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Articles 1 - 30 of 774
Full-Text Articles in History
In Memoriam: James H. Forse, Ginger Smoak, Steven Hrdlicka, Jennifer Mcnabb, Charles Smith, Margaret Harp
In Memoriam: James H. Forse, Ginger Smoak, Steven Hrdlicka, Jennifer Mcnabb, Charles Smith, Margaret Harp
Quidditas
This volume is dedicated to Professor James H. Forse who died at the age of 83 on April 24, 2023. He was a longtime member of the Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association, and editor of Quidditas from 2003 to 2023.
A Miracle Through An Ymage: Gautier De Coinci’S Retouched Legend Of Theophile, Isabella Williams
A Miracle Through An Ymage: Gautier De Coinci’S Retouched Legend Of Theophile, Isabella Williams
Quidditas
This article examines the use of the Old French word “ymage” in Gautier de Coinci’s early thirteenth-century Legend of Theophile. Gautier is the first author to write a version of the legend that includes an ymage, designating a material representation of the Virgin. Far from a subtle insertion, he mentions the term ten times, during every pivotal moment of the story, when terrestrial and celestial spheres collide. Critics acknowledge the centrality of Gautier in representing this revolutionary French period, during which time attitudes concerning ritualistic images were in a state of flux; yet, Gautier’s repetitive and groundbreaking use of …
Delno C. West Award Winner
Quidditas
The West Award recognizes the most distinguished paper given by a senior scholar at the annual conference.
Recipient of the West Award for 2023
Jane Foster Woodruff
William Jewell College, Emerita
The Imperative Of Student Integration In Faculty Research Projects: A Pedagogical Case Study In Digital History, Roger L. Martinez-Davila, Fernando Feliu-Moggi, Sean Wybrant, Ian Torres, Spencer Miles
The Imperative Of Student Integration In Faculty Research Projects: A Pedagogical Case Study In Digital History, Roger L. Martinez-Davila, Fernando Feliu-Moggi, Sean Wybrant, Ian Torres, Spencer Miles
Quidditas
Traditional pedagogical models, at times, are inadequate for equipping students with real-world skills. A shift towards integrating students into faculty-led research is essential, as demonstrated by the Coronado Muster Roll project. In this project, students use virtual reality technologies to create immersive experiences that explore the complex relationships between Spanish and Indigenous communities during Francisco Vázquez de Coronado’s 1540 expedition. A specific assignment within the course tasks students with developing digital narratives. The muster roll itself is revealed to be more than just a list; it serves as a snapshot capturing the depth and complexities often lost in grand narratives. …
History And Directing Shakespeare, James H. Forse
History And Directing Shakespeare, James H. Forse
Quidditas
In years past I have been asked, “where did you get that idea?”—from those who perused something I wrote concerning the history of Shakespearean theatre, and from those who saw Shakespearean plays I directed for my local community theatre. Sometimes the question was a compliment. Yet the question, I think, points to a sort of symbiosis that academic research and the practical dictates of directing a play can offer to anyone. For it’s truly hard for me to tell whether my research into theatre history has come to affect how I directed Shakespeare, or whether directing Shakespeare’s plays in a …
From Heldris De Cornwall’S Le Roman De Silence To Gian Francesco Straparola’S Le Piacevoli Notti. New Insights Into A Significant Reception Process Across Centuries, Languages, And Genres, Albrecht Classen
Quidditas
Although we assume that the thirteenth-century Anglo-Norman romance Roman de Silence by Heldris de Cornwall experienced no reception at all apart from one manuscript containing the text, there is a considerable likelihood that the sixteenth-century Venetian author Gian Francesco Straparola somehow gained access to the medieval text and adapted it for one of the stories contained in his famous collection, Le Piacevoli Notti (1550 and 1553). Even though we cannot yet determine the exact process of reception, the strong similarities between both works go far beyond global archetypal themes. Straparola’s work hence demonstrates that Heldris’s work was known even long …
Langland, Father Of American Literatures, John M. Bowers
