Explore the vast range of titles available.

Founded in 1977 as the publication organ for the Fifteenth-Century Symposia, Fifteenth-Century Studies has appeared annually since then. It offers essays on diverse aspects of the 15th century, including liberal and fine arts, historiography, medicine, and religion. The 15th century defies consensus on fundamental issues; most scholars agree, however, that this period outgrew the Middle Ages, that it was a time of transition, and a passage to modern times. The current volume opens with the customary survey of research on 15th-century drama. Graham A. Runnalls and Jesse Hurlbut present their extensive bibliography of French miracle plays and mysteries, a work accumulated over 25 years. Continuing on the topic of late-medieval art, Edelgard DuBruck offers a study of gesture within the miniatures of the Passion Isabeau (1398). Barbara I. Gusick analyzes healing and social reorientation in Christ's transformation of Zacchaeus in the York Cycle; Mark Trowbridge investigates the Cleveland St. John the Baptist, attributed to Petrus Christus. Finally, this year's entry by Leonardas V. Gerulaitis provides Renaissance views on genius and madness. A book review section concludes the volume. Edelgard E. DuBruck is professor emerita of Modern Languages at Marygrove College, Detroit, Michigan, and Barbara I. Gusick is professor emerita of English at Troy University-Dothan, Dothan, Alabama.

Special issue focusing on violence in fifteenth-century life, text, and image: warfare and justice, violence in family and milieu (court, town, village, and forest), hagiography, ethnicity and xenophobia, gender relations and sexual violence, brutality on the stage, and the relation of text and image in the depiction of violence.

Farces are short comic plays usually involving a trick by which one or more characters deceives another for personal gain. Major popular entertainments mostly in urban areas during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, farces were often played on trestle stages that were quickly set up in streets or squares on holidays. The small number of roles required few actors and stage props, making the plays easily transportable. Farces were written and played by amateur groups, such as student organizations, municipal confraternities, trade guilds, and jongleurs. There are numerous references in fifteenth- c. documents to the staging of farces, but no plays have survived that antedate the Farce de maistre Pathelin, written in the 1460s. About 175 farces date from the hundred years following the appearance of Pathelin.Modern research on French farces has concentrated on three aspects of the plays: their structure, themes, and possible genres. The results of this scholarly activity suggest that no unified construction exists, but instead many different comic “systems” hold sway, often based on an automatic formula, a “machine á rire” (Bernadette Rey-Flaud); the themes include all human activities (often domestic) and render the plays “mirrors of reality” (Barbara Bowen and Jean-Claude Aubailly); while genres seem recognizable, a farce may reflect more than one type of genre and be quite complex, deemed thusly by Alan E. Knight. As religious theater does not always remain serious (consider the comic diversions in mystery plays), the universe of farces cannot be reduced to grotesque distortions, to ridicule, satire, buffoonery, and obscenities.

This article is a regular feature of “Fifteenth-Century Studies.” Our intent is to catalogue, survey, and assess scholarship on the staging and textual configuration of dramatic presentations during the late Middle Ages. Like all such dated material, this assessment remains incomplete. We shall therefore include 2008 again in the next listing. Our readers are encouraged to bring new items to our attention, including their own work. Monographs and collections selected for detailed review will appear in the third section of this article and will be marked by an asterisk in the pages below.During the last decade, critics of medieval drama have demonstrated a propensity to move beyond emphasizing written texts and turned to the social and political circumstances of theatrical performances, and the skills of actors. This new attention is visible in a collection by Evelyn Birge Vitz,* N. F. Regalado, and M. Lawrence (Performing Medieval Narrative). Excellent also is the book by Philip Butterworth* (although restricted to England): Magic on the Early English Stage, which highlights the activities of jongleurs, their sleights of hand, skills, and deceptions. Another groundbreaking book is Julie Stone Peters's The Theatre of the Book, 1480–1880: Print, Text, and Performance in Europe. Peters contributes here to the history of communication; she defines theater, the authors' involvement, and their position within society. The study remains weak on the history of actual performances. Lynette R. Muir* penned a companion volume to her 1995 The Biblical Drama of Medieval Europe, entitled Love and Conflict in Medieval Drama: The Plays and Their Legacy (2007), but left matters of performance undiscussed.

