The 1434 Ghent Altarpiece in Close Up

Van Eyck, marvelously zoomable. Thank you, Tracy Justus. Some pretty amazing hats.

Le spectacle des joutes and Splendeurs de la cour de Bourgogne

Régnier-Bohler, Danielle. 1995. Splendeurs de la cour de Bourgogne récits et chroniques. Paris: Laffont

Nadot. 2012. Le spectacle des joutes. Sport et courtoisie à la fin du Moyen Age. Rennes: PU Rennes.

Le spectacle des joutes is fortunately not actually just about jousts. It also covers tournaments and deeds of arms on foot, and focuses primarily on 1428-1470 and the zone where pas d'armes and emprises d'armes were popular. This relatively narrow focus allows detailed coverage of the chosen temporal and geographic range, and several of the encounters and sources were new to me.

Splendeurs de la cour de Bourgogne is a valuable source I found through Nadot. It includes a detailed account of the combat between Henri de Sasse and Jean de Rebremettes in 1458 and the Pas du Perron Feé of 1463. More on that pas in a later post.

Update: Brian Price, the Misnamed Chivalry Bookshelf and the Authors. Also, Vadi.

It is well to know that of all the books still sold by Brian Price/Chivalry Bookshelf, all of the authors, with two exceptions, continue to have legal issues with Brian Price. To the best of my knowledge, none of them have been paid all the royalties they were entitled to under contract, and frequently they never received any royalties at all. None of them have received unsold copies as restitution.

In particular, while several former Chivalry Bookshelf authors have now recovered remaining unsold copies in partial restitution for unpaid royalties, Price has failed to settle with Luca Porzio and Gregory Mele, editors of Vadi's Arte Gladiatoria Dimicandi. This is an excellent edition, but I strongly advise against buying it new from any retailer. None of what you pay will reach the authors at this time.

Used copies currently seem to be reasonably available.

Price is also currently selling works by Hand, Greer, Preto, Rector and Wagner. To the best of my knowledge, all of these authors assert that royalties have ranged from nonexistent to almost nonexistent, and several have asserted that they revoke any right of Price to sell their intellectual property.

A recurring pattern is that these authors overwhelmingly live outside the United States, and so find it particularly difficult to defend their legal rights.

There are only two exceptions to this pattern. One is Brian Price himself. The second is Dr. Bengt Thordeman, who suffers the additional handicap of being dead.

Please, if you have any doubts of this, contact the authors.

The Complete Works of Albrecht Durer

Here

Royal Jousts at the End of the 14th Century

Steven Muhlberger's latest book on royal jousts is the first in a new series from the Freelance Academy Press.

Let me note that I'm a friend of the author, I provided two of the translations included in the book, and I expect to write at least two books for the series. Full disclosure satisfied, I will continue.

The series is quite similar in physical format to the Osprey Military series of paperbacks: Royal Jousts is an 96 page 7" by !0" paperback.

The biggest difference between Freelance Academy and Osprey is this: Freelance's authors are much more diligent in consulting primary sources, and on presenting them in translation.

As a point of comparison, I offer the Osprey Knights at Tournament. it includes not a bibliography, but a list of "Further Reading". 22 works are cited, but all but two are secondary sources.

In contrast, Muhlberger provides translations of five different contemporary accounts of the jousts at St. Inglevert, and contemporary accounts and announcements for three other royal jousts. Almost 9/10 of the text consists of contemporary, or nearly contemporary, accounts. There are ten pages of color pictures in addition to the text.

Some of the material has been previously presented on his Deeds of Arms site, but much is new.

His translations of Froissart present passages that have previously only been available in Thomas Johnes' stilted and inaccurate 1810 translation. He does abridge some of Froissart's repetitive blow-by-blow reporting of the jousts at St. Inglevert. Walter Meller's translation of Eustache Deschamps' 1389 joust announcement is only findable on Google Books if you already know it and where to look for it. Muhlberger's translation of an anonymous pastoral poem celebrating St. Inglevert is also new.

