Renaissance Studies Commons^™

Disintegration, Adynata>/I>, And The Failures Of Memory In Petrarch’S Rerum Vulgarium Fragmenta, Alani Hicks-Bartlett

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In Francesco Petrarch’s Canzoniere, or Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, the first sonnet, the canzone “I’vo pensando,” and the collection’s last canzone constitute a triptych that investigates the importance and potential of memory and commemoration. In the three poems, one of Petrarch’s primary concerns is not just commemorating his beloved, as critics often understand, but that he may not be properly remembered after his death. Yet, rather than looking towards his contemporaries or the future, as his desire for commemoration would suggest, Petrarch curiously focuses his gaze on the past, ardently seeking approval and validation from the classical authors he values greatly. …

“What Is He Whose Grief Bears Such An Emphasis?” Hamlet’S Development Of A Mourning Persona, Jennifer Lodine-Chaffey

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Long viewed by scholars as destructive to his selfhood and detrimental to his swift execution of revenge, Hamlet’s concern with the outward expression of his grief actually plays an integral part in his struggles to forge a mourning identity in the wake of his father’s death. The Shakespearean prince’s attempts to faithfully perform his interior bereavement, I contend, are challenged by his father’s command to enact his mourning through outward revenge, which at first seems contrary to Hamlet’s hope to discover a mourning persona consonant with his grief. By the conclusion of the drama, though, Hamlet embraces mourning as part …

The Evolution Of Personal Pledging For The Freemen Of Norwich, 1365-1441, Ruth H. Frost

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This paper examines the evolution of the personal pledging system used by newly admitted freemen, or citizens, of Norwich between 1365 and 1441. It argues that in the late fourteenth century new freemen chose their own sureties, and a large, diverse body of men acted as their pledges. The personal pledging system changed early in the fifteenth century, however, and from 1420 to 1441 civic office holders, particularly the sheriffs, served as the vast majority of pledges. This alteration to the pledging system coincided with changes to the structure and composition of Norwich’s government, and it paralleled a decrease in …

Stewarding Treason: Political Instability In Amis And Amiloun, Maia Farrar

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When the unnamed steward in the medieval romance Amis and Amiloun attempts to join the knights’ brotherhood and prevent Amis from defiling the duke’s daughter, he is simultaneously lauded for his fidelity and reviled as a “fals feloun.” Medieval stewards are defined by their status as assistants to the king’s interests, and yet if the narrative or scholarship remember him at all, it is as the stereotypical “fals steward” who betrays his post. This article considers the implications to the political body when the “traitor” has a superior legal political standing than the protagonist(s). The work legitimizes the traitor by …

In Memoriam: Boyd H. Hill, Jr.

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Professor Boyd Howard Hill, Jr., died at the age of 87 on July 2nd, 2018, at his home in Longmont, Colorado. Boyd was a medieval historian at the University of Colorado at Boulder from 1964-2001. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. in history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and published important articles and books on pre-modern anatomy, physiology, comparative history, diplomatics, and Ottonian Germany. He was also the general editor of a text for courses in western civilization. On a personal note for the authors of this article, Boyd was an influential mentor, guiding us first …

Reacting To The Past And Subversive Play: Pushing Boundaries In Pedagogy, Ginger L. Smoak

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This piece examines the Reacting to the Past role-playing pedagogy in light of subversive play. Subversive play can allow the students an opportunity to explore ideas and roles outside of their social norms and realities. Designed to produce an emotional reaction, it increases the tension between the “rules” of society and the classroom and those of the game. Reacting to the Past asks students to inhabit a role and speak, write, and influence through critical analysis of primary documents and persuasive speeches. Through Immersive Dynamics, this gamified pedagogy allows players to discover new perspectives by seeing an event though another’s …

The Agency Of Prayers And Their Benefit To The Dead: The Continuity Of The Commemoration Of The Sinful Dead, 400 - 1240, Stephanie Victoria Violette

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According to their hagiographies, medieval saints could cure or let languish the devoted followers of their cults. Humans were at their mercy, and of course by extension at God’s mercy. For the ordinary dead, however, these roles were reversed. In Late Antiquity, Augustine of Hippo’s De cura pro mortuis gerenda reveals the belief that the living had the power to aid their deceased loved ones, as well as the anxieties theologians had about the place of commemoration within a Christian framework. Conversely, in Gregory the Great’s sixth-century Dialogues (book four) a different clerical viewpoint emerges, one much more at ease …

Martin Luther, The Devil, And The True Church, Thomas Renna

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Martin Luther refers to the Devil more than any other Reformer. Since the 1960s, historians have been more attentive to the role of Satan in his theology and polemical writings. But the place of the Evil One in Luther’s outlook goes beyond the typically medieval emphasis on the Fiend’s “private” function in tempting individual consciences. It is argued here that Luther integrated the Devil into his view of history and the two churches, the true and the false. The Reformer closely associated Satan with the persecuted church and its Catholic oppressor, as well as with the Jews, Turks, wayward Lutherans, …

Full Issue

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No abstract provided.

