Courtly cultures: western Europe, Byzantium, the Islamic world, India, China, and Japan

PATRICK J. GEARY, DAUD ALI, PAUL S. ATKINS, MICHAEL COOPERSON, RITA COSTA GOMES, PAUL DUTTON, GERT MELVILLE, CLAUDIA RAPP, KARL-HEINZ SPIEβ, STEPHEN WEST AND PAULINE yU

Courts are centers of power, whether religious or political, which create specialized communities of individuals who both carry out functions related to the exercise of this power and simultaneously create cultural forms that represent these centers to themselves and to those outside them.

Power and place

Between 500 and 1500 Constantinople (modern Istanbul) was the site of the most stable court in the world: for almost a millennium, from the late fifth century until 1453 - except for a brief hiatus between 1204 and 1261 when the city was under Crusader rule - it was the permanent residence for the Byzantine emperors. The papal court, which developed out of late Roman traditions of administration, was also remarkably stable through most of this period, although between 1309 and 1376 it moved to Avignon and then between 1378 and 1417 rival popes, one in Rome and one in Avignon, competed for universal recognition.

Elsewhere, changes in dynasties meant changes in the centers of royal or imperial power. China knew various, at times competing, imperial court cities after the collapse of the Han dynasty in 220, when new regional courts claiming imperial legitimacy arose. These included the Shu court of Chengdu and the Wu court at Jiankang as well as northern centers of power dominated by barbarian rather than Han traditions. The Tang (618-907) re-established unity and attempted to revive Han court traditions at Chang'an (present-day Xi'an). Subsequently Kaifeng remained a major capital city under various names until the Mongols created a new capital at what would become Beijing. The Japanese court followed the Chinese model and early on was located at various sites in the Asuka region until it was finally fixed at Nara in 710. In 784, the capital was moved to Nagaoka, west of what is now Kyoto. Only in 794 was the Heian capital established at present-day Kyoto, where it remained, with a few exceptions (Fukuhara in the twelfth century and Yoshino rivalling Kyoto in the fourteenth) for more than a millennium.

The continuity of these great courts contrasted with the peripatetic courts of India and western Europe. Power in India and post-Roman western Europe was distributed, with numerous smaller court-centered polities, modular in their proliferation but often ranged in unstable relation to one another. In both regions monarchs and their courts were often traveling, both on ritual tours of the kingdom and on military campaigns. In India and to some extent in parts of Europe, these processions were highly ritualized events and presented the court “on the move” - with many of the same functionaries that attended the royal assembly within the palace.

These radical differences in place corresponded to an equally radical difference in physical organization. Chinese courts were by many orders of magnitude the largest courts in the world, and thanks to their rigid grid­square layouts they were the most organized and complex. Chang'an, the location of the Tang court, by 750 had a population of close to one million. The city's layout was an almost perfect square of 8.6 kilometers by 9.7 kilometers, divided into a grid with the Imperial City and Imperial Palace centered in the north. The Song capitals of Kaifeng and Hangzhou were also vibrant, wealthy, and well-populated cities that undertook impressive con­struction projects.

While the Chinese court was separated from the rest of the city by imposing walls, the Byzantine court blended into the urban fabric of Con­stantinople. The palace area occupied the southeastern part of the triangular peninsula on which Constantinople was located, and was thus largely bounded by water. To the north lay the patriarchate and the Church of Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sophia) and to the west the hippodrome where the emperor presided over the horse races and other entertainments in full view of the other spectators. A bronze gate (Chalke) decorated with religious and imper­ial imagery marked the ceremonial entry point into the palace area. The palace itself was an agglomeration of buildings that underwent many alter­ations in the course of time - residences for the imperial household and the imperial bodyguard, chapels, reception and banqueting halls, but also a private harbor, gardens and a polo ground.

Japanese capitals were established on the Chinese model, laid out on a grid according to geomantic principles, with major Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines sited nearby. Indian courts were less formally structured, with the residential interior of the king's palace including women's quarters (antahpuram), houses for princes, and often a garden or pleasure park for use by the king and his intimates. The least formal spatial organizations of all were western European courts, which, in keeping with the constant mobility of the court, often consisted of no more than great estates or rural palaces with a residence and throne hall, a palace chapel, and various undifferen­tiated buildings for the support of the royal family and its retainers. When centers of royal or princely power began to become more established, they were deeply influenced by the architecture of fortifications. This typically included a heavily guarded walled area that enclosed the royal residence, throne hall, living quarters for intimate members of the household, and a palace chapel. Even by the end of the fifteenth century Western monarchies had hardly begun to create fixed royal courts comparable to those of Asia.

Membership and function

Not every royal or imperial court was a center of real political power, and the makeup and roles of courtiers differed enormously across Eurasia.

The Chinese court also included numerous eunuchs who were personal attendants on the emperor and the royal clan, particularly women. They performed numerous daily tasks but could on occasion rise to prominence as privy councilor to the emperor, and because of their close personal ties to the imperial family they were given many important ad hoc assignments, such as heading construction and hydrology projects. Finally, there was a graded hierarchy for the many women who populated the eastern part of the rear palaces: the dowager empress, the empress, royal consorts, concubines, and women in waiting. There was, as well, a large network of royal princes and princesses who were housed within the capital (for princes) or sent out in marriage (princesses).

Beginning with the Tang, entry to the imperial Chinese court bureaucracy occurred increasingly through imperial examinations based on the Confucian classics and composition skills, which gave successful candidates access to positions in the government civil service, including service in the imperial court itself.Under the Tang, holders of the highest degree rose from 7 per cent of chief councilors in the early seventh century to over 40 per cent a century later, although the overwhelming majority of Tang officials obtained their positions not through the examination system but through patronage and recommendations. By the Song, the examination system had become so significant that hundreds of thousands of aspirants sat for examinations at all levels, although fewer than ι per cent of candidates might aspire to the highest degree, jinshi (presented scholar), and have access to the imperial palace. Still, aristocratic patronage and nepotism insured that roughly half of the palace bureaucracy rose more through connections than through the examinations.

No other court approached the size or organizational complexity of the Chinese. The Japanese court attempted to introduce an examination system based on the Chinese in the eighth century, but this was soon abandoned in favor of one in which kinship ties and personal connections played a domin­ant role. Eventually court posts and ranks became more or less hereditary, and the designated heir could expect to attain his father's terminal rank by the end of his career. Women could enter court service as ladies-in-waiting or as consorts to an emperor or prince. Official permission was required to serve as a palace courtier (Ienjobito), and men who held one of the highest three ranks were regarded as senior nobles (kugyδ). Members of the court have occupied the social apex of Japan into the modern age, even during times in which they lacked political and economic power. The imperial family was thus served by elite lineages whose male members served as regents, ministers, and advisers; and whose women might also serve as consorts, ladies-in-waiting, and attendants. Lesser lineages and cadet branches of the elite lines provided personnel to staff the court bureaucracy and govern the provinces.