This poem is interesting evidence of the broad popular impact of these jousts. In a field near Ardres the narrator encounters frolicsome shepherds and shepherdesses, who describe the recent jousts in great detail. Pastoral poetry was a conventionalized and idealized genre: its shepherds and shepherdesses the singing cowboys of the Middle Ages. Still, the author implies that the jousts were so newsworthy that it was not implausible that shepherds in the fields 11 miles away were talking about them afterwards. Jousting was an aristocratic sport, but it entertained large crowds of commoners.

The splendor of the jousts and the literary craft of their widely distributed announcements would insure that their fame would spread far beyond their immediate audience.

The poetry of the French announcements displays the frisky and joyful side of 14th c. chivalric culture, as does the English announcement's reference to the "New Troy" of Britain's legendary past and prize for "the lady or damsel who dances best or leads the most joyful life those three days."

Muhlberger presents a convenient summary of the outcomes in Froissart's account of St. Inglevert. He also discusses the political context and goals of the jousts, the influence of St. Inglevert on later pas d'armes, and the conflicts between the different accounts with particular emphasis on Froissart's unreliability as a narrator. I have long believed that what he wrote was closer to docudrama than history.

First 50 Volumes of Medieval Archaeology Available Online

Medieval Archaeology: The first 50 Volumes are available online for free.

Hat tip to Nicolette Bonhomme.

Medieval Aliases

I'm accumulating a file of alternative spellings for medieval names of interest to me. Perhaps you will find it helpful as well. I've optimized the format for Google Search.

There are several sources for the diversity, including:

Christian names from the same root are spelled differently in the common speech of different countries, and differently in Latin, and differently today.

Different languages use different spelling rules for the same sounds. The name of Verchin or Werchin from what is now northern France was recorded as Averxiu by Aragonese scribes.

Reliably consistent orthography was not a realistic goal in a society that could not produce dictionaries cheap enough for broad distribution.

Given Names and Nicknames
Clignet OR Clugnet (Blinky)
Colomat OR Collemach
Jean OR Jehan OR Johan OR Johannem
Pere OR Pierre
Tanguy OR Taneguy OR Tanneguy OR Tenneguy

Full and Surnames
Jean Werchin, Seneschal of Hainault
Werchin OR Verchin OR Averxiu

Jean Carmen
Carmen OR Carmin OR Carmenien OR Carneau OR Kerneau

Titles:
Seneschal OR senechal OR senescal OR senescall OR senescallum


Places:
Hainault OR Hainaut OR Haynau OR Hynnault OR Henaud OR Henaude OR Henaut
Moncada OR Montcada OR Moncade
Santa Coloma OR Sante-Coulombe

Reproduction Mail

An useful thread on what to look for in evaluating modern reproductions of medieval and classical mail.

See also:
The Mail Research Society: Articles

16th c. Manuscript of Bridles, Bits and Straps

From the Penn Libraries

Digital Manuscripts at the University of Pennsylvania

Herehttp:

The Anjou Bible

A splendid Anjevin bible of c. 1340.

Jörg Wilhalm Huter: an Early 16th c. Fechtbuch

Huter, Jörg Wilhalm: Fechtkunst - BSB Cgm 3711

Bayerische Staatsbibiothek dates this to 1523

A high resolution scan is available here.

Here is the Wiktenauer entry.

Pretzel product placement here.

My thanks to Hugh Knight for finding this.

Paulus Hector Mair Manuscripts

Mscr.Dresd.C.93. Volume I of his manual in German in Dresden
Mscr.Dresd.C.94 Volume II: Paulus Hector Mair MS from 1550 held at the University of Dresden. Note how the otherwise unarmored fencers at sword and buckler are wearing metal gauntlets, apparently with mail protecting the palms (see 150v).

