Angel and Sovereign: Henry VII’s Royal Coins, Legitimation, and Relics of Power

The introduction of the angel and later the Tudor sovereign gold coins in the late 1400s became part of a political rhetoric aimed at mediating the king’s image, power, and wealth. However, it also played a part in the legitimation of the Tudor dynasty during the later stages of the Wars of the Roses, a time of Yorkist pretenders and foreign opposition to Henry VII’s reign. As only the rightful king was believed to have the gift of healing, Henry VII appropriated both coins and ritual from the Plantagenet dynasty associated with the sanctity of kingship. Ordinary objects bearing the King’s image were imbued by the people with supernatural and political powers. How could the religious function of contact relics also facilitate the use of the non-religious Tudor gold sovereign and other denominations by mimicking the iconography and ritual use of the angel? And how were these coins used as part of political rhetoric to legitimate the claim for the throne to support a myth of royal succession and prove Tudor right by appealing to the public? This article argues that the coins created and empowered the King with saintly abilities, granting the object carrying the King’s image a reliclike power, further fusing the image with people’s belief in the legitimate King’s God-given power of healing. The visual migration or transfer of an image’s symbolic properties, in this case the transference of its sacred properties to secular objects, mediated both the literal and conceptual image of the King as part of political legitimation against the Yorkist pretenders and foreign powers.publishedVersio

The Kings’ Lines and Lies: Genealogical Rolls in Mythmaking and Political Rhetoric in the Reign of Henry VII

How was Henry VII Tudor and his genealogical lines depicted in contemporary chronicle rolls? What determines the underlying functions realising the changing oppositional arguments in visual rhetoric? Does visual migration of familiar iconography based on collective memory make it possible to use the same images to propagate two opposite truths? In this article I examine two genealogical chronicle rolls on opposite sides in the Wars of the Roses’ later stages. The Plantagenet, Yorkist, and Tudor use of visual historiography was as much a means of political rhetoric as mythmaking and legend, to become part of the national identity and legitimate their claim to the throne. Given their place in the Wars of the Roses and their part in the formation of a state narrative, their use of familiar motifs of power and identity plays on the role myth has in the formation of history and national collective. The visual propaganda in the chronicle rolls plays on myth and history to create a shared collective belonging and a sense of agreed history or preferred truth.publishedVersio

Prince and Pretender: Marian Iconography and Devotion as Political Rhetoric in the Magnificat Window in Great Malvern Priory Church

This article argues that Tudor politics influenced the devotional iconography on display in the Magnificat window in Great Malvern Priory church in Worcestershire, England from 1501. The window proclaims Henry VII’s final victory over Yorkist pretenders to the throne in the years after Bosworth and communicates its position through images of the Virgin Mary. The article discusses how collective memory and visual migration function to bridge the rhetorical and devotional visual language which associated Marian devotion with Tudor politics in the Magnificat window. The rise of Lady Chapels and Marian images in England during the late Middle Ages was accompanied by new additions of Marian devotion and ritual interaction. The combination of Marian iconography and Prince Arthur’s popularity made it possible to present political rhetoric in the visual language of devotion. Persuasive rhetoric and visual devotion function together to incorporate the social role of visual language, late medieval prayer, and public liturgy. The didactic and devotional function of stained-glass windows allows them to become interactive devotional art in sacred spaces, they change with time and sentiment of the people who use the space. In the rhetoric of faith and truth, suggestions, or persuasion via visual rhetoric in the context of churches, emphasise the idea of a force of truth created by their divine context.publishedVersio

Thomas Middleton’s Legal Duel: A Cognitive Approach

This article explores the Duel Scene (Scene 9, 99-277 (II.iii)) in Thomas Middleton's play The Phoenix (1607) in light of cognitive metephor theory. In reading this scene alongside the cultural and social changes in Elizabethan and Jacobean legal discourse, the mutual exchange of influence to both legal and political language and to drama and the theatre. The specific use of metaphoric blended spaces opens up for a combined linguistic and historical analysis

