Transforming the Medieval Iberian Canon: Finding a Space for Women

In their compelling analysis of the gender of the Hispanic literary canon, Crista Johnson and Joan Brown show that the representation of female authors, across centuries and continents, on required reading lists at Ph.D.-granting institutions in the United States is, at best, minimal and inconsistent. Scholarly activity on women writers, however, is substantial -one might even say vigorous- and so sadly at odds with those lists of required or canonical works. Johnson and Brown ask: How much time must elapse before current scholarly trends are communicated to the next generation of scholars? (1998, 473)

Dones que feyan d\u27homens : The Construction of Gender in the Writing of Medieval Catalan History

In the fourteenth-century Crown of Aragón, society considered a good woman, regardless of social class, to be a silent one who restricted herself to the domestic duties of the home. Once married, a good wife was to be chaste, bear many offspring, educate her children, manage the household, act piously, and uphold the good name of the family in all that she did.1 Equally important was her obligation to serve as peacemaker and alliance builder, both inside and outside of her immediate family, by virtue of her docility and capacity for submission to her husband and his kin (Vecchio 109). Women of the nobility had additional expectations to fulfill. On occasions they were expected to participate in political councils and their advice was often sought and considered in planning familial strategies and alliances (Lois L. Huneycutt 189). A nobleman\u27s wife was expected to serve as intercessor for those petitioning favors from her husband. By choosing an appropriate woman in marriage, a nobleman sought to ensure the loyalty of his vassals, augment his landed holdings, and polish his foreign policy. In sum, it was widely held that a woman\u27s honor resided in her submission to her male kin, and her physical and verbal chastity

Textual History of Li Livres dou tresor: Fitting the Pieces Together

Modern editors of medieval texts all face the singular difficulty of determining which version of a text they will edit. Will they adhere to one manuscript? Will they attempt to recreate the author\u27s original? Will they eliminate or include interpolations and glosses? In the Middle Ages, the concepts of literary originality and authorship were not exalted as they are today. In fact, as succinctly stated by Cerquiglini (1989, 25), L\u27auteur n\u27est pas une idee medievale. Rather, literary compositions were fluid artifacts which were commonly modified with every copying or recitation, although they were frequently attributed to one source. Today, when faced with several extant versions of a given text, scholars of medieval texts must inevitably choose one for publication and subsequent incorporation into the literary canon. As Speer (1991 , 42) asserts, the factors which determine how an editor shapes his/ her text can be found in a three-fold response to the question What is the text? These factors are (l) the material considerations, grounded in codicological evidence; (2) literary history, which considers the author and his socio-historical milieu; (3) theoretical perspectives, stemming from the intent of the piece

A Queen’s Task: Violant de Bar and the Experience of Royal Motherhood in Fourteenth-Century Aragón

In a letter to Pere III dated 11 March 1381, the fifteen-year-old duchess of Gerona, Violant de Bar, joyously announces her first pregnancy: notifich a Ia vostra senyoria per tal com se que n\u27haurets plaer que\u27m s6 feta prenys, e\u27m trob be ab lo prenyat, grades ne vajen a Deu (ACA, reg. 1821, fol. 68\u3c). 1 So begins her procreative trial as wife of the king\u27s first-born son,Joan, heir to the powerful Crown of Aragon. Fifteen years later, we find King Joan dead without a legitimate male heir and the process of his brother Marti\u27s succession in great confusion because, according to historian E.L. Miron

Performance Management or “Herding Cats”? Strategies to Support Faculty Success

Presenters and participants will engage in analysis and discussion of several case studies illustrating common faculty performance issues. Presenters will share practical performance management tools and best practices for promoting faculty success

A Reappraisal of the Correpondence of Violant de Bar

Notarial documents are an indispensible resource for the history of culture, politics, and literature, because they are free from much of the social and cultural prejudices that color many literary texts. As the Spanish literary critic, Maria Eugenia Lacarra, rightly states in a recent article on feminist approaches to medieval Spanish history and literature «It is unfortunate that notarial documents, which are the least ideologically contaminated sources and therefore the most reliable, have been least studied [by literary historians]» (r988, r4). Precisely because this type of source material helps the critic see past culturally propagated misrepresentations of reality, Lacarra advocates more thorough utilization of notarial material in the study of women's history and literature in Spain. Wills, inventories, diaries, and particularly letters, were richly cultivated by women during the Middle Ages, because of their accessibility and their intrinsic link tv the domestic life to which most women were bound. Notarial source material of this type, which is written in the highly personal and authoritative first person, clearly provides the least obstructed path of access to the voice, vision, and experience of the medieval woman.This article is from Catalan Review 8 (1994): 295. Posted with permission.</p

'Ab les man junctes e genolls en terra': Intercession and the Notion of Queenship in Late Medieval Catalonia

Did medieval women who wore the crown share a common notion of queenship or recognize their own membership in a privileged group? Throughout medieval Europe the most salient images of queenship were those of wife, mother, and intercessor, familiar to the general population through Biblical and literary sources. This essay suggests that medieval Mediterranean queens were, in fact, aware of the power and influence that their role as intercessor afforded them. Two texts composed by the Aragonese queen Violant de Bar are used to shed light on a notion of queenship seemingly understood by her contemporaries, both male and female. The proemi or prologue of the queen's address on judicial reform to the Catalano-Aragonese corts generals of 1388- 1389 and a lengthy letter (1421) to queen Marfa of Castile reference the responsibilities of the queen in mediating tensions and hostilities between the king and his rivals. From these documents, one gleans that queenship in early fifteenth-century Mediterranean Europe appears to have been viewed by its practitioners as a divinely-appointed office that entailed grave responsibility, as well as influence, by means of its emphasis on intercession.This article is from Catalan Review 20 (2006): 211. Posted with permission.</p