Though many historians date the practice of diplomacy to the Renaissance, Pierre Chaplais shows that medieval kings relied on a network of diplomats and special envoys to conduct international relations. War, peace, marriage agreements, ransoms, trade and many other matters all had to be negotiated. To do this a remarkably sophisticated system of diplomacy developed during the Middle Ages. Chaplais describes how diplomacy worked in practice: how ambassadors and other envoys were chosen, how and where they traveled, and how the authenticity of their messages was known in a world before passports and photographs.
This 1955 work is the classic history of the development of modern diplomacy in Renaissance Europe. Sometime after the year 1400, the diplomatic traditions of civilized cultures-which have existed as far back as the records of human history extend-took a sharp turn that was the result of new power relations in the newly modern world. Mattingly believed these could be illustrative of how nations and traditions change...and that we might apply those lessons to our own rapidly changing global culture. Discover: [ the legal framework of Medieval diplomacy [ diplomatic practices in the 15th century [ the Italian beginnings of modern diplomacy [ precedents for resident embassies [ the dynastic power relations of European nations in the 16th century [ French diplomacy and the breaking-up of Christendom [ the Habsburg system [ early modern diplomacy [ and more. American scholar of European history GARRETT MATTINGLY (1900-1962) is also the author of Catherine of Aragon (1941) and the bestselling The Armada (1959), for which he won a Pulitzer Prize.
This is a ground-breaking volume into the phenomenon of migration in and to England over the medieval millennium. A series of subject specialists synthesise and extend recent research in a wide range of disciplines and marks an important contribution to medieval studies, and to modern debates on migration and the free movement of people.
The essays in this volume portray the public life of late medieval France as that country established its position as a leader of western European society in the early modern world. A central theme is the contribution made by contemporary writers, chroniclers and commentators, such as Jean Froissart, William Worcester and Philippe de Commynes, to our understanding of the past. Who were they? What picture of their times did they present? Were their works intended to influence their contemporaries and what success did they enjoy? Other contributions deal with the exercise of political power, the relationship between the court and those in authority in far-flung reaches of the kingdom, and the role and status of the death penalty as deterrent, punishment and means of achieving justice.
Law and Language in the Middle Ages investigates the relationship between law and legal practice from the linguistic perspective, exploring not only how legal language expresses and advances power relations but also how the language of law legitimates power.
The Renaissance jurist Alberico Gentili once quipped that, just like comedies, all wars end in a marriage. In medieval and early modern Europe, marriage treaties were a perennial feature of the diplomatic landscape. When one ruler decided to make peace with his enemy, the two parties often sealed their settlement with marriages between their respective families. In After Lavinia, John Watkins traces the history of the practice, focusing on the unusually close relationship between diplomacy and literary production in Western Europe from antiquity through the seventeenth century, when marriage began to lose its effectiveness and prestige as a tool of diplomacy.Watkins begins with Virgil's foundational myth of the marriage between the Trojan hero Aeneas and the Latin princess, an account that formed the basis for numerous medieval and Renaissance celebrations of dynastic marriages by courtly poets and propagandists. In the book's second half, he follows the slow decline of diplomatic marriage as both a tool of statecraft and a literary subject, exploring the skepticism and suspicion with which it was viewed in the works of Spenser and Shakespeare. Watkins argues that the plays of Corneille and Racine signal the passing of an international order that had once accorded women a place of unique dignity and respect.
Medieval (political) communication followed rules that were defined, negotiated, and altered in processes of exchange. Conflicts resulting from different communication practices, as well as forms of innovation, revolve around rules that are not self-evident. Political actors such as princes and cities, chanceries, secretaries, ambassadors, and councillors formed rules of political participation, which became visible in written documentation. These rules were both formed and negotiated via processes of communication (a practice-oriented understanding of political participation). Medieval chanceries can thus be understood as a vast field of experimentation where different solutions were tested, passed on, or discarded. This book explores communication practices in German, French, Italian, Tyrolian, and Gorizian chanceries, as well as at diets from the tenth to the sixteenth century. Its chapters examine royal, monastic, princely, and communal chanceries. For the early and high Middle Ages, a close analysis of documents will reconstruct negotiation and communication from within the documents themselves. For the later Middle Ages, focus will turn to the chancery, with the appearance of chancery orders and chancery annotations that provide explicit insight in communication between the chancellors, secretaries, and political authorities (princes or cities). The growing amount and variety of documents issued in the late Middle Ages allows us to retrace conflicts resulting from differing chancery practices as well as attempts to reorganise the chancery into a political instrument for the prince. The processes of political communication will be followed in three parts. Part I focuses on the rules within documents. Part II looks at administrative processes within specific chanceries, while Part III explores forms of exchange between the chancery and other political actors.
First published in 1984, The Royal Bastards of Medieval England establishes a list of royal bastards in medieval England, and discusses their roles in the history of the period. The authors describe how gradually the church began to formulate more definite views on sexual and marital customs, with a consequent decline in the status of illegitimate children. By early sixteenth century, however, royal bastards were once again making their way into the peerage. The book charts the lives of these men and women against the background not only of contemporary political developments, but also of changing ideas about morality and family. This book will be of interest to students of history, religion and literature.
English is used in diplomatic contexts worldwide, including in situations where none of the interlocutors are native-speakers. This ground-breaking volume brings together the perspectives of researchers and practitioners to discuss the needs of those using and learning English for Diplomatic Purposes. Chapter authors use concepts from sociolinguistics, World Englishes, Peace Linguistics and English as a Lingua Franca. Combined with this theoretical background is a pragmatic understanding of the work of diplomacy and the realities of communication, as well as exercises designed to help students, teachers and practicing diplomats reflect on, and develop, their language use. This book represents an important first step in the opening-up of English for Diplomatic Purposes as a distinct field of study and learning, and as such will be required reading for those working and studying in this area.
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