Viator

"Saint Jerome and the History of Sex." Saint Jerome's Against Jovinian is more an attack on a particular kind of marriage-one which, as Jerome sees it, disempowers women by emphasizing heterosexual passion and childbearing-than it is an attack on women, and it should be viewed within the framework of the social history of the family rather than in that of the moral and psychological history of sex. Seen from this point of view, Against Jovinian tends to empower women within the marriage relationship as Jerome found it in late antiquity. This article looks at Roman antimatrimonial traditions and at what they may tell us about the family and about Saint Jerome; and it looks also at the subsequent history of Against Jovinian, especially in the early Renaissance, with the intent to make it less misogynist than it may appear.

"The Skull and Bones in Egils Saga: A Viking, a Grave, and Paget's Disease." For over a hundred years the related questions of saga veracity and the oral or written origins of Icelandic narrative texts have been continually debated. The nature of this discussion would change drastically if a new source of information were found. This article explores the possibility of a new informational source and offers an accompanying methodological approach. Conflicting aspects of Egill Skalla-Grímsson's personality, which have been chiefly understood in literary or mythic terms, are attributed here to the progression of Paget's disease. Medical and archeological evidence radically changes previous perceptions about Egill, altering our understanding of this warrior's character, the interpretation of his poetry, and the historical accuracy of Egils saga.

"The Gorzian Reform and the Light under the Bushel." Many texts of church and monastic reform in the German Empire of the tenth and eleventh centuries focus on the Christian's duty to spread the light received from God. Most of them were written by monks belonging to the Gorzian reform movement, and the texts reveal distinctive features of the movement's spirituality. The way monastic authors used the symbolism of light changed over time. Earlier texts emphasize only bishops as having a special duty to enlighten others, but later the lesson was applied ever more frequently to the monks themselves: monks have a duty to teach the laity and the secular clergy, rather than remaining in their monasteries. The shift in the use of Matthew 5.14-16 suggests that German monks were especially conscious of a responsibility to interact with secular society for society's good. Over time, the monks came to view themselves as the light-bearers, as an elite which had received a divine call to reform Christian society. This attitude had important implications for the development of reforming ideology in the eleventh century.

"Military Orders and Secular Warfare in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries." This article begins by examining the use to which Western kings and lords made of the brethren, financial resources, and vassals of the military orders in armed conflicts with Christian rivals. It was mainly in Spain, especially in the later thirteenth century, that kings were able to exact service from brethren, but military assistance from the orders' vassals and financial aid were obtained by rulers in many parts of the West. The papal reaction to this situation is considered. Military orders also used force against Christians on their own initiative and in their own interests, particularly in the frontier regions of Western Christendom. The papacy accepted that they should have the right to defend themselves, but their actions not in frequently exceeded the set limits. Lastly, the motivation of brethren in wars against the infidel is discussed, since it may be argued that the ends being pursued were at times of a worldly and secular nature.

"David's Adultery with Bathsheba and the Healing Power of the Capetian Kings." This study is based on hitherto unnoticed glosses on David's adultery with Bathsheba (2 Kings 11) dating from as early as the 1180s and probably even from the 1170s onward. It explores the cultural context of the healing touch of the kings of France. It also shows that mentions of this ability were current at the Paris schools in the last quarter of the twelfth century. A corollary: Parisian sympathizers of the so-called Gregorian reform did not fully silence reports of what Marc Bloch called “the royal miracle." Before 1200-1230, the ideal of a royal power to heal is accepted by masters of all political bents, including opponents of the growth of royal power. But after 1200-1230, the idea is upheld only by men favoring the king's preeminence in matters of taxation and law-making; opponents tend to either ignore, deride, or explain away glosses mentioning the healing touch. The royal miracle had become an object of, and argument in, partisan politics.

