Edited by Theodore Evergates (NHC Fellow, 1994–95) Were aristocratic women in medieval France little more than appendages to patrilineal families, valued as objects of exchange and necessary only for the production of male heirs? Such was the view proposed by the great French historian Georges Duby more than three decades ago and still widely accepted. … Continued
By Barbara J. Harris (NHC Fellow, 1994–95) Portraits of aristocratic women from the Yorkist and Tudor periods reveal elaborately clothed and bejeweled nobility, exemplars of their families' wealth. Unlike their male counterparts, their sitters have not been judged for their professional accomplishments. In this groundbreaking study, Barbara J. Harris argues that the roles of aristocratic … Continued
Edited by Theodore Evergates (NHC Fellow, 1994–95) The cartulary of 1211 is the oldest surviving register produced by the chancery of the counts of Champagne. This first edition of the cartulary contains 121 letters received from the barons and prelates of the county during the rule of Count Thibaut III (1198-1201) and the first decade … Continued
By Theodore Evergates (NHC Fellow, 1994–95) Theodore Evergates provides the first systematic analysis of the aristocracy in the county of Champagne under the independent counts. He argues that three factors—the rise of the comital state, fiefholding, and the conjugal family—were critical to shaping a loose assortment of baronial and knightly families into an aristocracy with … Continued
By Eleanor Winsor Leach (NHC Fellow, 1992–93) Eleanor Winsor Leach offers a new interpretation of Roman painting as found in domestic spaces of the elite classes of ancient Rome. Leach contends that the painted images reflect the codes of communication embedded in upper class life, such as the theatricality expected of those leading public lives, … Continued