Renaissance Studies Commons^™

“That Kingdom Is Mine”: On Spain’S Early Modern Polemics Of Possession Over Jerusalem, Circa 1605, Chad Leahy

Quidditas

Spanish claims to the throne of Jerusalem in the early modern period have often been viewed in light either of royal mythologies connecting the Habsburgh monarchy to the biblical kings David and Solomon or to prophetic discourses of imperial Messianism relating to universal monarchy. This paper broadens our understanding of Spanish claims to Jerusalem through close reading of two archival documents produced in 1605. In defending Spanish preeminence and sovereignty in Jerusalem, I argue that these documents participate in a “polemics of possession” that crucially informed cultural production related to the Holy City in the period more broadly. These documents …

Allusive Fontaines, Sicamors, And Pins: Figurative Prophecies Of Grail Piety In The Prose Lancelot, David S. King

Quidditas

At the conclusion of Chrétien de Troyes’s twelfth-century verse Chevalier de la charrete, a spring and sycamore allude to concupiscence and betrayal in Scripture, evoking the hero’s and the queen’s adulterous liaison. The author of the thirteenth-century French Prose Lancelot translates this allusion from a moment of joy for the queen to one of terror, foreshadowing a change in fortune for the hero and his prowess. Every subsequent adventure where the hero encounters a spring and sycamore points to his love for the queen as a source of corruption. Springs shaded by a pine tree hint at the sanctity of …

The Vanishing Lady: Mélusine, Emblems, And Jacques Yver’S Le Printemps D’Yver (1572), Joshua M. Blaylock

Quidditas

In the opening pages of Le Printemps d’Yver (1572), the narrator evokes Mélusine, the cursed half-snake fairy queen, as the architect of the idyllic castle that serves as the locus amoenus of the novella collection. And yet, as suddenly as she appears, Mélusine vanishes from the text with only one other explicit reference to her at the transition point between the third and fourth novellas. While literary scholars have analyzed the two explicit references to Mélusine in Le Printemps as well as Yver’s emblematic prose, none has systematically explored the possibility that her presence pervades the novella collection in ways …

Bewitching Power: The Virtuosity Of Gender In Dekker And Massinger's The Virgin Martyr, Thomas Fish

Faculty Articles

This paper considers Thomas Dekker and Philip Massinger’s play The Virgin Martyr (1622) in light of scientific notions of the female body circulating during the period to illustrate how the performance of martyrdom manifested a performance of gender virtuosity, elevating it to the status of the supernatural or divine. Like well-known female martyrs from the period, such as Anne Askew, the protagonist, Dorothea, takes on characteristically male attributes: she assumes the role of the soldier and defies scientific understanding of the female gender by sealing her phlegmatic “leaky” body and exuding divine heat that defies her cold, wet “nature." The …

In Memoriam: Richard L. Harp

Quidditas

This volume is dedicated to Professor Richard L. Harp who died at the age of 73 on 7 March 2019. Richard and his spouse Margaret Harp, Professor of French at UNLV have been active members of the Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association. Richard served on the Association’s Executive Board, presented papers and chaired sessions at several conferences, and Margaret served as Treasurer, and organized RMMRA’s 2018 Las Vegas conference.

Full Issue

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No abstract provided.

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 Allen D. Breck Award for 2019

BRETTON RODRIGUEZ

Eroticism As A Metaphor For The Human-Divine Relationhip In Attar’S Conference Of The Birds, Or Mantiqu’T-Tair, Marisa Sikes

Quidditas

Farídu’d-Dín Ἁṭṭār’s The Speech of the Birds employs transgressive erotic imagery in multiple sub-tales in ways that both enhance the frame tale’s significance and suggest that persistent, discrete categories of love poetry and religious poetry are untenable as far as Ἁṭṭār’s works are concerned. Eroticism in Ἁṭṭār’s work paradoxically elicits shock and supports orthodoxy, sometimes simultaneously. In the narrative of Shaikh-i Sam’ān religious taboos are broken by a Muslim shaikh devoted to a Christian beloved who spurns him continuously. In “The Princess and the Beautiful Slave-Boy” eroticism is overtly presented as a metaphor for temporary, ecstatic union with the divine. …

Embellishing The Past: Fernando Del Pulgar And History At The Court Of The Catholic Monarchs, Bretton Rodriguez

Quidditas

Composed in the late fifteenth century, Fernando del Pulgar’s Crónica de los Reyes Católicos was the official account of – and therefore one of the best sources for – some of the most significant events in late medieval Spanish history. Within his narrative, Pulgar described the marriage of Isabel and Fernando (better known today as the Catholic Monarchs), the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition, and the buildup to the conquest of Granada. Despite the importance of the events that he described, as well as his own role as official historian, Pulgar revealed a radical understanding of history and history writing …

The World Of Miracles: Science, And Healing In Caesarius Of Heisterbach’S Dialogus Miraculorum (Ca.1240) In Competition With Magic, Albrecht Classen

Quidditas

This paper offers a close reading of some of the miracle tales dedicated to the Virgin Mary as contained in Caesarius of Heisterbach’s Dialogus miraculorum (ca. 1240) in order to shed light on the fundamental narrative structures of this genre, the association between the narratives and their material background, and to build a case to argue that medieval miracle narratives actually shared much in common with the discourse on magic. After a critical examination of magic itself and its properties as imagined or realized in the Middle Ages, the analysis highlights the ‘miraculous’ or maybe even ‘magical’ features of Caesarius’s …

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 Delno C. West Award for 2019

Corinne Wieben

Front Matter

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No abstract provided.

