Catégorie Reformation

Queen Marie of Lorraine and Nigel Tranter’s James V novels

Historical novels are curious things. According to Britannica, a historical novel “has as its setting a period of history” and “attempts to convey the spirit, manners, and social conditions of a past age with realistic detail and fidelity (which is in some case only apparent fidelity) to historical fact”. Tellingly, the first novel of its […]

Colloque Marie de Lorraine, 2nde partie

Été 1538. Marie de Lorraine, veuve du duc de Longueville, arrive en Écosse comme seconde femme de Jacques V Stuart. Leur mariage spectaculaire est célébré dans le bourg royal de Saint Andrews. De quelle famille vient la jeune femme, et qui sont ses modèles ? Dans quels lieux vit-elle en Écosse ? Quel est son […]

Marie de Guise ‘tyranne’?

Les 22-23 janvier 2016, l’UFR LCE de l’université de Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense organisait le colloque international « Le prince, le tyran, le despote: Figures du souverain en Europe de la Renaissance aux Lumières 1500-1800 ». Vendredi matin 22 janvier,  Armel Dubois-Nayt parlait de Marie de Lorraine : 9h45-11h00 Le prince et le tyran […]

Edinburgh’s Institut Français celebrates Marie de Guise’s 500th birthday

On Tuesday December 8, 2015, the Institut Français at 13 Randolph Crescent, Edinburgh, marks the 500th anniversary of the birth of Marie de Guise with the conference Marie de Guise, ’the other Mary’: Dr Julian Goodare, Reader in History at the University of Edinburgh, presents The political and diplomatic situation of Scotland in Europe in […]

Modern scholarship on Mary of Guise

Throughout the Middle Ages into the sixteenth century, France and Scotland were closely allied under the banner of « my enemies’ enemy is my friend », and both were enemies of England. Mary, a woman from the powerful Guise family in France, became queen consort of Scotland when she married James V, and was the mother to […]

More sexy fruit : The penis tree and the medieval nun

Maybe you’ve already read my article Sexy fruit from Renaissance Italy and seen the picture of a young woman putting a special kind of « fruit » in her basket. I saw this surprising scene on a Renaissance plate in the Louvre in Paris when strolling around the museum. Back home, I started researching the iconography of […]