Japan also followed Chinese models in organizing court personnel, albeit on a lesser scale. Two sets of penal and administrative codes (ritsuryδ), based on models from Sui- and Tang-dynasty China, were promulgated in the early eighth century. They prescribed a system of ranks for male courtiers from Senior First down to Junior Eighth, lower grade; boys from mid- and high- ranking lineages entered the system at Junior Fifth, lower grade. Rank theoretically entitled the holder to an appropriate office in a branch of the imperial bureaucracy. The most prestigious posts fell under the aegis of the Council of State (Dajδkan) and included such offices as Grand Minister of State (Dajδ-daijin), Minister of the Left, Minister of the Right, Senior Coun­selor, Counselor, Junior Counselor, and Adviser. The court maintained its own military apparatus and a promising courtier might also have a post as an officer in the Imperial Bodyguard. Other ministries were dedicated to func­tions such as Treasury, Punishments, Ceremonial, and Provincial Adminis­tration. Over time various extra-code offices were created to supplement the ritsuryδ posts, such as the Office of the Chamberlain (Kurododokoro), whose head acted as the emperor's private secretary and chief of staff. Members of the imperial family had their own official titles, such as Empress Dowager, Imperial Lady, or ranked Princes and Princesses of the Blood. Ladies-in­waiting were also assigned ranks and offices, mainly associated with their service on the emperor. The central court appointed governors and other provincial officials to administer the country beyond the Kyoto area.

The Byzantine court, like the Chinese and in contrast to the Japanese, was appointed rather than hereditary, although no formal system of accession existed as it did in China. Appointments to the court were considered direct favors of the emperor, who often acted under the influence of powerful advisers. Term limits allowed the emperor to extend his favor to a larger group of people. In the ninth and tenth centuries, a particular court office was especially designated for women. The courtiers received their rewards in an annual ceremony directly from the emperor, in the form of money as well as outfits and insignia appropriate to their office. No entrance exams and no formal restrictions according to ethnicity or status barred access to the court, but a well-developed social network could be instrumental for securing an appointment. In the ninth century, several women of modest origins became imperial consorts as the result of empire-wide “bride shows.” In later centuries, political alliances were often cemented by the marriage of a (future) emperor to the daughter of a foreign ruler.

For all of the official titles held by members of the Byzantine court, their actual functions were much less obvious. The most important and influential office at the Byzantine court was that of the Grand Chamberlain, who also had access to the women's quarters. This position was traditionally reserved for eunuchs, who played an important part in public life. The Master of Ceremonies was in charge of staging the imperial ceremonies that took place in various palace buildings, the ceremonies involving the public in the hippodrome and other open spaces of the city, and the religious ceremonies in the Church of Holy Wisdom. His duties included overseeing the elaborate seating arrangements at imperial banquets. Beginning with the late eleventh century, kinship designations were increasingly awarded as court titles. However it is difficult to know whether any official designation refers to a title (and hence an honor) or to an office (and hence a function). Many designations at court do not seem to have carried a clearly defined portfolio of tasks.

The earliest Indian manuals on polity datable to the second to fourth century mention the “examination” of men appointed as dependents, testing their virtues, loyalty, etc. with elaborate ruses and temptations. The implicit hierarchy of court attendance and even royal service was distinct from that of “caste.” Though the Brahmin, as intellectual and expert in literate sciences, tended to monopolize strategic and religious roles at court, and his status was therefore traditionally regarded as above that of the king, for all intents and purposes he served the king as a loyal subordinate. Non-religious functions were socially porous at court and a vast range of aspiring groups and local notables sought gainful employment, reputation, fortune, and even lordly or warrior status through court service. Even Brahmins were known to enter military service. In all, the court remained a fluid space as far as caste was concerned.

Surrounding the king or lord were his most intimate counselors (mantrin), usually headed by a chief advisor, as well as a royal priest (purohit) or spiritual advisor (rajaguru) and a court astrologer. He often also had a court jester (vidusaka) in attendance, though this figure is more prominent in literary depictions of the court than in court manuals as such. Chief functions among the king's advisors included his “minister of peace and war” (mahasandhivi- grahaka) and chamberlain (mahapratihara), who controlled access to the king and movement throughout the palace compound. Among the most import­ant tasks performed by the chamberlain and his associates was the monitor­ing of the entrance to, and seating structure and protocol within, the king's assembly hall. A very large number of lesser functionaries, often with the most generic of titles, resided within the palace complex. The women's quarters were overseen by a special officer and the king met the women there on a daily basis in a manner very similar to his treatment of courtiers and vassals. Elaborate protocols and gift exchange determined which particu­lar women would be selected for nocturnal visitations by the king. Princes were often appointed as “viceroys” to provincial capitals. Revenue officials and structure, particularly the precise interface between imperial adminis­trators and local notables, are not entirely clear from the evidence, though we know that the upper echelons of local institutions were often susceptible to royal influence. The royal court, however, was not primarily a legislative or judicial forum. The king decided legal cases only in situations where intervention was necessary in the mostly local adjudication of justice.

The gradation of rank and title among vassals, courtiers, and other dependents differed regionally and is not always very well understood. There is an emphasis on the wearing of jewelry to indicate rank and status - with higher ranks having more ornamented crowns, armbands, rings, and other jewelry. Bands (patta) probably made of silk supplemented these ornaments as emblems of status. The emissary, or dutaka, was an office of special importance and his qualifications and treatment were generally outlined in the manuals on polity. The messenger had to be able to converse according to florid verbal and gestural protocols when visiting the court of another king - because even when he was entrusted with a written message (usually with the king's seal to attest the authenticity of the message) the most important parts of the letter were only conveyed verbally.

As originally planned, the ‘Abbasid Baghdad took the form of a round city containing the caliph's palace, his mosque, and the tax bureaus, the chancel­lery, and other offices. In practice, however, the center of power was mobile. The early caliphs built new residential complexes outside the round city, or left the capital for extended stays near the Byzantine front. During the later ‘Abbasid period, conversely, the caliphs were often confined to their palaces, as military and administrative leadership was diffused to provincial courts.

