Results by title

914 books match the query 'Medieval' and 71 start with a

Sort by

A Comedy Called Susenbrotus

Connie McQuillen

University of Michigan Press, 1998

The comedy Susenbrotus is a neo-Latin play, written by the students of Trinity College Cambridge and performed before King James I at Royston in March 1615/16. It has never before been edited or translated. This edition contains the Latin text (prepared from a collation of the two extant manuscript copies), an English translation with annotations to classical and contemporary allusions, and an introduction tracing the development of humanist Latin drama in the universities during the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods.
Susenbrotus is in many ways representative of later university comedy. It is a rowdy, bawdy farce with roots in the Roman comedies of Plautus and Terence. The wit and much of the humor in these plays is in the reworking of traditional themes with characters and situations adapted to contemporary types and topical satire. Almost every playwright for the professional stage (with the notable exception of Shakespeare) either wrote or acted in university plays. Moreover, they were popular forms of entertainment and were attended not only by members of the academic community but also by visiting dignitaries, courtiers, foreign ambassadors, and on occasion, the English monarchs.
Susenbrotus is special among later university plays because it was specifically written for King James I. It was meant to flatter the king, who prided himself on his humanist education, with a display of wit and erudition. It was also meant to entertain: the play itself is quite funny. It involves the antics of several contemporary types (the pedant, a poet, a Spanish dandy, and a braggart soldier) vying for the affection of a cross-dressed boy. Much of the wit in Susenbrotus is verbal: scholarly puns, sexual metaphors, classical allusions, and quotations that are explained in annotations. The sustained transvestitism of the character Fortunia distinguishes it from its classical sources as well as from other plays of its type. Unlike Latin texts that were submitted to publishing houses and therefore corrected or stylized by printers, Susenbrotus is an example of Latin as it was written in the seventeenth century.
Connie McQuillen is Associate Professor of Humanities, Southwest State University, Minnesota.

[more]

A Commentary on Cicero, De Officiis

Andrew R. Dyck

University of Michigan Press, 1997

Toward the end of the last century Cicero's work came under attack from several angles. His political stance was sharply criticized for inconsistency by Theodor Mommsen and others, his philosophical works for lack of originality. Since then scholars have come to a better understanding of the political conditions that informed the views of Mommsen and his contemporaries about Caesar and Cicero, and as a result Cicero's writings have been restored to a more appropriate position in the literature and history of the Roman Republic. At the same time recent years have seen an intensive study of Hellenistic philosophy, and this has shown more clearly than before that, even while following Greek models, Cicero nonetheless pursued his own political and, in the ethical works, moralistic agenda.
Composed in haste shortly before Cicero's death, de Officiis has exercised enormous influence over the centuries. It is all the more surprising that Andrew R. Dyck's volume is the first detailed English commentary on the work written in this century. It deals with the problems of the Latin text (taking account of Michael Winterbottom's new edition), it delineates the work's structure and sometimes elusive train of thought, clarifies the underlying Greek and Latin concepts, and provides starting points for approaching the philosophical and historical problems that de Officiis raises.
A work of major importance for classicists, philosophers, and ancient historians, this Commentary will be an invaluable companion to all readers of Cicero's last philosophical work.
Andrew R. Dyck is Professor of Classics, University of California, Los Angeles.
Publication of this volume is supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

[more]

A Cosmos of Desire

The Medieval Latin Erotic Lyric in English Manuscripts

Thomas C Moser, Jr.

University of Michigan Press, 2004

Thomas C. Moser, Jr. explores the fascinating body of medieval Latin erotic poetry found in English manuscripts. His study describes the intellectual and social context from which the great erotic songs of the twelfth century emerged, and examines a variety of erotic poems, from school exercises to the magnificent lyrics found in Arundel 384. He also illuminates the influence of neoplatonic philosophy on this poetry, explicating key neoplatonic texts and applying that analysis in close readings of erotic lyrics from the same period and milieu.
A Cosmos of Desire will interest scholars of medieval literature as well as specialists in Latin poetry and philosophy. Students of Middle English literature will find that it fills an important gap in our understanding of English intellectual life between the twelfth and the fourteenth century. All Latin prose and poetry is translated, some works for the first time, and the book is generously illustrated with photographs of the manuscripts discussed.
Thomas C. Moser, Jr. is Associate Professor of English at the University of Maryland, College Park.

[more]

A Day in a Medieval City

Chiara Frugoni

University of Chicago Press, 2005

An opportunity to experience the daily hustle and bustle of life in the late Middle Ages, A Day in a Medieval City provides a captivating dawn-to-dark account of medieval life. A visual trek through the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries—with seasoned historian and expert on medieval iconography Chiara Frugoni as guide—this book offers a vast array of images and vignettes that depicts the everyday hardships and commonplace pleasures for people living in the Middle Ages.