Many of the positions shown in the section on armored combat with spear and targe look remarkably like those in Codex Wallerstein, which Mair owned, even down to the positions of discarded shields and weapons lying on the ground, but with the armor updated to 1550 styles.
Wiktenaur discusses the sources for Dresden C.93-94

De arte athletica I - BSB Cod.icon. 393(1 Latin, mid-16th c., at the BSB
De arte athletica II BSB Cod.icon. 393(2

Thanks to Scott Cozad for finding these.

Codex Vindobonensis 10825 and 10826, ca. 1542, in Vienna, is written in both German and Latin. HROARR has it in PDF form.

Here is a partial transcription.

Here is his Wiktenaur page.

Spin the Mourners

The mourners from the tomb of John the Fearless features high resolution 360° views of the mourners which can be viewed in stereo 3-D, as well as a 360° view of the tomb itself.

More on the Ironically Named Chivalry Bookshelf

For those who don't have time to wade through the long thread on the Armour Archive, here are the key points:

Along with a number of self-serving statements that have been disputed by others, Brian R. Price has admitted that he has not paid royalties to the authors of Chivalry Bookshelf books since 2007, and in some cases 2006.

The authors assert that royalties have gone unpaid for much longer, in some cases as much as seven years. But even the minimum figure of three years admitted by Mr. Price would seem to be a material breach of contract.

Since 2006, Price has been spending money that should have gone to the authors on things like tropical fish and their tanks, armies of Lord of the Rings and Ral Partha Ogre/GEV miniatures, and political contributions.

UPDATE:

I need to correct an allegation I repeated in an earlier version of this post that Price's Ramon Lull’s Book of Knighthood and Chivalry and the anonymous Ordene [sic] de Chevalerie, according to the University of Iowa's Morris Online Edition, plagiarized the William Morris translation of L’Ordène de Chevalerie

A friend informs me that the following appears on the back of the dust jacket of the first hardback edition of Ramon Lull's Book of knighthood and the anonymous Ordene de Chevalerie:

As a bonus, the editors have included the anonymous "Ordene de Chevalerie," translated into English by William Morris.

Others tell me that the same notice appears on the back cover of the first paperback edition.

Morris is not credited anywhere within the book, which is unconventional and bad practice. The authorship information is not where catalogers would look for it, and books often eventually lose their dust jacket. However, a charge of deliberate plagiarism does not seem sustainable in this case.

Another digital edition of William Morris' Order of Chivalry which I find more readable than the Morris Online Edition is online here.

In Chronique Issue #10, Brian R. Price reprinted my copyrighted illustrations from Elizabeth Bennett's translation of King Rene's Tournament Book without attribution or my permission, on pages 37, 43, and 60. You can see the illustrations here:

In the same issue, he reprinted illustrations from Claude Blair's European Armour without attribution on pages 46 and 49. I mention Chronique #10 not because it's anywhere near the worst thing he's done, but because it's easy to verify the plagiarism if you have a copy.

There are many additional allegations of financial malfeasance on the Armour Archive thread, but I hope the above is enough to convince you that buying from Chivalry Bookshelf is putting money in the pocket of a man who is diverting the money he owes others, and none of it is going to any of the authors other than Mr. Price.

This is doubly unfortunate, since many of the Chivalry Bookshelf books by other authors are excellent.

What can you do if you want to read one without abetting what I consider theft? You can look for a reasonably priced used copy, or for a retailer that has a new copy and doesn't intend to restock when it is sold.

If you buy from a retailer that continues to have an ongoing relationship Mr. Price, you will still be putting money in his pocket when the retailer restocks. This is at least better than dealing with Chivalry Bookshelf directly, since Price will only get the wholesale price rather than the full retail price, but it still puts money in the pocket of a man I believe to be a thief.