Langland, Father Of American Literatures, John M. Bowers
Quidditas
Geoffrey Chaucer’s position as “father of English literature” has been steadily challenged in recent years. This paper both proposes and interrogates the other fourteenth-century English poet William Langland’s possible claims as the origin for the Puritan tradition of New England and, hence, the later traditions of American literatures—in the plural. We know that the first copy of his satirical, theological dream-vision Piers Plowman arrived in New England in 1630 with the father of Anne Bradstreet, and as a result any patriarchal genealogy is already problematic because the first author in the American family-tree was a woman. Rather than the linearity …
Hamlet In Cinema: Oedipus Lives On, Keolanani Kinghorn
Hamlet In Cinema: Oedipus Lives On, Keolanani Kinghorn
Quidditas
I have often questioned why Shakespeare’s Hamlet, a play more than 400 years old, remains tied to a century-old Freudian concept. Since Freud’s Oedipus Complex has been disproven, what purpose does it still serve and why are directors still intrigued by this interpretation of Hamlet? In 1949, Dr. Ernest Jones published his book, Hamlet and Oedipus (1949),1 but at the time he was also collaborating with Laurence Olivier to create the first movie adaptation of Hamlet to embrace the Oedipus Complex. I believe that because of Jones and Olivier Shakespeare’s Hamlet will always be connected to psychoanalysis. While …
Re-Dress As Redress: Shakespeare’S Comedy Of Errors, Jane Foster Woodruff
Re-Dress As Redress: Shakespeare’S Comedy Of Errors, Jane Foster Woodruff
Quidditas
DELNO C. WEST AWARD WINNER
Writing near the end of a century-long ‘explosion’ of Tudor theatre, Shakespeare benefitted from a variety of influences, both sacral and secular. Among his literary influences were the works of classical dramatists (Sophocles, Seneca, Plautus, and the like), who had used their plays to editorialize on contemporary societal issues. To this same end, in his early historical play Richard III Shakespeare chose to address a multiplicity of problematic themes, the most obvious being that, although Richard’s ambition and his lethality had been sufficient to win him a crown, they were insufficient to preserve it: power …
In Memoriam: Paul Roger Thomas (1940-2021), Darin Merrill
In Memoriam: Paul Roger Thomas (1940-2021), Darin Merrill
Quidditas
The Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association announces with great sadness the passing of Paul Thomas, a long-time member of the RMMRA and president ex officio whose unflagging organizational support, irrepressible good humor, unqualified collegiality, and thoughtful scholarship provided an important part of the RMMRA meetings for over three decades.
Those Who Weep: Tears, Eyes, And Blood In The Boussu Hours, Katharine Davidson Bekker
Those Who Weep: Tears, Eyes, And Blood In The Boussu Hours, Katharine Davidson Bekker
Quidditas
Simon Marmion and the Master of Antoine Rolin’s Boussu Hours (ca. 1490-95) is resplendent with imagery of suffering in its unusual marginal decorations. Holy effluvia—blood and tears—flow from golden pages covered in wounds and weeping eyes. These decorations, surrounding the Hours of the Passion, pictorially enact a theological notion of tears as wounding agents, and spiritually prompt the reader’s contrition. Notable wear on the “bloody” page indicates a pattern of tactile interaction between book and reader; this physical engagement with the marginals represents a quasi-liturgical manifestation of guilt and efforts made to abate it. The gestural touching of the page …
The Case For Hildeburg: Beowulf And Ethical Subjectivity, Wendolyn Weber
The Case For Hildeburg: Beowulf And Ethical Subjectivity, Wendolyn Weber
Quidditas
This essay argues for a reading of Beowulf, and the female peaceweaver figures therein, in contemporary philosophical terms of Levinasian ethical subjectivity. Such a reading illuminates the peaceweaver, often caught between action and passivity and viewed as a victim of death-driven masculinist heroic culture, as an exemplar rather of the radical destabilization experienced through ethical subjection and an important key to the complexities of the heroic ethos. It illustrates the enduring value of texts such as Beowulf to inform our understanding of often oversimplified concepts like that of the “warrior ethos” in contemporary culture.
