The circulation of romances from England in late-medieval Ireland

The fifteenth century saw a striking upturn in the number of texts from foreign vernaculars that were translated into Irish. Indeed, one might go so far as to speak in terms of a ‘translation trend’ in Ireland during the mid to late fifteenth century. A notable feature of this trend is that a particularly high number of these Irish translations are of romances; contextual and textual evidence suggests that the original exemplars for many of these translated texts appear to have come from England, though not all of them were necessarily in English. Irish translations of eight romances have survived to the present day: Guy of Warwick; Bevis of Hampton; La Queste de Saint Graal; Fierabras; Caxton’s Recuyell of the Histories of Troie; William of Palerne; the Seven Sages of Rome; and Octavian. This paper addresses two aspects of these texts of particular relevance to romance scholars who do not work within the sphere of Celtic studies. Firstly, it argues that certain aspects of the dissemination and reception of romance in Ireland are quite distinctive. Manuscript and textual evidence suggests that the religious orders, particularly the Franciscans, seem to have played a role in the importation and translation of these narratives. Secondly, examination of the Irish versions of romance tends to bear out an observation made by Flower many years ago, but not pursued by subsequent scholars: ‘texts of an unusual kind were current in Ireland, and it may be that interesting discoveries are to be made here’. Certain narrative features of several of these Irish translations diverge from all the surviving versions of the relevant romance in other languages and may witness to a variant exemplar that has since been lost from its own linguistic corpus.

The medieval climate anomaly and Byzantium: a review of the evidence on climatic fluctuations, economic performance and societal change

At the beginning of the Medieval Climate Anomaly, in the ninth and tenth century, the medieval eastern Roman empire, more usually known as Byzantium, was recovering from its early medieval crisis and experiencing favourable climatic conditions for the agricultural and demographic growth. Although in the Balkans and Anatolia such favourable climate conditions were prevalent during the eleventh century, parts of the imperial territories were facing significant challenges as a result of external political/military pressure. The apogee of medieval Byzantine socio-economic development, around AD 1150, coincides with a period of adverse climatic conditions for its economy, so it becomes obvious that the winter dryness and high climate variability at this time did not hinder Byzantine society and economy from achieving that level of expansion. Soon after this peak, towards the end of the twelfth century, the populations of the Byzantine world were experiencing unusual climatic conditions with marked dryness and cooler phases. The weakened Byzantine socio-political system must have contributed to the events leading to the fall of Constantinople in AD 1204 and the sack of the city. The final collapse of the Byzantine political control over western Anatolia took place half century later, thus contemporaneous with the strong cooling effect after a tropical volcanic eruption in AD 1257. We suggest that, regardless of a range of other influential factors, climate change was also an important contributing factor to the socio-economic changes that took place in Byzantium during the Medieval Climate Anomaly. Crucially, therefore, while the relatively sophisticated and complex Byzantine society was certainly influenced by climatic conditions, and while it nevertheless displayed a significant degree of resilience, external pressures as well as tensions within the Byzantine society more broadly contributed to an increasing vulnerability in respect of climate impacts. Our interdisciplinary analysis is based on all available sources of information on the climate and society of Byzantium, that is textual (documentary), archaeological, environmental, climate and climate model-based evidence about the nature and extent of climate variability in the eastern Mediterranean. The key challenge was, therefore, to assess the relative influence to be ascribed to climate variability and change on the one hand, and on the other to the anthropogenic factors in the evolution of Byzantine state and society (such as invasions, changes in international or regional market demand and patterns of production and consumption, etc.). The focus of this interdisciplinary

Medieval romance, English

Annotated bibliography of romance from medieval England. It focuses on medieval romances in various languages written in England or translated into English before 1500.

Crusader churches in the Latin East : expressions of medieval theology

The Latin invaders of the Eastern Mediterranean in the 12th-14th Centuries were on a mission to retrieve and protect the Christian Holy Land from Muslim occupation. They encountered a consistent, Eastern approach to the architectural expression of the Christian faith which the physical remains of their churches show they adopted. Previously, I have shown how it can be deduced from the archaeological remains of churches from the 4th-6th C that early church architecture was influenced by the theological ideas of the period. This paper argues that the Eastern approach to church architecture as adopted by the Crusaders was compatible with the medieval European theological context and can be seen as a legitimate expression of medieval theology.

Peregrinação, conquista e povoamento. Mito e realismo desencantado numa hagiografia medieval portuguesa

O texto pretende realizar uma interpretação da narrativa de viagem ao Paraíso Terrestre cistercience Vida de Santo Amaro, à luz da história portuguesa entre os séculos XIII e XV, apontando as relações existentes entre pensamento histórico e pensamento mítico na passagem do processo de Reconquista para os Descobrimentos, vivenciados ao longo da história das diferentes versões escritas da fonte analisada.

A história portuguesa medieval: preservação, ordenação e esquecimento

Os últimos séculos da Idade Média, nomeadamente os séculos XIII, XIV e XV, são marcados na Europa por uma crescente preocupação em fixar por escrito os diversos saberes e eventos, preocupação que, ligada às tentativas de sistematizar a organização dos reinos, contribui significativamente para a ascensão das línguas vulgares como línguas dos mais variados gêneros - de documentos jurídicos e administrativos a textos de caráter filosófico e histórico. em Portugal, o empenho em deixar registrado o passado numa língua acessível tem início no século XIV e culmina no século XV, quando se procura organizar a memória através da escrita e se começa a construir uma perspectiva portuguesa sobre o passado. O objetivo do presente texto é mapear alguns índices que revelam a importância que os portugueses dos séculos XIV e XV conferem à ordenação do passado, sobretudo a partir da escolha do que devia e do que não podia cair no esquecimento.

Da geografia medieval às origens da geografia moderna: contrastes entre diferentes noções de natureza, espaço e tempo

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

De versos e trovas: análise de aspectos fonoestilísticos do português medieval por meio das “Cantigas de Santa Maria”

Pós-graduação em Linguística e Língua Portuguesa - FCLAR

Rumores da escrita, vestígios do passado: uma interpretação fonológica das vogais do português arcaico por meio da poesia medieval

A proposta do presente livro é oferecer ao leitor uma descrição fonológica das qualidades vocálicas vigentes na primeira fase (período trovadoresco) do português arcaico a partir da análise das rimas e da grafia das Cantigas de Santa Maria, de Afonso X, o Sábio, Rei de Leão e Castela, elaboradas na segunda metade do século XIII.

A misosoginia medieval e seus ecos nos Lais de Maria de França

The Lais of Marie de France are a specific type of historical record about the medieval aristocratic society and enables us to decipher the hierarchies that govern the relationship between men and women in the period. As well explains Georges Duby, medieval society tends to present coated with a male character because, among other factors, its latent misogyny. Women were placed under male authority, convinced of their natural superiority , the men despised , mocked her sex , meanwhile feared them, after all, women were Eve’s daughters. So, Lais offer female images that cannot be ignored , since it express the author women’s idea. However , as we seek to demonstrate in this article, Maria of France reflects the representations of the Christian society aristocratic. One note here that this article does not aspire to reach the actual circumstances, but the historical significance of female images present in the Lais.