Figure 7.1 Mahmud ibn Sebuktegin receives a robe of honour from the Caliph al-Qadir billah in 1000, miniature from the 'Jdmi' al-tawdrikh’ of RashTd al-DTn, c. 1307 (vellum) (Edinburgh University Library, Scotland. With kind permission of the University of Edinburgh / Bridgeman Images)

At the head of the early 'Abbasid civil hierarchy stood the vizier or chief administrator. Also directly answerable to the caliph, at least in theory, were the military commanders, provincial governors, and judges (see Figure 7.1). In the early period, at least, the so-called “common people” appear to have been given regular access to high officials in order to seek redress of grievances.

Wherever the center of power was located, Arabic literary sources suggest the existence of strict boundaries between the indoors and the outdoors, and between ceremonial and intimate space. Access to the ruler was controlled by a chamberlain, and women’s spaces overseen by a female officer called the qahramanah. Those empowered to cross the boundaries between gendered spaces included the ruler, eunuchs, and children.

Germanic and Carolingian courts were hierarchically organized with a series of offices and officers of descending importance: the queen and chamberlain, the seneschal (palace arrangements), wine steward, constable (who oversaw travel arrangements), master of lodgings, hunters, and falcon­ers. The queen, with the assistance of the chamberlain, oversaw the domestic activities of the palace and its servants; the count of the palace dealt with judicial matters and petitions; an archchaplain supervised the religious activ­ities of the palace; and, under him, an archchancellor supervised the notaries and scribes who produced the acts and charters of the king. The system was male dominated, though the wives and female offspring of the king had a prominent place at court and some lateral power. Most courts moved with the king from palace to palace, both for reasons of effective regional govern­ance and to spread the expense of maintaining the court over several sites.

The structure of Western courts in post-Carolingian Europe can be described as a combination of three different functions: mechanisms of periodic gatherings of followers and allies (for ritual commensality, for judicial functions, for counsel and political assembly); mechanisms of separ­ation and control of the ruler's physical presence; and mechanisms of sacralization associated with the religious autonomy of the monarchs. Those would correspond, respectively, to the aula or hall, to the cubiculum /cham­ber, and to the chapel. The treasury was both associated with the king's physical body (therefore with his chamber), and with the chapel, which most probably originated from the treasury itself. The functional differentiation of those three domains, all of them organized around the figure of the ruler, and its translation into a similar set of offices is recognizable in most post­Carolingian Western courts. The official role of the queen declined from what it had been in Carolingian times in Western royal courts, and other women did not hold formal offices, except in the chamber of the queen, which was almost entirely composed of females. Since Western royal courts remained peripatetic practically until the seventeenth century, the regime of court offices evolved in tandem with this system of life. The court would tend to incorporate more people when it was settled in one place for a longer period, and to reduce its membership whenever it was moving to another residence or seat of power. Functional clusters such as central tribunals, chancelleries, and treasuries tended to be fixed in specific locations after the 1200s, even though the kings continued to move with their regular entourage.

Noble courts in Europe were generally organized by four primary officers: the steward, the chamberlain, the marshal, and the butler. These offices indicate their origins within the household, although in great aristocratic courts they acquired major responsibilities for provisioning, finances, mili­tary, and control of the hundreds of persons who might make up the court. Later a master of the Household might oversee all of the court staff. Women at court, under the direction of a mistress of the court, resided primarily in the women's quarters that were only occasionally open to male courtiers - only the lord had unrestricted access.

Competition and courtliness

Neither elaborate systems that recruited courtiers by examination nor her­editary right prevented intense competition at courts, both at the top, as rival claimants sought either to replace rulers or secure their succession, and at the level of the courtiers who jockeyed for influence over rulers. Since the Chinese emperor was the Son of Heaven and ruled only with the Mandate of Heaven, dynastic change normally took the form of conquest by warlords whose victories were evidence that the mandate had been passed on to them because of the failures of their predecessor. Within the dynasty, succession passed from father to son, although disputes involving brothers and mothers advancing favored sons were common. Common, too, was competition among the principal power groups within the court itself: the eunuchs, the Confucian scholar bureaucrats, representatives of the aristocracy and the military. In Japan, even though emperors were blocked from implementing direct rule, multiple consorts competed to ensure that their offspring might succeed to the throne. Likewise the tradition of the insei (rule by retired emperor) system, instituted in the eleventh century, by which an elder relative - usually the father - of a young emperor wielded power, spurred rivalries between members of the older generation. By the late thirteenth century rivalries between two hereditary lines of succession to the throne gave rise to rival courts (from 1337 until 1392), the southern at Yoshino and the northern at Kyoto.

Western European courts were likewise competitive places for all: for royal family members, nobles, churchmen, and the women in attendance. While succession in the German kingdom and among ecclesiastical princes, including bishops and the pope, was determined through election, transfer of monarchical power normally followed hereditary rules, and primogeniture came to prevail in most European courts and kingdoms after 1000 ce. Succession through the female line in the absence of a direct male heir and transmission of power to women were also practiced, and competition among sons or in opposition to their fathers occurred frequently, generating factions among courtiers. Inside the court, a combination of personal factors (proximity in childhood or adolescence, individual charisma or skills) and control of specific offices or positions (often transmitted hereditarily) allowed for access to the ruler. The king's personal choice was an active principle in the regime of courtly offices and in the distribution of power and influence, inside the court as well as in the kingdom. This factor determined a specific “moral economy” in Western courts centered on obtaining royal preference and attaching oneself to the person of the ruler. However, competition did not always revolve around specific and formally defined status or positions. A constellation of concepts related to the “love” or “wrath” of the ruler seems to express this shifting terrain, in which the transfer and acquisition of power were seen as the results of personal interaction. As in earlier periods, royal favorites, particularly when they were chosen from outside traditional court circles, became targets of intrigue and blame for unpopular royal policies.

As in Western monarchies, access to the Byzantine emperor and the ability to speak freely in the emperor's presence (parrhesia) were highly prized. Competition for access to power or for succession to the throne was not uncommon. Gossip, the spreading of false rumors, and violence, even murder, were the most effective methods to undermine the usual and expected pattern of dynastic succession. A ruling emperor (augustus) usually took precautions to secure a smooth transition of power through the appointment of a junior emperor (caesar) as his designated successor. In the absence of male offspring, the designated successor was usually either a bureaucrat or a general. A large number of emperors came to power by usurpation, with the backing of the army or the aristocracy.

In the Baghdad court, competition was exacerbated by the loose tradition of succession: caliphs were customarily succeeded by male relatives, usually brothers or sons, but there were few rules beyond that. In theory, the caliph was God's - and later the Prophet's - representative on earth, a distinction available only to members of certain families. Thus, even after the caliph became a figurehead, chosen by whatever military faction happened to be in the ascendant, he was never dispensed with altogether.

