bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Regnum Francie: A Problem in Capetian Administrative Usage
Authors: Wood Charles T.
Published: August 2016

No one reading Suger's life of Louis VI would be apt to think that the abbot of Saint Denis had an extremely broad or, as one used to say, ‘liberal’ conception of the territorial limits of Francia. On the contrary, it is evident that for him Francia was a compact unit of lands roughly equivalent to the more modern Ǐle de France, lands which in no way approximate what France was later to become. One finds, for example, that Louis after his various provincial expeditions is described as returning ‘in Franciam,’ be it from Flanders, Auvergne, or Berry. Similarly, frontiers and marches are to be found facing not only the empire, which is natural enough, but also Normandy, Berry, Auvergne, and Burgundy. In short, for Suger Francia was hemmed in by a host of other and often hostile lands, and while the king's duty might be to control them as best he might, it is nevertheless apparent that they do not, in Suger's normal use of the term, constitute part of Francia.
The Unity of the Wakefield ‘Mactacio Abel’
Authors: Davidson Clifford
Published: August 2016

Despite the renewal of interest in the Catholic vernacular drama of medieval England, critics generally have failed to understand the framework upon which the unity of the Wakefield Mactacio Abel (The Killing of Abel) rests. If, as I believe, the central issue in the play is the response of mankind to God's grace against the background of the whole of history, then those who would admire the play solely for its realism or for its farce are not properly responding to the drama. There are many who perhaps do find the theology implicit in medieval drama to be rather dull fare, but in no way can the religious doctrine be split away from other aspects of this play.
Cicero, Pompey, and the Rise of the First Triumvirate
Authors: Mitchell Thomas N.
Published: August 2016

Modern analyses of the course of Roman politics in the years 62–60 b.c. reveal a high level of agreement in comparison with the welter of conflicting theories that have emerged from studies of the political activity of the fifties.

The dismissal of his army at Brundisium and certain seemingly conciliatory gestures toward the conservative elements of the Roman aristocracy have led most scholars to conclude that in 62 b.c. Pompey, at heart a conservative, was eager for closer ties with Rome's oligarchs, and willing to accept the notion of government by the senate if his immediate but modest needs were met.
Medieval Explanations and Interpretations of the Dictum that ‘Nature Abhors a Vacuum’
Authors: Grant Edward
Published: August 2016

Of the numerous real and hypothetical experimental illustrations invoked against the existence of natural and artifical vacua during the Latin Middle Ages, two may be singled out as especially prominent: the clepsydra and the separation of two surfaces. The descriptions and explanations of these two popular experiments will serve as the focus of this paper, since they strikingly exemplify the kinds of arguments and the often ad hoc character of the medieval defense of Aristotle's contention that nature is a material plenum. Medieval authors, with perhaps one exception, denied the actual existence in the world of separate, continuously extended vacua, however small or large.
Dynastic Structures and Capetian Throne-right: The Views of Giles of Paris
Authors: Lewis Andrew W.
Published: August 2016

The French royal genealogy compiled by Giles of Paris (1160? – before 1224) has received little scholarly attention, but it is an important source for the historical views of Capetian circles at the beginning of the thirteenth century. The work is an elaborate family tree which traces the royal succession from the legendary origins of the Franks to the contemporary heir to the throne, the future Louis VIII, who is identified on the chart as Ludouicus puer. Giles begins with a narrative of the history of Sicambria and of the entry of the Franks into Gaul which he illustrates with a table of the first Merovingians. The family tree then continues, indicating the length of each king's reign and giving historical notes on some rulers. The genealogy is traced in detail from Clovis through the sons of Louis the Pious, but afterward there appear only kings, and rarely their queens, except for the family of Louis VI, whose sons and eldest grandsons are shown. In addition, Giles traces the supposed Merovingian descent of the Carolingians, the descent of the Capetians from Robert the Brave, and the lines of many of the descendants of William the Conqueror. Giles's selection, presentation, and reworking of materials from his sources reveal a view which in some respects is original and in others, while derivative, is an unusually clear sketch of the dynastic schematization of the national history. The genealogy is an outline history of France which, although written at the beginning of a period of great historiographical activity and itself unlike other works of the time, has remained unedited and has never been seriously studied.
The Pseudo-Alcuinian ‘De septem sigillis’: an Early Latin Apocalypse Exegesis
Authors: Matter E. Ann
Published: August 2016

Tucked away among the dubia of Migne's second volume of the writings of Alcuin is a short exposition of the seven seals of the Apocalypse. Here the seven seals first are related to seven events in the life of Christ: his nativity, baptism, crucifixion, burial, resurrection, ascension, and judgment. These in turn are shown to be analogous to the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit: wisdom, (sapientia), for Christ was miraculously born of a virgin; understanding (intellectus), because in baptism all sins are forgiven; counsel (consilium), for, as Caiphas the high-priest said of the crucifixion, ‘it is better for one man to die than for a whole people to perish’ (John 11:50); fortitude (fortitudo), in analogy to the burial, as Christ descended into hell and overcame it; knowledge (scientia), for the resurrection, through which Christ makes us believe; piety (pietas), for the ascension, since the souls of the faithful wish to follow Christ to heaven; and fear of the Lord (timor), in anticipation of the Last Judgment. Finally, the text portrays these virtues as exemplified by seven patriarchs: wisdom in Adam, understanding in Noah, counsel in Abraham, fortitude in Isaac, knowledge in Jacob, piety in Moses, and fear of the Lord in David.
The Lamentations Commentaries of Hrabanus Maurus and Paschasius Radbertus
Authors: Matter E. Ann
Published: August 2016

