Excerpt: ...she make use of her inheritance. Being religious, and living in an age when the frenzy for crusading had subsided and when architecture was the ruling passion, she expended her zeal in building religious houses and hospitals. Being artistic, she made her favourite castle at Hesdin, and the town around its walls, a centre of art life. Here, seemingly, she favoured all the arts, including to a certain extent music, then still in its infancy, for although she apparently had no regular minstrel or minstrels in her ...
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Excerpt: ...she make use of her inheritance. Being religious, and living in an age when the frenzy for crusading had subsided and when architecture was the ruling passion, she expended her zeal in building religious houses and hospitals. Being artistic, she made her favourite castle at Hesdin, and the town around its walls, a centre of art life. Here, seemingly, she favoured all the arts, including to a certain extent music, then still in its infancy, for although she apparently had no regular minstrel or minstrels in her employ as was customary in the houses of the noblesse, she seems to have engaged them for Church festivals and sundry fetes, and we know that on one occasion she hired a minstrel to soothe her sick child with the sweet soft music of the harp, thus suggesting that she herself had felt the power of music to minister to both body and soul. Being literary, Mahaut collected what MSS. and books she could, and the list of them serves to show what might be found in a library of the early fourteenth century. Her religious books included a Bible in French, 27 a Psalter, a Gradual, various Books of Hours for private devotion, 86 Lives of the Saints and of the Fathers, and the Miracles of Our Lady. Philosophy was represented by a French translation of Boethius (probably a copy of a translation made by order of King Philip le Bel, by Jean de Meun, the writer of the second portion of The Romance of the Rose), Law by a verse translation of the laws of Normandy, History by the Chronicles of the Kings of France, and Travel by The Romance of the Great Kan, known to us as The Travels of Marco Polo. But by far the largest category consisted of Romances, such as that of Oger le Danois from the national Epic, and another of Tancred, a hero of the first Crusade, the Romance of Troy, Percival le Gallois, Tristan, Renart, and the Violet, the story which forms the chief episode in the play of Cymbeline. Of course there was no great choice, but that Mahaut read them...
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Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
PLEASE NOTE, WE DO NOT SHIP TO DENMARK. New Book. Shipped from UK in 4 to 14 days. Established seller since 2000. Please note we cannot offer an expedited shipping service from the UK.