Competition was likewise endemic to Indian court life at a number of levels. Though primogeniture was recognized, in practice collateral succes­sion was common, a feature exacerbated by the widespread practice of polygamy as a method of establishing political alliances. Royal houses were thus often filled with generations of princes. The earliest texts on polity consider queens and their sons to be the most serious internal threat to political authority. Queens, whose residential quarters in the palace were separate from the king's, were to be visited only after being cleared of all suspicion by older women. Theoretically arranged in a hierarchy of junior to senior status, queens often had strong rivalries among themselves for the position of the royal favorite, and were often joined by concubines or other independent women who might capture the king's attentions. Competition among princes was potentially even more dangerous. One text on polity notes that they were like “crabs" - devouring their fathers. Competition was not limited to men of royal status, but obtained among vassals, courtiers, and servants as well. The court was imagined as a great circle where success was often measured by one's proximity to its center of power in the form of the lord or king. Such a vision of the court was not far from that of a twelfth­century English courtier who compared the royal court to hell.

Intense rivalry and constant insecurity gave rise in courts across Eurasia to particular codes of behavior that sought to teach courtiers successful skills to survive and advance within these perilous environments. Confucianism, which placed great priority on conservative adherence to tradition, duty to principle rather than to factions, and reforms that would revitalize Confucian ideals (although just what these might be was hotly disputed) dominated Chinese codes of courtly behavior. Japanese courtiers were also expected to uphold Confucian ideals of propriety, benevolence, justice, and rectitude. Yet most conceptions of how a courtier should behave cluster around aesthetics, not ethics, and crystallize in the contested term miyabi, sometimes translated as “courtliness,” but more literally “to behave in the manner of the capital [as opposed to the rusticated provinces],” connoting restraint, sophistication, and savoir-faire. An alternate interpretation, however, based on the range of meanings associated with the various Chinese characters used to write it, suggests the opposite, linking miyabi with unconventionality, freedom, and a turning away from the world of the capital.¹

In India, a very different and distinct didactic literature, exemplified by works like the Pancatantra and Hitopadesa, provided courtiers with a kind of ethics and strategy of survival in the fiercely competitive world of the court which involved studying the outer countenances and inner dispositions of one's rivals and superiors to detect strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for political gain. Through translation into Middle Persian and then into Arabic, the Indian ideal proved formative of the Islamic code of refined behavior, called adab. The ideal practitioner, usually imagined as a young man, was pleasant though not ostentatious in dress and manners; well-versed in Arabic poetry, the Quran, history, medicine, and other branches of ^[230] knowledge; and restrained and dignified in bearing, though capable of witty rejoinders as required by a turn in the conversation. Adab allowed for a ceremonial loss of restraint in its idealization of love, whether for beardless boys or for women. In practice, advancement probably depended more immediately on the cultivation of reciprocity relations with patrons and dependents alike. Adab culture favored both ruinous displays of generosity and graceful acceptance of favors, customs through which the hierarchical order, headed by a God imagined as the Most Bountiful, was maintained.

Western courtly advice on comportment spanned both the ideal and the practical. Young kings received advice manuals called Mirrors for Princes that spelled out courtly virtues and vices, and advised the young ruler how to live a life pleasing to God, manage a family, select a wife, deal with rivals, and conduct wars. From the twelfth century, possibly under the influence of Islamic courtly tradition learned in Spain and the Near East, Western court literature produced an idealization of court behavior, “courtliness.” This code of conduct theoretically guided the behavior of both a lord and his followers with an emphasis on self-control and refinement of emotions, eloquence of speech, and service to the lord and his consort. Actual courtly behavior was learned essentially through practice, hence the tradition of sending youths to court from an early age (approximately 14) to serve and to experience the ways of courtly life.

In Byzantium, by contrast, since the tastes and preferences of each indi­vidual emperor guided his selection of courtiers and dominated all inter­actions at court, there was no formal instruction in “courtly behavior.” After the eighth century, the expected code of conduct and mode of comportment was similar to that of the great aristocratic families. Ethical and political advice to the emperor was offered in Mirrors for Princes literature (by the deacon Agapetus in the sixth century, Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus in the tenth century, Theophylaktos of Ohrid in the eleventh century). An eleventh-century handbook, the Strategikon by Kekaumenos, dispenses advice on how to navigate the dangers of a career in the administration or in the military. Foreign-born imperial brides were prepared for their future role by priests and older female members of the court.

Cultural production in the court

In virtually every court, cultural production, both by and for members of the court, developed forms that sought to separate court culture from the rest of society. Paradoxically, these forms tended to be highly imitated by lesser courts and non-court milieux.

As would be expected in a court whose members were largely recruited by examinations on the literary canon, Chinese courtiers, members of the imperial family, and even emperors produced literary works, especially poetry. The rhapsody (fu), which combined verse and prose, developed in the second century before the Common Era and continued to be a means of demonstrating knowledge of the classical canon and technical skills. During the Tang dynasty new poetic forms, often with more restrictive forms governing structure and based on balance of the four tones in Middle Chinese, were developed, with Du Fu (712-70), the greatest Chinese poet, the acknowledged master. Court culture included not only poetry but also music, calligraphy, and silk painting. The court and its members patronized artists and artisans in the vast cities surrounding the court as well as performers who, from the Song dynasty on, included urban performing troupes that bridged urban and court cultural modes.

The principal literary genre of the Japanese court was the waka poem, a thirty-one syllable verse comprising a sequence of five “lines” of 5,7,5,7 and 7 syllables. Courtiers were expected to be able to compose a passable verse on the themes of love, the seasons, religion, felicitations, laments, or other decorous topics. In early times, poems were usually written for specific social occasions, such as a banquet or a romantic rendezvous; during the twelfth century, the practice of composing sequences on a set of prescribed topics became popular, and such sequences could be matched in poetry contests that were judged and critiqued. From 905 until 1439 compilers produced twenty-one poetic anthologies by imperial command, each work including from about 500 to 3,000 poems, largely by court poets.

In addition, courtiers and, especially, ladies-in-waiting composed prose works based to varying degrees upon their lives at court. Most prominent is the early eleventh-century Tale of Genji, generally acknowledged as the central work of Japanese literature. Written by a lady-in-waiting during the period of Fujiwara ascendancy, it is set about a century earlier, during a “golden age” of direct imperial rule. Its hero, the Shining Genji, is the son of an emperor but has been reduced to peer status; the story follows him and his numerous paramours through their romantic and political intrigues. Music was also of great importance, and proficiency in an instrument was another desirable skill that a courtier should possess. Generally, court ladies played the koto, a stringed instrument, while gentlemen played the flute. Gagaku, the music of the Japanese court, originated in Chinese and Korean forms and in the Shinto ritual music called kagura. Its slow, stately melodies and rhythms are achieved with flutes, drums, and various wind instruments, most prominently the oboe-like hichiriki. Painting was practiced by amateur and professional artists. Portraiture was not unknown, but the favored subject was the landscape. Illustrated handscrolls were popular, and callig­raphy prized as a high art, superior in status to painting. Statuary and sculpture mainly portrayed Buddhist figures and themes.

