You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Examines how late medieval church courts were used for marriage cases, and how this varied dramatically across Europe.
Galenism, a rational, coherent medical system embracing all health and disease related matters, was the dominant medical doctrine in the Latin West during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Deriving from the medical and philosophical views of Galen (129-c.210/6) as well as from his clinical practice, Latin Galenism had its origins in 12th-century Salerno and was constructed from the cultural exchanges between the Arabic and Christian worlds. It flourished all over Europe, following the patterns of expansion of the university system during the subsequent centuries and was a major factor in shaping the healing systems of the Christian, Jewish and Muslim communities - the subject of a previous volume by Professor GarcÃa-Ballester. The present collection deals with a wide array of issues regarding the historical Galen and late medieval and Renaissance Galenism, but focuses in particular on the relationship between theory and practice. It includes first English versions of two major studies originally published in Spanish.
In the thriving urban economies of late thirteenth-century Catalonia, Jewish and Christian women labored to support their families and their communities. The Fruit of Her Hands examines how gender, socioeconomic status, and religious identity shaped how these women lived and worked. Sarah Ifft Decker draws on thousands of notarial contracts as well as legal codes, urban ordinances, and Hebrew responsa literature to explore the lived experiences of Jewish and Christian women in the cities of Barcelona, Girona, and Vic between 1250 and 1350. Relying on an expanded definition of women’s work that includes the management of household resources as well as wage labor and artisanal production, th...
At the beginning of the eleventh century, Catalonia was a patchwork of counties, viscounties, and lordships that bordered Islamic al-Andalus to the south. Over the next two centuries, the region underwent a dramatic transformation. The counts of Barcelona secured title to the neighboring kingdom of Aragon through marriage and this newly constituted Crown of Aragon, after numerous failed attempts, finally conquered the Islamic states positioned along its southern frontier in the mid-twelfth century. Successful conquest, however, necessitated considerable organizational challenges that threatened to destabilize, politically and economically, this triumphant regime. The Aragonese monarchy's eff...
The Splendor and Opulence of the Past traces the career of Jaume Caresmar (1717–1791), a church historian and a key figure of the Catalan Enlightenment who transcribed tens of thousands of parchments to preserve and glorify Catalonia's medieval past in the face of its diminishing autonomy. As Paul Freedman shows, Caresmar's books, essays, and transcriptions—some only recently discovered—provide fresh insights into the Middle Ages as remembered in modern Catalonia and illustrate how a nation's past glories and humiliations can inform contemporary politics and culture. From the ninth to the sixteenth centuries, Catalonia was a thriving, independent set of principalities within what would...
In Contested Treasure, Thomas Barton examines how the Jews in the Crown of Aragon in the twelfth through fourteenth centuries negotiated the overlapping jurisdictions and power relations of local lords and the crown. The thirteenth century was a formative period for the growth of royal bureaucracy and the development of the crown’s legal claims regarding the Jews. While many Jews were under direct royal authority, significant numbers of Jews also lived under nonroyal and seigniorial jurisdiction. Barton argues that royal authority over the Jews (as well as Muslims) was far more modest and contingent on local factors than is usually recognized. Diverse case studies reveal that the monarchyâ...
Las Siete Partidas, or Seven Divisions, is the major law code of thirteenth-century Spain, compiled by Alfonso X the Learned of Castile. Seven centuries later, this compendium of legal and customary information remains the foundation of modern Spanish law. In addition, its influence is notable in the law of Spain's former colonies, including Texas, California, and Louisiana. The work's extraordinary scope offers unparalleled insight into the social, intellectual, and cultural history of medieval Spain. Built on the armature of a law code, it is in effect an encyclopedia of medieval life. Long out of print, the English translation of Las Siete Partidas—first commissioned in 1931 by the Amer...
By the end of the Middle Ages, the ius commune—the combination of canon and Roman law—had formed the basis for all law in continental Europe, along with its patriarchal system of categorizing women. Throughout medieval Europe, women regularly found themselves in court, suing or being sued, defending themselves against criminal accusations, or prosecuting others for crimes committed against them or their families. Yet choosing to litigate entailed accepting the conceptual vocabulary of the learned law, thereby reinforcing the very legal and social notions that often subordinated them. In The Measure of Woman Marie A. Kelleher explores the complex relationship between women and legal cultu...
This groundbreaking collection brings the Middle Ages to life and conveys the distinctiveness of this diverse, constantly changing period. Thirty-eight scholars bring together one medieval world from many disparate worlds, from Connacht to Constantinople and from Tynemouth to Timbuktu. This extraordinary set of reconstructions presents the reader with a vivid re-drawing of the medieval past, offering fresh appraisals of the evidence and modern historical writing. Chapters are thematically linked in four sections: identities beliefs, social values and symbolic order power and power-structures elites, organizations and groups. Packed full of original scholarship, The Medieval World is essential reading for anyone studying medieval history.
This volume explores the attempt by the dynasty of the high-medieval Crown of Aragon to ‘rationalize’ its court in support of its expansionist program. It also examines the quotidian operations and social milieu of the various bureaus of the court.