This article is a regular feature of “Fifteenth-Century Studies.” Our intent is to catalogue, survey, and assess scholarship on the staging and textual configuration of dramatic presentations in the late Middle Ages. Like all such dated material, this assessment remains incomplete. We shall therefore include 2007 again in the next listing. Our readers are encouraged to bring new items to our attention, including their own work. Monographs and collections selected for detailed review will appear in the third section of this article and will be marked by an asterisk in the pages below.On late-medieval theater in general we report that the periodical European Medieval Drama,* in its seventh, eighth, and ninth volumes, highlights the thespian activities of many countries. Also, on a more theoretic note, an article in Comparative Drama and a monograph are devoted to the origins of theater. Steven F. Walker probes India and Greece before Christ and muses whether staging was a global phenomenon then, where actors performed scenic events in ritual or entertainment, watched by (passive) spectators. The monograph of Eli Rozik rethinks similar origins, where fictional human beings were “imprinted upon” real persons, a process beginning in rituals. Spontaneous image-making exploited the actors' mimetic faculties — in Rozik's book Roots of Theater. While Donnalee Dox studies the theater in Latin Christian times, beginning with Augustine's, Isidore of Seville's, and Rabanus Maurus's objections against the stage, she also considers attempts at reworking pagan into Christian drama. William Egginton tells us “how the world became a stage.”

The Europeans' use of money as a medium of exchange for transactions began soon after the twelfth century and continued throughout the commercial revolution (under Italian leadership) even though a barter system prevailed for a long time. Transhistorically, money in its relation to themes or intrigues has had a role in literary works, not yet in the carnival comedies of the fifteenth century, but certainly in Hans Sachs's writings. Indeed, money has inspired or preoccupied moralists as well as poets (Rutebeuf, Oswald von Wolkenstein, Rabelais, Michel de Montaigne, and Molière), novelists and chroniclers, politicians, ideologists, reformers, economists, and revolutionaries. And yet one is struck by the fact that before the Renaissance, rich writers and artists are not mentioned in historical accounts. Wealth, treated negatively by Plato and St. Augustine, was both a curse linked to the devil and usury (radix malorum) and a blessing, especially when redistributed through charitable giving. Often, as in several of Sachs's carnival plays, money becomes an incentive to action though remains, by and large, a risk for the giver or recipient, as we shall demonstrate in this essay. Money is thus controversial.

The fifteenth century defies consensus on fundamental issues; most scholars agree, however, that the period outgrew the Middle Ages, that it was a time of transition and a passage to modern times. 'Fifteenth-Century Studies' offers essays on diverse aspects of the period, including liberal and fine arts, historiography, medicine, and religion. Following the customary opening article on the current state of fifteenth-century drama research, essays treat such topics as poetry as a source for illustrated German prose, the St. Edith picture cycle in Salisbury, the flourishing of French history; and Spanish schools of translators. Other essays treat poems from the 'Gruuthuse' songbook; Louis XI and pilgrim's dress, Robert Henryson's 'Moral Fabilles,' violence in English romances, Jews' presence through absence in Vicente Ferrer's 'Sermons,' and Conrad Buitzruss's recipe collection in Manuscript Clm 671 (Munich). Book reviews conclude the volume. Contributors: Edelgard E. DuBruck, James H. Brown, Mary Dockray-Miller, Jean Dufournet, Rocío del Río Fernández, Bas Jongenelen and Ben Parsons, Jennifer Lee, John Marlin, Ilan Mitchell-Smith, Daniel Salas-Días, Elizabeth I. Wade-Sirabian. Edelgard E. DuBruck is professor emerita of French and Humanities at Marygrove College, Detroit, Michigan, and Barbara I. Gusick is professor emerita of English at Troy University, Dothan, Alabama.

