| |||
|---|---|---|---|
Charles IV, born Wenceslaus, was a King of Bohemia and the first King of Bohemia to also become Holy Roman Emperor. He was a member of the House of Luxembourg from his father's side and the Czech House of Přemyslid from his mother's side.
John Barbour was a Scottish poet and the first major named literary figure to write in Scots. His principal surviving work is the historical verse romance, The Brus, and his reputation from this poem is such that other long works in Scots which survive from the period are sometimes thought to be by him. He is known to have written a number of other works, but other titles definitely ascribed to his authorship, such as The Stewartis Oryginalle and The Brut (Brutus), are now lost.
The Brus, also known as The Bruce, is a long narrative poem, in Early Scots, of just under 14,000 octosyllabic lines composed by John Barbour which gives a historic and chivalric account of the actions of Robert the Bruce and the Black Douglas in the Scottish Wars of Independence during a period from the circumstances leading up the English invasion of 1296 through to Scotland's restored position in the years between the Truce of 1328 and the death of Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray in 1332.
The Catalan Atlas is the most important map of the medieval period in the Catalan language. It was produced by the Majorcan cartographic school and is attributed to Cresques Abraham, a Jewish book illuminator who was self-described as a master of the maps of the world as well as compasses. It has been in the royal library of France since the time of King Charles V. The Catalan Atlas originally consisted of six vellum leaves folded vertically, painted in various colors including gold and silver. These were cut in half later, and mounted on wooden panels enclosed in a leather binding.
Juan Alfonso de Baena was a medieval Castilian poet and scribe in the court of Juan II of Castile. Baena, who was a converso, is best known for compiling and contributing to the Cancionero de Baena, an important medieval anthology composed between 1426 and 1465 containing the poems of over 55 Spanish poets who wrote during the reigns of Enrique II, Juan I, and Enrique III, and Juan II.
February 9 is the 40th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 325 days remaining until the end of the year.
Chūgan Engetsu, Japanese poet, occupies a prominent place in Japanese Literature of the Five Mountains, literature in Chinese written in Japan. Chugan's achievement was his mastery of this difficult medium, a signal of the ripening of Five Mountains poetry and prose in Japan. He was born in Kamakura of a family that claimed descent from Emperor Kanmu. At age eight he entered the prestigious monetary of the Zen Rinzai sect in Kamakura as an acolyte. At twelve he was a disciple of Dokei. At this time Chugan began in earnest his Chinese studies, devoting himself to the Classic of Filial Piety and Analects. He left for Kyushu hoping to travel to China, but did not succeed. After this disappointment he traveled to Kyoto and met the reclusive patriarch Kokan Shiren (1278–1346). In 1320 he realized his hopes for a journey to China that resulted in a seven-year study-tour of Zen masters and institutions. In 1332 Chugan returned in disgust to a Japan wracked by civil war and unrest. He chose for his residence the Nanzenji monastery in Kyoto. In 1339 he was asked to establish the Kisshoji monastery. From this point until his death in 1375 he was residing as head of many of the Zen establishments in Japan. His writings reflect both a Confucian concern with social values and a Zen love of the ironic and iconoclastic.
December 21 is the 355th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 10 days remaining until the end of the year.
Giovanni Boccaccio was an Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanist. Boccaccio wrote a number of notable works, including The Decameron and On Famous Women. He wrote his imaginative literature mostly in the Italian vernacular, as well as other works in Latin, and is particularly noted for his realistic dialogue which differed from that of his contemporaries, medieval writers who usually followed formulaic models for character and plot.
Robert I, popularly known as Robert the Bruce, was King of Scots from 1306 until his death in 1329. Robert was one of the most famous warriors of his generation, and eventually led Scotland during the First War of Scottish Independence against England. He fought successfully during his reign to regain Scotland's place as an independent country and is today revered in Scotland as a national hero.
Robert II reigned as King of Scots from 1371 to his death as the first monarch of the House of Stewart. He was the son of Walter Stewart, 6th High Steward of Scotland and of Marjorie Bruce, daughter of the Scottish king Robert the Bruce by his first wife Isabella of Mar.
The Late Middle Ages or Late Medieval Period was the period of European history lasting from 1250 to 1500 AD. The Late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern period.
Scotland in the Middle Ages concerns the history of Scotland from the departure of the Romans to the adoption of major aspects of the Renaissance in the early sixteenth century.
