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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.
Many aspects of the pagan past continued to survive into the middle ages despite the introduction of Christianity, influencing forms of behaviour and the whole mentalitéof the period. The essays collected in this stimulating volume seek to explore aspects of the way paganism mingled with Christian teaching to affect many different aspects of medieval society, through a focus on such topics as archaeology, the afterlife and sexuality, scientific knowledge, and visionary activity. Tr. TANIS GUEST.Professor LUDO J.R. MILIS teaches at the University of Ghent.Contributors: LUDO J.R. MILIS, MARTINE DE REU, ALAIN DIERKENS, CHRISTOPHE LEBBE, ANNICK WAEGEMAN, VÉRONIQUE CHARON>
Monasticism is often seen as one of the central driving forces of the medieval world, which both by example and by precept had an impact on society as a whole. This text examines this view.
R.C. Van Caenegem is the successor of Henri Pirenne and of F.L. Ganshof at the University of Ghent. These essays reflect Van Caenegem's main interests over his career: the Common Law in England and Customary Law in the Low Countries; the differences between institutional development in England and in the rest of Europe; and the forces making for autocratic as opposed to representative government. A number of pieces discuss the nature of history itself: how it compares with the sciences and what it can teach us. Two essays commemorate the lives and work of Pirenne and Ganshof.
This book celebrates the work and contribution of Professor Janet Burton to medieval monastic studies in Britain. Burton has fundamentally changed approaches to the study of religious foundations in regional contexts (Yorkshire and Wales), placing importance on social networks for monastic structures and female Cistercian communities in medieval Britain; moreover, she has pioneered research on the canons and their place in medieval English and Welsh societies. This Festschrift comprises contributions by her colleagues, former students and friends – leading scholars in the field – who engage with and develop themes that are integral to Burton’s work. The rich and diverse collection in the present volume represents original work on religious life in the British Isles from the twelfth to the sixteenth century as homage to the transformative contribution that Burton has made to medieval monastic studies in the British Isles.
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...
'In the Vineyard, as in all of Illich's writings, the search runs through accepted certainties, whatever their times and places, questioning them for truths still valid in the formation of personal wisdom.'-Mother Jerome von Nagel, O.S.B., Abbey of Regina LaudisThis book commemorates the dawn of scholastic reading. It tells about the emergence of an approach to letters that George Steiner calls bookish, and which for eight hundred years legitimated the establishment of western secular religion, and schooling its church.
Bringing together the research of several eminent scholars, A Companion to the Abbey of Saint Victor in Paris seeks to provide a deep introduction to the significance, scope, and reach of the abbey’s influence in the twelfth century and beyond. Sixteen chapters introduce the history of the abbey from its beginnings through the reception of its major writings. Chapters are grouped in the areas of the life and ministry of Victorine canons, the abbey’s contributions to biblical exegesis, sacramental and theological teachings, and the Victorine understanding of Christian life and prayer. Such a thorough introduction to the Abbey of Saint Victor has never before been published. Contributors are: David Albertson, Rainer Berndt, Boyd Taylor Coolman, Marshall Crossnoe, Torsten K. Edstam, Christopher P. Evans, Margot E. Fassler, Hugh Feiss, Karin Ganss, Franklin T. Harkins, Donna R. Hawk-Reinhard, C. Stephen Jaeger, Juliet Mousseau, Dominique Poirel, Patrice Sicard, and Frans van Liere.
Mental health and madness have been challenging topics for historians. The field has been marked by tension between the study of power, expertise and institutional control of insanity, and the study of patient experiences. This collection contributes to the ongoing discussion on how historians encounter mental ‘crises’. It deals with diagnoses, treatments, experiences and institutions largely outside the mainstream historiography of madness – in what might be described as its peripheries and borderlands (from medieval Europe to Cold War Hungary, from the Atlantic slave coasts to Indian princely states, and to the Nordic countries). The chapters highlight many contests and multiple stakeholders involved in dealing with mental suffering, and the importance of religion, lay perceptions and emotions in crises of mind. Contributors are Jari Eilola, Waltraud Ernst, Anssi Halmesvirta, Markku Hokkanen, Kalle Kananoja, Tuomas Laine-Frigrén, Susanna Niiranen, Anu Rissanen, Kirsi Tuohela, and Jesper Vaczy Kragh.
In Religious Education in Thirteenth-Century England, Andrew Reeves examines how laypeople in a largely illiterate and oral culture learned the basic doctrines of the Christian religion. Although lay religious life is often assumed to have been a tissue of ignorance and superstition, this study shows basic religious training to have been broadly available to laity and clergy alike. Reeves examines the nature, availability and circulation of sermon manuscripts as well as guidebooks to Christian teachings written for both clergy and literate laypeople. He shows that under the direction of a vigorous and reforming episcopate and aided by the preaching of the friars, clergy had a readily available toolkit to instruct their lay flocks.