Founded in 1977 as the publication organ for the Fifteenth-Century Symposia, 'Fifteenth-Century Studies' offers essays on diverse aspects of the 15th century, including liberal and fine arts, historiography, medicine, and religion. Designed as a 'Festschrift' honoring Edelgard E. DuBruck, the current volume focuses on the importance and praise of late-medieval women. Topics include Christine de Pizan's response to Boccaccio's 'De Mulieribus Claris,' the figures of Melibea and Celestina in 'La Celestina,' Catalan love poetry, the Nine Muses in Le Franc's 'Champion des Dames,' and artistic praise of the Virgin Mary. Other topics include a wellness guide for late-medieval seniors, women's sins of the tongue and Villon's 'Testament,' the stoic tradition seen in a farewell letter, medicine and magic, and book-burning. An article demonstrates Bertrand Du Guesclin's extraordinary valor, and two essays on Chaucer explore chivalry and violence in 'The Knight's Tale' and Troilus's withdrawal at the end of 'Troilus and Criseyde'. CONTRIBUTORS: MELITTA WEISS ADAMSON, GARY B. BLUMENSHINE, KAREN CASEBIER, EDELGARD E. DUBRUCK, OLGA ANNA DUHL, BARBARA I. GUSICK, JAIME LEANOS, ILAN MITCHELL-SMITH, CHRISTIANE RAYNAUD, ROXANA RECIO, BARBARA N. SARGENT-BAUR, KAREN ELAINE SMYTH, STEVEN MILLEN TAYLOR, ARJO VANDERJAGT, ELIZABETH I. WADE-SIRABIAN, KARL A. ZAENKER. Edelgard E. DuBruck is professor emerita at Marygrove College, Detroit, Michigan, and Barbara I. Gusick is professor at Troy University-Dothan, Dothan, Alabama.

The fifteenth century defies consensus on fundamental issues; most scholars agree, however, that this period outgrew the Middle Ages, that it was a time of transition and a passage to modern times. Founded in 1977 as the publication organ for the Fifteenth-Century Symposia, 'Fifteenth-Century Studies' offers essays on diverse aspects of the fifteenth century, including liberal and fine arts, historiography, medicine, and religion. Following the standard opening article on the current state of fifteenth-century drama research, volume 33 offers essays investigating authors such as Christine de Pizan, Hans Sachs, Hartmann Schedel, Alain Chartier, and Robert Henryson. Genres and themes treated include drama, epistles of persuasion, late Arthurian romances, translations, mythology and folklore, print media, and art appreciation. Alternative interpretations are afforded by Franco Mormando's study of male nakedness and the Franciscans. Twelve book reviews round out the volume. Contributors: Edelgard E. DuBruck, Tracy Adams, Lidia Amor, Roció del Río Fernández, Leonardas Vytautas Gerulaitis, Jonathan Green, Christiane J. Hessler, Ashby Kinch, Franco Mormondo, Alessandra Petrina. Edelgard E. DuBruck is professor emerita of French and Humanities at Marygrove College, Detroit, Michigan, and Barbara I. Gusick is professor emerita of English at Troy University, Dothan, Alabama.

[To the praise of God, the sovereign Virgin, and all saints (men and women), and upon the request of the very excellent and famous lady and powerful princess Ysabel de Bavière, through God's grace queen of France, I have translated this Passion of Jesus Our Savior from Latin into French, without adding moralities, stories, exempla or figures (of speech), in 1398, beginning with the resuscitation of Lazarus, because this miracle and previous wonders gave occasion to the false, felonious Jews to contrive Jesus' death and passion] (DuBruck, ed. La Passion Isabeau [New York: Peter Lang, 1990], 61).The passage above (in my translation) presents the incipit of the Passion Isabeau (1398 — hereafter: PI), a narrative text leading readers and listeners through Holy Week, a sacred period fraught with potential for gestural expression (e.g., ritualistic, experiential, theatrical). When viewing the illuminated scenes of this text, one is struck by the intriguing gestic language used by the persons depicted, attesting to the miniaturists' skill while, at the same time, evoking the tableaux vivants of paradramatic stagings. What is interesting about gestures is that the bodily movements of the persons captured on canvas or elsewhere are frozen in time but come to life on stage. In art or theater, gestures are prompted bodily reactions, and sometimes a cognitive disconnect is involved, especially if movements do not achieve the response which they are intended to elicit — for example, acceptance or approval. While there are many variables (some of them indistinct) operating simultaneously to produce a gesture, within the present essay gestural communication is seen as unambiguous, having predictable outcomes.