Royal Gifts: Conferring Personhood upon Gifted Artworks in the Courts of England, 1300-1600 aims to uncover the social mechanisms at play when an artwork was given as a courtly gift, with particular interest given to those gifts which could be classed as ‘inalienable’ from the donor. The essay opens with an examination of current anthropological definitions of inalienable artworks and their powerful influence when deployed reciprocally at court as a binding social glue, reinforcing the ties from one individual to another which may not be readily strengthened by any other means. The essay goes on to make an analysis of three such artworks which fit such a definition, in light of how their status as a gift has informed their making, artistry, and meaning. The specific types of artwork analysed are two illuminated manuscripts commissioned by royal patrons, and a gold jewellery brooch or badge of fealty.Primary issues addressed by the essay are building a picture of existing scholarship which deals with medieval gift-giving, why and how an artwork might be made so as to be inalienable from the owner, and how this can alter a contextual interpretation of the artwork. The reasoning behind why such gift-giving rituals ceased to be enacted is also explored.The essay found that inalienable possessions, especially artworks, are never given arbitrarily in a court setting. Often, the nature of the artwork given contains vital information about the relationship between donor and recipient. Making an art historical analysis of such artworks also revealed details about certain artistic choices made at the time to artwork was commissioned. In short, the essay finds that rendering an artwork inalienable was beneficial as a device for strengthening one’s own identity and one’s relation to others.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-532110 |
| Date | January 2016 |
| Creators | Lindkvist, Keeley |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Konstvetenskapliga institutionen |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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