In India, courts were but one of the three great centers of cultural production in the period between c. 300-1300 cb, the others being brahman- ical hermitages and temples. Most classical literature in Sanskrit (known as kavya) during this period, including some scientific and religious works, was composed expressly for courtly audiences. Moreover, much literary, hermen­eutic and legal intellectualism, not to mention religious writings, though not affiliated with particular courts, nevertheless often evolved in close dialogue with the concerns of the courtly classes. Specialized areas of knowledge and practice, like astrology, prognostication, erotics, gemology and perfumery, were particularly influenced by courtly concerns. Poetic production took several important forms, most ubiquitously the eulogistic poems composed by court poets for ruling kings. These prefaced all the public royal edicts, now preserved in thousands of stone and copper plate inscriptions. These eulogies recorded ancestors of the ruling king and celebrated his heroic and generous deeds. Over time, we see a continued poetic elaboration of these encomia and a steady convergence with the more elaborate literary genres (narrative poems, prose and drama) patronized at court. Kings often called competitions of poetic virtuosity and learning, and the most pre-eminent poets were laurelled with titles like the “Emperor among Poets” Ikavichakravartin).

At many Islamic courts, high officials competed to reward poets, scholars, and scientists. Some scholars were given rooms in the court complex, though most worked at home. Soon after the accession of the ‘Abbasids, paper, imported from China, became widely available. Learned traditions such as poetry, genealogy, biography, Arabic grammar, Quranic exegesis, and hadith (reports of the Prophet's exemplary statements and actions) were either committed to writing for the first time, or grew enormously in scope and ambition. A tenth-century list of books available for sale in Baghdad includes works on everything from poetry, law, theology, and history to jokes, obscenities, and fictions. At the behest of the caliphs, their physicians, and other patrons, Nestorian Christian and Sabean scholars produced remarkably accurate translations of ancient Greek philosophical, medical, and other texts. The most famous patron of the sciences was Caliph al-Ma'mun (813-33), who sponsored the discovery of algebra, the mapping of the known world, and the construction of mechanical devices. The ‘ Abbasid court was also a center of musical performance, though the most famous musicians - men and women alike - were trained by outside entrepreneurs and seem to have practiced at home in preparation for their gala appearances at the court.

Byzantine imperial patronage resulted in the creation of architecture, monumental painting, mosaics, and the production of works of ivory, gold and silver or enamel as well as manuscripts. Some emperors also supported the creation of literature and poetry. Ample rewards awaited those who performed laudatory speeches (panegyrics) in the presence of the emperor and his court. Many historiographers either enjoyed access to court circles or were themselves members of the court and thus wrote from a privileged position, although rarely at the direct instigation of the emperor.

Western courts, like those of Japan, were but one center of cultural production, the other being major monastic foundations. Early medieval courts sought to continue Roman traditions of Latin poetry and literary production, but with a distinctly Christian cast, attracting scholars and poets both lay and ecclesiastical. With the exception of the Visigothic King Sisebut (c. 565-620 or 621), few early medieval rulers themselves composed literary works. In the late eighth century the Frankish ruler Charlemagne brought together a group of international scholars who wrote Latin poems for the king, produced theological, grammatical, and administrative treatises, and corresponded in letters with each other and the king. His grandson Charles the Bald likewise established a palace school and encouraged the production of painting, poetry, and theological works.

With some exceptions such as the court of Roger II of Sicily and Henry II of England, post-Carolingian royal courts were not primarily centers of cultural production prior to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The exception was the German court of the tenth and early eleventh centuries, where traditional Carolingian and Byzantine traditions of religious writing and manuscript illumination continued to be patronized (if not actually practiced) as part of royal representation. Royal courts were rather centers of consumption of culture, whether Latin clerical culture produced in episcopal and especially monastic environments, or visual and plastic arts (book illumination, gold and silver work) produced by artisans located near courtly centers who relied on court and aristocratic patronage. Courts themselves were centers of the display of these productions as part of the representation of monarchs and courtiers through distinctive dress, manners, and comportment.

While royal courts remained consumers rather than producers of culture, episcopal courts, particularly in the Rhineland and the German speaking regions, played a particularly important role in the development of new modes of comportment and sensitivity derived from classical and Christian precedent. In the twelfth century this clerical tradition, probably influenced by Islamic courtly tradition, developed into a distinctive courtly culture in great aristocratic courts. The ideal of courtliness, discussed above, was demonstrated in speech, in gestures, in speaking, in dancing, and in eating. The highpoint of courtly stylization was the model of “courtly love,” an idealization of romantic attachment that contrasted with the crass reality of marriages arranged for family interests. This form of vernacular courtly literature began in the twelfth century, along with a specific courtly literature that celebrated and elevated the dynasties of individual nobles. Music served the same purpose of representing the lord, as did wall painting and manu­script illumination. By the fifteenth century a new form of representation, that of the ruler's portrait, emerged, first in conjunction with religious iconography but increasingly as independent depictions of specific rulers and great lords. Nevertheless, the level of artistic production and display depended enormously on the interests of specific rulers and varied greatly from court to court.

Court ceremonial

Essential to the identity and role of courts as central places of power were the rituals performed by the ruler and his entourage. However, the complexity and choreography of such rituals varied enormously, from the strictly regulated ceremonies performed by the Chinese emperor to maintain the Mandate of Heaven to the chaotic and casual behavior of twelfth-century English courts which, apart from a few “crown wearing” celebrations, seem to have lacked virtually all formality.

