Representing War and Violence: 1250-1600

Front Cover
Joanna Bellis, Laura Slater
Boydell & Brewer, 2016 - History - 218 pages
An examination of written and other responses to conflict in a variety of forms and genres, from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century.

War and violence took many forms in medieval and early modern Europe, from political and territorial conflict to judicial and social spectacle; from religious persecution and crusade to self-mortification and martyrdom; from comedic brutality to civil and domestic aggression. Various cultural frameworks conditioned both the acceptance of these forms of violence, and the protest that they met with: the elusive concept of chivalry, Christianity and just wartheory, political ambition and the machinery of propaganda, literary genres and the expectations they generated and challenged.
The essays here, from the disciplines of history, art history and literature, explore how violence and conflict were documented, depicted, narrated and debated during this period. They consider manuals created for and addressed directly to kings and aristocratic patrons; romances whose affective treatments of violence invitedprofoundly empathetic, even troublingly pleasurable, responses; diaries and "autobiographies" compiled on the field and redacted for publication and self-promotion. The ethics and aesthetics of representation, as much as the violence being represented, emerge as a profound and constant theme for writers and artists grappling with this most fundamental and difficult topic of human experience.

JOANNA BELLIS is the Fitzjames Research Fellow in Oldand Middle English at Merton College, Oxford; LAURA SLATER holds a Postdoctoral Fellowship from The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art in London.

Contributors: Anne Baden-Daintree, Anne Curry, David Grummitt, Richard W. Kaeuper, Andrew Lynch, Christina Normore, Laura Slater, Sara V. Torres, Matthew Woodcock,

 

Contents

Representation and Medieval Mediations of Violence
1
The Ethics and Aesthetics of Depicting War and Violence
21
Debating and Narrating Violence
77
Experiencing Representing and Remembering Violence
137
Bibliography
191
Index
210
Copyright

Common terms and phrases

Alliterative Alliterative Morte Arthure Anne Curry arms artists battle Bibliothèque Nationale Binski Calais Cambridge campaign century Charles Chaucer chivalry chronicle Churchyard College of Arms combat Confessio Amantis context Courtrai Culture death defeat defenders depicted duke earl early modern Edward emotional England English Estoire ethical fall of Calais fighting Flemish Français French garrison Geoffroi de Charny God’s Grandes Chroniques Guido Guînes Hanson Harthacnut Henry Henry’s History honour Hundred Years War Jean le Bel John Gower John Lydgate Kaeuper king king’s knights Late Medieval lines literary Literature London Lord Lydgate Lydgate’s manuscript martial Matthew Middle Ages military autobiography Mirour moral Morte Arthure narrative Nationale de France noble Normandy Oxford Paris Peter Basset poem political prince Prologue reader reading representation represented Richard Robert royal scene siege Swein Thomas Thomas Churchyard trans Troy Book Tudor visual warfare warriors William Worcestre wounded wrath writing þat

Bibliographic information

TitleRepresenting War and Violence: 1250-1600
EditorsJoanna Bellis, Laura Slater
Editionillustrated
PublisherBoydell & Brewer, 2016
ISBN1783271558, 9781783271559
Length218 pages
Subjects ›  › 

History / Europe / Medieval
Literary Criticism / European / General
Literary Criticism / Medieval
  
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