morality because of the ultimate exoneration of Chrotilda, the central revengeress. The play can be reinterpreted and partially redeemed by understanding Chrotilda’s …

Delno C. West Award Winner (2015)

Quidditas

Elizabeth Dolly Weber

The West Award recognizes the most distinguished paper given by a senior scholar at the annual conference.

De Syon Exierit Lex Et Verbum Domini De Iherusalem’: An Exegetical Discourse (C. 400-C. 1200) That Informed Crusaders’ Views Of Jews, Todd P. Upton

Quidditas

This paper assesses how medieval Christian writers transformed encounters with Middle Eastern peoples such as the Jews into a complex theological discourse via the medium used by Pope Urban II in 1095 to launch the First Crusade, the Latin sermon. It argues that a hitherto unnoted homiletic tradition about Jews originated in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages based (1) on exegetical polemics that stretched back centuries in Christian theology, and (2) on a discernible chronicle and sermon tradition that depicted Jews in varying degrees of apologia based on a prophesied role as “witnesses” to the eschatological expectations of …

The Role Of Rumor And The Prodigal Son: Shakespeare’S Sources And Fathers And Sons In The Second Henriad, Steven Hrdlicka

Quidditas

This article challenges traditional, critical interpretations of Shakespeare’s character Prince Hal by examining changes Shakespeare makes to sources he used, in particular the anonymous play Famous Victories of Henry V. Shakespeare does not portray a “prodigal” Prince Hal character as has often been argued by critics, but instead carefully follows Holinshed’s observations that the prince was virtuous in youth and that rumors about the prince’s supposed prodigal behavior were spread by those who were in the service of Henry IV. These rumors were aimed to cause conflict between father and son. Shakespeare’s inclusion of these two important details found in …

The Sin Eater: Confession And Ingestion In The Romance Of Renard, Elizabeth Dolly Weber

Quidditas

The “Confession of Renard,” Branch XIV of the twelfth-century animal epic Roman de Renart (Romance of Reynard the Fox) explores the potential risks of the rite of confession, including the danger of whetting the appetite of the sinner by having him recount and re-live his delicious past sins. The fact that Renard, the “repentant” sinner, actually eats his confessor, suggests not only that merely talking about sin, particularly sexual sin, is a perilous business, but also that confession, like digestion, is a transformational process for both the penitent and the confessor.

Full Issue

Quidditas

No abstract provided.

Literary Docudrama In The Classroom: Teaching With John Hatcher’S The Black Death: A Personal History, Ginger Smoak, Jennifer Mcnabb

Quidditas

John Hatcher’s The Black Death: A Personal History is an unconventional text. It recounts the experience of plague by a single, extraordinarily well-documented village in Suffolk, England: Walsham le Willows. While such a focus perhaps seems fairly standard of case studies or microhistory, Hatcher’s book is more than a narrow treatment of a corner of England. In a preface entitled “The Nature of This Book,” he opens with a discussion of both his journey toward the realization that he wanted to write a markedly different sort of treatment of the Black Death than present in extant scholarship and a rather …

Front Matter

Quidditas

No abstract provided.

Symbiotic Werewolves And Cybernetic Anchoresses: Premodern Posthumans In Medieval Literature, Jennifer K. Cox

Quidditas

This paper examines how individual agency in medieval society might be expanded through posthuman configurations; in so doing, it pushes the boundaries of traditional practices in medieval research to include more contemporary ideas. Although as scholars, we must avoid anachronistic readings of these texts, ignoring modern thinkers like N. Katherine Hayles (How We Became Posthuman) and Donna Haraway (“A Cyborg Manifesto”) too easily disregards their valuable – and timeless – insights. While the term “posthuman” can evoke images of cyborgs or superhuman mutants using wormholes to traverse space and time, this pop culture perspective often overlooks less technoscientific examples of …

Domestic Cruelty: Saevitia And Separation In Medieval France, Kristi Diclemente

Quidditas

This article examines the role cruelty played in marriage separation cases in fourteenth-century Paris. Cruelty was an effective and relatively successful means for women to initiate separation litigation. The archdeacon’s court regularly cited saevitia as a reason for its decision to legally separate marriages. Marital cruelty, however was a complicated issue and what constituted cruelty was not defined within the text. Through an examination of the use of saevitia in the legal cases,in conjunction with contemporary exempla of abusive marriages, such as the vita of Godelieve of Gistel, the author finds that it was a complicated term representing a variety …

Allen D. Breck Award Winner (2015)

Quidditas

Alaina L. Bupp

The Breck Award recognizes the most distinguished paper given by a junior scholar at the annual conference.