Chinese and Japanese courts followed carefully prescribed cycles of annual events through various rites, festivals, banquets, and ceremonies. Court life was highly ritualized, and rites were conducted for births, marriages, deaths, accessions, abdications, and many other events. Reform movements in China often took the form of investigating whether the performance of ancient rituals properly venerated ancestor rulers as well as the appropriate acts required at the change of seasons and through the life cycle. The emperor was visible to the million inhabitants of the capital on a regular basis, moving through the city in impressive parades populated by a panoply of civil and military officials, musicians, and eunuchs that numbered in the thousands. These parades were usually linked to seasonal festivals such as New Year's and were part of a huge government enterprise not only to display imperial power and majesty, but to create a close bond between the court and the citizens of the capital by embedding imperial display within the context of entertainment. In Japan, an elaborate set of protocols governed the cere­monies surrounding the accession and investiture of an emperor. From ancient times a harvest ritual (Niinamesai) was performed annually in the eleventh month in which the regnant emperor would make offerings of the year's first rice crop to the deities of heaven and earth, taste the grain himself, and thank them for a bountiful harvest. During the first year of each emperor's reign, this rite was replaced by an elaborate ritual of food offering (Daijδsai), in which divination was used to select two paddy fields, which were then consecrated before being specially prepared for harvest. The harvested rice was brought to the new emperor, ritually purified, and prepared for his consumption with the gods.

An annual cycle of rituals in accordance with the liturgical calendar of the year likewise dominated the life of the Byzantine emperor, his family, and his closest associates, as well as that of the Patriarch and his staff. Not only during the Christmas and Easter season, but also on the occasion of feasts of saints, the court participated in rituals in the palace or in the cathedral church of Hagia Sophia, or in processions through the city. Important events in the imperial family - births, marriages, deaths, and of course accessions to the throne - were also marked by rituals. The most common elements in these rituals were prayers, the chanting of Psalms, changes of clothing, and the partaking of symbolic foods. As in China and Japan, banqueting played an important role in court ritual, both to reward dignitaries and to impress foreign visitors. The seating order on these grand occasions was a carefully calibrated affair, and several handbooks of instruction in these matters survive.

In Indian courts, the life cycle rites of the king and courtiers usually conformed to those of the upper castes. The accession of a new king was effected by a “shower-bath into kingship” (rdjydbhiseka). Marriage was an important ritual that was often used to forge dynastic alliances. Hindu kings were polygamous and queens were ranked, with the chief queen (pattamahddevι) having pride of place in matters of inheritance - though primogeniture was not always practiced. Princes were often crowned “heir apparent” well before the king died or stepped down. In contrast with most other Eurasian courts, eating was not imbued with a strong communal sociality, and literary texts contain no descriptions of feasts but only briefly mention that the king and intimates ate together. This lack of descriptions of banquets is partly due to the rules of who might dine together current among the upper castes in Hindu society. Sensual descriptions at court rely on the imagery of sound, smell and light rather than gustatory sensation.

Numerous religious ceremonies were practiced by those at court in India. The king had an important place in the consecration and inauguration of large temples, and the procession of deities. The king and his family also had a designated kuladevata or “family deity” that allowed for private royal worship. The court astrologer was consulted before any major social or political undertaking, and propitiatory, prophylactic, and injurious rites were often performed to assist the career of the king. An important festival mentioned in literary texts was the “Spring Festival” or vasantotsava, where the god of Love, Kamadeva, was worshipped and merriment was made in the gardens of the palace.

Early European courts throbbed to the rhythm of rituals. The court participated in weekly church services, which were scripted public perform­ances, accompanied by chanting, and overseen by the king. The king as suzerain entered publicly into oral contracts with his magnates that made them his vassals. The vassalage ceremony was highly ritualized; the vassal with his hands lifted knelt before the lord, swore out loud and in the presence of relics of the saints to be his loyal man and to serve his lord. The lord cupped the man's hands, accepted his pledge with reciprocal words, and often gave him a token of the land he would receive as a benefice. The event was public and called on four of the senses: sight, sound, hearing, and touch. There were formal ceremonies to elevate and crown kings and queens, emperors and empresses, and minor ceremonies for the elevation of officials. There were ceremonies to mark the adventus or arrival of dignitaries at court and to mark the king’s own leave-taking and arrival at the palace. Gift giving was a formal and expected ritual, as inferiors paid homage to the king. Banquets were structured but less ritualized occasions, but both Charlemagne and Louis the Pious tried to domesticate their courts and disapproved of public excess and inebriation.

In European courts of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, courtly ceremonial controlled the distance and proximity to the ruler on a daily basis. Formal ceremonials particularly characterized marriages and funerals, to which thousands of guests might be invited, with elaborate gifts, pageantry, and consumption of rare and extraordinary foods. Increasingly, royal visit­ations to cities became occasions of elaborate performances, drawing on mythological and heroic literary traditions to portray the ruler, his family, and the devotion of his subjects. By the fifteenth century royal and imperial ceremonial had become a highly regulated affair: in the Golden Bull of 1356 the precise order of imperial prince electors' order in processions and seating was painstakingly spelled out.

Compared with other great courts, Islamic ceremonial was subdued. The accession of a new caliph was effected by an oath of allegiance, sworn to him by senior members of his family and other dignitaries. Such events were marked by largesse to the troops, though there is no record of public celebration. The birth of sons and the designation of an heir were occasions for congratulatory assemblies where poetry was recited. Emissaries of for­eign powers, especially the Byzantine Empire, were regaled with displays of troop strength and conspicuous consumption. Even so, the ‘Abbasid court did not have anything like the Sasanian or Roman practice of parading representatives of its subject peoples. Public displays of its pretensions to universal authority seem to have been limited to the sending of armies to the provinces and the parading of defeated rebels back to the capital. The later ‘Abbasid caliphs are described as emerging from their palaces only to dangle their long sleeves from a balcony for the people to kiss, or to lead prayer once a year at the end of Ramadan.

The court and its critics

Every courtly system generated not only forms of self-representation but also criticism of the prince and those around him. No other courts took this as far as the Chinese, which had Confucian officials in the Censorate and Remon­stration Bureau specifically charged with correcting and criticizing imperial decisions and governance, a role that they took seriously even if at times such criticism, often expressed in poetry or formalized reports, led to demotion, exile, and even execution. By contrast, in Japan for much of its history, the court and especially the emperor were considered above criticism; critiques of them became even less relevant as their powers were assumed by the military class. When offered, criticism was expressed indirectly, for example through historical writings, especially by analogies to early Chinese history. By contrast, in India criticism of the court seems to have been as old as courts themselves. The most common form of criticism was directed at kings, who were seen to be as fickle and unreliable as “prostitutes” and “wanton women.” This extended to more lengthy criticisms of “royal service.” This critical literature seems to have been written by and for Brahmins supported by princes, and numerous authors known to have been patronized by royal courts came to write extended critiques of courtly life.

In Constantinople as in Indian kingdoms, implicit criticism of individual emperors and their politics or of high-ranking officials and their excesses was common and generally penned by those who had themselves been close to the emperor. An unusual document is the sixth-century Secret History of Procopius of Caesarea, which depicts the emperor Justinian and his court with exaggerated criticism bordering on caricature. In the fourteenth cen­tury, political satire developed into a genre of its own and targeted both the court and the church.