"Two Twelfth-Century Bibliophiles and Henry of Huntingdon's Historia Anglorum." The two oldest and best-known manuscripts of Henry of Huntingdon's Historia Anglorum are of Continental, Norman origin: Paris, Bibliothèque nationale MS lat. 6042 and Cambridge, University Library Gg 2.21. Fresh codicological evidence and new arguments are put forward here concerning their origin and provenance. It is suggested that lat. 6042 was made for Bec, and that Robert de Torigny, after he became abbot of Mont-Saint-Michel, borrowed the book and never returned it. It is argued that Gg 2.21 was copied at about the same time and from the same exemplar for Philippe de Harcourt, bishop of Bayeux, whose library was willed to Bec; Gg 2.21 bears a fourteenth-century Bec pressmark. The article reviews Robert's self-image as a scholar and bookman, and alludes to his intellectual rivalry with Philippe.

"Daughter of Abū Zayd, Last Almohad Ruler of Valencia: The Family and Christian Seigniory of Alda Ferrándis 1236-1300." Abū Zayd, last ruler of Almohad Valencia, allied with invading crusaders and later converted to Christianity. His Christian daughter Alda Ferrándis became "feudal lord" of his many-castled Arenós seigniory and founded a major noble dynasty. Lacking documentation and perplexed by contradictory historiographic traditions, historians (and even local encyclopedias) virtually ignore Alda, even with the rise of gender history. Alertness in the archives can uncover dozens of random charters, tracing her personal and public life, her numerous children, her mercantile investments, her seigniory (populated mostly by Muslims), her marriages early and late, her Franciscan daughters, and her disputes with church and crown. She claimed high governance (merum et mixtum imperium), church patronage, and the right to name notaries. In the twilight of her life, as an active member of the nobles' Union revolt in the 1280s, she proudly signed herself "daughter of the former noble king of Valencia," Abū Zayd. (Eighteen charters are transcribed in full from four archives, 1263-1300).

"The Mystery of the Ghent Bird and the Invention of Spectacles." In "The Invention of Eyeglasses" (1956), Edward Rosen asserted that spectacles had been invented in 1285-1286 by an unknown man, probably in Pisa. The principal evidence for this assertion was Giordano da Pisa's statement in a 1305- 1306 sermon that spectacles had been invented less than twenty years before. Rosen drew further support from a Dominican chronicle, the guild laws of the Venetian glassworkers, and the vocabulary he identified as specific to eyeglasses. Now a bespectacled bird-dragon in the margin of a Ghent psalter dated 1240-1270 prompts a reevaluation of the evidence. Although it is presently impossible to date the manuscript precisely or to ascertain whether the drawing of the bird in eyeglasses is contemporary with the writing, this illustration poses crucial questions about the nature of historical evidence and the assumptions underlying current methodology. Ultimately, such considerations may prompt the historian to wonder whether the invention of spectacles actually remains as mysterious as the bird in the Ghent psalter.

"Preaching the Gospel in Barlaam and Blanquerna: Pious Narrative and Parable in Medieval Spain." This study focuses on the ascetic typology of holiness and the apostolic narratology of parables as key aspects of sacred narrative manifested in two fictional hagiographies that appear in late thirteenth-century Spain: Barlaam e Josafat, a Castilian translation of the Christianized life of Buddha, and Blanquerna, a religious utopia written in Catalan by the missionary and mystic Ramon Llull. In the first part, the eremitical type is examined in relation to (1) the Christian's spiritual home as pilgrim and hermit; (2) the double conversion to the life of devotion and way of perfection; and (3) the apostolic contexts of exemplary forms of asceticism for all Christian society. In the second pan, the function of parables is analyzed according to (1) the ideology of "classical" asceticism vs. urban apostolate; (2) the scriptural intertexts and contexts of Buddhist/Christian "prophecy" in the world vs. apostolic acts in the community; and (3) the pious rhetoric and reception of sacred cult vs. social utopia. The protagonists' "stories," as vitae and exempla, represent vernacular hagiographic romances that recontextualize the apostolic age's kerygma and catechesis. Barlaam and Blanquerna's exemplarism promotes the formation and reform of latter-day Christians by way of biblical models of narration and contemporary (medieval) contexts of reception.