A Day in a Medieval City breathes life into the activities of the city streets, homes, fields, schools, and places of worship. With entertaining anecdotes and gritty details, it engages the modern reader with its discoveries of the religious, economic, and institutional practices of the day. From urban planning and education to child care, hygiene, and the more leisurely pursuits of games, food, books, and superstitions, Frugoni unearths the daily routines of the private and public lives of citizens. A Day in a Medieval City is a charming portal to the Middle Ages that you'll surely want with you on your travels to Europe—or in your armchair.

“With its color illustrations of rare paintings and artifacts, this thoughtful and informative, elegantly fashioned excursion into the life of a medieval city is a veritable feast of information and visual delights. Frugoni is a marvelously experienced historical travel guide.”—Choice

“Stunningly beautiful . . . and a good read as well. . . . It’s amazing how much wealth of detail and image Ms. Frugoni has packed into this delightful, relatively small book.”—Steve Goode, Washington Times

“Charming and insightful. . . .Written with exceptional grace and infused with a warm sense of humanity.”—Library Journal

[more]

A Feast for the Eyes

Art, Performance, and the Late Medieval Banquet

Christina Normore

University of Chicago Press, 2015

To read accounts of late medieval banquets is to enter a fantastical world where live lions guard nude statues, gilded stags burst into song, and musicians play from within pies. We can almost hear the clock sound from within a glass castle, taste the fire-breathing roast boar, and smell the rose water cascading in a miniature fountain. Such vivid works of art and performance required collaboration among artists in many fields, as well as the participation of the audience.

A Feast for the Eyes is the first book-length study of the court banquets of northwestern Europe in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Christina Normore draws on an array of artworks, archival documents, chroniclers’ accounts, and cookbooks to re-create these events and reassess the late medieval visual culture in which banquets were staged. Feast participants, she shows, developed sophisticated ways of appreciating artistic skill and attending to their own processes of perception, thereby forging a court culture that delighted in the exercise of fine aesthetic judgment.

Challenging modern assumptions about the nature of artistic production and reception, A Feast for the Eyes yields fresh insight into the long history of multimedia work and the complex relationships between spectacle and spectators.

[more]

A Florentine Chansonnier from the Time of Lorenzo the Magnificent

Edited by Howard M. Brown

University of Chicago Press, 1983

"Demonstrates the clarity of [Brown's] editorial technique, his thoroughly impressive control of the sources, his exhaustive knowledge of the repertory, and his penetrating stylistic insight. It is a summation of his quarter century of scholarship."—Journal of the American Musicological Society

[more]

A Guide to Editing Middle English

Vincent McCarren and Douglas Moffat, Editors

University of Michigan Press, 1998

Those who undertake a scholarly edition of a Middle English text have until now had no general guide for their work. All who study English literary works must rely on editions at some stage, and this volume will provide them with many perspectives on the formation of these necessary scholarly tools. Editors of texts in other medieval languages and indeed all those engaged with questions of scholarly editing--whether practical, historical, or theoretical--will also find important contributions in this volume.
A Guide to Editing Middle English collects nineteen essays and three appendices written by leading text editors in Middle English. A number of essays deal primarily with theoretical questions, while others offer assessments of historical developments in editing, especially in regard to the most well-known Middle English works. Most of the essays deal with practical matters: how to use a computer in preparing and presenting an edition; how to form and arrange the standard parts of an edition; and how to handle problems presented by texts in areas such as science, astrology, and cooking. The three appendices provide bibliographical references to dictionaries, facsimiles, and manuscript description.
Contributors, in addition to the editors, are Peter Baker, Richard Beadle, Norman Blake, Helen Cooper, A. S. G. Edwards, Jennifer Fellows, David C. Greetham, Mary Hamel, Constance Heiatt, Nicholas Jacobs, Geroge Keiser, Peter J. Lucas, Maldwyn Mills, Linne Mooney, and Peter Robinson.
The many and varied perspectives of this volume will make it of interest to readers of Middle English texts, those involved in textual scholarship, and those interested in editing in general. It occupies a unique place in the field of Middle English studies and will likely remain a standard reference tool for a long time.
Vincent McCarren is a Research Associate with the Middle English Dictionary at the University of Michigan. Douglas Moffat, formerly with the Middle English Dictionary, is a Development Officer with the University of Michigan.

[more]

A History of Russia

Medieval, Modern, Contemporary, c.882-1996

Paul Dukes

Duke University Press, 1998

Is today’s Russia capable of democracy, the free market, and a pluralist ideology? In this new edition of A History of Russia, Paul Dukes investigates these questions, taking into full account the extraordinary changes that have occurred since the arrival of first Mikhail Gorbachev and then Boris Yeltsin. Substantially expanded and rewritten, this new edition sets these events within the context of over 1100 years of Russian history. Dukes reviews the successive phases in Russian history from medieval Kiev and Muscovy to the current post-Soviet Union, with distinctive sections on political, economic, and cultural aspects of each period.
With its breadth of scope and conciseness of presentation, this third edition of A History of Russia will be invaluable to students of European and Russian history, and also to students of Russian language, literature, and social science.

