Fredric Cheyette's book Ermengard of Narbonne and the World of the Troubadours, examined the life of Ermengard (1130-1196) through the study of the sixty-four documents that bear her name. The book focused on the city of Narbonne, and the region of Occitania at large, that had only previously been studied in a later period during the Albigensian Crusade. This region received much of the attention because there are more sources, and because this was not a biography where Ermengard was being recontructed beyond what the sources have to say about her. :There are many archival sources used which worked together to construct a rich description of the region. One focus was on love poetry, which he analyzed through a historians lens to see the part that this poetry played and what it said about the society that created it. He was against the over interpretation of this poetry that many have done, especially those that use the lens of literature analysis.
The book was divided into four parts. There was the section on the social, dynastic, and economic make up of the region. From there the book focused on the way that power worked in a court. Cheyetted looked at how the individual members of the court acted and how their power relationships worked. The next part looked at the idea of a culture of fidelity by studying oaths and poetry. In the last part the political events from 1162 to 1196 become the focus. Here dynastic fights within these wars are the focus.
Cheyette continued the work from his chapter in Aristocratic Women, by looking again at the troubadours here he showed in even more detail his arguement about the use of the language of love. Here he showed that love was used to describe oaths, agreements, and honor, focusing o...
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...a role women played. One of the multitudes of examples that Cheyette gave of women's importance was, how oath takers were identified by their mother.
Another augment that Cheyette appears to be making was that this was not an insignificant region, filled with these radical, heretical Cathars. Instead, Cheyette poses that the Albigensian Crusade was caused by Raymond's play for power, and Pope Innocent III's plan to play off different powers against one another. There were Cathars there, but their beliefs were tolerated even after the crusade. Cheyette thus argues the crusade was not caused by religion, but by political maneuvers for power. He also argues against the idea that Occitania was a region with little going on, this book detailed the urban centers the rich culture and economy, though it was not a unified state, there was a lot going on within the region.
Janet Lewis, the author of The Wife of Martin Guerre, illustrates what family dynamics were like in the sixteenth century, “…for the extend of his father’s lifetime Martin would legally remain a minor” whereas, women’s identity and importance were only known through their husbands. However, within this novel Bertrande de Rols, wife of Martin Guerre, is known as herself; this is to express that the novel was written according to her experience as the wife of Martin Guerre. Even though, it wasn’t acceptable for women to go forward with such accusations, Bertrande de Rols did the right thing pursuing Arnaud as an impostor because she knew he was not her husband despite what everyone else said. After all, she knew Martin best.
The book begins with a prologue, in which a letter is sent from a musician working for a cardinal in 1347. It is sent from the papal court of Avignon and is received by some of the musician's ...
...and the responsibility to be just as patriotic and dedicated as any other. When the war ended and the men returned, women weren’t required for the occupations, and this stirred a yearning in women to be once again sovereign, and perhaps the time set a scene for a path to complete gender integration and a women’s rights movement.
In classical Greek literature the subject of love is commonly a prominent theme. However, throughout these varied texts the subject of Love becomes a multi-faceted being. From this common occurrence in literature we can assume that this subject had a large impact on day-to-day life. One text that explores the many faces of love in everyday life is Plato’s Symposium. In this text we hear a number of views on the subject of love and what the true nature of love is. This essay will focus on a speech by Pausanius. Pausanius’s speech concentrates on the goddess Aphrodite. In particular he looks at her two forms, as a promoter of “Celestial Love” as well as “Common Love.” This idea of “Common Love” can be seen in a real life context in the tragedy “Hippolytus” by Euripides. This brings the philosophical views made by Pausanius into a real-life context.
Boardman, Phillip C. "Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343-1400)." Enduring Legacies: Ancient and Medieval Cultures. 6th ed. Boston: Pearson Custom Pub., 2000. 430-54. Print.
While Burgundian chanson in some respects continued the traditions of the troubadours and trouvères with overriding themes of courtly love, the texts o...
