The first of these is coordinated by Professors Jorge Fernández-Santos, Vera Cruz Miranda, and Teresa Martialay, researchers on the project and members of the medieval history department. It is a collaborative work that analyzes the role of honor as a value and concept from multiple perspectives. The book is structured in six thematic sections that provide a significant sample of a truly vast field. The close link between honor (honos) and virtue (virtus-aretéIt provided a model of ennobling behavior from the Greco-Roman world onward. The enduring relevance of the chivalric ideal in late medieval and early modern Europe would eventually clash with new warfare practices. Reputation was commonly invoked in matters ranging from material culture to international politics. Honorable profession and personal honor went hand in hand and, consequently, had to be defended together. Moreover, access to honor was forbidden to those considered inherently infamous or dishonest. From the High Middle Ages onward, the elite's practices of social distinction served to underscore that, essentially, honor was a privilege of social class.
The second work is coordinated by Professors Gijs Versteegen and Guillén Berrendero. It is also part of the aforementioned project and has the support of the High-Performance Group, CINTER. This choral work aims to emphasize the study of virtue and its different forms of sociability and representation.
The idea of civilized behavior in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period was intimately linked to the representation of women as models of virtue. The refinement, piety, and temperance displayed by virtuous ladies within the confines of palaces served as examples for men with the rough manners acquired on battlefields or in the circles of male society. "Virtue seems to be female, and vice male," the lady Emilia Pia wittily observed in her book. Castiglione's The Courtier.
The definition of typically feminine qualities, and how these were expressed in practice, varied according to the role attributed to women in society and the era. In this book, leading specialists analyze feminine virtue from the fields of history, literature, and philosophy, contrasting it with the equally ubiquitous misogynistic portrayal of women as dissolute and treacherous. They examine noblewomen, ladies of the court, poets, nuns, queens, and ambassadors, analyzing literary texts and other sources from the time of the troubadours to the Enlightenment and the decline of the Ancien Régime, in order to study how different models of virtue both favored and restricted women's actions in society during those periods.
These complete the set of two monographs that Versteegen and Guillén Berrendero have already published. The previous one was titled Studies on the Idea of Excellence in Europe (15th-19th centuries) Virtus vera nobilitas est, Peter Lang, 2023.
Both works outline a set of studies that constitutes one of the most complex and cross-cutting themes in the field of history and related disciplines. The three works attempt to answer how intellectuals of the early modern period sought to understand the dimensions of certain social values and their appropriation by the nobility. This is one of the topics that most preoccupied intellectuals, moralists, and scholars during the early modern period.