The study of the early art of England can be frustrating for scholars, as the destruction by iconoclasm and neglect was very thorough in certain regions. This volume seeks to aid those studying the early art, including relics and musical iconography, of Coventry, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwick, and other Warwickshire locations. Accompanied by 71 illustrations and 2 maps, the subject lists found within provide information from records and antiquarian accounts that should prove invaluable in visualizing the dimensions of the iconography of both lost and extant early art from the region.
The guild buildings of Shakespeare’s Stratford represent a rare instance of a largely unchanged set of buildings which draw together the threads of the town’s civic life. With its multi-disciplinary perspectives on this remarkable group of buildings, this volume provides a comprehensive account of the religious, educational, legal, social and theatrical history of Stratford, focusing on the sixteenth century and Tudor Reformation. The essays interweave with one another to provide a map of the complex relationships between the buildings and their history. Opening with an investigation of the Guildhall, which served as the headquarters of the Guild of the Holy Cross until the Tudor Reformation, the book explores the building’s function as a centre of local government and community law and as a place of entertainment and education. It is beyond serious doubt that Shakespeare was a school boy here, and the many visits to the Guildhall by professional touring players during the latter half of the sixteenth-century may have prompted his acting and playwriting career. The Guildhall continues to this day to house a school for the education of secondary-level boys. The book considers educational provision during the mid sixteenth century as well as examining the interaction between touring players and the everyday politics and social life of Stratford. At the heart of the volume is archaeological and documentary research which uses up-to-date analysis and new dendrochronological investigations to interpret the buildings and their medieval wall paintings as well as proposing a possible location of the school before it transferred to the Guildhall. Together with extensive archival research into the town’s Court of Record which throws light on the commercial and social activities of the period, this rich body of research brings us closer to life as it was lived in Shakespeare’s Stratford.
The British Archaeological Association's 2007 conference celebrated the material culture of medieval Coventry, the fourth wealthiest English city of the later middle ages. The nineteen papers collected in this volume set out to remedy the relative neglect in modern scholarship of the city's art, architecture and archaeology, as well as to encompass recent research on monuments in the vicinity. The scene is set by two papers on archaeological excavations in the historic city centre, especially since the 1970s, and a paper investigating the relationships between Coventry's building boom and economic conditions in the city in the later middle ages. Three papers on the Cathedral Priory of St Mary bring together new insights into the Romanesque cathedral church, the monastic buildings and the post-Dissolution history of the precinct, derived mainly from the results of the Phoenix Initiative excavations (19992003). Three more papers provide new architectural histories of the spectacular former parish church of St Michael, the fine Guildhall of St Mary and the remarkable surviving west range of the Coventry Charterhouse. The high-quality monumental art of the later medieval city is represented by papers on wall-painting (featuring the recently conserved Doom in Holy Trinity church), on the little-known Crucifixion mural at the Charterhouse, and on a reassessment of the working practices of the famous master-glazier, John Thornton. Two papers on a guild seal and on the glazing at Stanford on Avon parish church consider the evidence for Coventry as a regional workshop centre for high quality metalwork and glass-painting. Beyond the city, three papers deal with the development of Combe Abbey from Cistercian monastery to country house, with the Beauchamp family's hermitage at Guy's Cliffe, and with a newly identified stonemasons' workshop in the 'barn' at Kenilworth Abbey. Two further papers concern the architectural patronage of the earls and dukes of Lancaster in the 14th century at Kenilworth Castle and in the Newarke at Leicester Castle.
This volume is an interdisciplinary consideration of late medieval art and texts, falling into two parts: first, the iconography and context of the great Doom wall painting over the tower arch at Holy Trinity Church, Coventry, and second, Carthusian studies treating fragmentary wall paintings in the Carthusian monastery near Coventry; the devotional images in the Carthusian Miscellany; and meditation for “simple souls” in the Carthusian Nicholas Love’s Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ. Emphasis is on such aspects as memory, participative theology, devotional images, meditative practice, and techniques of constructing patterns of sacred imagery.
Annual collection on diverse aspects of the fifteenth century, emphasizing literary topics with essays on French, German, English, Gaelic, and Middle Scots. The fifteenth century defies consensus on fundamental issues; most scholars agree, however, that the period outgrew the Middle Ages, that it was a time of transition and a passage to modern times. Fifteenth-Century Studiesoffers essays on diverse aspects of the period, including liberal and fine arts, historiography, medicine, and religion. Volume 37 includes articles on René d'Anjou and authorial doubling in the Livre du Coeur d'Amour épris; tradition and innovation in popular German song poetry from Oswald von Wolkenstein to Georg Forster; the role of sacred images in Capgrave's Life of Saint Katherine; milieu, John Strecche, and the Gawain-poet; Gaelic, Middle Scots, and the question of ethnicity in three Scottish flytings; William Caxton's translations of Aesop; the visualization of information in Conrad Buitzruss's compendium; and Gilles de Rais and his modern apologists. Book reviews conclude the volume. Contributors: Albrecht Classen, Nicholas Ealy, Richard Garrett, Rosanne Gasse, Janice McCoy, Jacqueline Murdock, Ben Parsons, Carolyn King Stephens, Elizabeth Wade-Sirabian. BARBARA I. GUSICK is Professor Emerita of English at Troy University, Dothan, Alabama; MATTHEW Z. HEINTZELMAN is curator of the Austria/Germany Study Center and Rare Book Cataloger at Hill Museum & Manuscript Library, Saint John's University, Collegeville, Minnesota.
Hunting with birds of prey was a popular sport in medieval England, in both the royal household & amongst the nobility who had the money to afford to retain falconers & buy the birds. This book offers a detailed history of royal falconry from the 11th to the 14th century.
Religious issues and discourse are key to an understanding of Shakespeare's plays and poems. This dictionary discusses over 1000 words and names in Shakespeare's works that have a religious connotation. Its unique word-by-word approach allows equal consideration of the full nuance of each of these words, from 'abbess' to 'zeal'. It also gradually reveals the persistence, the variety, and the sophistication of Shakespeare's religious usage. Frequent attention is given to the prominence of Reformation controversy in these words, and to Shakespeare's often ingenious and playful metaphoric usage of them. Theological commonplaces assume a major place in the dictionary, as do overt references to biblical figures, biblical stories and biblical place-names; biblical allusions; church figures and saints.
Explores Shakespeare's engagement with the religious culture of his time. Through readings of a number of plays - "Romeo and Juliet", "King John", "1 Henry IV", "Henry V", and "Measure for Measure", this work explains allusions to the Bible, the Church's liturgy, and to the mystery plays performed in England in Shakespeare's boyhood.
Professor Palmer has systematically surveyed the art of the former West Riding of Yorkshire and has provided an iconographic index of this large region where medieval drama also flourished.
Originally published in 1990, Medieval English Drama is an exhaustive bibliography of scholarship on medieval English drama. Each item has been annotated in the bibliography with considerable care; these annotations are descriptive rather than critical and give a clear synopsis of the content of each reference, the texts with which it deals, and a brief indication of its critical position. The bibliography is divided into two sections; editions and collections of plays, and critical works. The bibliography is exhaustive rather than selective and provides English annotations for foreign language works, as well as a list of reviews for most books. The book covers liturgical and folk drama, other forms of entertainment, and related material useful to researchers in the field. The book provides an update of sources not listed in Carl J. Stratman's comprehensive Bibliography of Medieval Drama published in 1972.