The early ‘ Abbasid dynasty was viewed by many proto-Sunni Muslims as illegitimate, both because it had been founded as the result of a revolution against the Umayyads, and because at least one of the early caliphs claimed authority to interpret the law without help from the scholars. Literary sources are full of holy men who shout protests at the palace walls and of preachers who reduce caliphs to tears. Certain ascetics declared the court and all its works as ritually impure. The hadith-scholar Ibn Hanbal (d. 855), for example, refused to accept gifts from the caliph, or to enter his son's house after the latter did.

The criticism of early Western courts generally came from Romanized churchmen who found the barbarian rulers insufficiently Christian in practice and their palaces sites of violence, sexual immorality, and the arbitrary exercise of power. One persistent tension in the Carolingian world was over the place of churchmen, particularly monks, at secular courts, where they might be corrupted by worldly ways and lose their souls. By the 820s a species of dream literature (written by monks) imagined rulers suffering in afterlife for their licentious habits. More open criticism of the court appeared in the 830s and 840s, one monk likening the court to a brothel and deformed theater of illusions where the worst vices were indulged, the king was deluded, and soothsayers held sway. Noble critics of the king and court generally voted with their feet, by securing the protection of another sover­eign, if they could, or abandoning the court and world for a religious life. In later Western courts, criticism came primarily from clerics and was directed at such un-Christian activities as tournaments and courtly immorality. Rather than commenting directly on monarchs, critics often concentrated on royal favorites and advisors, castigating them for providing rulers with “evil counsel.” By the fourteenth century, an even more fundamental form of criticism emerged, not from within courtly or ecclesiastical milieux but from those entirely excluded from it, a criticism aimed not only at princes and

their courts but at the very idea of nobility: “When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?”

Thus across Eurasia during the fifth through the fifteenth centuries, centers of political power, although varying greatly in size, physical stability, organization, complexity, and structure, nevertheless showed certain com­monalities. All were centers of intense competition for power and access to royal favor. They developed specific forms of comportment that regulated this competition and that simultaneously distinguished men and women participating in court life from those outside the court. All were sites of cultural production, consumption and ritual. Moreover, many courts directly or indirectly borrowed practices and values from other court cultures: Regional courts mimicked central court practice, while central courts at times adopted regional forms of culture and comportment. The Chinese court formed the model for Eastern courts such as the Japanese, while the Byzantine, which had absorbed aspects of Persian courts before the Islamic conquest as had those of India, provided a model for Western Christian and Islamic courts, which in turn influenced each other. Through reception of ambassadors as well as the search for new and precious cultural products of display and consumption, Eurasian courts participated, however indirectly, in a Eurasian system of exercising and representing of power.

FURTHER READING

Comparative studies:

Beihammer, Alexander, Stavroula Constantinou and Maria Parani (eds.). Court Ceremonies and Rituals of Power in Byzantium and the Medieval Mediterranean: Comparative Perspec­tives. Leiden: Brill, 2013.

Duindam, Jeroen Frans Jozef. Royal Courts in Dynastic States and Empires: A Global Perspec­tive. Leiden: Brill, 2011.

Knechtges, David and Eugene Vance (eds.). Rhetoric and the Discourses of Power in Court Culture: China, Europe, and Japan. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005.

Lin, Yaofu, ed. Selected Essays on Court Culture in Comparative Perspective. Taipei: National Taiwan University Press, 1999.

China

The Cambridge History of China, 13 vols. Cambridge University Press, 1979-2009, vol. I, eds Denis Twitchett and Michael Loewe; vol. ιιι, ed. Denis Twitchett; vol. v, eds. Denis Twitchett and Paul Jacov Smith.

Chaffee, John W. Branches of Heaven: A History of the Imperial Clan of Sung China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard East Asia Center, 1999.

Cutter, RobertJoe, and WiUiam Gordon CroweU. Empresses and Consorts: Selections from Chen Shou's Records of the Three States with Pei Songzhi's Commentary. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i Press, 1999.

Ebrey, Patricia and Maggie Bickford (eds.). Emperor Huizong and Late Northern Song China: The Politics of Culture and the Culture of Politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008.

Fisher, Carney. The Chosen One: Succession and Adoption in the Court of Ming Shizong. London: Allen and Unwin, 1990.

Knechtges, David. Court Culture and Literature in Early China. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002.

(trans.), Wen xuan, or Selections of Refined Literature. Princeton University Press, 1982-96. Kuhn, Dieter. The Age of Confucian Rule: The Song Transformation of China. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard Press, 2009.

Li, Huishu. Empresses, Art, and Agency in Song Dynasty China. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2010.

McDermott, Joseph, ed. State and Court Ritual in China. Cambridge University Press, 1999. McMullen, David. State and Scholars in T'ang China. Cambridge University Press, 1988.

Meyer, Christian. Ritendiskussionen am Hof der ndrdlichen Song-Dynastie (1034-1093): Zwischen Ritengelehrsamkeit, Machtkampf und intellektuellen Bewegungen. Sankt Augus­tin: Institut Monumenta Serica, 2008.

Owen, Stephen. The Great Age of Chinese Poetry: The High T'ang. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1981.

Tsao, Kai-fu. The Relationship between Scholars and Rulers in Imperial China: A Comparison between China and the West. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984.

The Poetry of the Early T'ang. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1977.

Wechsler, HowardJ. Mirror to the Sun of Heaven: Wei Cheng at the Court of T'ang T'ai-tsung. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1974.

Offerings ofJade and Silk: Ritual and Symbol in the Legitimation of the T'ang Dynasty. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985.

Japan

Adolphson, Mikael S. The Gates of Power: Monks, Courtiers, and Warriors in Premodern Japan. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i Press, 2000.

Brower, Robert H. and Earl Miner. Japanese Court Poetry. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univer­sity Press, 1961.

Brown, Delmer M. and Ichiro Ishida, trans. The Future and the Past: A Translation and Study of the Gukanshδ, an Interpretive History of Japan Written in 1219. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1979.

Brown, Delmer M., ed. The Cambridge History of Japan, vol. i: AncientJapan. Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Carter, Steven D. Regent Redux: A Life of the Statesman-Scholar Ichijδ Kaneyoshi. Ann Arbor, MI: Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, 1996.

Hurst, G. Cameron III. Insei: Abdicated Sovereigns in the Politics of Late Heian Japan. 106-1185. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1976.

Keene, Donald, trans. Essays in Idleness: The Tsurezuregusa of Kenko. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1967.

