IMC 2013: Sessions
Session 1518: Martial Pleasures?: Jousting, Shooting, and Fencing in Late Medieval Culture
Thursday 4 July 2013, 09.00-10.30
Organiser: | Uwe Israel, Lehrstuhl für Mittelalterliche Geschichte, Technische Universität, Dresden |
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Moderator/Chair: | Uwe Israel, Lehrstuhl für Mittelalterliche Geschichte, Technische Universität, Dresden |
Paper 1518-a | Jousting Rules!: Tournaments and the Medici's Struggle for Fitness in 15th-Century Florence (Language: English) Index terms: Local History, Military History, Politics and Diplomacy, Social History |
Paper 1518-b | Shooting Contests in Upper Germany in the 15th Century: Martial Pleasures without Military Purposes (Language: English) Index terms: Local History, Military History, Social History |
Paper 1518-c | For Money, Blood, or Entertainment: The Fencing Schools in the Late Middle Ages (Language: English) Index terms: Local History, Military History, Social History |
Abstract | At the interface between military ethic, civic self-fashioning, and urban sport cultures, the martial practices of jousting, shooting, and fencing have been perceived as rather ambivalent phenomena of late medieval urban history. Based on examples from Upper Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, this session will discuss the role pleasure played at these competitive performances of martial skills, staged as spectacular and festive urban entertainments and highly charged with messages of status, gender, honor, and civic identity. In this context, such events could be interpreted as a specific blending of leisure and the delicate task of representing oneself, one’s family, peer group, and urban community in an appropriate way. |