“We Are Perpetually Moralists:” Samuel Johnson And Renaissance Epistemology, Brandon Schneeberger

Quidditas

This article discusses how new Renaissance epistemological views shaped the important eighteenth-century critic Samuel Johnson. I argue that Johnson emphasizes conversation as an important element of epistemology, pushing against what was an over-emphasize on book learning perpetuated by educators such as Peter Ramus. The rise in print-culture led to a shift in epistemology, in which knowledge could be seen as linear, codified, or fixed. While Johnson works both within and against these new epistemological trends, I argue that his criticism of John Milton’s poetry can be appreciated more fully if Johnson’s own reservations about print culture are kept in mind. …

The Fiscal Policy Of Richard Iii Of England, Alex Brayson

Quidditas

Influenced by the “new” fiscal historiographical agenda of the 1990s, this article pioneers a radical reconstruction of the Yorkist-era royal budget. This demonstrates that the increased role of demesne revenues managed by the royal chamber in financing total expenditures under Edward IV, which was famously applauded by B. P. Wolffe, signally failed to provide for long-term fiscal stability. The removal of Edward’s French pension in 1483 led to a substantial deficit which compelled Richard III to contravene his brother’s pledge to “live of his own”. Richard’s sustained attempts, during 1483-4, to resurrect and revise controversial late Lancastrian attempts to secure …

“Sapere Videre” How A Spreadsheet Helps “Knowing How To See” Royal Power On Display In England’S Counties, 1277 To 1642, James H. Forse

Quidditas

Using a spreadsheet tracking touring in England’s counties by entertainers attached to members of England’s royal families suggests that such activity was wide-spread dating from the time of Edward III, and that those entertainers may have served to “advertise” royal power.

Stricken By Terror: Seeing And Knowing In Late Medieval Criminal Case Records, Corinne Wieben

Quidditas

Medieval legal records frequently feature parties and lawyers willing to stretch the truth and weave tales that fulfill statutory requirements and promote their cases, but what happens when defendants testify against themselves? When Giambono of Matraia, a monk from the monastery of San Ponziano in Lucca, appeared before Lucca’s episcopal court in 1356, he found himself facing charges of adultery, robbery, and murder. After four witnesses testified against him, Giambono confessed. When all seemed lost, Ser Giovanni Folchini, a well-known Lucchese notary, appeared as Giambono’s legal representative and claimed his client’s confession was false, since “he said these things while …

[Review Of] "In Centro Et Oculis Urbis Nostre": La Chiesa E Il Monastero Di San Zaccaria. Bernard Aikema, Massimo Mancini, And Paola Modesti, Eds. Chiese Di Venezia 4. Venice: Marcianum Press, 2016. Xii + 426 Pp., Johanna D. Heinrichs

Architecture Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

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The Jacobean Peace The Irenic Policy Of James Vi And I And Its Legacy, Roger B. Manning

Quidditas

King James VI and I furnishes the example of an early modern monarch who pursued a policy of peace that worked to his disadvantage. This irenic policy arose more from circumstances than conviction. As king of Scotland, he had learned to distrust the violent and warlike members of the Scots nobility, and diplomacy and conciliation were the only instruments he had to deal with these ruffians. Despite aspersions upon his manhood, he led attempts to suppress their rebellion, and when he succeeded as king of England, he possessed more military experience than any English monarch since Henry VII. Those of …

“Where Have You Vanished?” Aelred Of Rievaulx’S Lamentation On The Death Of Simon, Anna Harrison

Quidditas

In his lamentation on the death of his friend, Simon, Aelred responds to a centuries-long suspicion about grief by mounting an apology for mourning that is in keeping with a larger Cistercian trend. Aelred’s chief preoccupation in the lamentation is, however, to emphasize the productivity of grief, both for the living and for the dead. Aelred associates the desire to reunite with the beloved dead with stimulating the mourner’s desire for heaven as location for the longed-for reunion, and he conceives of the pain associated with bereavement as payment for the sins of the deceased.

Strategies For Addressing Student Learning Objectives In The Renaissance And Reformation Classroom: Tone, Historical Context, And Kinetic Learners, Vincent V. Patarino Jr.

Quidditas

Like other higher education institutions, Colorado Mesa University has fully embraced modern assessment goals and strategies, especially SLOs (Student Learning Objectives). In HIST 350, Renaissance and Reformation, I focus on two: use of primary sources and historical context. Meeting these objectives with aural and visual learners is met using traditional PowerPoint, laden with images of art and architecture. What about kinetic learners? How does one comprise their learning strengths? When analyzing documents, discerning tone is especially challenging, given our social media age. One strategy is to have students work in groups of two, taking turns reading each other’s emotions. Through …

Delno C. West Award

Quidditas

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

Recipient of the West Award for 2018

Anna Harrison

Allen D. Breck Award

Quidditas

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

Recipient of the Breck Award for 2018

Alani Hicks Bartlett

[Review Of] Lateinische Musterprosa Und Sprachpflege Der Neuzeit (17.–Anfang Des 19. Jhs.): Ein Wörterbuch. Oleg Nikitinski. Leiden: Brill, 2017., Terence Tunberg

Modern and Classical Languages, Literatures and Cultures Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.