Showing posts with label Middle Ages. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Middle Ages. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Germans and Saracens...
I'm looking for good studies on the depiction of Saracens in medieval German literature...I'm tracking down a number of studies regarding Willehalm, in particular. My own study involves German chronicles of the Third Crusade, which have not yet been analyzed in this fashion. At the moment, I am really hoping to avoid the complicated debates over the interior relationships of these chronicles, but that may not be necessary. Having just been to the crusades conference at Fordham, I am running on a surfeit of ideas regarding Western Christendom and its portrayal of the "other." Personally, I dislike that kind of terminology, since I feel that it creates both an overly simplistic, non-contextualized normative paradigm, and a psycho-socially deterministic, pejorative discourse in a field which demands the opposite [As I've pointed out to various of my English department colleagues, I can talk this way when I wish...] However...in this instance, I believe that the later "hardening of ideological lines", so to speak, between Christian and Muslim in the later Middle Ages, had, in the German case, something to do with the German experience in the Third Crusade definitely, and the Fifth Crusade perhaps. We'll see.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Determining the end of chivalry
As a student of Richard Kaeuper, it should come as no surprise that medieval chivalry is one of my research interests. Currently, I am preparing two different online bibliographies (one geared for grade school teachers) and one exhibit on the subject. Attempting to reduce such a complex phenomenon as chivalry to about 26 linear feet is forcing me to make significant (and perhaps controversial) interpretations. One of the largest that I am facing to date is determining how to discuss the "end of chivalry." Did it end? If so, when? How? Why? By whom/what? Or did it rather transform into something different from medieval chivalry? If so, the same questions apply. And since we here approach the "Early Modern Age," the source material expands, modes of thinking are changing, and the methodologies available to the historian multiply as well.
The old wisdom, that chivalry was shot down with gunpowder weapons, has been pretty decisively refuted by now: chivalry far outlasted the advent of gunpowder. It also did not really come to grief on the "rise of infantry" or the changing character of the late medieval army (best exemplified, perhaps, by the armies of Burgundy): to Philippe de Commynges, chivalry was still a potent presence, despite the fact that knights often dismounted and sometimes fought with infantry formations.
At very least, neither of these explanations is in any way sufficient by itself. My advisor would argue (and I would largely agree with him) that "chivalry" as such ended when the core of the warrior's identity and loyalty changed. Religious validation became somewhat less important, and loyalty to the state comparatively more important, in ways which left the practice of arms roughly the same while changing the mentality of the man who practiced them. Honor slowly became bound up with serving the state, not necessarily with personal renown gained through deeds of prowess. This (hopefully accurate) paraphrase and summary seems a good explanation, especially when combined with the other (less individually convincing) explanations above--after all, as Strickland has demonstrated, the character of armies did change over time, as the decline of the longbow in Tudor England demonstrates (e.g., among London militia companies, not to mention yeomen).
So, for purposes of an exhibit with limited space, WHEN can we say "Medieval chivalry is no more"? My own slowly evolving opinion is that, for sake of convenience, medieval chivalry ended in 1559, when Henry II of France was killed in a joust. Henry VIII of England, another king who strongly identified himself with chivalry, had died in 1550. And Maximilian I of Germany, the "last knight" and master of the tournament, had died earlier in 1519. It seems to me that, if pressed against the wall, one could say that the passing of the last great "chivalric" monarchs of Europe conveniently marks the passing of medieval chivalry, and the culmination of all those changes which historians identify, often individually. Debatable, surely, and I am still thinking this through, but as a stopping point (and one HAS to stop somewhere) it seems to hold much promise...
Anyhow, back to thinking and writing and commenting on students' work...
The old wisdom, that chivalry was shot down with gunpowder weapons, has been pretty decisively refuted by now: chivalry far outlasted the advent of gunpowder. It also did not really come to grief on the "rise of infantry" or the changing character of the late medieval army (best exemplified, perhaps, by the armies of Burgundy): to Philippe de Commynges, chivalry was still a potent presence, despite the fact that knights often dismounted and sometimes fought with infantry formations.
At very least, neither of these explanations is in any way sufficient by itself. My advisor would argue (and I would largely agree with him) that "chivalry" as such ended when the core of the warrior's identity and loyalty changed. Religious validation became somewhat less important, and loyalty to the state comparatively more important, in ways which left the practice of arms roughly the same while changing the mentality of the man who practiced them. Honor slowly became bound up with serving the state, not necessarily with personal renown gained through deeds of prowess. This (hopefully accurate) paraphrase and summary seems a good explanation, especially when combined with the other (less individually convincing) explanations above--after all, as Strickland has demonstrated, the character of armies did change over time, as the decline of the longbow in Tudor England demonstrates (e.g., among London militia companies, not to mention yeomen).
So, for purposes of an exhibit with limited space, WHEN can we say "Medieval chivalry is no more"? My own slowly evolving opinion is that, for sake of convenience, medieval chivalry ended in 1559, when Henry II of France was killed in a joust. Henry VIII of England, another king who strongly identified himself with chivalry, had died in 1550. And Maximilian I of Germany, the "last knight" and master of the tournament, had died earlier in 1519. It seems to me that, if pressed against the wall, one could say that the passing of the last great "chivalric" monarchs of Europe conveniently marks the passing of medieval chivalry, and the culmination of all those changes which historians identify, often individually. Debatable, surely, and I am still thinking this through, but as a stopping point (and one HAS to stop somewhere) it seems to hold much promise...
Anyhow, back to thinking and writing and commenting on students' work...
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