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IMC 2021: Sessions

Session 102: Transformation and Agency in Elite Culture

Monday 5 July 2021, 11.15-12.45

Organiser:Karsten Schuil, Afdeling Geschiedenis Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
Moderator/Chair:John Latham-Sprinkle, Department of History, School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London
Paper 102-aTransmuting a King: Political Disillusionment and Promise in The Ordinal of Alchemy
(Language: English)
Emma Marisa Joppe, Afdeling Geschiedenis, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
Index terms: Language and Literature - Middle English, Political Thought, Science
Paper 102-bThe 'Windy' Emotions of a Pilgrim on His Way to the Holy Land
(Language: English)
Karsten Schuil, Afdeling Geschiedenis Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Monasticism, Religious Life
Abstract

This session will take its start from the discussion of the applicability of the concepts of 'transformations' and 'agency' in the study of political and religious elite cultures in the second half of the 15th century. Each paper will focus on one specific case study and investigate the space in which the agency of a person and transformations in his/her personal life and/or the society meet. The first paper will critically examine the attempt of the 15th-century alchemist Thomas Norton to bring about a transformation in the society of his time, transmuting the unstable political climate under King Edward IV by means of his Ordinal of Alchemy (c. 1477). The last speaker will focus on the descriptions of emotions in the 1482-1483 report of the Swiss Domincan friar Felix Fabri's pilgrimage to the Holy Land. This paper will both discuss how these emotions were influenced by the weather conditions and discuss Fabri's agency in relation to transformations in his own emotions and personal life.