[more]

A History of the Crusades, Volume I

The First Hundred Years

Series Edited by Kenneth M. Setton; Volume Edited by Marshall W. Baldwin

University of Wisconsin Press, 1969

The six volumes of A History of the Crusades will stand as the definitive history of the Crusades, spanning five centuries, encompassing Jewish, Moslem, and Christian perspectives, and containing a wealth of information and analysis of the history, politics, economics, and culture of the medieval world.

[more]

A History of the Crusades, Volume II

The Later Crusades, 1189-1311

Series Edited by Kenneth M. Setton; Volume Edited by Wolff and Hazard

University of Wisconsin Press, 1969

[more]

A History of the Crusades, Volume III

The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries

Series Edited by Kenneth M. Setton; Volume Edited by Harry W. Hazard

University of Wisconsin Press, 1975

[more]

A History of the Crusades, Volume IV

The Art and Architecture of the Crusader States

Series Edited by Kenneth M. Setton, Volume Edited by Harry W. Hazard

University of Wisconsin Press, 1977

[more]

A History of the Crusades, Volume V

The Impact of the Crusades on the Near East

Series Edited by Kenneth M. Setton, Volume Edited by Zacour and Hazard

University of Wisconsin Press, 1985

[more]

A History of the Crusades, Volume VI

The Impact of the Crusades on Europe

Series Edited by Kenneth M. Setton, Volume Edited by Hazard and Zacour

University of Wisconsin Press, 1990

[more]

A History of the Old Icelandic Commonwealth

Islendinga Saga

Jon Johannesson

University of Manitoba Press, 2007

The founding of the Old Icelandic Commonwealth in 930 A.D. is one of the most significant events in the history of early Western Europe. This pioneering work of historiography provides a comprehensive history of Iceland from 870 A.D. to the end of the Commonwealth in 1262.

[more]

A History of the Vandals

Torsten Cumberland Jacobsen

Westholme Publishing, 2012

The First General History in English of the Germanic People Who Sacked Rome in the Fifth Century AD and Established a Kingdom in North Africa

The fifth century AD was a time of great changes in the Mediterranean world. In the early 400s, the Roman Empire ranged from the lowlands of Scotland to the Upper Nile and from Portugal to the Caucasus. It was almost at its widest extent, and although ruled by two emperors—one in the West and one in the East—it was still a single empire. One hundred years later, Roman control of Western Europe and Western North Africa had been lost. In its place, a number of Germanic kingdoms had been established in these regions, with hundreds of thousands of Germanic and other peoples settling permanently inside the former borders of the Western Roman Empire.

One of the most fascinating of these tribes of late antiquity were the Vandals, who over a period of six hundred years had migrated from the woodland regions of Scandinavia across Europe and ended in the deserts of North Africa. In A History of the Vandals, the first general account in English covering the entire story of the Vandals from their emergence to the end of their kingdom, historian Torsten Cumberland Jacobsen pieces together what we know about the Vandals, sifting fact from fiction. In the middle of the fifth century the Vandals, who professed Arianism, a form of Christianity considered heretical by the Roman emperor, created the first permanent Germanic successor state in the West and were one of the deciding factors in the downfall of the Western Roman Empire. Later Christian historians described their sack of Rome in 455 and their vehement persecution of Catholics in their kingdom, accounts that were sensationalized and gave birth to the term “vandalism.”

In the mid-sixth century, the Vandals and their North African kingdom were the first target of Byzantine Emperor Justinian’s ambitious plan to reconquer the lost territories of the fallen Western Empire. In less than four months, what had been considered one of the strongest Germanic kingdoms had been defeated by a small Roman army led by the general Belisarius. Despite later rebellions, this was the end of the Germanic presence in North Africa, and in many ways the end of the Arian heresy of Christianity. For the Romans it was the incredibly successful start of the reconquest of the lost lands of the Western Empire.

[more]

A Hole in the Heavens

Dyan Elliott

Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2017

What if Satan were to disguise himself as an angel of light? What if he even appeared as Christ? Schoolmen in late medieval Paris were obsessed with that question--and A Hole in the Heavens explores the alarming consequences of this obsession. It soon becomes impossible to tell the difference between saints and impostors, conversion and demonic possession, heresy and the true faith. Even the wisest and holiest may be deceived. A struggling student, a pair of prostitutes, and a beautiful priest's daughter are among those caught up in the chaos. Based on meticulous research, Dyan Elliott's first novel is an absorbing and ultimately chilling exercise in the discernment of spirits.

[more]

A Mother’s Manual for the Women of Ferrara

A Fifteenth-Century Guide to Pregnancy and Pediatrics

Michele Savonarola

Iter Press, 2022

The first treatise of its kind to be written in a European vernacular.

Around 1460, Michele Savonarola produced the extraordinary Mother’s Manual for the Women of Ferrara, a gynecological, obstetrical, and pediatric treatise composed in the vernacular so that it could be read not only by the learned but also by pregnant and nursing mothers and the midwives and wet nurses who presided over childbirth. Savonarola’s work is not merely a trivial set of instructions, but the work of a learned scholar who drew on, among others, the ancient Greek physicians Hippocrates and Galen, and Avicenna’s Canon of Medicine. The first of its kind, Savonarola’s Mother’s Manual helps readers understand both the development of late-medieval and early-modern obstetrics and gynecology, as well as the experiences of women who turn to advice books for help with reproductive issues. This book also provides a key to understanding why and how a new genre of book—the midwifery manual or advice book for pregnant women—arose in sixteenth-century Italy and eventually became a popular genre all over Europe from the early modern period to the present day.