In the study of Carolingian Christianity, biblical commentaries are a vast and largely untapped resource. Exegesis, whether for teaching or homiletical purposes, dominated the ninth-century school tradition; in this world, nearly all theologians were primarily expositors of the Bible. It is one of the ironies of historical inquiry that the non-exegetical treatises of such figures as Hrabanus Maurus and Paschasius Radbertus have been studied to the exclusion of their biblical commentaries. Although this situation is beginning to change, much remains to be done, beginning with the crucial work on the texts. Meanwhile, in the absence of critical editions of any of the major works of the Carolingian exegetical tradition, all scholarship in the field is a mere suggestion as to what might be discovered when the primary materials have been better presented. This study is no exception. The two treatises discussed here have received practically no attention from modern historians, and are printed only in the uncritical editions of the Patrologia Latina. It is my hope that this analysis will encourage further inquiry into Carolingian exegesis by showing some ways in which two commentaries, the first in the Latin tradition on the book of Lamentations, reveal the theological and pastoral concerns, and the exegetical methods, of two generations of ninth-century monastic authors.
The Circle of Bishop Fulgentius
Authors: Stevens Susan T.
Published: August 2016

The importance of Fulgentius, the exiled bishop of Ruspe (A.D. 503–523), as the spokesman of the orthodox African church against the Arian Vandals has long been recognized, and so Fulgentius is primarily known for his polemical tracts addressed to the Vandal king Thrasamund (496–523) and other Arians. His theology is not much admired, being largely derivative from Augustine; his style, likewise, compares poorly with that of the great bishop of Hippo. Nevertheless, the real significance of Fulgentius as aristocrat, monk, bishop, and litterateur is revealed in hisEpistulae.
The Three Temptations and the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit in ‘Guthlac A,’ 160b–169
Authors: Wright Charles D.
Published: August 2016

In the Old English poem Guthlac A, after Guthlac has taken possession of the beorg, the poet catalogues the temptations the saint has overcome:
Oft ϸurh reorde abeadϸam ϸe ϸrowera ϸeawas lufedonGodes ærendu ϸa him gæst onwrahlifes snyttru, ϸæt he his lichomanwynna forwyrnde 7 woruldblissa,seftra setla 7 symbeldaga,swylce eac idelra eagena wynna,gierelan gielplices: him waes Godes egsamara in gemyndum ϸonne he menniscumϸrymme æfter ϸonce ϸegan wolde. (160b-169)
The Jews as the Killers of Christ in the Latin Tradition, from Augustine to the Friars
Authors: Cohen Jeremy
Published: August 2016

The noted Anglo-Jewish historian Cecil Roth, in a seldom quoted but highly provocative essay, argued some forty years ago that medieval European Christendom conceived of the Jew not as an infidel who had failed to perceive the truth of Christianity but rather as a deliberate unbeliever, one who knew the truth but refused to accept its consequences. Only if the Jews of first-century Palestine had recognized Jesus as their redeemer, Roth claimed, could medieval churchmen have sought proof for Christian beliefs in the Talmud and Midrash; and only a people deemed willfully evil could have been charged with the unnatural atrocities that medieval Europeans attributed to the Jews: host-desecration, well-poisoning, and ritual murder. To be sure, cautioned Roth, not all medieval Christians could have viewed the Jews in precisely this way. Popes and emperors often expended considerable energy to controvert such popular opinion. ‘But it must have been a very widespread conception, particularly among the less educated; and it explains a good deal in the medieval religious mentality which otherwise remains incomprehensible.’
Some Biblical Influences on Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historiography
Authors: Fowler David C.
Published: August 2016

Readers of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae will recall the striking passage in 8.7 (Faral 125) in which Aur-elius, after the great victory over Hengist and the Saxons, calls together his leaders to decide what to do about the captive Hengist. Whereupon Eldad, Bishop of Gloucester, addresses Aurelius as follows:

Etsi omnes istum liberare niterentur, ego cum in frusta conscinderem. Insequerer namque prophetam Samuelem, qui, cum Agag, regem Amalech, in potestatem tenuisset, conscidit ilIum in frusta dicens: Sicut fecisti matres sine liberis, sic faciam hodie matrem tuam sine liberis inter mulieres [1 Reg. (1 Sam.) 15.33]. Sic igitur facite de isto, qui alter Agag existit.

