The Provincial Aristocratic Household in Late Medieval England

Sponsoring Organization(s)

Special Session

Organizer Name

B. S. W. Barootes

Organizer Affiliation

Centre for Medieval Studies, Univ. of Toronto

Presider Name

B. S. W. Barootes

Paper Title 1

Textual Domesticity in the Transitive Household

Presenter 1 Name

Heather Blatt

Presenter 1 Affiliation

Florida International Univ.

Paper Title 2

"All thinges well ordered": Household Imagery and Hagiographic Authority in Henry Bradshaw's Saints' Lives

Presenter 2 Name

Christina M. Carlson

Presenter 2 Affiliation

Iona College

Paper Title 3

"Better were meles many than a mery nyghte": Managing Noble Households in Wynnere and Wastoure

Presenter 3 Name

Katelyn Jaynes

Presenter 3 Affiliation

Univ. of Connecticut

Paper Title 4

Rise, Fall, and Rewriting: The House of Northumberland's Literary Architecture

Presenter 4 Name

Nöelle Phillips

Presenter 4 Affiliation

Douglas College

Start Date

13-5-2018 10:30 AM

Session Location

Schneider 1275

Description

This interdisciplinary panel explores the rich world of the provincial household in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Although often mocked in the cosmopolitan capital, provincial courts were sites of important social, cultural, and historical innovation and advancement: Yorkshire and the North witnessed early interest in eremitic and vernacular piety; the West Midlands and the Marches fostered the alliterative revival; and in rural Gloucestershire, Lord Berkeley’s Cornish clerk John Trevisa translated one of the great scientific texts of the age. Far from the dark and draughty halls imagined by urbane detractors, the provincial household was frequently a shining example of the wealth, learning, and worldliness found in the furthest reaches of the kingdom.

Benjamin S W Barootes