[more]

A Network of Converso Families in Early Modern Toledo

Assimilating a Minority

Linda Martz

University of Michigan Press, 2003

A Network of Converso Families in Early Modern Toledo addresses the fortunes of Jewish families who converted to Catholicism in fifteenth-century Spain. From the fifteenth through the seventeenth century, their careers, successes, and misfortunes are traced as they confront institutional and societal prejudices in the form of the Spanish Inquisition and pure blood statutes.
Linda M. Martz focuses on families that were immersed in the worlds of business and finance. They formed the backbone of the trade industry and, during the economic expansion of the sixteenth century, enjoyed a high degree of affluence. The seventeenth century, however, brought harder times. How these families rose to positions of commercial eminence and then adapted to this economic downturn is one of the questions addressed in this insightful book.
A Network of Converso Families in Early Modern Toledo relies heavily on archival evidence--notarial, parish, and city records--that offers new insights into the families' histories. Business endeavors, marriage alliances, involvement in local politics, and the pursuit of improved social status are all subjected to Martz's keen analysis.
These families appear to have been well integrated into their contemporary society; aside from their business and financial activities, many were members of the city's governing council. But how well did they integrate with the lower classes? Assimilating minorities in the majority culture is a task that confronts most modern societies, so the experience of Spain and this particular minority may serve as an example of how earlier societies viewed and confronted this challenge.
This book will appeal to historians of medieval and Renaissance Spain and those interested in the Inquisition's effect on Renaissance Spain. It will also prove to be indispensable for those interested in the history of the Jewish race, as well as for those pursuing the question of marginalization.
Linda M. Martz is an independent historian as well as a freelance editor and writer.

[more]

A Pernicious Sort of Woman

Quasi-Religious Women and Canon Lawyers in the Later Middle Ages (Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Canon Law, Volume 6)

Elizabeth Makowski

Catholic University of America Press, 2005

This book provides a thorough examination of the writings of canon lawyers in the late Middle Ages as they come to terms, both in their academic work and also in their roles as judges and advisers, with women who were not, strictly speaking, religious, but who were popularly thought of as such.

[more]

A Poetry Precise and Free

Selected Madrigals of Guarini

Nicholas R. Jones

University of Michigan Press, 2018

A Poetry Precise and Free collects 150 lyric poems by the Renaissance Italian poet Giovanni Battista Guarini in new translations, accompanied by the Italian originals and commentary that will enlighten and engage both scholars and general readers. Guarini’s madrigals provide insight into northern Italian court culture of the late Renaissance, when poetry and music were enjoyed as companion arts. Hundreds of composers of Guarini’s day set his lyric poems to music. Primarily known today in their vocal settings, most famously those of Claudio Monteverdi, the poems merit appreciation in their own right.

This volume is organized into ten sections, grouping the madrigals around themes such as the anguish of passion, the asymmetry of desire, the incursions of jealousy, and the possibility of mutual bliss. Nicholas R. Jones renders Guarini’s poetry into accessible contemporary English verse that nevertheless stays true to the substance and form of the original texts, reflecting their roots in the Petrarchan poetic tradition and displaying the emotion and musicality that made these lyrics so popular from the start. A substantive introduction provides cultural context for the madrigals and their musical settings; brief commentaries follow each translation to illuminate aspects of poetic and rhetorical craft. An extensive appendix lists the madrigal compositions that set these lyrics for vocal performance.

The book fills a major gap in the scholarship on Guarini’s literary legacy. It will appeal to scholars of literature, Renaissance studies, and musicology, early-music performers, and general readers interested in poetry and classical music.

[more]

A Professor in the Wilderness

Peter Damian Before the Gregorian Refor

John Howe

Catholic University of America Press, 2027

In the eleventh century a small group of clerical reformers based in Rome launched a fight for the liberty of the Church. The consequences ultimately included a politically powerful papacy and stronger kingdoms with their own more secular laws and bureaucracies. One way to understand what happened is to examine the life of Peter Damian, the most prolific Latin writer of the mid eleventh century and a pioneer in the reform movement. He has never before received a comprehensive critical historical biography. Peter was an orphan boy from Ravenna who became a successful professor of rhetoric. Then he abandoned that career to join a community of penitent hermits living in the high Apennines at Fonte Avellana. He did not actually manage to leave the world behind because he was chosen as prior of his hermit community and had to employ his rhetorical and legal skills to protect it from predatory local lords and “bad bishops and abbots.” He cultivated contacts with the emperor and the pope. In 1057 he was named bishop of Ostia, the leader of the cardinal bishops. As a high official in the Roman Church, aided by his prolific writings, he promoted a reforming agenda. He proved to be a formidable papal legate. At the end of his career, he retired to Fonte Avellana where he remained active until he died on a final legatine mission, probably in 1073. Peter advanced the movement known today as the “Gregorian Reform” not only by strengthening papal power and canon law but also by helping to develop a powerful curial bureaucracy with new means of communication that gave the Roman curia more control over local churches. His successes, failures, and misadventures illuminate a major turning point in Western civilization.

