IMC 2024: Sessions

This panel highlights the importance of literary approaches to the study of arms, armour, and combat. Jacob H. Deacon will compare narrative accounts of fifteenth-century foot combat in the Livre des faits de Jacques de Lalaing with contemporary fight books, pragmatic texts which address how to fight, specifically Le Jeu de la Hache. Deacon’s paper explores how the author of the Livre des faits uses technical terminology to establish the martial prowess of his subject. Hélène Leblanc will also consider fight books, arguing that signs of philosophical and theological university culture permeate fencing texts. Her paper will focus on that specific part of philosophy with which every student starts – scholastic logic – as this knowledge was available to those with little university education and allows for a reverse analysis of the presence of fencing elements within the corpus of scholastic logic literature. Antti Ijäs addresses the fourteenth-century Bellifortis of Konrad Kyeser, a thoroughly illustrated manuscript depicting siege engines, weapons, and other equipment. Bellifortis concludes with three poems, including a tribute to the artes, an epitaph lamenting Konrad’s approaching death, and a horoscope detailing his birth. Ijäs’ paper considers the metrics of this verse and the significance of Konrad’s astronomical interests and addressing of liberal and technical arts.