Communication And Social Interactions In The Late Middle Ages: The Fables By The Swiss-German Dominican Ulrich Bonerius, Albrecht Classen
Communication And Social Interactions In The Late Middle Ages: The Fables By The Swiss-German Dominican Ulrich Bonerius, Albrecht Classen
Quidditas
There are many possible and useful approaches to the study of literature. One very effective way proves to be to study literary texts as platforms to explore the meaning, relevance, and workings of human communication, or the very opposite, miscommunication. Such an approach proves to be rather productive both for medieval and modern texts, from the western and the eastern tradition, whether we are reflecting on entertaining, moral, didactic, religious, or political texts. The literary work consists of words exchanged, and thus here we encounter the perfect example of a theoretical platform to discuss human interactions in many different contexts …
Luigi Pulci’S Fifteenth-Century Verse Parody Of Moses: A Denunciation Of Marsilio Ficino’S Neoplatonic Christianity, Michael J. Maher
Luigi Pulci’S Fifteenth-Century Verse Parody Of Moses: A Denunciation Of Marsilio Ficino’S Neoplatonic Christianity, Michael J. Maher
Quidditas
In early 1470s Florence, popular poet Luigi Pulci, author of the celebrated epic poem Morgante, wrote a sonnet of religious parody. In Poi ch’io parti’ da voi, Pulci satirizes biblical miracles, immediately earning himself the label of heretic, still attached to his name to this day. A close examination of Pulci’s sonnet, with specific attention given to his treatment of Moses, reveals Pulci’s motivation and the circumstances surrounding composition. Pulci’s scandalous sonnet was in fact an attempt at underscoring the maltreatment of biblical miracles in a first-century Greek text by the Romano-Jewish historian Jospehus. Renowned philosopher Marsilio Ficino, with …
Allen D. Breck Award Winner
Quidditas
The Breck Award recognizes the most distinguished paper given by a junior scholar at the annual conference.
Recipient of the Breck Award 2022
Katharine Davidson Bekker
Elizabethan Technology: Thomas Watson’S Steam Bath For The Relief Of Gout, James Alsop
Elizabethan Technology: Thomas Watson’S Steam Bath For The Relief Of Gout, James Alsop
Quidditas
Thomas Watson (1513-84), Doctor of Divinity and deprived Marian bishop of Lincoln, developed an expertise in the treatment of gout. In his practice of experiential medicine in East Anglia, he used an innovative steam chest: the patient sat in a cut-open empty wine pipe, surrounded by heated bricks, and covered with a sheet. This device, with its method of enclosed steam heat, contrasts sharply with prevailing renaissance therapeutic philosophy.