[more]

A Sacred Kingdom

Bishops and the Rise of Frankish Kingship, 300-850

Michael Edward Moore

Catholic University of America Press, 2011

Drawing on the records of nearly 100 bishops' councils spanning the centuries, alongside royal law, edicts, and capitularies of the same period, this study details how royal law and the very character of kingship among the Franks were profoundly affected by episcopal traditions of law and social order.

[more]

Abandoned Women

Rewriting the Classics in Dante, Boccaccio, and Chaucer

Suzanne Hagedorn

University of Michigan Press, 2003

Medievalists have long been interested in the "abandoned woman," a figure historically used to examine the value of traditional male heroism. Moving beyond previous studies which have focused primarily on Virgil's Dido, Suzanne Hagedorn focuses on the vernacular works of Dante, Bocaccio, and Chaucer, arguing that revisiting the classical tradition of the abandoned woman enables one to reconsider ancient epics and myths from a female perspective and question assumptions about gender roles in medieval literature.

[more]

Action and Conduct

Thomas Aquinas and the Theory of Action

Stephen Brock

Catholic University of America Press, 2021

"Both Thomistic scholars and analytic philosophers interested in theories of human action and accountability will find this book a welcome addition to their libraries. Truly a substantive addition to both Thomistic scholarship and the ongoing analytic investigation into human action and responsible agency."—American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly

"A first-rate book...Brock's lucid and illuminating analysis offers much of value to both intellectual historians and theologians, as well as philosophers."—Theological Studies"Brock's treatment of Aquinas's account of action exhibits a rare combination of rigor and learning. It is, no doubt, the best we have."—The Thomist

[more]

Al-Ghazali's "Moderation in Belief"

Al-Ghazali

University of Chicago Press, 2013

Centuries after his death, al-Ghazali remains one of the most influential figures of the Islamic intellectual tradition. Although he is best known for his Incoherence of the Philosophers, Moderation in Belief is his most profound work of philosophical theology. In it, he offers what scholars consider to be the best defense of the Ash'arite school of Islamic theology that gained acceptance within orthodox Sunni theology in the twelfth century, though he also diverges from Ash'arism with his more rationalist approach to the Quran. Together with The Incoherence of the Philosophers, Moderation in Belief informs many subsequent theological debates, and its influence extends beyond the Islamic tradition, informing broader questions within Western philosophical and theological thought.

The first complete English-language edition of Moderation in Belief, this new annotated translation by Aladdin M. Yaqub draws on the most esteemed critical editions of the Arabic texts and offers detailed commentary that analyzes and reconstructs the arguments found in the work’s four treatises. Explanations of the historical and intellectual background of the texts also enable readers with a limited knowledge of classical Arabic to fully explore al-Ghazali and this foundational text for the first time.

With the recent resurgence of interest in Islamic philosophy and the conflict between philosophy and religion, this new translation will be a welcome addition to the scholarship.

[more]

Albertus Magnus On Animals V1 2

A Medieval Summa Zoologica Revised Edition

Kenneth F. Kitchell Jr.and Irven Michael Resnick

The Ohio State University Press, 2018

Albertus Magnus has long been recognized as one of the greatest minds of the Middle Ages; his contemporaries conferred upon him the title Doctor Universalis. An epitaph at his tomb described him as prince among philosophers, greater than Plato, and hardly inferior to King Solomon in wisdom. In 1941, Pope Pius XII named Albertus Magnus patron saint of scientists.
In his work De animalibus, Albert integrated the vast amount of information on nature that had come down to him in previous centuries: the exposition of Michael Scotus’s translation from the Arabic of Aristotle’s books on the natural world (Books 1–19), Albert’s own revisions to Aristotle’s teachings (Books 20–21), and a “dictionary” of animals appropriated largely from the De natura rerum of Thomas of Cantimpré (Books 22–26). Albert’s comprehensive treatise on living things was acknowledged as the reputable authority in biology for almost five hundred years.
In this translated and annotated edition, Kenneth F. Kitchell Jr. and Irven Michael Resnick illuminate the importance of this work, allowing Albert’s magnum opus to be better understood and more widely appreciated than ever before. Broken into two volumes (Books 1–10 and 11–26),Albertus Magnus On Animals is a veritable medieval scientific encyclopedia, ranging in topics from medicine, embryology, and comparative anatomy to women, hunting and everyday life, commerce, and much more—an essential work for historians, medievalists, scientists, and philosophers alike.