Unlike Samuel, Bishop Eldad does not hew Hengist in pieces before the Lord; instead the Saxon is decapitated by the Bishop's brother, Eldol (who was not a churchman), and in fact is given a decent burial by Aurelius, who was, Geoffrey tells us, a moderate (‘ modestus’) individual. Yet it is almost beyond question that Geoffrey's whole account of the death of Hengist (for which there is no hint in his sources) is modeled on the biblical story of Samuel and Agag.
A Tribute to Albert Friend
Authors: Simson Otto G. Von , Strittmatter Dom Anselm
Published: August 2016

Within less than twelve months in the years 1955 and 1956 three senior members of the Department of Art and Archaeology of Princeton University departed this life: Charles Rufus Morey, Albert Matthias Friend, and Earl Baldwin Smith. All three were scholars of distinction, and of all three it can be safely asserted that through their own work and through their influence upon their numerous students they decisively shaped the character and quality of American scholarship in the field of medieval art. This is especially true of Morey, who may be said to have made the tradition so hopefully inaugurated by Dr. Allan Marquand and to have passed the torch on to his pupils. If the invitation to catalogue the Museo Sacro of the Vatican Library was an extraordinary compliment paid to Morey, the master, the appointment to the office of Director of Studies at the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection of Harvard University was an outstanding distinction conferred upon Friend, his pupil. It was in this position that Friend's activities and influence assumed more and more international or cosmopolitan proportions, and so it came about that when the plan of a ‘Festschrift’ to be presented to him on his sixtieth anniversary was broached, not only colleagues and pupils of Princeton University, but more than one foreign scholar whom he had been instrumental in bringing to Dumbarton Oaks was invited to participate. The result was the volume now under consideration, which comprises in all thirty-two articles in the two fields of late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. For all the diversity of subjects treated, which is considerable, there is an extraordinary homogeneity to this liberal A dedicatory inscription composed in brilliant Greek was very appropriately prefixed to the volume, to complete an offering which Friend had the pleasure of receiving more than a year before his death.
Robert Grosseteste's Treatise ‘De finitate motus et temporis’
Authors: Dales Richard C.
Published: August 2016

In 1912 Prof. Ludwig Baur published among the philosophical works of Robert Grosseteste a short treatise entitled De finitate motus et temporis, which, as he pointed out, was nearly identical with the concluding section of Grosseteste's Commentary on the Physics. Baur however knew only one independent manuscript of the De finitate and based his edition upon this one manuscript and two Oxford manuscripts of the Physics commentary. In 1940 Prof. S. Harrison Thomson listed four additional manuscripts which contain De finitate as an independent work. In the course of preparing a critical edition of the Commentary on the Physics, I found it necessary to consult these manuscripts and thereby became aware of the inadequacy of Baur's treatment of De finitate.
The Greek and Latin Versions of II Nicaea and the Synodica of Hadrian I (JE 2448): A Diplomatic Study
Authors: Wallach Luitpold
Published: August 2016

Hadrian I'ssynodicaof 785 (JE 2448), addressed to the Byzantine Emperors Irene and her son Constantine VI, which encouraged the rulers in their planned restoration of image-worship, is one of the most important official Latin documents of the eighth century. In the East it became in 787 the basis of the discussions at the Seventh Ecumenical Council (II Nicaea), which restored the worship of images in Byzantium. In the West, the Franks and Charlemagne based their rejection of image worship and of II Nicaea on certain sections of thesynodicawhich were critically discussed in the FrankishCapitulare adversus synodumof c. 788/9, as well as in Hadrian I's refutation of this lost capitulary, whose text is extensively cited in the chapter headings of the so-calledHadrianum(JE 2483) of c. 791. Greek and Latintestimoniainvoked in JE 2448 in favor of image worship are rebuked in Charlemagne'sLibri Carolini, the official Frankish protest against II Nicaea. Finally, numerous merous fragments of thesynodica's text, especially from itscatenaof patristictestimonia, were inserted into theLibellus synodalisof the Paris Synod of 825.
Eadmer's Life of Bregwine, Archbishop of Canterbury, 761–764
Authors: Scholz Bernhard W.
Published: August 2016

Eadmer of Canterbury, companion for many years and biographer of St. Anselm of Canterbury, is best known for his two intimate records of Anselm's episcopate and personality: the Historia Novorum in Anglia and the Vita Anselmi. He is also the author of various devotional works, among them a minor classic on the Immaculate Conception, and of several saints' lives. As a hagiographer he recorded the lives and miracles of saints whose relics were preserved in his house, Christ Church, Canterbury, or the priory of the Holy Trinity, as it was known in the Middle Ages. Apart from his longer lives of St. Wilfrid, St. Oda, St. Dunstan, and St. Oswald, Eadmer wrote some shorter hagiographical works, one of them on Bregwine, archbishop of Canterbury in the eighth century. The life of Bregwine has never been printed in its entirety. It is my purpose in the following pages to edit the complete text of this work.
The Idea of the Ecclesia Primitiva in the Writings of the Twelfth-Century Canonists
Authors: Olsen Glenn
Published: August 2016