Linguistic Failure And The “Trembling Parole” In Alain Chartier’S Belle Dame Sans Mercy, Alani Hicks-Bartlett
Linguistic Failure And The “Trembling Parole” In Alain Chartier’S Belle Dame Sans Mercy, Alani Hicks-Bartlett
Quidditas
At first blush, Alain Chartier’s late medieval poem, the Belle Dame sans mercy seems to recount a story that is quite similar to narrations of other frustrated affairs in the courtly love tradition, as it tells of a devoted lover who relentlessly, yet unsuccessfully, begs for the euphemistic “mercy” of his lady. Plying the lady with compliments, assailing her with threats, and attempting to verbally manipulate her, the lover endeavors to force the lady to love him through various unsuccessful linguistic strategies. Although he commits to the lady and presents her with countless arguments about why she should cede to …
How To Teach With Shakespeare: James Baldwin, The Liberal Arts, And The Progymnasmata, Steven Hrdlicka
How To Teach With Shakespeare: James Baldwin, The Liberal Arts, And The Progymnasmata, Steven Hrdlicka
Quidditas
This review essay addresses pedagogical principles found in Scott Newstok’s recent book How to Think Like Shakespeare: Lessons from a Renaissance Education (2020). Specifically, the essay discusses the progymnasmata exercises of paraphrase and êthopoeia and provides real-life applications and examples. The essay also suggests how such study aims at “fruitful” effects, as well as providing distinctions between “fruitful” and “useful” study. Other points relevant to the fruitful ends of the study of the liberal arts, such as freedom and empathy, are discussed as they pertain to a student’s ability to think creatively and to express thoughts with clarity and originality. …
Codex Exoniensis, Fols. 123b-124b: An Old English Poetic Romano-British Arts Encomium, Liam O. Purdon
Codex Exoniensis, Fols. 123b-124b: An Old English Poetic Romano-British Arts Encomium, Liam O. Purdon
Quidditas
Codex Exoniensis, fols. 123b-124b, commonly called The Ruin, is an Old English poem that has suffered both from physical damage, and from a kind of interpretive “damage,” the result of critical resignation in response to the work’s physical condition, revealing itself as much in continued critical acceptance of the work’s title as in continued acceptance of the critical assumption that the work’s total effect is forever lost to us. Enough of the poem’s whole and fragmentary lines exist, however, to confirm the purpose of two distinct emphases that draw attention to a yearning for restoration of the cultural traditions once …
Contemporary History In Early Tudor English Chronicles: 1485-1553, Barrett L. Beer
Contemporary History In Early Tudor English Chronicles: 1485-1553, Barrett L. Beer
Quidditas
English chronicles published between 1485 and 1547 are studied here to determine how they dealt with contemporary history. These chronicles obviously covered the distant past, but many end well before the date of publication. Today contemporary history is of great importance to the public as evidenced by a variety of published works, periodicals, and most recently the internet. An analysis of early Tudor chronicles reveals that while many were indifferent to the recent past, others clearly laid the foundation for a focus on the contemporary era. The recognized authors of the chronicles included in this study are Richard Arnold, John …
The Birthplace Of Saint Wulfthryth: An Unexamined Reference In Cambridge University Library Additional 2604, Jessica C. Brown
The Birthplace Of Saint Wulfthryth: An Unexamined Reference In Cambridge University Library Additional 2604, Jessica C. Brown
Quidditas
Cambridge University Library Additional 2604 is a fifteenth-century miscellany that is largely comprised of East Anglian and Kentish saints’ lives. It also includes a vita of Saint Edith-the patron saint of the convent at Wilton in Wessex. This vita names the birthplace of Edith’s mother, St. Wulfthryth, as ‘Lesing’ in Kent. I suggest that this unique reference may come from a desire to firmly connect Edith’s mother as well as Edith herself to a Kentish heritage.
Premodern Pedagogies: Queer Medieval Materiality, Hilary Rhodes
Premodern Pedagogies: Queer Medieval Materiality, Hilary Rhodes
Quidditas
In this paper, I address some of the challenges facing medieval queer history in the classroom, in academic scholarship, and in public-facing work. My intentions are to dynamically integrate some common pedagogical questions with supporting literature to explore them, and argue that any comprehensive study of premodern men, women, and gender must take queer history into account. The subject may feel intimidating, but I encourage all historians to familiarize themselves with the material, gain confidence in teaching it, and integrate it even outside of dedicated courses on the history of gender and sexuality. The below is offered as a brief …
Delno C. West Award Winner
Quidditas
The West Award recognizes the most distinguished paper given by a senior scholar at the annual conference.
Recipient of the West Award for 2021
Catherine Loomis
Rochester Institute of Technology
Allen D. Breck Award Winner
Quidditas
The Breck Award recognizes the most distinguished paper given by a junior scholar at the annual conference.
Recipient of the Breck Award for 2021
Jessie Bonafede
University of New Mexico