[more]

Albertus Magnus On Animals V1

A Medieval Summa Zoologica Revised Edition

Albertus Magnus, Edited by Kenneth F. Kitchell Jr.and Irven Michael Resnick

The Ohio State University Press, 2018

[more]

Albertus Magnus On Animals V2

A Medieval Summa Zoologica Revised Edition

Albertus Magnus, Edited by Kenneth F. Kitchell Jr.and Irven Michael Resnick

The Ohio State University Press, 2019

[more]

Albrecht Durer's Renaissance

Humanism, Reformation, and the Art of Faith

David Hotchkiss Price

University of Michigan Press, 2003

David Hotchkiss Price, a specialist in Renaissance cultural and ecclesiastical history, has broken new ground with this comprehensive analysis of Renaissance humanism as the foundation for Dürer's religious art and, in particular, for Dürer's reception of the Reformation movements. Price also offers an innovative study of the relationships between text and image, and a pioneering assessment of the representation of Jews in Dürer's religious art.
David Price is Associate Professor of History and of Church History, Southern Methodist University.

[more]

Aldus Manutius

The Invention of the Publisher

Oren Margolis

Reaktion Books, 2023

Now in paperback, a fresh reading of Aldus Manutius, preeminent in the history of the printed book.

Aldus Manutius is perhaps the greatest ﬁgure in the history of the printed book: in Venice, Europe’s capital of printing, he invented the italic type and issued more ﬁrst editions of the classics than anyone before or since, as well as Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, the most beautiful and mysterious printed book of the Italian Renaissance.

This is the ﬁrst monograph in English on Aldus Manutius in over forty years. It shows how Aldus redeﬁned the role of a book printer, from mere manual laborer to a learned publisher. As a consequence, Aldus participated in the same debates as contemporaries such as Leonardo da Vinci and Erasmus of Rotterdam, making this book an insight into their world too.

[more]

Alexander the Great

The Unique History of Quintus Curtius

Elizabeth Baynham

University of Michigan Press, 2004

He was a pupil of Aristotle and conqueror of much of the known world. This handsome commander, leading his army from the lofty perch of the wild steed Bucephalas, looked out with his one dark and one blue eye upon the world he ruled by divine ambition.

The reign and personality of Alexander the Great---one of the most romantic and powerful kings in history---have remained a source of fascination from antiquity to the present. But because the ancient information surrounding the conqueror is rich, contradictory, and complex, every historian of this near-mythical ruler-whether ancient or modern-invariably creates his or her own Alexander.

The unique work of one such ancient historian, Quintus Curtius, is the subject of Elizabeth Baynham's book. She mines Curtius' study of power for his contemporary perspective, historical methodology, and his portrait of the famous king and presents us with a brilliant, multifaceted study of this unique account regarding one of the most fascinating rulers in history.

[more]

Alfarabi and the Foundation of Islamic Political Philosophy

Muhsin S. Mahdi

University of Chicago Press, 2001

In this work, Muhsin Mahdi—widely regarded as the preeminent scholar of Islamic political thought—distills more than four decades of research to offer an authoritative analysis of the work of Alfarabi, the founder of Islamic political philosophy. Mahdi, who also brought to light writings of Alfarabi that had long been presumed lost or were not even known, presents this great thinker as his contemporaries would have seen him: as a philosopher who sought to lay the foundations for a new understanding of revealed religion and its relation to the tradition of political philosophy.

Beginning with a survey of Islamic philosophy and a discussion of its historical background, Mahdi considers the interrelated spheres of philosophy, political thought, theology, and jurisprudence of the time. He then turns to Alfarabi's concept of "the virtuous city," and concludes with an in-depth analysis of the trilogy, Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle.

This philosophical engagement with the writings of and about Alfarabi will be essential reading for anyone interested in medieval political philosophy.

[more]

Alfred the Great

The King and His England

Eleanor Shipley Duckett

University of Chicago Press, 1958

Filled with drama and action, here is the story of the ninth-century life and times of Alfred—warrior, conqueror, lawmaker, scholar, and the only king whom England has ever called "The Great." Based on up-to-date information on ninth-century history, geography, philosophy, literature, and social life, it vividly presents exciting views of Alfred in every stage of his long career and leaves the reader with a sharply-etched picture of the world of the Middle Ages.

[more]

All the Names of the Lord

Lists, Mysticism, and Magic

Valentina Izmirlieva

University of Chicago Press, 2008

Christians face a conundrum when it comes to naming God, for if God is unnamable, as theologians maintain, he can also be called by every name. His proper name is thus an open-ended, all-encompassing list, a mystery the Church embraces in its rhetoric, but which many Christians have found difficult to accept. To explore this conflict, Valentina Izmirlieva examines two lists of God’s names: one from The Divine Names, the classic treatise by Pseudo-Dionysius, and the other from The 72 Names of the Lord, an amulet whose history binds together Kabbalah and Christianity, Jews and Slavs, Palestine, Provence, and the Balkans.

This unexpected juxtaposition of a theological treatise and a magical amulet allows Izmirlieva to reveal lists’ rhetorical potential to create order and to function as both tools of knowledge and of power. Despite the two different visions of order represented by each list, Izmirlieva finds that their uses in Christian practice point to a complementary relationship between the existential need for God’s protection and the metaphysical desire to submit to his infinite majesty—a compelling claim sure to provoke discussion among scholars in many fields.