You can look for them at a library near you or through inter-library loan. Here are WorldCat listings for some of my favorites:

The Medieval Art of Swordsmanship: A Facsimile & Translation of Europe's Oldest Personal Combat Treatise, Royal Armouries MS I.33 (Royal Armouries Monograph) by Dr. Jeffrey L. Forgeng (Jan 1, 2010)
Jousts and Tournaments: Charny and Chivalric Sport in 14th Century France by Geoffroi De Charny and Steven Muhlberger (Mar 1, 2003)
Deeds of Arms by Steven Muhlberger (Jun 30, 2005)
Secrets of German Medieval Swordsmanship: Sigmund Ringeck's Commentaries on Liechtenauer by Christian Henry Tobler (Feb 15, 2009)
Fighting with the German Longsword by Christian Henry Tobler(Feb 28, 2005)
Arte Gladiatoria Dimicandi: 15th Century Swordsmanship of Master Fillipo Vadi by Fillipo Vadi, Luca Porzio and Gregory Mele (Mar 1, 2002)

Here is the WorldCat home page.


UPDATE:

On the evening of March 10th, Greg Mele, writing on behalf of seven authors, informed Chivalry Bookshelf that the deadline for an acceptable settlement had passed and that:

Since you have chosen to let the deadline to surrender our rights and property lapse, please note that, our offer is hereby rescinded. We will now pursue any and all civil and criminal avenues that are open to us.

Please note we hereby deny you any rights, assignations or access to our intellectual property, and will post that affect on all public forums. Should you sell any of our property at the upcoming SCA's "Gulf Wars" event, we will consider this be the sale and distribution of stolen goods and we will contact the authorities immediately. You should be aware that I am forwarding this and prior correspondence and the link to the Armour Archive discussion thread to the Gulf Wars event coordinator ("autocrat") and merchant liaison, so that they are aware that you have lost any legal title to our property.

The books are:

Jousts and Tournaments
Deeds of Arms
Fighting with the German Longsword
Secrets of German Medieval Swordsmanship
In Service of the Duke
Arte Gladiatoria: 15th century swordsmanship of Filippo Vadi
The Art of Dueling
The Art of Medieval Swordsmanship
The Swordsman’s Companion
The Duelist’s Companion

Greg Mele adds here:

Those are the titles related to the authors who have banded together to file a lawsuit. I can tell you from direct correspondence that Mark Rector claims that he was paid $150 for his work on "Highland Swordsmanship" and "Highland Broadsword", and his co-author, Paul Wagner, received nothing. Stephen Hand states that he was never paid for "English Swordsmanship", and that Brian is in arrears for "Medieval Sword and Shield", which was again co-authored with Paul Wagner.

Agilitas.tv is the producer of the two DVDs and asked us (Freelance Academy Press) to become their distributor because they state that they had never been paid by Mr. Price.

This is what I can attest to from direct correspondence with the creators of the above works. I cannot speak to David Lindholm, Luis Preto or Antonio Preto's books, nor Bill Wilson's "Arte of Defense", as I have not spoken to any of these gentlemen about the matter.

Read more commentary here and here.

FURTHER UPDATE:

Several works formerly published by Chivalry Bookshelf can now be purchased from the authors exclusively through Freelance Academy Press.

The Portable Antiquities Scheme Database

An enormous searchable database of artefacts and coins.

Bodleian Image Library

A collaboration between ARTstor and the Bodleian Library to produce 25,000 images from 35mm filmstrip negatives and positive slides. Material includes medieval and Renaissance illuminated manuscripts.

Prices in England: 1259-1582

A History of Agriculture and Prices in England from the year after the Oxford Parliament (1259) to the commencement of the Continental War (1793)
1259-1400
1400-1582

More than just wheat and cattle! Textiles, locks and keys, carts, and sundry articles and services, from hammer and pincers to clocks to 11 quires of Bacon's Mathematics to gelding four pigs (price, one farthing).

Calendar of the Patent Rolls

1216-1452. A searchable database

Art Project

Explore museums from around the world, discover and view hundreds of artworks at incredible zoom levels, and even create and share your own collection of masterpieces.

Sweet. I do wish there was a more obvious and intuitive way to search for particular artists and paintings.