Much recent scholarship on the period of the Investiture Struggle and the reform of the Church in the eleventh and twelfth centuries has suggested that the origins of these reforms lay not merely in the desire for moral regeneration, but in the conscious wish to return to the antique, Biblical, patristic, and Roman models of the Christian life represented by the early, pre-feudal Church. What modern historians have sometimes called ‘Germanic Christianity’ or ‘feudal Christianity’ was felt to be a pattern of institutions which had at least partly corrupted the life of the early Church. This explains the great concern of the Hildebrandine Party to rid the Church of those abuses which they felt had grown ‘especially since the time when the government of our church passed to the Germans. … But we, having searched out the Roman Order and the ancient custom of our church, imitating the old Fathers, have ordered things to be restored as we have set out above.’ The reaction against the immediate past in favor of a more perfect antique model manifested itself in the notion, expressed throughout the period, that custom must always be judged by natural law and by truth: ‘the Lord said: “I am the Truth.” He did not say: “I am the custom”; but “I am the Truth.” The reformers became impassioned to restore the ancient discipline, to rediscover the ancient laws of the Church, to bring monasticism back to its original purity, and in all this to use what they believed to be the ancient forms of the Christian life as a model by which to compare and criticize the Christianity of their own times. An extensive and varied literature appeared dealing with the problem of what the ancient ideal of the Christian life had been, a literature which began both to speak frequently of the ecclesia primitiva, and to use this idea as a model by which to reform the Church. Often this literature passed beyond the use of the idea of the ecclesia primitiva as a tool of reform to the use of the idea as a basis for the discussion of the more basic problem of what the perfect form of the Christian life had been or should be. In this regard, ‘reform’ signified not only the restoration and reestablishment of the forms of the Christian life of the past, but also the search for the continuing perfection of both the individual and the Church. The nexus of ideas associated with the Augustinian reformatio in melius was in this respect close to the idea of ‘renewal.’ Men not only returned to the forms of the past, but also explored ways of introducing new structures and forms of life into the Church.
The Function of Poetry in the ‘De Planctu Naturae’ of Alain de Lille
Authors: Wetherbee Winthrop
Published: August 2016

The allegories of Alain de Lille, though their historical importance is generally acknowledged, have been more admired, and at times deprecated, than closely examined, and there has been a remarkable divergence of opinion as to their intrinsic significance and literary quality. TheDe planctu naturaeandAnticlaudianuspresent a remarkable blend of rhetoric, metaphysics, and dogma which led Barthélemy Hauréau to call Alain ‘le plus fecond et le plus brillant de tous les mystiques de ce temps,’ and Emile Mǎle to call him ‘le plus grand poète latin du moyen ǎge.’ So sensitive a critic as Huizinga, however, while recognizing the richness and subtlety of Alain's language, nonetheless relegated him to the second rank among the poets of his century. His very virtuosity seems finally to have exasperated C. S. Lewis who, despite certain concessions, dismissed Alain the poet as a ‘cold-hearted stylist,’ and it appeared now frivolous, now pedantic to the more sympathetic Raynaud de Lage.
Simon de Beaulieu and ‘Clericis Laicos’
Authors: McNamara Jo Ann
Published: August 2016

Boniface VIII entered his pontificate with a single great ambition, to which he reverted at every opportunity during the troubled years of his reign. Repeatedly, he called for a new crusade to restore the foothold lost to Christendom in the Holy Land only four years before his accession. To accomplish this revitalization of the ancient ideal of the papacy, he persistently sought to use his authority to make himself arbiter of an overall European peace. The indispensable requirement in this plan was the establishment of some agreement between Edward I of England and Philip IV of France, whose confrontation in Aquitaine was steadily moving toward an open war which would involve their various allies throughout Europe. Accordingly, within two months of his election, Boniface appointed legates to both countries to negotiate a peace.
The Liturgical Associations of Langland's Samaritan
Authors: St-Jacques Raymond
Published: August 2016

The application of patristic biblical exegesis to medieval literature has produced some illuminating criticism in recent years. Unfortunately, the “allegorists” often fail to make use of one of the most important sources of traditional Christian thought and symbolism, the liturgy. Yet, medieval writers greatly enriched their work by drawing upon the liturgy as a source and inspiration, a fact demonstrated by a passage such as the Good Samaritan episode in Passus XVII of Piers Plowman.
Another Look at the Barbarian Settlement in Southern Gaul
Authors: Bachrach Bernard S.
Published: August 2016

In an important study which appeared in 1956, Professor E. A. Thompson discussed imperial policy in southern Gaul during the first half of the fifth century. According to Professor Thompson the purpose of the Romans in settling four groups of barbarians in southern Gaul between the years 418 and 442 was to control the Bacaudae who, he contends, threatened to overthrow the existing social and economic order. By focusing all his attention on the Bacaudae Professor Thompson distorts Roman policy by attributing to it a precision which it lacked. A less selective study of the evidence suggests that Rome's policy in southern Gaul (and probably throughout the Empire as well) was directed toward control of all the potentially and actively hostile elements in the Empire rather than, on balance, being preoccupied exclusively with the activities of the Bacaudae.
Gawain and Michaelmas
Authors: Pace George B.
Published: August 2016

The Feast of St. Michael and All Angels, or Michaelmas, is held on Sept. 29. The feast is referred to in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight:

Til MeƷelmas mone

Watz cumen wyth wynter wage;

Þen Þenkkez Gawan ful sone

Of his anious uyage.

These lines conclude the stanzas on the passing of the seasons with which part II of the poem begins. They are immediately followed by a statement to the effect that Gawain does not start on his anious uyage till Nov. 1 (Al-hal-day). Apparently something about the Michaelmas moon simply brings to consciousness, to the foreground of Gawain's mind, the grim agreement with the Green Knight.
‘Exodus’ and the ‘Herba Humilis’
Authors: Vickrey John F.
Published: August 2016

Sic eum anima, quern superbiens intus reliquerat, foris humilem invenit, imitatura ejus humilitatem visibilem, et ad invisibilem altitudinem reditura.