[more]

Alliterative Proverbs in Medieval England

Language Choice and Literary Meaning

Susan E. Deskis

The Ohio State University Press, 2016

Medieval England’s specific political and linguistic history encompasses a great number of significant changes, some of the most disruptive of which were occasioned by the Norman Conquest. The alliterative proverb, with roots in Old English and continued vitality in Middle English, serves as a unique verbal icon allowing exploration of cultural conditions both before and after the Conquest. As a durable yet flexible form, the proverb remained just as important in the fifteenth century as it was in the sixth.

The proverb has been an underutilized resource in tracing the linguistic and intellectual cultures of the past. Making the fullest use of this material, this study, by Susan E. Deskis, is complex in its combination of philology, paroemiology, literary history, and sociolinguistics, ultimately reaching conclusions that are enlightening for both the literary and linguistic histories of medieval England. In the language ecology of England from about 1100 to about 1500, where English, French, and Latin compete for use, alliterative proverbs are marked not only by the choice of English as the language of expression but also because alliteration in Middle English connotes a conscious connection to the past. Alliterative Proverbs in Medieval England: Language Choice and Literary Meaning explores how that connection is exploited in various literary genres from school texts and sermons to romances and cycle plays.

[more]

Ami and Amile

A Medieval Tale of Friendship, Translated from the Old French

Samuel N. Rosenberg and Samuel Danon

University of Michigan Press, 1996

This prose translation of the medieval French verse narrative Ami and Amile recounts the legendary friendship of two valiant knights who are as indistinguishable as twin brothers. Ami and Amile serve Charlemagne together, face together the hatred of an archetypal villain, confront the daunting challenges of women and love, and accept extraordinary sacrifices for each other's sake. Miracles mark the end of their lives, and their shared tomb becomes a pilgrims' shrine. The compelling translation by Samuel N. Rosenberg and Samuel Danon is accompanied by an introduction on the background, genre, and general sense of the tale. The volume also includes an afterword by David Konstan, which examines the medieval work's concept of friendship within a perspective extending back to classical antiquity. This translation will reveal Ami and Amile as a major work of the French Middle Ages. In elegant and forceful prose, it weaves together the themes of friendship and love and the status of women, of sin and punishment, the moral problem of doing wrong for the right reason, and the mythic affliction of leprosy. The work will foster lively literary and philosophical discussion. Ami and Amile is of interest to a wide range of readers, including students of history, comparative literature, and gender studies. Medievalists will find it a welcome addition to their libraries and a captivating experience for their students.

[more]

Amoral Gower

Language, Sex, and Politics

Diane Watt

University of Minnesota Press, 2003

An innovative reading of John Gower’s work and an exciting new approach to medieval vernacular texts

“Moral Gower” he was called by friend and sometime rival Geoffrey Chaucer, and his “Confessio Amantis” has been viewed as an uncomplicated analysis of the universe, combining erotic narratives with ethical guidance and political commentary. Diane Watt offers the first sustained reading of John Gower’s “Confessio” to argue that this early vernacular text offers no real solutions to the ethical problems it raises—and in fact actively encourages perverse readings.

Drawing on a combination of queer and feminist theory, ethical criticism, and psychoanalytic, historicist, and textual criticism, Watt focuses on the language, sex, and politics in Gower’s writing. How, she asks, is Gower’s “Confessio” related to contemporary controversies over vernacular translation and debates about language politics? How is Gower’s treatment of rhetoric and language gendered and sexualized, and what bearing does this have on the ethical and political structure of the text? What is the relationship between the erotic, ethical, and political sections of “Confessio Amantis”? Watt demonstrates that Gower engaged in the sort of critical thinking more commonly associated with Chaucer and William Langland at the same time that she contributes to modern debates about the ethics of criticism.

[more]

An Introductory Grammar of Old English with an Anthology of Readings

Robert D. Fulk

Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2014

[more]

Ancient Privileges

Beowulf, Law, and the Making of Germanic Antiquity

STEFAN JURASINSKI

West Virginia University Press, 2006

One of the great triumphs of nineteenth-century philology was the development of the wide array of comparative data that underpins the grammars of the Old Germanic dialects, such as Old English, Old Icelandic, Old Saxon, and Gothic. These led to the reconstruction of Common Germanic and Proto-Germanic languages. Many individuals have forgotten that scholars of the same period were interested in reconstructing the body of ancient law that was supposedly shared by all speakers of Germanic. Stefan Jurasinski's Ancient Privileges: Beowulf, Law, and the Making of the Germanic Antiquity recounts how the work of nineteenth-century legal historians actually influenced the editing of Old English texts, most notably Beowulf, in ways that are still preserved in our editions. This situation has been a major contributor to the archaizing of Beowulf. In turn, Jurasinski's careful analysis of its assumptions in light of contemporary research offers a model for scholars to apply to a number of other textual artifacts that have been affected by what was known as the historische Rechtsschule. At the very least, it will change the way you think about Beowulf.

