Courtly Pastimes

Gloria Allaire is Associate Professor of Italian at the University of Kentucky. Her primary research interest has been Italian chivalric literature of the late Middle Ages. She has presented over 50 conference papers and published 45 articles or book chapters. Her seven books include Andrea da Barberino and the Language of Chivalry (University Press of Florida, 1997); two Italian prose Tristan editions with facing-page English translations (D. S. Brewer, 2002 and 2015); The Arthur of the Italians [. . .], co-edited with F. Regina Psaki (University of Wales Press, 2014); and an essay collection, The Italian Novella (Routledge, 2003).

Courtly Pastimes analyzes the underlying rationales for such activities: to display power and prestige, to acquire cultural capital, to instill a sense of community, or to build diplomatic alliances.

Introduction / 1. The Emergence of Courtliness in Wace¿s Roman de Brut and Roman de Rou: Pastimes of the Rulers of Brittany and the Dukes of Normandy / 2. Performing the Embrace: Intertextuality in Bernard de Clairvaux's Sermons on the Song of Songs and Chrétien de Troyes' Erec et Enide / 3. Tower, Bower, Garden, and Forest: Hide-and-Seek for Courtly Lovers / 4. Marie de France at Play: Equitan as Courtly Diversion or Carnivalesque Subversion? / 5. Courtly Pastimes and Nature in Gottfried von Strassburg's Tristan: Reading Ecology and Hybridity / 6. Sî jehent er lebe noch hiute: Courtly Play and Places of Imagination in Thirteenth-Century German Mural Cycles / 7. Fishing for Meaning: Immersive Reading and the Codex Manesse Frontispieces / 8. The Apotheosis of Provençal Fin'amors in Alfonso X's Marian Poetry / 9. The Performance of Courtliness in the Dits of Guillaume de Machaut / 10. Blind Man's Buff: From Children¿s Games to Pleasure Gardens in the Late Middle Ages / 11. Amorous and Poetic Games in Christine de Pizan's Queen's Manuscript (London, British Library, MS Harley 4431) / 12. Medieval(ist) Pastimes, or What's a Belle dame Doing in a Place like Hatfield House? / 13. Performative Courtliness in Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur / 14. Ritual, Public Pageantry, and Urban Justice: The Seizaine de mai of Bourges / 15. Ritterspiele: The Spectacle of the Courtly Tournament in Late Medieval Germany / 16. Bayard / Baiardo: The Equine Protagonist from French Chansons de geste to Italian Chivalric Poems