The Networked Court explores the role of innovative, network-based research methodologies in humanities research as applied to late medieval court studies, c.1300-1450. The Introduction argues the salience and timeliness of network-based thinking in today’s research landscape, and its particular suitability for approaching late medieval courts and their cultures in new and original ways. Seven ground-breaking case studies trace networks within, around, and among diverse types of courtly settings across Latin Christian Europe. Focusing both on the local level and on phenomena on a pan-European scale, the volume re-configures courtly cultural practices from a transdisciplinary perspective, re-connecting cultural performances in sites such as England, the Low Countries, France, Avignon, and the Empire in new and unexpected ways. The Conclusion reflects on the nexus between network-based research methodologies and disciplinary knowledge.
Karl Kügle is Emeritus Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, and Professor Emeritus of Music in the Universities of Oxford and Utrecht. His research focuses on the history of European music cultures of the late medieval and early modern periods.
Contents List, including prelims and back matter:List of Figures Notes on Contributors AcknowledgementsThe Late Medieval Court as Transdisciplinary Network: Methodological Considerations and Opportunities KARL KÜGLEPart I Institutional Networks1: Ecclesiastic Courts During the Fourteenth and Early Fifteenth Centuries: Following, Adapting, and Creating Networks CHRISTOPHE MASSONPart II Object-generated Networks2: The Manuscript as Property and as Apparatus: Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 264, and its Networks JANE GILBERT3: Sight, Sound and Maidenhood in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Liturgical 104: Networked Manuscripts and Networks of Manuscripts LAURA SLATER4: Fauvel’s Palace as Discursive Network: Poetic Fiction and Political Reality in the Roman de Fauvel RUXANDRA MARINESCUPart III Performative Networks5: The One and The Many: Imagining Courtly Communities in the Polyphonic Songs of the “Mönch von Salzburg” Corpus DAVID MURRAY6: Texts on the Move: Book Presentations Between Social Networks, European Politics, and Literary Performance URI SMILANSKY7 Networking a Networked Text: Edition and Translation of Martin Le Franc’s La Complainte du livre du Champion des dames a maistre Martin le Franc son acteur HELEN SWIFT AND JANE H. M. TAYLORLooking Ahead: Networks and Disciplinary Knowledge KARL KÜGLEIndex