Theodore Evergates provides the first systematic analysis of the aristocracy in the county of Champagne under the independent counts. He argues that three factors-the rise of the comital state, ...fiefholding, and the conjugal family-were critical to shaping a loose assortment of baronial and knightly families into an aristocracy with shared customs, institutions, and identity. Evergates mines the rich, varied, and in some respects unique collection of source materials from Champagne to provide a dynamic picture of a medieval aristocracy and its evolving symbiotic relationship with the counts. Count Henry the Liberal (1152-81) began the process of transforming a quasi-independent baronage accustomed to collegial governance into an elite of landholding families subordinate to the count and his officials. By the time Countess Jeanne married the future King Philip IV of France in 1284, the fiefholding families of Champagne had become a distinct provincial nobility. Throughout, it was the conjugal community, rather than primogeniture or patrilineage, that remained the core familial institution determining the customs regarding community property, dowry, dower, and partible inheritance. Those customs guaranteed that every lineage would survive, but frequently through a younger son or daughter. The life courses of women and men, influenced not only by social norms but also by individual choice and circumstance, were equally unpredictable. Evergates concludes that imposed models of "the aristocratic family" fail to capture the diversity of individual lives and lineages within one of the more vibrant principalities of medieval France.
Examining a wide body of sources this book offers a comprehensive analysis of late Byzantine attitudes to warfare and places late Byzantine military ethos, thought and practice in the wider ...geographical, cultural and historical context.
Since time immemorial Europe had been dominated by nobles and nobilities. In the 18th century their power seemed better entrenched than ever. But in 1790 the French revolutionaries made a determined ...attempt to abolish nobility entirely. ‘Aristocracy’ became the term for everything they were against, and the nobility of France, so recently the most dazzling and sophisticated elite in the European world, found itself persecuted in ways that horrified counterparts in other countries. This book traces the roots of the attack on nobility at this time, looking at intellectual developments over the preceding centuries, in particular the impact of the American Revolution. It traces the steps by which French nobles were disempowered and persecuted, a period during which large numbers fled the country and many perished or were imprisoned. In the end, abolition of the aristocracy proved impossible, and nobles recovered much of their property. Napoleon set out to reconcile the remnants of the old nobility to the consequences of revolution, and created a titled elite of his own. After his fall, the restored Bourbons offered renewed recognition to all forms of nobility. But 19th-century French nobles were a group transformed and traumatized by the revolutionary experience, and they never recovered their old hegemony and privileges. As the author shows, if the revolutionaries failed in their attempt to abolish nobility, they nevertheless began the longer term process of aristocratic decline that has marked the last two centuries.
iThis is the first dedicated study of the musical patronage of a Roman baronial family in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Patronage – the support of a person or institution and their ...work by a patron – in Renaissance society was the basis of a complex network of familial and political relationships between clients and patrons, whose ideas, values, and norms of behavior were shared with the collective. Bringing to light new archival documentation, this book examines the intricate network of patronage interrelationships in Rome. Unlike other Italian cities where political control was monocentric and exercised by single rulers, sources of patronage in Rome comprised a multiplicity of courts and potential patrons, which included the pope, high prelates, nobles, and foreign diplomats. Morucci uses archival records, and the correspondence of the Orsini and Colonna families in particular, to investigate the local activity and circulation of musicians and the cultivation of music within the broader civic network of Roman aristocratic families during the period. The author also shows that the familial union of the Medici and Orsini families established a bidirectional network for artistic exchange outside of the Eternal City, and that the Orsini-Colonna circle represented a musical bridge between Naples, Rome, and Florence.
Historically, ambition has been considered a vice, if not a crime. Through an invocation of Alexis de Tocqueville's reflections on "democratic ambition" this paper argues that the modern age has not ...only done away with this disapprobation, a particular sort of ambition is not only permitted, it is demanded. The paper thus asks two central questions: 1) how can we understand ambition in the democratic age and 2) how should we think of those who do not cleave to the demands of democratic ambition-i.e., those who refuse to be eaten up by the incessant longing for material well-being? We make the argument in three parts, each part focusing on a different implication of the necessity of ambition in democratic times. First, we highlight the danger of ambition unrestrained. Second, we explore how Tocqueville thought the most egregious ramifications of democratic ambition will be ameliorated, namely by the effects of land, commerce, and community. And, third, we explore the fate of the contented-i.e., those who deviate from democracy's requirements for ambition-both those who cling to aristocratic ambitions and those who are insufficiently ambitious for material improvement.
The extent to which the Great War impacted upon English landed society is most vividly recalled in the loss of young heirs to ancient estates. English Landed Society in the Great War considers the ...impact of the war on these estates. Using the archives of Country Life, Edward Bujak examines the landed estate that flourished in England. In doing so, he explores the extent to which the wartime state penetrated into the heartlands of the landed aristocracy and gentry, and the corrosive effects that the progressive and systematic militarization of the countryside had on the authority of the squire. The book demonstrates how the commitment of landowners to the defence of an England of home and beauty – an image also adopted in wartime propaganda – ironically led to its transformation. By using the landed estate to examine the transition from Edwardian England to modern Britain, English Landed Society in the Great War provides a unique lens through which to consider the First World War and its impact on English society.
Abstract The very short-lived newspaper, Erdélyi Társaság, appeared in Tg. Mureş in the period 1921-1922. It was created as a society, cultural, arts newspaper. In its columns it presented society ...news, literary works, sporting events, cultural events. The newspaper is considered to be almost unique in the history of the Tg. Mureş written press.
Lordship in four realms Veach, Colin
2015, 2015., 20140330, 2014, 2015-11-01, Letnik:
12
eBook
This book examines the rise and fall of the aristocratic Lacy family in England, Ireland, Wales and Normandy. This involves a unique analysis of medieval lordship in action, as well as a re-imagining ...of the role of English kingship in the western British Isles and a rewriting of seventy-five years of Anglo-Irish history. By viewing the political landscape of Britain and Ireland from the perspective of one aristocratic family, this book produces one of the first truly transnational studies of individual medieval aristocrats. This results in an in-depth investigation of aristocratic and English royal power over five reigns, including during the tumultuous period of King John and Magna Carta. By investigating how the Lacys sought to rule their lands in four distinct realms, this book also makes a major contribution to current debates on lordship and the foundations of medieval European society.