De libero arbitrio 3.10.30

Although the text of the Old EnglishExoduspoem, as C. L. Wrenn remarked, is one ‘whose almost every line contains a crux or a challenge,’ certain passages of the poem present especially numerous and complex difficulties. One such passage is lines 135–153, immediately following the description of the Israelites’ advance through the third and fourthmansionesand preceding the description of Pharaoh's pursuit:135 Đær on fyrd hyra færspell becwom,oht inlende. Egsan stodan,wælgryre weroda; wræcmon gebadlaðne lastweard, se ðe him lange æreðelleasum onnied gescraf,
‘Piers Plowman’ B, Passus IX - XII: Elements in the Design of the Inward Journey
Authors: Wittig Joseph S.
Published: August 2016

‘The second division of Piers Plowman,’ writes Morton W. Bloomfield, ‘is essentially organized around the journey of the mind into itself.’ This observation seems true and vital to our understanding of the poem, yet the nature and course of that inward journey have never been conclusively determined. There is no general agreement on the identities of figures like Wit, Inwit, and Imaginatif. Perhaps more importantly, there is no agreement on the precise relationship of these personifications to each other, to their own speeches, to the Dreamer's progress or lack of progress, or to the nature of the poem's allegory. This article examines the inward journey in an effort to explain something of the nature of Langland's psychological lore and its connections with other elements of the poem. It hopes to show that such an explanation can best be derived, not from scholastic tags somewhat haphazardly applied to Langland's personifications, but rather from the traditions of ‘monastic,’ moral psychology consistently applied both to the poem's larger development and to a significant number of its details.
The Bishop's Portion: Generic Pious Legacies in the Late Middle Ages in Italy
Authors: Trexler Richard C.
Published: August 2016

In a recent article on the Florentine synodal constitutions of 1327, I took note of the rubric de testamentis et ultimis uoluntatibus, which ordered executors to pay directly to the bishop one-third of all legacies left indistincte ad pias causas seu pro anima. Another third of such bequests was to be paid directly to the testator's parish rector, while the remainder supposedly was to be distributed by the executors to pious causes. Under pressure from the commune, this mandate was struck in 1330. I stated the reasons for communal opposition, and made a limited attempt to show the canonical background of the bishop's unsuccessful ordinance. Citing the European-wide use by the secular clergy of the decretal Super cathedram (1300) to recoup income lost to the friars, the article concluded that Florence's demand for direct payment of a third on indistincte was an extreme — but not unique — formulation of a trend within one contemporary school of jurisprudence to amplify the testamentary rights of the secular clergy. The bishop's attempt was bad law, and even the lawyers whose opinions had encouraged the bishop in his formulation — before all, the great canonist Giovanni d'Andrea — crushed such attempts on indistincte with strong and decisive consilia.
The Oath of Purgation of Pope Leo III in 800
Authors: Adelson Howard , Baker Robert
Published: August 2016

Two days before Charlemagne was crowned ‘Emperor of the Romans,' Pope Leo III swore an oath in order to affirm his innocence of any crimes attributed to him by his enemies. Sound reasons exist for making an assumption that there was a close relationship between these two events. Since there is no indisputable evidence in the sources concerning the motives that led to Charles' coronation, every important event prior to this act has been analyzed by historians for its potential bearing on the matter. Further, the two most important individuals, pope and king, were participants in both affairs. The hand that bore the Gospels when an oath of purification was sworn in the presence of the Frankish king was the same hand, the pope's, which placed the crown of empire on a Frankish head. Thus it has been argued that Leo gave Charlemagne the new dignity in order that the Frank might use his imperial power to chastise the papal enemies. Against this view the countering argument has been made by some historians that Leo's oath was humiliating, a fact which reduces to an absurdity the thesis that the main initiative could come from the papal Curia. Thus the oath has been considered the key to a proper evaluation of the coronation itself.
Rudolph Agricola's Life of Petrarch
Authors: Mommsen Theodor E.
Published: August 2016

Among the many personal faults with which Petrarch, in his dialogue entitled The Secret or The Soul's Conflict with Passion, let himself be charged by St. Augustine, there was one which he found harder to renounce than any other. In reply to Augustine's reproach: ‘You are seeking fame among men and the immortality of your name more than is right,' Petrarch could only say: ‘This I admit freely and cannot find any remedy to restrain that desire.' In fact, throughout his life Petrarch was well aware that ‘to the whole people I have been a favola,' as he declared in the introductory sonnet of his Rime Sparse, and he showed himself constantly determined to perpetuate his fame beyond death, as his Epistle to Posterity and numerous other autobiographical documents demonstrate. His effort bore fruit, for the life of no other literary figure of the fourteenth century, not even that of Dante, was told more frequently and fully by the writers of the Renaissance than that of Petrarch. Among his biographers we find some of the greatest Italian humanists, including Giovanni Boccaccio, Filippo Villani, Leonardo Bruni Aretino, Pietro Paolo Vergerio and Gianozzo Manetti. But, interestingly enough, for the period of the first century after Petrarch's death in 1374, there exists not a single biography which was composed by a non-Italian writer. This fact is the more notable when we remember the tremendous reputation which Petrarch enjoyed, during his own era and afterwards, in France and Germany, and even in remote England, where Chaucer, in The Clerk's Prologue, sang the praise of ‘this clerk whose rethoryke so sweete enlumed al Itaille of poetrye.' The anonymous Bohemian scholar who, at the beginning of the fifteenth century, brought together an anthology of Petrarch's works, did not himself write a biography but simply used the one written by Vergerio. Interest in the personalities and achievements of the great poets and artists arose first in Italy, and it was there that the traditional literary form of ‘the lives of the illustrious men' was filled with a new spirit and content. From this point of view it appears characteristic that the first biography of Petrarch by a non-Italian was composed only after the passage of a hundred years following his death and that it was written by a man like Rudolph Agricola who was more than any of his northern fellow humanists influenced by Italian traditions and who, at the same time, was to become ‘the founder of the new intellectual life in Germany.’
An Etymology of ἄγιοϛ in a Work of Caesarius of Arles
Authors: Frank Richard M.
Published: August 2016

