VIDICHI13th · Visual Dialects of Chivalry. Aristocratic Strategies of Cultural Exchange in the Thirteenth-Century Mediterranean

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Project objective

“Visual Dialects of Chivalry: Aristocratic Strategies of Cultural Exchange in the Thirteenth-Century Mediterranean” (VIDICHI13th) inquires into the mechanisms that lead to the creation of a shared elite identity, centered on martial values, in the Eastern Mediterranean from ca. 1200 to ca. 1300 AD. I intend to assess the impact of chivalry, defined here as a loose set of shared mores and aesthetic preferences connected to the exaltation of mounted warfare as the aristocracy’s defining pursuit, on the visual and material culture of the region’s elites. I propose that this complex phenomenon cannot be reduced to a Western cultural export, as hitherto argued. Rather, its multivalent nature and inherent adaptability allowed for the emergence of localized approaches to chivalric culture; in linguistic terms, mutually intelligible dialects, rather than a monolithic language. Nowhere is chivalry’s fluidity and its potential for cross-cultural communication more pronounced than in the period and geographical area under examination. In the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade (1204) and the Byzantine Empire’s subsequent disintegration, the rapid rise and fall of competing powers enhanced the need for its multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, and multi-confessional warrior elites to find ideological common ground. Contextually, the Eastern Mediterranean's deeper integration into the commercial networks of the Italian city-states – most prominently Venice, with its “colonial” possessions – and direct connection to the Frankish cultural sphere super-charged the circulation and cross-pollination of chivalric formulas. The project’s structure is designed to follow the maritime routes connecting the easternmost of the former Byzantine territories, Cyprus, to the Venetian lagoon, sailing by the southern Peloponnese, and skirting the Adriatic coast of Italy.

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

• UNIVERSITA CA' FOSCARI VENEZIA · VeneziaCoordinatorItaly

Links

• View on CORDIS
• DOI: 10.3030/101279558