"Parcheminiers et libraires rouennais à la fin du quatorzième siècle d'après un document judiciaire." Le ms. latin 9378 de la Bibliothèque nationale de Paris est un recueil factice qui a été constitué au XIXe siècle. Le fol. 25 de ce volume, assez endommagè parce qu'ayant servi autrefois de feuillet de garde à une reliure, est un fragment d'enquête relatif à un procès dans lequel sont impliqués plusieurs parcheminiers rouennais. Les dépositions des témoins confrontées aux documents conservés dans le cartulaire de l'Université de Paris et dans les archives de la ville de Rouen permettent de dater approximativement cette affaire judiciare (1418) et de retracer la carrière de l'un des personnages concernés, Guillaume de la Rue, entre 1378 et les années 1424-1428. Après l'apprentissage du métier de copiste auprès du libraire parisien Estienne de Fontaine demeurant rue Neuve Notre-Dame, Guillaume s'installe à Rouen où il finit par diriger une véritable entreprise familiale. Devenu ensuite libraire et relieur, il tient boutique au Portail Notre-Dame (Portail des libraires) de la cathédrale. Bien que modeste, ce document est très riche en informations sur l'artisanat du livre en province à la fin du XIVe et au début du XVe siècle.

"Muslim-Jewish Relations in the Fourteenth-Century Crown of Aragon." Much has been written about the relations between the Christian majority of the Iberian Peninsula and its two minorities, Muslims and Jews, but very little work has been done on the interaction of the two minority groups with each other. This article maps out some of the ways in which these two minorities interacted. Though it pays some attention to intellectual and polemical interaction, it focuses on social contacts: sexual intercourse, conversion, commerce, the sharing of physical space, and other types of social activities. In part because of the nature of the sources, episodes of violence form a recurrent theme throughout the article. The latter part is specifically devoted to outbreaks of violence between the two groups during municipal processions, and concludes with a study of Holy Week violence by Muslims and Christians against Jews.

"'Make a Mark That Shows': Orphean Song, Orphean Sexuality, and the Exile of Chaucer's Pardoner." Any consideration of the complexity of the identity of Chaucer's Pardoner must address his sexuality as it relates to his audience and art. To help to do this we can turn to the medieval- Ovidian poem, the Roman de la rose of Jean de Meun, a work that features its own version of a "pardoner" who discusses language, law, homosexuality, and death-Genius, the priest of Nature. Of central interest here is Genius's treatment of Orpheus, the sometime homosexual poet who has, as we shall see, deep ties to Chaucer's Pardoner. Genius's discourse on homosexual "writing" and his attack on Orpheus's unproductive sexual practice provide a useful vocabulary with which to approach the themes of art and sexuality in the Pardoner's self-revealing monologue.

"Castile, Portugal, and the Canary Islands: Claims and Counterclaims, 1344- 1479." This paper is concerned with the issue of infidel rights and the arguments presented by Castile and Portugal in justification of their respective pretensions to the Canary Islands. While Castile insisted that the Canary Islands belonged to Africa and thus to the Visigothic inheritance of the Castilian kings, the Portuguese expressed the desire to convent he natives and introduce them to the benefits of civilization. No one demonstrated that the Visigoths had actually taken possession of the islands nor did anyone ask the natives whether they wished to be converted or civilized. The controversy afforded the papacy an opportunity to exercise the plenitudo potestatis in temporal matters, a foreshadowing of Pope Alexander VI's line of demarcation of 1493. The debate over infidel rights to property and dominion also foreshadowed the sixteenth century controversy over Indian rights.

"Traditional Characteristics of the Resurrected Body in Pearl." The events in Pearl clearly occur before the general resurrection, but the Pearl-Poet portrays the dead maidens as if they were already resurrected; probably the poet does so because patristic theology says so little about how the disembodied souls of the dead appear before the resurrection, and so much about how their resurrected bodies will appear afterwards. Thus the dead maidens appear to have bodies which possess the four traditional endowments of the resurrected just: clarity, agility, subtlety, and impassibility. As in resurrection theology, the poet presents the latter three endowments as a function of clarity. Teachings about clarity account for the maidens' luminosity and the poet's explanation of the dreamer's ability to view the bright light without dying. The maidens' agility is their capacity for instantaneous movement, compared in the poem with the moon's clarity. Subtlety appears as a function of clarity in the phrase "sotyle cler" (1050), which draws on the traditional image of light piercing crystal. Both the distribution of the "blysse" resulting from impassibility and the distribution of clarity are expressed in the same formula (450-451, 849-850). The pearl maidens' descriptions also suggest he three characteristics theologians attributed to the resurrected bodies of both the just and the wicked: quality, integrity, and identity.

