Preliminary Programme

In the XII century the court of Henry II played a leading role in the development of the idea of courtliness and was a laboratory for the weapons of the courtiers: the word. The Plantagenet court was unique in using literature to translate, fight or explain, in literary terms, the conflicts of the Angevin Empire. Many texts are used as a medium for other messages that are hidden under the fine courtly language.
In my presentation I would like to analyse a particular case study: the De nugis curialium of Walter Map. An atypical text, its author was of a venomous nature and typically courtly. His work, a heterogeneous anthology written in fine Latin, discusses all the important themes of the XII century world of the courts. Walter Map tells the most incredible stories as though he had witnessed them himself. Between fairy tales, knights, tournaments and biting satire there are a lot of kings and queens to be seen: images that speak of a capacity to rule, and also personal attitudes.
When reading these stories one needs to keep in mind the double-nature of courtly texts, both literary and political, which are closely connected with the aspiration of the patron and the writer. The description of royalty in the work of Walter Map refers directly to the needs of Angevin power: painting portraits of good and bad kings, real and fantastic. The descriptions of Henry I, Luis VII and other rulers, could betray the opinions of the author, of his patron or more likely, which notions of royalty and kings they wanted to propagate.

Fabrizio de Falco
Università di Bologna (Show less)

One of the most difficult aspects for that who study royal courts is to assure the people we characterize as officers were in fact serving the king or at least in the Court. The analyses of salaries or nominations not always give us a reliable image -especially for some professions. Trying to provide new arguments I propose to resume the historiographical notion of royal courts as a social center but employing some sociological tools. The application of the methodology of the Social Network Analysis, and in a general view the relational dimension of the Court, could provide us new perspectives about how the royal service linked sovereign and subjects and the elites among them. To achieve this I will emphasize in mi paper a qualitative perception of service and the weight of courtier's social capital (Bourdieu 1980).
The aim of this proposal is to value social ties, more than living together, as one of the most interesting mechanisms in the political actuation, spite of both were strongly related and take place in sovereigns’ courts. Thus, royal service will be considered like a category more than a situation, and the role of national elites will be stressed in the reinforcement of the monarchical power. Ferdinand II of Aragon’s entourage could be a good example in this regard due to he was a monarch that increases continuously his territories and whose elites becomes more and more remote form the king. If Ferdinand the Catholic introduced the mainstreams of the Hapsburgs’ court system or he preserve the political notions of the medieval policy will be one of the topics to discuss. His reformulation of an Iberian empire will help us in this debate.
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One of the central statements of the Black Legend against the Spanish Monarchy is that the American silver financed the hegemony of the Catholic King. Thanks to this money, the Habsburgs were able to raise great armies and to bribe foreign ministers. This second trend has not been thoroughly researched: one of the pillars of the European power of the Spanish King seemed to be the rewarding of clue individuals who were not vassals but clients, allies, or friends. Far from being a homogeneous group, Roman cardinals, Imperial and Italian princes, French and English noblemen and exiled from Ireland, the Ottoman Empire or Portugal received pensions and honors from the Spanish King. Apart from Catholic individuals, also loyal Protestants from Germany or England were accepted, as well as Jewish and Muslim spies. An overview of the trends and evolution of this soft power strategy to hegemony raises questions of contending loyalties, international financing and global politics. Furthermore, it offers a privileged standpoint to discuss the priorities and policy-making of the Spanish monarchy and to compare it with other contemporary polities: were the Spanish Kings especially successful gathering foreign allies? What could they offer beyond mere economical benefit? (Show less)

During the Catholic Kings’ reign (1474-1504), a late gothic sumptuary and ceremonial model, developed from the late Fourteenth Century, was imposed at the Court of Castile in order to respond to concerns and political aims of the Castilian monarchy in the Late Middle Ages. The process was the result of interaction with other courts and political actors of the kingdom. But also it was the result of the new cultural, sumptuary and ceremonial influence reached Castile in 1502, with the court of Philip, Archduke of Austria, husband of the “infanta” Juana of Castile. A model that, also with some changes operated during the reigns of John II (1406-1454) and Henry IV of Castile (1454-1474), enriched and reoriented the systems of royal representation, thanks to a balance between the controlled adoption of international forms and ways of expression (which were characteristic of the cultural and ceremonial baggage of European monarchies of the moment) and the empowerment of those indigenous elements (linked to Spanish idiosyncrasy). These trends favored the consolidation of the model emerged during the firsts half of the Fifteenth Century, characterized by the following features: the late gothic architecture; the musical polyphony; the tapestries; the black as the color magnificence; the temporary architectures; the heraldic representations; the international fashions; or the portraits in the Flemish-style. But also, this model was characterized by some Castilian peculiarities as: manifestations linked to the “mudéjar” or islamic cultural model, the Spanish liturgy, or the characteristic Spanish chant. These changes took place in a context characterized by the promotion of new concepts as “wonder”, “magnificence” or “protonacionalism”. (Show less)