Skranken som læringsrom – redesign av bibliotek for humaniora UiB

Skranken er i dag et viktig fysisk og uformelt læringsrom for studentene, hvor de kan møte faktiske personer og få direkte svar på fagrelaterte spørsmål. Men synet på skrankebemanningen er i stadig endring, nasjonalt og internasjonalt. Hvordan skranken oppfattes som bibliotekets ansikt utad og første møte med studentene, avgjør hvordan vi strategisk bygger opp kompetansen vår. Uttalt behov og brukeropplevelse gir ikke det hele bildet. Bibliotek for Humaniora i Bergen gjennomgikk en stor interiørrenovering under koronapandemien 2020-2021. Dette er første renovering siden overgangen fra lukket referansebibliotek i 2005, i 2021 ble skranken som kontaktpunkt modernisert både i utseende og bemanning. I tilnærmingen til denne ombyggingen ble det satt søkelys på biblioteket som fysisk læringsrom i møte med studenter også i møtet med førstelinjetjenesten. I denne posteren utforsker vi hvordan skranken som fysisk møteplass mellom studenter og biblioteket har utviklet seg gjennom de ulike endringene, og hvordan vi ser for oss en spesialisering av førstelinjetjenesten. Et viktig moment er studentenes utvetydige ønske om fysisk kontakt med biblioteket, hvordan kan vi som fakultetsbibliotek ivareta høy faglig og relevant kompetanse i møte med studentene?publishedVersio

A Note on Backswords in Thomas Middleton

publishedVersio

The Kings’ Lines and Lies: Genealogical Rolls in Mythmaking and Political Rhetoric in the Reign of Henry VII

How was Henry VII Tudor and his genealogical lines depicted in contemporary chronicle rolls? What determines the underlying functions realising the changing oppositional arguments in visual rhetoric? Does visual migration of familiar iconography based on collective memory make it possible to use the same images to propagate two opposite truths? In this article I examine two genealogical chronicle rolls on opposite sides in the Wars of the Roses’ later stages. The Plantagenet, Yorkist, and Tudor use of visual historiography was as much a means of political rhetoric as mythmaking and legend, to become part of the national identity and legitimate their claim to the throne. Given their place in the Wars of the Roses and their part in the formation of a state narrative, their use of familiar motifs of power and identity plays on the role myth has in the formation of history and national collective. The visual propaganda in the chronicle rolls plays on myth and history to create a shared collective belonging and a sense of agreed history or preferred truth

Angel and Sovereign: Henry VII’s Royal Coins, Legitimation, and Relics of Power

The introduction of the angel and later the Tudor sovereign gold coins in the late 1400s became part of a political rhetoric aimed at mediating the king’s image, power, and wealth. However, it also played a part in the legitimation of the Tudor dynasty during the later stages of the Wars of the Roses, a time of Yorkist pretenders and foreign opposition to Henry VII’s reign. As only the rightful king was believed to have the gift of healing, Henry VII appropriated both coins and ritual from the Plantagenet dynasty associated with the sanctity of kingship. Ordinary objects bearing the King’s image were imbued by the people with supernatural and political powers. How could the religious function of contact relics also facilitate the use of the non-religious Tudor gold sovereign and other denominations by mimicking the iconography and ritual use of the angel? And how were these coins used as part of political rhetoric to legitimate the claim for the throne to support a myth of royal succession and prove Tudor right by appealing to the public? This article argues that the coins created and empowered the King with saintly abilities, granting the object carrying the King’s image a reliclike power, further fusing the image with people’s belief in the legitimate King’s God-given power of healing. The visual migration or transfer of an image’s symbolic properties, in this case the transference of its sacred properties to secular objects, mediated both the literal and conceptual image of the King as part of political legitimation against the Yorkist pretenders and foreign powers