In the opening piece of Dom Morin's edition of the sermons of St, Caesarius of Arles, his Admonitio … vel suggestio humilis, addressed at large to his fellow-bishops, we find a passage in which the author's intention seems not to have been clarified by the editor's emendation. Caesarius, having exhorted his readers to the fulfilment of their pastoral duties and against the desire for the wealth of the world, at length reminds them of their calling to be saints — a name, sanctus, suited indeed to the whole Christian people, but especially appropriate to bishops — and continues his argument in the following words (those particularly in question here italicized):

… quia nobis hoc nomen aptatur, quid proprietas nominis istius indicare videatur debemus inquirere. Interpretatio nominis istius nisi per linguam graecam non potest inveniri. Sanctus graece deus AIUS interpretatur, non terrenus. Si ergo plus de caelestibus quam de terrenis solliciti simus, non incongrue nobis hoc nomen imponitur.
Bede and Images of Saint Cuthbert
Authors: Newlands Carole E.
Published: August 2016

On 20 March, A.D. 698, eleven years after his death, the grave of Cuthbert, holy man and bishop of the Northumbrian diocese of Lindisfarne between 685 and 687, was opened and the body was found to be incorrupt. It has been argued in modern times that this was possibly due to the monks' technique of embalming, or to the salty condition of the island soil, which literally pickled the saint's body. However, the bishop at that time, Eadberht, proclaimed a miracle. Cuthbert's body was reinterred with rich gifts in a shrine above the church floor so that the saint could be easily accessible to the faithful. Thus began the cult of Saint Cuthbert which culminated in the building of the magnificent cathedral of Durham.
Michael Scot in Toledo: Natura naturans and the Hierarchy of Being
Authors: Pick Lucy K.
Published: August 2016

Michael Scot was a central figure both for the transmission of Arabic philosophy to the Latin West and for the development of medieval science and astrology, yet much still remains unknown about his life and career. In part of a longer article dedicated to teasing out some of the strands of Michael Scot's influences and impact, Charles Burnett poses intriguing questions about the importance of his early sojourn in Toledo. He shows that Michael, along with Salio of Padua and Mark of Toledo, continued the translating activity begun in the twelfth century in Toledo, and he wonders whether Michael — like the twelfth-century translators Dominicus Gundissalinus, Gerard of Cremona, and John Hispanus — was closely associated with the cathedral of Toledo. Burnett hypothesizes that Toledo could have been the place where Michael first came across the works of Aristotle, Avicenna, and Averroes that he is credited with translating from the Arabic, and he notes that many of Michael's sources for his astrological treatise, the Liber introductorius (hereafter LI), were available in Toledo. Burnett suggests that by Michael's final departure from Spain to Italy, around 1220, he may have already made considerable headway in both his translating and astrological activities.
William of Auvergne and Plato's World of Ideas
Authors: Teske Roland J.
Published: August 2016

In his well-known article, “Pourquoi saint Thomas a critiqué saint Augustin,” Etienne Gilson remarked concerning William of Auvergne,

Le premier point à noter, lorsqu' on veut comprendre Guillaume d'Auvergne, specialement dans cette partie de son oeuvre, c'est qu'Aristote se confond souvent pour lui avec Avicenne et que, partant de cette presupposition, les efforts infructueux auxquels il se livre pour s'expliquer qu'un adversaire de Platon, comme Ie fut Aristote, ait pu enseigner une doctrine aussi nettement platonicienne que celIe d'Avicenne, Ie conduisent aux pires difficultes.
Catechesis and Castigation: Sin in the Wycliffite Sermon Cycle
Authors: Little Katherine C.
Published: August 2016

Who schulde now knowe emperours, wonder of philosofres, other folwe the apostles, but hir noble dedes and hir wonder werkes were i-write in stories and so i-kept in mynde? … For storie is wytnesse of tyme, mynde of lyf messager of eldnesse — John Trevisa's translation of Polychronicon.
A Note on the Calendar of the Liber Floridus
Authors: Ivanov Sergey
Published: August 2016