The Agency Of Wives In High Medieval German Courtly Romances And Late Medieval Verse Narratives: From Hartmann Von Aue To Heinrich Kaufringer, Albrecht Classen

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In some secular medieval literature married life increasingly gained respect and literary traction, as illustrated by the rise of genres such as verse narratives (fabliaux, mæren, novelle, tales), early prose novels, didactic literature, and Shrovetide plays. In that world we encounter many discussions about the proper relationship between husband and wife, about the individual’s role within society, and also about economic and financial aspects that had a large impact on private life, and hence also on the gender relationship. The phenomenon of female agency within marriage, which this paper will investigate, comes to the fore in more texts than …

Front Matter

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No abstract provided.

“Dwellers In Shadows” & Abbatial Jerusalem: Reformed Monastic Ideas By The Third Crusade In The Sermons Of Garnerius Of Rochefort And Adam The Scot, Todd P. Upton

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In the crusading era of the Twelfth Century, a majority of Latin sermons presented Jerusalem as a visio pacis (“vision of peace”) that maintained an original characterization of the city made by Pope Urban II’s 1095 sermon at Clermont that launched the First Crusade. This essay demonstrates significant ways in which Garnerius of Rochefort and Adam the Scot transformed that visio pacis by the end of the twelfth century. For Garnerius (d. 1215)—a bishop at Langres (in northeastern France) from 1193 who wrote against the Amaurian pantheistic heresy, and died at Clairvaux—the traditional Augustinian visio spiritualis of Jerusalem was reversed, …

Delno C. West Award

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

Recipient of the West Award for 2017

Kristin M.S. Bezio

University of Richmond

The Local Costs Of Religious Reform And The Decline Of Parish Performances In Tudor England, James H. Forse

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The volumes of the Records of Early English Drama show that there was a lively tradition of local, religious performances throughout England in the late medieval and early Tudor period. Parishes, large and small, rich and poor, supported plays, processions, ales and other activities like Robin Hood celebrations. Great care, money and time went into creating costumes and staging for these events. Most of these local performances disappeared by the middle of the sixteenth century. A few, notably at York, Chester, Coventry and Norwich, continued into the early 1570s, but focus on these performance “giants” of English theatrical history fails …

Marlowe’S Radical Reformation: Christopher Marlowe And The Radical Christianity Of The Polish Brethren, Kristin M.S. Bezio

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Although scholars of both literature and history have made arguments for Christopher Marlowe’s religious belief in Catholicism, the Church of England, and even atheism (which could have been conflated with both by different parties during his lifetime), few consider the belief system of the Polish Brethren, a precursor to Unitarianism established by one Faustus Socinus. This essay uses historical and social network analyses to suggest a close tie between Marlowe’s acquaintances and believers in Socinianism. Clues in Doctor Faustus and Massacre at Paris suggest Marlowe’s skepticism concerning the doctrines of Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism. Furthermore, repeated references to Poland and …

Apocalypse Then, Apocalypse Now: Rethinking Joan Of Arc In The Twenty-First Century, Timothy M. Thibodeau

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Joan of Arc has stood alone among legendary figures of the Middle Ages in her capacity to be appropriated and employed for a host of modern noble causes. However, a fresh examination of Joan’s words and deeds reveals that her aims and objectives were not the universal “greater goods” of modern activists who have used her story to craft their own narratives. I propose that Joan’s continued attractiveness as a cultural icon now faces two major obstacles. First, in the wake of the rapid secularization of modern western society and the evolution of social mores related to gender identity and …

Allen D. Breck Award

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

Recipient of the Breck Award for 2017

Steven Hrdlicka

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

“Me Thinks If I Were A Man”: An Analysis Of Dorothy Leigh’S Mother’S Blessing As A Response To Joseph Swetnam, Julia Combs

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As one of the first and most popular female-male authored conduct manuals of the seventeenth century, Dorothy Leigh’s The Mother’s Blessing is usually placed in the company of private, domestic literature. However, it does not sit comfortably there. Leigh claims to forget herself, as she rhetorically navigates her way through the constraining but enabling genre of the conduct manual. In this paper, I position Leigh as one of the initial respondents to Joseph Swetnam’s pamphlet The Arraignment of Lewd, idle, froward and unconstant women . Swetnam also claimed forget himself, as he stirred up the ire of writers in …

Labouring For The Lost Love, Christine S. Williams

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Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost often is considered a “problem play” because of its emphasis on word-play and its extreme “topicality” to a 16th-century, London audience. Yet imaginative staging reveals that the play actually provides excellent opportunities for connecting with our current millennial students and audience members.