Joining and Separating through Gestures. Gestures of Proximity and Dissociation at the Court of Burgundy (15th Century)

Proposing to distinguish between "courtly gestures" and "gestures at court", this chapter focusses on the latter category, all the while trying to identify their specific value when executed in this context. Based on a choice of normative and descriptive sources (Eleonore of Poitiers, Olivier de la Marche, protocols of the "Order of the Golden Fleece"), it proposes an analysis of two gestures that visibly play an important role in the organisation of daily life at the Burgundian court in the 15th century: going "hand in hand" and the kiss. While both gestures are by no means entirely specific for life at court, they acquire a particular symbolic value in the "public space" that is a princely court at the late Middle Ages. They contributed in a very pragmatic way to the practical organisation and expression of hierarchy at court, but they also furnished a medium that helped to establish and express personal relationships (including affective bonds). This two-sided character becomes particularly clear in the case of the kiss, that could become a gesture of veneration (thus marking the distance between two individuals) but also a gesture that demonstrated a close or even intimate relationship between the protagonists that execute it. In sum, the detailed analysis of gestures at court allows us to better understand the complex mechanisms that underlay the reality of late medieval court life between the poles of hierarchy and integration.