[more]

Ancient Weeds

Edited by Sylva Fischerová and Jirí Starý

Karolinum Press, 2023

This book blurs the line between high and low culture throughout literary history.

The common story in literary studies is that the emergence of popular and junk literature is related to the emergence of modern society due to the rise of literacy and the shortening of workdays. Ancient Weeds upends this misconception by demonstrating that antiquity had its fair share of literary pieces that fit the definition of popular, trivial, and junk literature. The authors analyze artifacts such as the ancient Egyptian Turin Papyrus, ancient love novels, Christian hagiographies and passion plays, lives of Jesus and Marian hymns, Old Norse tales and lying sagas, and Spanish blind romances. Through numerous excerpts, it becomes clear that the line between junk and high literature is thinner than it seems. They reveal how seemingly low themes such as sex and violence often overlap with the themes of high literature. In many cases, low literature is more imaginative and subversive than canonical texts, and bizarreness and non-conformity do not necessarily equate to the ephemerality of a work. As Ancient Weeds shows, thousands of years after it was written, low literature can still be a great source of entertainment today.

[more]

Andreas Capellanus, Scholasticism, and the Courtly Tradition

Don A. Monson

Catholic University of America Press, 2005

This book, the first study in English devoted entirely to Andreas Capellanus's De Amore, presents a comprehensive inquiry into the influence of scholasticism on the structure and organization of the work, applying methods of medieval philosophy and intellectual history to an important problem in medieval literary studies.

[more]

Angels, Devils

The Supernatural and Its Visual Representation

Gerhard Jaritz

Central European University Press, 2011

Supernatural phenomena and causalities played an important role in medieval society. Religious practice was relying upon a set of cult images and the sacral status of these depictions of divine or supernatural persons became the object of heated debates and provoked iconoclastic reactions.The miraculous intervention of saints or other divine agents, the wondrous realities beyond understanding, or the manifestations of magic attributed to diabolic forces, were contained by a variety of discourses, described and discussed in religion, philosophy, chronicles, literature and fiction, and also in a large number of pictures and material objects. The nine essays in this collection discusses how supernatural phenomena – especially angels and devils – found visual manifestation in Latin and Eastern Christianity as well as Judaism in the late medieval, early renaissance period.

[more]

Anglicanus ortus

A Verse Herbal of the Twelfth Century

Henry of Huntingdon

Bodleian Library Publishing, 2012

[more]

Animal Skins and the Reading Self in Medieval Latin and French Bestiaries

Sarah Kay

University of Chicago Press, 2017

Just like we do today, people in medieval times struggled with the concept of human exceptionalism and the significance of other creatures. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the medieval bestiary. Sarah Kay’s exploration of French and Latin bestiaries offers fresh insight into how this prominent genre challenged the boundary between its human readers and other animals.

Bestiaries present accounts of animals whose fantastic behaviors should be imitated or avoided, depending on the given trait. In a highly original argument, Kay suggests that the association of beasts with books is here both literal and material, as nearly all surviving bestiaries are copied on parchment made of animal skin, which also resembles human skin. Using a rich array of examples, she shows how the content and materiality of bestiaries are linked due to the continual references in the texts to the skins of other animals, as well as the ways in which the pages themselves repeatedly—and at times, it would seem, deliberately—intervene in the reading process. A vital contribution to animal studies and medieval manuscript studies, this book sheds new light on the European bestiary and its profound power to shape readers’ own identities.

[more]

Anne’s Bohemia

Czech Literature And Society, 1310-1420

Alfred Thomas

University of Minnesota Press, 1998

The first book in English on medieval Czech literature.

Anne’s Bohemia is the first general book in English to introduce the little-known riches of medieval Bohemian culture. Alfred Thomas considers the development of Czech literature and society from the election of Count John of Luxembourg as king of Bohemia in 1310 to the year 1420, when the papacy declared a Catholic crusade against the Hussite reformers. This period is of particular relevance to the study of medieval England because of the marriage of Richard II to Anne of Bohemia, the figure around whom this book is focused.

Anne’s Bohemia provides a social context for the most important works of literature written in the Czech language, from the earliest spiritual songs and prayers to the principal Hussite and anti-Hussite tracts of the fifteenth century. The picture that emerges from Thomas’s close readings of these texts is one of a society undergoing momentous political and religious upheavals in which kings, queens, clergy, and heretics all played crucial roles. During the reign of Charles IV (1346-78), the Bohemian Lands became the administrative and cultural center of the Holy Roman Empire and Prague its splendid capital. Comparing and contrasting the situation in Bohemia with the England of Richard II, Anne’s Bohemia charts the growth and decline of the international court culture and the gradual ascendancy of the Hussite reformers in the fifteenth century. Expert but accessibly written, the book offers an engaging overview of medieval Bohemian culture for specialist and nonspecialist alike.ISBN 0-8166-3053-4 Cloth $49.95xxISBN 0-8166-3054-2 Paper $19.95x232 pages 6 black-and-white photos 5 7/8 x 9 AprilMedieval Cultures Series, volume 13Translation inquiries: University of Minnesota Press

[more]