Authority and Spectacle in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Essays in Honor of Teofilo F. Ruiz / Edition 1

by Yuen-Gen Liang, Jarbel Rodriguez

Overview

Bringing together distinguished scholars in honor of Professor Teofilo F. Ruiz, this volume presents original and innovative research on the critical and uneasy relationship between authority and spectacle in the period from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries, focusing on Spain, the Mediterranean and Latin America.

Cultural scholars such as Professor Ruiz and his colleagues have challenged the notion that authority is elided with high politics, an approach that tends to be monolithic and disregards the uneven application and experience of power by elite and non-elite groups in society by highlighting the significance of spectacle. Taking such forms as ceremonies, rituals, festivals, and customs, spectacle is a medium to project and render visible power, yet it is also an ambiguous and contested setting, where participants exercise the roles of both actor and audience. Chapters in this collection consider topics such as monarchy, wealth and poverty, medieval cuisine and diet and textual and visual sources.

The individual contributions in this volume collectively represent a timely re-examination of authority that brings in the insights of cultural theory, ultimately highlighting the importance of representation and projection, negotiation and ambivalence.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781472454577
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	01/24/2017
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Yuen-Gen Liang is Associate Professor of History at National Taiwan University, Taipei. His previous publications include Family and Empire: The Fernández de Córdoba and the Spanish Realm (2011).

Jarbel Rodriguez is Professor of History at San Francisco State University. His previous publications include Captives and their Saviors in the Medieval Crown of Aragon (2009).

Table of Contents

List of Figures

Acknowledgments

Notes on Contributors

Authority and Spectacle: Teofilo F. Ruiz and the Study of Medieval and Early Modern Europe Yuen-Gen Liang and Jarbel Rodriguez

Part I – Authority in Borders and Conquests

1. A Border Policy? Louis IX and the Spanish Connection

William C. Jordan

2. The King, the Coin, and the Word: Imagining and Enacting Castilian Frontiers in the Late Medieval Iberia

Claire Gilbert

3. An End to Conquests: Military Debates and Political Culture in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Spain

Xavier Gil

4. ‘All Things to All Men’: Political Messianism in Late Medieval and Early Modern Spain

Bryan Givens

Part II – Authority in Texts, Taxes, and Penury

5. Transmitting Urgency in the Romance: An Example of Strategic Codeswitching in the Crown of Aragon’s Thirteenth-Century Royal Chancery

Antonio Zaldivar

6. The Issues of Fiscal Systems in Castilian Towns from 1369 to 1474

Denis Menjot

7. Authority and Poverty in Late-Medieval Spain

Francisco Garcia-Serrano

Part III – Spectacles of Purity in the Body and in the Realm

8. The Saint at the Gate: Giving Relics a ‘Royal Entry’ in Eleventh to Twelfth-Century France

Kate Craig

9. Medieval Cuisines and the Seasons of the Year

Paul Freedman

10. Medieval Media and Minorities: Jews and Muslims in the Cantigas de Santa María

David Nirenberg

Part IV – Spectacles of Empire and Identity

11. Poor Colors, Rich Colors: Spanish Clothing in the Early Sixteenth Century

Hilario Casado Alonso

12. Mobilizing Sanctity: Pius II and the Head of Andrew in Rome

Maya Maskarinec

13. Nuestros Españoles: The First Spaniards and the first Hapsburg Chronicles

Katherine van Liere

14. Muy grandes hombres de acaballo’: Spanish Horsemanship a la jineta and Bernardo Vargas Machuca’s New Science

Kathryn Renton

Epilogue – The Workings of Power: Authority and Festivals in Medieval and Early Modern Europe

Teofilo F. Ruiz

Bibliography of Teofilo F. Ruiz publications