Urban panegyric & the transformation of the medieval city, 1100-1300 / Paul Oldfield.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Oldfield, Paul (Lecturer in medieval history), author.

Series:

Oxford studies in medieval European history

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cities and towns, Medieval--Europe--History--To 1500.

Cities and towns, Medieval, in literature.

Cities and towns, Medieval.

History.

Europe.

Cities and towns.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

216 pages ; 24 cm.

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2019.

Summary:

This study offers the first extensive analysis of the function and significance of urban panegyric in the Central Middle Ages, a flexible literary genre which enjoyed a marked and renewed popularity in the period 1100 to 1300. In doing so, it connects the production of urban panegyric to major underlying transformations in the medieval city and explores praise of cities primarily in England, Flanders, France, Germany, Iberia, and Italy (including the South and Sicily). The volume demonstrates how laudatory ideas on the city appeared in extremely diverse textual formats which had the potential to interact with a wide audience via multiple textual and material sources. When contextualized within the developments of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries these ideas could reflect more than formulaic, rhetorical outputs for an educated elite, they were instead integral to the process of urbanisation. In Urban Panegyric and the Transformation of the Medieval City, 1100-1300, Paul Oldfield assesses the generation of ideas on the Holy City, on counter-narratives associated with the Evil City, on the inter-relationship between the City and abundance (primarily through discourses on commercial productivity, hinterlands and population size), on0landscapes and sites of power, and on knowledge generation and the construction of urban histories. 0.

This study offers the first extensive analysis of the function and significance of urban panegyric in the Central Middle Ages, a flexible literary genre which enjoyed a marked and renewed popularity in the period 1100 to 1300. In doing so, it connects the production of urban panegyric to major underlying transformations in the medieval city and explores praise of cities primarily in England, Flanders, France, Germany, Iberia, and Italy (including the South and Sicily). The study demonstrates how laudatory ideas on the city appeared in extremely diverse textual formats which had the potential to interact with a wide audience via multiple textual and material sources.

Contents:

The sources: an overview

Interpretation and audience

The holy city

The evil city: urban critiques

The city of abundance: commerce, hinterland, people

Urban landscapes and sites of power

Education, history, and sophistication in praise of the medieval city.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0198717733

9780198717737

OCLC:

1037807332