This paper examines some hitherto unconsidered marginal notes in the calendar of the Liber Floridus (year 1121) and establishes their link with the popular medieval text on the twelve fasting Fridays. The calendrical form of representation makes this information appear side by side with a list of events supposed to have happened on 25 March — a possible starting point for the development of a longer textual version contaminating the list of the twelve Fridays and the list of Friday events.
Arnau de Vilanova, el “Pequeño Cristo”: Significado y sentido del neologismo christinus en su obra espiritual
Authors: Valls Jaume Mensa I
Published: August 2016

The aim of this article is to study the meaning and significance of the word christinus (diminutive of Christus; “little Christ”) in the spiritual work of Arnau de Vilanova (ca. 1240–1311). This Catalan doctor and thinker created the neologism and used it twice in the titles of two of his works (Allocutio christini de hiis que conveniunt homini secundum propriam dignitatem creaturae rationalis ad inclitum dominum tertium Fredericum, Trinacriae regem illustrem and Tractatus epistolarum christini). On both occasions Arnau de Vilanova used the term in the genitive, referring to himself. This concept expresses an elaborate theology of the conformity of the Christian with Christ and also suggests Arnau de Vilanova's wish to underline his own similarity with Christ as a move to urge the highest civil and ecclesiastical authorities to put plans for reform into place. Christinus, together with other expressions such as “Jesus of Nazareth” and “Christianity,” points to a fully Christocentric conception of Christianity and its historical context, and it is also proof of Arnau's inventiveness in creating new words. The word christinus bears some resemblance to another typical Arnaldian concept: thomatista (Thomist).
Poliziano and Philosophy: The Birth of the Modern Notion of the Humanities?
Authors: Edelheit Amos
Published: August 2016

This article is focused on Angelo Poliziano's general attitude to philosophy as a discipline and on his specific accounts of scholastic philosophy, found mainly in his four opening lectures to his courses on Aristotle's logic and ethics that were held in the Florentine Studium between 1490 and 1494, in the light of his overall exclusive classical approach. It shows, among other things, that philosophy was more important to Poliziano than common expressions such as “the humanist interest in philosophy” may suggest. Poliziano's important definition of history presented in his Panepistemon, together with other pieces of evidence, can reveal the moment in which disciplines associated with the “humanities” (in the modern sense of this term) began to be separated from the natural sciences — at a point just preceding the massive critique of Aristotelian science during the sixteenth century — through Poliziano's notion of a philosophical literature to which also the Aristotelian texts belong.
The ‘Proverbia Grecorum’
Authors: Simpson Dean
Published: August 2016

Statements in Latin concerning such topics as wisdom, truth, and virtue, attributed to the Proverbia Grecorum (less often the Parabolae Gregorum), are found in a number of early medieval manuscripts. They are of interest because of their stated connection with the Greeks, which pertains to the knowledge of Greek and Greek learning in the early medieval West, and because of the obscure vocabulary many of the proverbs contain, which relates to the study of the latinity of early medieval, especially insular, scholars. New findings concerning the origin and transmission of these statements have increased their importance because they have revealed connections between them and other important early medieval Latin texts, notably the Collectio canonum Hibernensis and certain florilegia found in the miscellaneous Collectaneum of Sedulius Scottus. The Proverbia Grecorum have been edited and studied in detail only once, by Sigmund Hellmann, in 1906. Since then new statements attributed to the Proverbia Grecorum have been found, and the characterization of early medieval Latin culture has been significantly revised. Hellmann's text, furthermore, has been found to be faulty in a number of places. Therefore, there is a need for a full re-edition and study of this proverb collection. This has been undertaken in the present work. Following this essay, which defines the current state of knowledge of the Proverbia Grecorum, there is a critical edition of all statements identified as Proverbia Grecorum. This is followed by a commentary in which parallel texts are cited, and points of linguistic interest are noted.
‘Deor’ and Its Refrain: Preliminaries to an Interpretation
Authors: Harris Joseph
Published: August 2016

Recent scholarship presents us with a difficult choice between two main trends: Deor as artistic transformation of a charm; and Deor as a ‘veritable Consolatio Philosophiae of minstrelsy.’ Morton Bloomfield's 1964 article compared the form of Deor to that of charms and concluded that it is ‘either a sophisticated, Christianized charm … or a poem influenced by the charm form and meant to suggest its prototype.’ Although strikingly original and brilliantly documented, Bloomfield's idea has not won many followers because a few years after its publication the Boethian trend, announced in Lawrence's 1911 phrase quoted above, set in strongly; following Murray Markland (1968) a series of scholars have pursued the trail of Boethian influence in impressive, if overingenious, articles. Now even essays dedicated to the formal-critical (rather than literary-historical) consideration of the poem usually include an obligatory tip of the hat to the suffering senator, and I think it would be fair to say that the standard view of the poem now combines the older notion of a general consolation with specific Boethian influence into what we might call a mild pseudo-Boethian optimism. The Boethian reading seems to me vulnerable judged under its own principles; but rather than trying directly to refute it, the present contribution will attempt to stake out the essentials of a new position between Bloomfield and Boethius by means of new external evidence. The present effort will, however, remain at the level of a prolegomenon to interpretation; depending on the reception of the present arguments and conjectures, I would hope to offer a fuller reading of the poem and its context in Old English literary history.
Meister Eckhart on the Book of Wisdom: Commentary and Sermons
Authors: Duclow Donald F.
Published: August 2016

