Medieval Things

[poliphilo]

I seek out medieval things. It makes me happy to know they're still around. Medieval things are survivors of a vanished civilisation.

I was trying to work out last night exactly when this older civilisation came to an end- and the answer has to be different for different countries. In Southern Europe, according to Burkhart, things changed for ever in 1336 when the poet Petrarch climbed Mont Ventoux for fun.   In England there are two events that serve as possible markers: the battle of Bosworth Field in 1485- which brought our first renaissance monarch to the throne, and the dissolution of the monasteries- which got under way in 1536. I incline towards the earlier date.

I love Tudor things and Jacobean things and 17th and 18th century things- but they don't have the otherness and strangeness of  medieval things. They belong to our current civilisation. They are modern. 

Comments

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I'd characterize Henry VII as a renaissance monarch. Or are you suggesting that without that victory there would have been no Henry VIII?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm open to persuasion.

My case for Henry VII rests on his breaking down of the baronial system and his use of renaissance artists. I'll grant that he is something of a transitional figure- and we didn't go full-blown renaissance until his son took over.

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on the 1485 cut off for the medieval period.

I'm happy with Henry VII as a Renaissance Monarch - I reckon that his reign marks the beginning of an interest in matters Classical and humanist, as opposed to locked firmly in the medieval mindset.

I'm also quite happy to see James III as our first Scots Renaissance King, though James IV is more obviously 'Renaissance' in his outlook, and the 'official' version is that the Renaissance in Scotland doesn't begin until the reign of James V... James III was sufficiently Renaissance to have two of his poncy, well-dressed, intellectual advisers (one of whom was an architect) hanged by his hairy-assed nobles because they couldn't stand playing second fiddle to a bunch of intellectuals.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Bosworth seems as good a marker as any. Henry VII may not have been much of a renaissance monarch, but the Guardian's recent editorial makes a case for Richard III, and what about Edward IV? The York family were patrons of Caxton, and the introduction of printing to England must be a relevant pivotal point.

Add in the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and Columbus's voyage in 1492, and I don't see any grounds for deferring the start of the modern era into the 16th century.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I suppose the truth is the renaissance slowly crept up on us. Caxton is certainly an important figure.

One of my arguments in favour of Henry VII is that he imported the Florentine artist Torrigiano (the man who broke Michelangelo's nose) to make his tomb.