Date of Award
8-2014
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
Medieval Studies
First Advisor
Dr. Robert F. Berkhofer III
Second Advisor
Dr. James R. Palmitessa
Third Advisor
Dr. Pablo Pastrana-Pérez
Keywords
Medieval, history, England, Castile, revolt
Access Setting
Masters Thesis-Open Access
Abstract
This thesis studies the rhetoric of revolt in the thirteenth century by comparing documents and chronicles from the Barons War against Henry III of England (1258-1265) and the revolt of the Castilian nobles against Alfonso X of Castile (1271-1273). By undertaking close readings of these Latin and Castilian texts, I uncover many similar approaches to writing revolt in two roughly contemporary and little-compared rebellions. The first comparison of the two briefs submitted by the rebelling English barons to Louis IX of France for arbitration in 1264 with the purported agreement between the Castilian nobles and Alfonso X presented to Enrique I of Navarre in 1273 yields a common emphasis on previous authority and custom and differing attitudes towards kings and rebels. The second comparison of the 1266 Dictum of Kenilworth and the charter generated from the 1273 assembly of Almagro reveals a shared royal emphasis on maintaining and asserting the king’s power and authority. Finally, the comparison between Matthew Paris’s Chronica Majora and its continuation with the Crónica de Alfonso X reveals a shared preference for vocabulary denoting the formal and hierarchical status of the nobles instead of terms evocative of their rebellious actions.
Recommended Citation
Bjerke, Jillian M., "Rhetoric of Revolt in Thirteenth-Century Castile and England" (2014). Masters Theses. 518.
https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/masters_theses/518