A common view of medieval thought focuses on the separation of speculative thought from biblical exegesis which occurs with the rise of the universities. Whereas in the patristic era and the early Middle Ages theology and exegesis formed a unity, the introduction of Aristotle and the techniques of quaestio and disputatio detached theology from the study of scriptural texts. The results were twofold: theology attained a new autonomy and a distinctive form in the summa, and exegesis — free of the demands of theological speculation — could pursue a more literal and historical style of interpretation. Whatever the historical accuracy of this view, it has certainly shaped modern scholarship on medieval thought. Theologians and philosophers have focused on summae and disputed questions to such an extent that the Leonine edition of Thomas Aquinas has yet to publish his major Commentary on the Gospel of John. Since Thomas is considered first of all a theologian, not an exegete, his biblical commentaries have been accorded less interest and attention than his systematic works. In contrast, students of medieval exegesis may so emphasize literal and historical interpretation that they exclude or dismiss commentaries that are speculative or mystical. Beryl Smalley's The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages represents this trend, as it devotes little attention to Bernard of Clairvaux but concentrates on commentators like Guerric of St. Quentin, who gave ‘his attention to the literal sense first and foremost.’
La Nature des écrits de Jean de Ripa
Authors: Kałuża Zénon
Published: August 2016

L'immense mérite de Mgr André Combes d'avoir édité en cinq volumes une grande partie des écrits du Docteur supersubtil et d'avoir étudié dans de nombreux articles les questions annexes à cette édition ne peut cependant pas cacher le fait, aujourd'hui incontestable, que tous les problèmes que nous pose l'œuvre de Jean de Ripa et qui se sont déjà posés à son éditeur ne sont pas encore résolus ou le sont d'une manière provisoire et peu satisfaisante. Parmi eux il y en a un qui domine tous les autres puisque, une fois bien posé et bien résolu, les autres le seront: c'est celui de la chronologie des écrits du docteur franciscain, présent dans toutes les préfaces précédant les textes édités et dans la ‘Présentation de Jean de Ripa’. Il est lié tout naturellement à deux autres demandant, eux aussi, une élucidation: celui du genre littéraire ou de la ‘nature’ des écrits de Jean de Ripa, et celui de ses socii et adversaires.
Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Latin 7906: An Unnoticed Very Early Fragment of the ‘Liber Historiae Francorum’
Authors: Gerberding Richard A.
Published: August 2016

Manuscript Paris, B.N. lat. 7906 could contain the oldest known copy of part of the eighth-century Frankish chronicle, the Liber Historiae Francorum (LHF). The manuscript was an exciting discovery because of its antiquity, and at the same time a challenging one because it does not neatly fit with other known early manuscripts of the work. From folio 81 to 88v, B.N. lat. 7906 contains the first part of the LHF, breaking off abruptly in the course of chapter 17. The break comes in mid-sentence and falls at the end of the last line of a verso. The complete LHF contains 53 chapters, and obviously here, in mid-sentence in chapter 17, is not the place the scribe intended to end his copy. The author took the majority of his first 34 chapters from the Historia of Gregory of Tours. These are chapters of the LHF which are not as valuable historically as the work's later sections, which contain more original material from the author himself. Since the Paris manuscript stops in chapter 17, and since it does not contain any historical information not already known from other early manuscripts of the work, it does not add to the LHF's value as a historical source. It does, however, call into question the now universally held contention that the Liber Historiae Francorum was written in two neatly defined recensions, each with its own known date of composition.
Hildegard of Bingen and Anti-mendicant Propaganda
Authors: Kerby-Fulton Kathryn
Published: August 2016

The question of Hildegard's influence and reputation in the centuries following her death is an elusive and vexing one for scholars. We do know that the medieval prophetic tradition is one of the few spheres in which her writings and her reputation sustained anything like their original high profile. To a large extent this popularity was the direct result of two things: first of all, a compilation of extracts from her prophecies made by Gebeno of Eberbach around the year 1220; and secondly, the association of Hildegard's name and a few of her genuine writings with the tradition of anti-mendicant propaganda. These two survivals give us a different but not unrelated view of how Hildegard was known to the later Middle Ages, and in particular what she was best known for: that is, for her prediction of a coming chastisement of the clergy to be brought about partly through the agency of a group of pseudo-prophets. The testimony of Gebeno in his prologue to his compilation of her prophetic works and the testimony of various contemporary chroniclers all agree on one thing: Hildegard had succeeded in scaring the wits out of the local clergy, and even decades after her death they feared the chastisement she had predicted.
Images of Ephraem: The Syrian Holy Man and His Church
Authors: Griffith Sidney H.
Published: August 2016

Ephraem the Syrian is undoubtedly the best-known holy man of the Syriac-speaking world in the patristic period. Within fifty years of Ephraem's death, Palladius included a notice of him among the ascetic saints whose memory he celebrated in the Lausiac History. Sozomen the historian celebrated Ephraem's memory as a popular ecclesiastical writer, some of whose works had been translated into Greek even during his lifetime. Jerome claimed to recognize Ephraem's theological genius in a Greek translation he read of a book by Ephraem on the Holy Spirit. And toward the end of the fifth century, Gennadius of Marseilles called attention to Ephraem as a composer of metrical psalms. Well within the patristic era itself, therefore, Ephraem's reputation as holy man, theologian, and poet was secure.