
This contributed volume focuses on Philippa Plantagenet (1360–1415), queen of Portugal for almost three decades, and the complexion of the court. Chapters thoroughly examine the Portuguese royal court in the few decades around the turn of the fourteenth century, a period rich in intellectual innovations throughout Europe and of dramatic changes in Portugal. The book aims to showcase current research from innovative scholars of medieval Portugal, including both established and emerging academics. It offers a comprehensive appraisal of the processes of transfer, assimilation, and exchange experienced at the royal court of later medieval Europe under given conditions of patronage and direction. This is accomplished through a multidisciplinary and comparative framework that takes together the history, architecture, music, art, and literature of the Portuguese royal court and the involvement of Philippa as queen-consort.
“Placed within the expansive context of the Iberian Peninsula’s participation in the Hundred Years’ War and John of Gaunt’s dynastic ambitions, Tiago Viúla de Faria’s Philippa of Lancaster and the Court Culture of Medieval Portugal judiciously and artfully combines a comprehensive number of chapters notable by the diversity of genres and methodological approaches. The result is a capacious interdisciplinary account of Philippa’s role in the Portuguese court at the end of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth century. Bringing together senior and junior scholars in a joint scholarly project, this book is exemplary in its commitment to a multiperspectival approach and in its encompassing reach. Philippa of Lancaster is a most welcome and original contribution to our understanding of Phillipa’s role in Portugal and the art and politics generated by her court. A triumph of erudition and interdisciplinarity.” — Teofilo F. Ruiz, Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus of History and Spanish and Portuguese, University of California, Los Angeles, USA
“Philippa of Lancaster, Queen of Portugal (1360–1415), wife of King João I (1357–1433) vividly comes to life in the hands of nine authors in this collection edited by Tiago Viúla de Faria. The authors, both distinguished established scholars and a new generation hailing from a wide range of disciplines, draw on their own superb archival research, careful analysis, and literary criticism to highlight the richness and range of the intellectual and cultural court. They take up an impressive scope of the subjects: economics, literature, astrology and astronomy, religion, architecture, and music, and make a compelling argument about the power of Philippa as queen consort. She adeptly presided over a court of letters in fourteenth-century Portugal as a patron of writers. She commissioned new books as well as Portuguese translations of John Gower’s Confessio amantis, and created reading communities that circulated books and ideas at court and beyond.” — Theresa Earenfight, Professor Emerita of History, Seattle University, Seattle, USA
“This collection offers a fascinating window into the vibrant and cosmopolitan court culture of late medieval Portugal. Philippa of Lancaster is celebrated both as a Lancastrian link to her relatives in Iberia, Burgundy and England and also as a dynastic progenitor of the ‘illustrious generation’. Her effective queenship and her role as patron and inspiration are also highlighted. While Philippa is the pivot point for this collection its chapters reveal the rich patronage of music, literature, astronomy and astrology as well as examining the situation of Jews within the royal court. An appended transcription and translation of the ordinances of King Duarte makes this collection even more beneficial to students and scholars of court culture. A highly recommended resource for the fields of queenship, royal and court studies and medievalists which brings cutting edge research on Philippa of Lancaster and the Avis court to a wider audience.” — Elena Woodacre, Reader in Renaissance History, University of Winchester, UK
About the Editor
Tiago Viúla de Faria is FCT Research Fellow at the Instituto de Estudos Medievais in NOVA University Lisbon, Portugal.
Book Details
Title: Philippa of Lancaster and the Court Culture of Medieval Portugal
Editor: Tiago Viúla de Faria et al
Publisher: Springer Nature @ Palgrave Macmillan
Publication Date: January 10, 2025
Series: The New Middle Ages
Language: English
Hardcover: 277 pp
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