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More than ten years ago, some mediaevalists of the K.U.Leuven and the University of Ghent joined together to create a repertory of medieval narrative sources focusing on the southern Low Countries. A pre-print was published in a paper version and was soon followed by the electronic database entitled Narrative Sources which is available through the Internet. Since 1996, Narrative Sources has been adapted, supplemented and rearranged every year and over the years the number of inventoried items has been increased to far more than 2150 titles. The information present thus far in Narrative Sources already allows and facilitates the study of the sources as such, individually or collectively, qualitatively or quantitatively.In a next step the goal would be the exploitation of the contents, with a specific focus on monastic historiography, its social setting, and self-image. In this book some of the scholars working on this project present their work, their methodology and their results to-date.
An important text from the "twelfth-century Renaissance" of history writing re-evaluated, drawing out its complex representations of monarchs from Cnut to William Rufus.Geffrei Gaimar's Estoire des Engleis is its author's sole surviving work. His translation and adaptation of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, expanded with a number of lengthy interpolations which appear to draw upon oral traditions and other, unknown written sources, is all that remains of an ambitious history which once reached back as far as Jason and the Golden Fleece. However, the extent of Gaimar's achievement - as poet, historian, and translator - has been obscured by a tendency among scholars to dismiss him as a writer of ro...
Never before published letters and uncollected short writings of R. H. Blyth, champion of Zen and the person who brought haiku to the world. Poetry and Zen assembles a remarkable literary feast: the letters, articles, translations, reviews, and selections from the papers of Reginald Horace Blyth (1898–1964). Following on the landmark success of Zen in English Literature and Oriental Classics (1942), Blyth’s voluminous writings on Zen, Japanese culture, and the Japanese verse forms haiku and senryū captured the imagination of English-speaking readers in the decades following World War II. His enlightening wit and inimitable style struck a particularly sensitive chord in the artistic comm...
Married Life in the Middle Ages, 900-1300 contains an analysis of the experience of married life by men and women in Christian medieval Europe, c. 900-1300. The study focusses on the social and emotional life of the married couple rather than on the institutional history of marriage, breaking it into three parts: Getting Married - the process of getting married and wedding celebrations; Married Life - the married life of lay couples and clergy, their sexuality, and any remarriage; and Alternative Living - which explores concubinage and polygyny, as well as the single life in contrast to monogamous sexual unions. In this volume, van Houts deals with four central themes. First, the tension bet...
Dark Age Nunneries -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Preface and Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- Introduction -- 1. Setting the Boundaries for Legitimate Experimentation -- 2. Holy Vessels, Brides of Christ: Ambiguous Ninth-Century Realities -- 3. Transitions, Continuities, and the Struggle for Monastic Lordship -- 4. Reforms, Semi-Reforms, and the Silencing of Women Religious in the Tenth Century -- 5. New Beginnings -- 6. Monastic Ambiguities in the New Millennium -- Conclusion -- Appendix A: The Leadership and Members of Female Religious Communities in Lotharingia, 816-1059 -- Appendix B: The Decrees on Women Religious from the Acts of the Synod of Chalon-sur-Saône, 813, and th...
Mediaevalia Lovaniensia 40Medieval translators played an important role in the development and evolution of a scientific lexicon. At a time when most scholars deferred to authority, the translations of canonical texts assumed great importance. Moreover, translation occurred at two levels in the Middle Ages. First, Greek or Arabic texts were translated into the learned language, Latin. Second, Latin texts became source texts themselves, to be translated into the vernaculars as their importance across Europe started to increase.The situation of the respective translators at these two levels was fundamentally different: whereas the former could rely on a long tradition of scientific discourse, the latter had the enormous responsibility of actually developing a scientific vocabulary. The contributions in the present volume investigate both levels, greatly illuminating the emergence of the scientific terminology and concepts that became so fundamental in early modern intellectual discourse. The scientific disciplines covered in the book include, among others, medicine, biology, astronomy, and physics.
The stigmatization as 'bastards' of children born outside of wedlock is commonly thought to have emerged early in Medieval European history. Christian ideas about legitimate marriage, it is assumed, set the standard for legitimate birth. Children born to anything other than marriage had fewer rights or opportunities. They certainly could not become king or queen. As this volume demonstrates, however, well into the late twelfth century, ideas of what made a child a legitimate heir had little to do with the validity of his or her parents' union according to the dictates of Christian marriage law. Instead a child's prospects depended upon the social status, and above all the lineage, of both pa...
Martin Luther was the subject of a religious controversy that never really came to an end. The Reformation was a controversy about him.
Wonder and Skepticism in the Middle Ages explores the response by medieval society to tales of marvels and the supernatural, which ranged from firm belief to outright rejection, and asks why the believers believed, and why the skeptical disbelieved. Despite living in a world whose structures more often than not supported belief, there were still a great many who disbelieved, most notably scholastic philosophers who began a polemical programme against belief in marvels. Keagan Brewer reevaluates the Middle Ages’ reputation as an era of credulity by considering the evidence for incidences of marvels, miracles and the supernatural and demonstrating the reasons people did and did not believe i...
Critical edition of previously unpublished works by a key philosopher of the fifteenth-century Low Countries Peter de Rivo (c.1420–1499), a renowned philosopher active at the University of Leuven, is today mostly remembered for his controversial role in the quarrel over future contingents (1465–1475). Much less known are his contributions to historical chronology, in particular his attempts to determine the dates of Christ’s birth and death. In 1471, Peter made an original contribution to this long-standing discussion with his Dyalogus de temporibus Christi, which reconciles conflicting views by rewriting the history of the Jewish and Christian calendars. Later in his career, Peter tackled the issue of calendar reform in his Reformacio kalendarii Romani (1488) and engaged in a heated debate with Paul of Middelburg on the chronology of Christ. This book edits the Dyalogus and Reformacio and sets out their context and transmission in an extensive historical introduction.