McCullough, William H. and Helen Craig McCullough, trans. A Tale of Flowering Fortunes: Annals of Japanese Aristocratic Life in the Heian Period. Stanford University Press, 1980.

Morris, Ivan, trans. The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1967.

trans. The World of the Shining Prince: Court Life in Ancient Japan. New York, NY: Knopf, 1964.

Mostow, Joshua, ed. and trans. At the House of Gathered Leaves: Shorter Biographical and Autobiographical Narratives from Japanese Court Literature. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i Press, 2004.

Perkins, George W., trans. The Clear Mirror: A Chronicle of the Japanese Court During the Kamakura Period (1185-1333). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998.

Piggott, Joan R. The Emergence of Japanese Kingship. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997.

Shivley, Donald H. and William H. McCullough (eds.). The Cambridge History of Japan, vol. ιι. Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Tyler, Royall, trans. The Tale of Genji. New York, NY: Viking, 2001.

Varley, H. Paul, trans. A Chronicle of Gods and Sovereigns: Jinno Shotoki of Kitabatake Chikafusa. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1980.

Yamamura, Kozo, ed. The Cambridge History of Japan, vol. ιιι. Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Islamic courts

Abbot, Nabia. Two Queens of Baghdad: Mother and Wife of Hdrun al-Rashid. University of Chicago Press, 1974.

Bennison, Amira K. The Great Caliphs: The Golden Age of the Abbasid Empire. London: Yale University Press, 2009.

Bowen, Harold. The Life and Times of ‘All ibn ‘Isa, ‘the Good Vizier'. Cambridge University Press, 1928.

Cooperson, Michael. Al Mamun. Oxford: OneWorld, 2005.

El-Cheikh, Nadia Maria, “Gender and Politics: The Harem of al-Muqtadir,” in L. Brubaker and Julia M. H. Smith (eds.), Gender in the Early Medieval World: East and West, 300-900. Cambridge University Press, 2004: 147-61.

“Revisiting the Abbasid Harems,” Journal of Middle East Women's Studies ι (2005): 1-19. “Servants at the Gate: Eunuchs at the Court of al-Muqtadir,” Journal of the Social and Economic History of the Orient 48 (2005): 234-52.

Gutas, Dimitri. Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early ‘Abbdsid Society (2nd-4th∕8th-10th Centuries). London: Routledge, 1998.

Lassner, Jacob. The Shaping of Abbasid Rule. Princeton University Press, 1980.

Kennedy, Hugh. The Court of the Caliphs: When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World. Cam­bridge, MA: DaCapo, 2005.

Le Strange, Guy. Baghdad during the Abbasid Caliphate: From Contemporary Arabic and Persian Sources. Westport, CT: The Greenwood Press, 1983.

Osti, Letizia. "'Abbasid Intrigues: Competing for Influence at the Caliph's Court,” Al- Masdq 20(2008): 5-15.

Sabi, Hilal al-. The Rules and Regulations of the Abbasid Court, trans. Elie A. Salem. Beirut: Lebanese Commission for the Translation of Great Works, 1977.

Sourdel, Dominique. Le vizirat ‘abbdside de 749 a 936 (132 a 324 de Thegire). Damascus: Institut franςais de Damas, 1959-60.

Vadet, Jean Claude. L'Esprit courtois en Orient dans les cinq premiers siecles de l'Hegire. Paris: Maisonneuve, 1968.

Byzantine courts

Croke, Brian. "Justinian's Constantinople,” in M. Maas (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian. Cambridge University Press, 2005: 60-86.

Maguire, Henry. Byzantine Court Culture from 829 to 12,04. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1997.

McCormick, Michael. "Analyzing Imperial Ceremonies,” Jahrbuch der Osterreichischen Byzantinistik 35 (1985): 1-20.

"Emperor and Court,” in Alan K. Bowman, John B. Bury, and Averil Cameron (eds.), Cambridge Ancient History, vol. xiv. Cambridge University Press, 2000: 135-63.

Reiske, JohannJacob, ed. De ceremoniis aulae Byzantinae [Book of Ceremonies, Greek with Latin translation]. Bonn: Eduard Weber, 1829-30.

Vogt, Albert, ed. Le livre des ceremonies [Book of Ceremonies, Greek with French transla­tion]. Paris: Societe d'edition ‘Les Belles lettres', 1967.

Western Europe

Capellanus, Andreas. The Art of Courtly Love. Ed. and trans. John Jay Parry. New York: Columbia University Press, i960.

Barber, Richard, and Juliet Barker. Tournaments: Jousts, Chivalry and Pageants in the Middle Ages. Woodbridge: Boydell, i989.

Bumke, Joachim. Courtly Culture: Literature and Society in the High Middle Ages: Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 2000.

Cubitt, Catherine, ed. Court Culture in the Early Middle Ages. The Proceedings of the First Alcuin Conference. Turnhout: Brepols, 2003.

Fleckenstein, Josef, ed. Curialitas. Studien zu Grundfragen der hofisch-ritterlichen Kultur. Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990.

Hen, Yitzhak. Roman Barbarians: The Royal Court and Culture in the Early Medieval West. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

Hirschbiegel, Jan and Werner Paravicini (eds.). Das Frauenzimmer. Die Frau bei Hofe in Spatmittelalter undfruher Neuzeit. Sigmaringen: J. Thorbecke, 2000.

Der Fall des Gunstlings. Hofparteien in Europa vom 13. bis zum 17. Jahrhundert. Ostfildern: Thorbecke, 2004.

Jaeger, C. Stephen. The Origins of Courtliness: Civilizing Trends and the Formation of Courtly Ideals 939-1210. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985.

Jones, Sarah Reese, Richard Marks, and A. J. Minnis (eds.). Courts and Regions in Medieval Europe. Rochester, NY: York Medieval Press, 2000.

Kiesel, Helmuth. “Bei Hof, bei Holl.” Untersuchungen zur Iiterarischen Hofkritik von Sebas­tian Brant bis Friedrich Schiller. Tubingen: Niemeyer, 1979.

Map, Walter. De nugis curialium: Courtiers' Trifles. Ed. and trans. M. R. James. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1983.

Paravicini, Werner. Die ritterlich-hofische Kultur des Mittelalters. Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1994.

(ed.) Zeremoiniell und Raum. Sigmaringen: J. Thorbecke, 1997.

Rosener, Werner. Leben am Hof. Konigs- und Furstenhofe im Mittelalter. Ostfildern: Thor- becke, 2008.

Spieβ, Karl-Heinz. Fursten und Hofe im Mittelalter. Darmstadt: Primus Verlag, 2008.

Vale, Malcolm. The Princely Court: Medieval Courts and Culture in North-West Europe, 1270-1380. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.