They took on responsibilities traditionally associated with men. For a time, they were the ones at the heads of families, managing land and businesses. They were the ones using intellect to manage finances and physical strength in both the farm fields and battlefields. At times they weren’t being portrayed as the “weaker sex,” and even when they were, they used it to their advantage to obtain key information needed to win battles. These women were determined and dependable, assisting in countless ways, many even risked their own lives in doing their “patriotic
Medieval and Renaissance literature develops the concepts of love and marriage and records the evolution of the relation between them. In Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Christian love clashes with courtly love, as men and women grapple with such issues as which partner should rule in marriage, the proper, acceptable role of sex in marriage, and the importance of love as a basis for a successful marriage. Works by earlier writers portray the medieval literary notion of courtly love, the sexual attraction between a chivalric knight and his lady, often the knight's lord's wife. The woman, who generally held mastery in these relationships based on physical desire and consummation, dictated the terms of the knight's duties and obligations, much like a feudal lord over a vassal. This microcosm of romance between man and woman was anchored by the macrocosm of the bonds among men and their fealty to their lord. The dominance of women and fealty to the leader in courtly love contrasts with the dominance ...
The Great Cat Massacre with out a doubt has one of the most unusual titles ever created especially for a book about history. Now this unusual title perhaps fits this book better than any other straight - forward title Mr. Darnton could have conjured. You see the text contained in the book isn’t just your standardized, boring, and redundant view of history. Most historical text looks at history from a political standpoint, of which king did what and what were the political effects of a war; then what were the politics like after the war, how were they changed and by which major political figures did the changing. Darnton instead of the old style of viewing history looks at it through the eyes of the people, and not the figures of history. Mr. Darnton’s book The Great Cat Massacre, reexamines French culture during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteen century with the eyes of the peasant’s. Robert Darnton looks at the writings of the peasant’s, and traces them to their origins and compares them to other text of similar origins and text, to create credible accounts or views of particular topics of the people during the era. In this review your going to see a summarization of the book, describing the various subjects of this book. After that I will comment on Mr. Darnton’s on some topics like his organization, writing style, and fairness to his subject material, then discuss the historical importance of the topics that Robert Darnton mentions in his book and give you my personal opinion of the book its self. Next I will discuss with you a battery of topics like why I choose the book, is the book controversial, what was the authors purpose for writing the book, what were some of the major theses, who or what Darnton’s sources were? Lastly I will end this review with a compare and contrast of potentially different views of what Robert Darnton is telling us in his book.
A five page paper which analyses a passage from Le Diable au Corps at the beginning of the liaison between the narrator and Marthe, showing how the descrip...
The tales of King Arthur and many of their numerous characters are well known in literature. The Arthurian world is one of the great myths of modern times. Those great pieces of literature have many common themes, one of them being courtly love “L’amour Courtois”. This paper talks of courtly love as seen in King Arthur’s world especially examining “Yvain or the Knight with the Lion” and “Lancelot: or the Knight of the Cart”. Furthermore, one of the goals is to show how that courtly love could be seen in today in our world.
One of the main plot lines in this novel is based upon a bet between the Vicomte de Valmont and the Marquise de Merteuil; in short, Valmont wagers that if he is able to seduce the very religious woman, Tourvel, Merteuil will agree to be with him again when he visits Paris. Valmont being both a womanizer and promiscuous takes on this bet and begins his manipulation of Tourvel. At this initial stage, it is important to take into account the values of both
...in knowing what behavior was expected of a noble and his lord in medieval Spain. It is clearly evident that the attributes of commitment to one's lord, giving auxilium, and rendering consolium were expected of all proper rulers. The Poem can be seen as a morality play in which the Cid constantly strives to be a good and proper lord to his followers and a good and proper vassal to King Alfonso, only to be failed by those above him.
The Woman in Love, a section taken from Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, describes her theories on men and women in love and the vast differences and purposes they think love is for. This book was published in 1949, and with this in mind we can understand the way she describes women as the weaker sex and how dependent women are on men. In the beginning of the text she states that “The word ‘love’ has not all the same meaning for both sexes, and this is a source of the grave misunderstandings that separate them...love is merely an occupation in the life of the man, while it is life itself for the woman(683).” This first quote from this chapter is important because it really outlines what she is about to get at throughout the entire...
“The Wife of Bath’s Tale” is written in an entertaining and adventurous spirit, but serves a higher purpose by illustrating the century’s view of courtly love. Hundreds, if not thousands, of other pieces of literature written in the same century prevail to commemorate the coupling of breathtaking princesses with lionhearted knights after going through unimaginable adventures, but only a slight few examine the viability of such courtly love and the related dilemmas that always succeed. “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” shows that women desire most their husband’s love, Overall, “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” shows that the meaning of true love does not stay consistent, whether between singular or separate communities and remains timeless as the depictions of love from this 14th century tale still hold true today.