El cuerpo como materia educativa en la prosa castellana de los siglos 13 y 14
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Universidad de León
info
ISSN: 2236-3459
Year of publication: 2012
Volume: 16
Issue: 37
Pages: 11-26
Type: Article
More publications in: História da Educação
Abstract
This paper advances the following hypothesis: physical education in the Middle Ages originates mainly in the emergence of a new sensibility, exhibited in control of gestures, posture and speech. Thus, the physical strength and bodily skills required of a knight in order to face combat represent an expression, among many others, of this new chivalrous sensibility, which would eventually lead to the decline of the concepts of lineage and blood as supreme marks of nobility and excellence, as well as to a growing educational interest in the instruction of the body, beyond mere physical exercise and training. Following the theory proposed by Norbert Elias in his Process of civilization, this paper aims to offer a selection of literary examples of this new sensibility, excerpted from late-medieval spanish texts.