"Renaissance Feminism and Esoteric Theology: The Case of Cornelius Agrippa." This article examines the proto-feminist declamation, De nobilitate et praecellentia foeminei sexus, written by the occultist Agrippa von Nettesheim in 1509 and published twenty years later. Agrippa's treatise, a radical but not altogether serious essay in the Renaissance genre of paradox, has usually been studied in the context of the querelle des femmes. Newman argues, however, that this youthful work is a kind of thought experiment in which Agrippa used the fashionable subject of women to explore some implications of the occult philosophy he had already begun to develop. De nobilitate combines esoteric material from several traditions-including cabala, hermeticism, and Neoplatonism-with evangelical feminist exegesis stemming from Agrippa's immersion in humanist biblical studies. These disparate lines of argument illumine the underlying contradictions in the text, which veers between a romantic, essentialist feminism positing the innate superiority of women and a gender-blind, individualist feminism positing equality of the sexes. The amalgam of esoteric with evangelical sources gives the text much of its flamboyant, outrageous tone and helps to explain its checkered reception as at once a feminist precursor text and a misogynist satire.

"Heresy and Dialogue: The Humanist Approaches of Erasmus and More." The 1524 lnquisitio de fide of Erasmus and the 1529 Dialogue Concerning Heresies of Thomas More are literary responses to the theological threat posed by Lutheranism to sixteenth-century Catholic Christendom. Consciously humanist, Erasmus's Lucianic colloquy and More's essay in Socratic dialectic marshal the conventions of classical dialogue less to open conversation with heresy than to contain it. For historically heterodoxy has not invited ecumentical discussion; indeed, heresy, with its own doctrine of private transmission, can seem to represent an anti-dialogue. This article attempts first to survey the intrinsic problems of heresy for discussion; then to review the resources classical dialogue offers the Christian apologist; and finally to explore how Erasmus employs them in the interests of conciliation and More in the interests of exclusion.

"Cicero's Villas in the Phlegraean Fields: The Development of a Historical and Cultural Myth." Cicero probably owned two pieces of property in the volcanic area known as the Phlegraean Fields northwest of Naples. In one piece of property, which was identified with his famous Academia, a medicinal spring salubrious for eye diseases sprang forth shortly after the orator's death. The study traces, from antiquity to modern investigations, the convoluted history of this property and its medicinal spring, along with that of the other property in which Hadrian allegedly died and was rendered immortal by a commemorative temple. Cicero's properties were confused with other sites in the area, particularly a well-known medicinal bath called Trituli located near the popular ancient resort town of Baiae. This confusion, and surrounding legends, reflect medieval legends concerning both Cicero and the shadowy figure of Hippocrates, which were generated largely through a misinterpretation by the Renaissance humanist Flavio Biondo.

"The 'Grosse Villanies' of Captain John Brookes." The first English ship to come in sight of Australia, the East-Indiaman Trial, was wrecked off the northwest coast in 1622. This article provides the first complete transcripts of Captain Brookes's attempt to exculpate himself, and of the letter in which his factor, Thomas Bright, accuses Brookes of numerous misdemeanors, among which negligent seamanship is only one. Analysis suggests that Bright's letter is motivated by personal spite: hoping to be reimbursed for money lost because of the wreck, he exaggerates his grievances. Brookes's letter is an ostensibly factual report that requires to be checked by such historical evidence as is available, but Bright's is to some extent self-refuting. It is less literate, but from a literary point of view more interesting, and in several respects anticipates features of the eighteenth-century novel.