Gidō Shūshin, 1325–1388), Japanese luminary of the Zen Rinzai sect, was a master of poetry and prose in Chinese. Gidō’s own diary relates how as a child he discovered and treasured the Zen classic Rinzairoku in his father’s library. He was born in Tosa on the island of Shikoku and began formal study of Confucian and Buddhist literature. His religious proclivities were encouraged when he witnessed the violent death of a clan member. Like many others he took his first vows on Mt. Hiei near the capital. Gidō’s life was changed with a visit to the prominent Zen master Musō Soseki (1275–1351) in 1341. He would become the master’s attendant after his own unsuccessful pilgrimage to China. He would become a principal disciple. Gidō was born with eyesight difficulties. His choice of a literary name was Kūgedojin or Holy Man who sees Flowers in the Sky. Kūge was from Sanscrit khpuspa and indicated illusory sense perceptions. Gidō would play a role of conciliator between rival courts in the nation’s civil war. His loyalty was with the northern court and its Ashikaga supporters. After taking residence in the city of Kamakura, Gidō would become the personal advisor to the Ashikaga rulers there. Gidō encouraged Confucian political values such as centralized rule and social stability. Likewise Gidō became an advocate of Sung period Chinese Neo-Confucian humanistic values, both political and literary. In 1380 Gidō was asked by the reigning shōgun, Yoshimitsu (1358–1408), to reside with him in Kyoto. Gidō’s last years were spent personally instructing Yoshimitsu in Confucian and Buddhist subjects.
William of St. Barbara or William of Ste Barbe was a medieval Bishop of Durham.
Sanqu is a fixed-rhythm form of Classical Chinese poetry or "literary song". Specifically sanqu is a subtype of the qu formal type of poetry. Sanqu was a notable Chinese poetic form, possibly beginning in the Jin dynasty (1115–1234), but especially associated with the Yuan (1271–1368), Ming (1368–1644), and Qing (1644–1912) dynasties. The tonal patterns modeled on tunes drawn from folk songs or other music.
Genealogia deorum gentilium, known in English as On the Genealogy of the Gods of the Gentiles, is a mythography or encyclopedic compilation of the tangled family relationships of the classical pantheons of Ancient Greece and Rome, written in Latin prose from 1360 onwards by the Italian author and poet Giovanni Boccaccio.
De Casibus Virorum Illustrium is a work of 56 biographies in Latin prose composed by the Florentine poet Giovanni Boccaccio of Certaldo in the form of moral stories of the falls of famous people, similar to his work of 106 biographies De Mulieribus Claris.
The literature of the Five Mountains is the literature produced by the principal Zen (禅) monastic centers of the Rinzai sect in Kyoto and Kamakura, Japan. The term also refers to five Zen centers in China in Hangzhou and Ningpo that inspired zen in Japan, while the term "mountain" refers to Buddhist monastery.
Wang Heqing 王和卿, a writer of Chinese Sanqu poetry, was a native of Daming in Hebei province. Other than his birthplace, which is noted in Zheng Sicheng’s Record of Ghosts, nothing of certainty can be said of his life. The Ming period Chuo Genglu 輟耕錄, describes Wang as a friend of Guan Hanqing 關漢卿 in Tadu, modern Beijing. It is also noted that Wang's lyric on the giant butterfly in the Beijing area was the beginning of his popularity as a writer in the 1260s. Of his sanqu lyrics, twenty-one short lyrics survive with one suite and fragments.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Contact between Geoffrey Chaucer and the Italian humanists Petrarch or Boccaccio has been proposed by scholars for centuries. More recent scholarship tends to discount these earlier speculations because of lack of evidence. As Leonard Koff remarks, the story of their meeting is "a 'tydying' worthy of Chaucer himself".
David Bruce Crouch, is a Welsh historian and academic. Since 2000, he has been Professor of Medieval History at the University of Hull.
Women in Medieval Scotland includes all aspects of the lives and status of women between the departure of the Romans from Northern Britain in the fifth century to the introduction of the Renaissance and Reformation in the early sixteenth century. Medieval Scotland was a patriarchal society, but how exactly patriarchy worked in practice is difficult to discern. A large proportion of the women for whom biographical details survive were members of the royal houses of Scotland. Some of these became important figures. There was only one reigning Scottish Queen in this period, the uncrowned and short-lived Margaret, Maid of Norway.