Showing Status: Representation of Social Positions in the Late Middle Ages

Description

How did people in the late medieval period perceive and express social status? This volume brings together multi-disciplinary perspectives on representations of social difference in the Low Countries during a time of dynamic social change. The premise of the volume is that medieval social change may only be fully understood if hierarchies of wealth and power are examined alongside literary and artistic sources. Medieval texts and material culture expressed social standing and gave meaning to the experience of social change. The aim of the study is to recognise and translate the language of symbols used to encode and display status in the late Middle Ages. Preface ix The Feeling of Being Oneself / WlM BLOCKMANS 1 PART I. POSITIONING BY MILIEU Showing off One’s Rank in the Middle Ages / Raymond van Uytven 19 Attitudes and Social Positioning in Courtly Romances: Hainault, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries / Danielle Queruel 35 Gifts of Mourning-Cloth at the Brabantine Court in the Fifteenth Century / Robert Stein 51 Self-Representation of Court and City in Flanders and Brabant in the Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries / Wim Blockmans and Esther Donckers 81 Marriage and Noble Lifestyle in Holland in the Late Middle Ages / Antheun Janse 113 On the Nature of True Nobility: Views from Dutch Courtiers in the Early Fifteenth Century / Jeanne Verbij-Schillings 139 Rich Men, Poor Men: Social Stratification and Social Representation at the University (13th-16th Centuries) / Hilde de Ridder-Symoens 159 Around Saint George: Integration and Precedence during the Meetings of the Civic Militia of The Hague / Fred J. W. van Kan 177 Ownership of Graves in Medieval Parish Churches in Holland / Koen Goudriaan 197 PART II. VISIONS AND PROBLEMS Love and Marriage: Fictional Perspectives / Annelies van Gijsen 227 Functions of Fiction: Fighting Spouses around 1500 / Wim Blockmans and Tess Neijzen 265 Visual Comments of the Mutability of Social Positions and Values in Netherlandish and German Art of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries / Hans-Joachim Raupp 277 The Wearing of Significative Badges, Religious and Secular: The Social Meaning of a Behavioural Pattern / Jos Koldewed 307 Treacherously Significant Woodcarving: Woodcuts in Dutch-Language (Post-)Incunabula as a Source for Socio-Historical Research / Hanneke de Bruin 329 PART III. POSITIONING BY SOCIAL FUNCTION Jan van Ruusbroec and the Social Position of Late Medieval Mysticism / Geert Warnar 365 The Position of the Artist in the Fifteenth Century: Salaries and Social Mobility / Maxtmiliaan P. J. Martens 387 Artist and Patron: The Self-Portrait of Adam Kraft in the Sacrament-House of St. Lorenz in Nuremberg / Johann-Christian Klamt 415 Rebels with a Cause: The Peasant Movements of Northern Holland in the Later Middle Ages / Peter Hoppenbrouwers 445 To Appear or to Be / Wim Blockmans 483 The Authors 489