Group items tagged

Dance of Death, also variously called Danse Macabre (French), Danza Macabra (Italian and Spanish), Dança da Morte (Portuguese), Totentanz (German), Dodendans (Dutch), is a late-medieval allegory on the universality of death: no matter one's station in life, the Dance of Death unites all. There is also a strong element of estates satire. The Danse Macabre consists of the dead or personified Death summoning representatives from all walks of life to dance along to the grave, typically with a pope, emperor, king, youngster, and labourer. They were produced to remind people of the fragility of their lives and how vain were the glories of earthly life.[1] Its origins are postulated from illustrated sermon texts; the earliest recorded visual scheme was a now lost mural in the cemetery of the Holy Innocents in Paris dating from 1424-25.

People of Action during THE MIDDLE AGES (450 to 1400 AD)

Art has been a medium through which people have not only documented, but also shaped history-both past and future. Periodically, individuals, groups, and societies have also drawn on or appropriated artistic forms of the past to make statements in and about the present. Art can commemorate existence, achievements, and failures, and it can be used to record and create communal as well as personal memories.

1. Between Magna Carta and the Parliamentary State: The fine rolls of King Henry III 1216-1272 and the project A fine in the reign of King Henry III (1216-1272) was an agreement to pay the king a sum of money for a specified concession. The rolls on which the fines were recorded provide the earliest systematic evidence of what people and institutions across society wanted from the king and he was prepared to give. They open a large window onto the politics, government, economy and society of England in the hinge period between the establishment of Magna Carta at the start of Henry's reign and the parliamentary state which was emerging at its end. This Project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, makes the rolls freely available to a wide audience while at the same time, in the Fine of the Month feature, providing regular comment on their historical interest. Users of the website are also invited to follow and contribute to the Fine Rolls blog.

In 1176 a delegation from Sicily came to the English court, asking for Joan's hand in marriage on behalf of William II of Sicily. Joan's parents agreed to the proposal, and the betrothal was confirmed. On the 27th of August, Joan, together with a large group of people consisting of ladies-in-waiting, knights, clergy and various retainers, laid out to sail for Sicily. The trip began with the short stretch from Winchester to Southampton, escorted by the archbishops of Canterbury and Rouen, the bishop of Evreux and her father's brother Hamelane. Then Prince Henry, her oldest brother, accompanied her across the Channel and into France to Poitiers. There she was met by another brother, Richard, who escorted her through the Duchy of Aquitaine, across the allied County of Toulouse to Saint Gilles Port, where Bishop Richard Palmer welcomed her in the name of the King of Sicily. Twenty-five Sicilian ships awaited the young princess to sail her to her husband-to-be. The last part of the journey left Joan seasick, but she finally arrived at the end of January and married William at Palermo Cathedral on the 13th of February 1177 at the tender age of eleven while her husband was twenty-three! She was crowned, and was now queen consort.

Our story begins in 1360. It was a time of castles and intrigue, of knights and chivalry. Less than twenty years before, the Black Death had decimated Europe's population. Twenty years later, Wat Tyler would meet his fate while leading a peasant uprising. In the meantime, Geoffrey Chaucer the great English poet, was writing his famous Canterbury Tales. The Knights of France and England had tales to tell of their own. Of jousting and tournaments. Of fair maidens and dragons. Of King Arthur and the Round Table. English speakers then did not sound like English speakers today. But people who attended the popular jousting tournaments of the 14th century expected from their heroes what we expect from ours: Courage in the face of great danger.

The international effects of Black Death Death and disease were familiar features of life in the Middle Ages, but previous epidemics were dwarfed by the arrival of the Black Death. It erupted out of central Asia to create a pandemic greater even than the Plague of Justinian 800 years earlier. Present in bubonic, pneumonic and septicaemic forms, the Black Death had killed millions by the time it finally declined. Europe may have lost a third of its people, China perhaps half. Besides death, the disease brought fear, panic and very often a complete breakdown of society.

In 1347 news reached England of a horrifying and incurable disease that was spreading from Asia through North Africa and Europe. The Black Death struck London in the autumn of 1348. No one knew how to stop the disease. During the next 18 months it killed half of all Londoners - perhaps 40,000 people.

"In his anger at the English barons, William commanded that all crops and herds, chattels and foods should be burned to ashes, so that the whole of the North be stripped of all means of survival. So terrible a famine fell upon the people, that more than 100,000 young and old starved to death. My writings have often praised William, but for this act I can only condemn him." Orderic Vitalis

William was furious and decided to lay waste the north of England - the so-called "Harrying of the North". Norman soldiers destroyed anything that might have been of use to those who lived in the north. It is thought that as many as 100,000 people died of starvation.

The English Peasants' Revolt of 1381 erupted suddenly, but not without warning. The seeds of dissent fell from the tree that was medieval society itself and were watered by the continuous oppression of the poor in towns as well as the countryside by those in power. Artisans, parish priests, poor city workers, and even small traders rose with the peasants in their call for the abolition of feudal obligations (serfdom) and the resulting economic/social injustice they had endured for so long. The wide variety of rebels indicates the tremendous level of dissatisfaction with the corruption in government and the confines of 14th century English society; this dissatisfaction indicates that the people were thinking and questioning instead of meekly accepting their role as a human beast without hope for a better life. The Revolt may have failed in its immediate goals, but it served as a link in the quest of the poor for emancipation from servitude, controlled wages, and unfair taxes. Their expression of concerns, desires, and demands was an example in courage, courage to challenge the strict boundaries of society.

In the time before Columbus sailed the ocean blue, a cooler central Pacific Ocean has been connected with drought conditions in Europe and North America that may be responsible for famines and the disappearance of cliff dwelling people in the American West.

The Black Death of the Middle Ages was a truly devastating pandemic - a pandemic being the Military-Industrial Full Blown Version of an epidemic. In the mid-1300s, the Black Death killed at least one third of the European population, so it was truly horrible. So most people think that the Black Death began in Europe - but it didn't.

"The current paper surveys and analyzes the ecological and economic crisis of 1093- 1096, as the prelude to the First Crusade, chiefly in its "popular" form. The pestilence of 1093-1094, drought and famine of 1095 have increased the religious zeal and social violence of the popular masses in regions of Germany, the Low Countries and France. This combination has turned into the (failed) crusade. The collective behaviour of the crusading rustics reflects their economic distress, religious zeal and violent mood, at the same time."

Women's involvement with medieval music took a variety of forms; they served at times as audience, as participant, as sponsor, and as creator. The evidence for their roles, like that for their male contemporaries, is sporadic at best. Many musical sources have been lost, and those sources that do survive only occasionally provide composer attributions. Information on specific performances is virtually non-existent, and the references to musical performances gleaned from literary allusions must be read critically. Similarly, an art-work portraying a women musician may be representational or symbolic--or both. Yet despite these handicaps, modern scholarship reveals many ways in which medieval women were engaged with--and enriched by--the music that flourished around them.

Course description for THE MILITARY ORDERS, 1100-1320, - page includes links to resources,