Viator

“Landscapes of Conversion: Guthlac’s Mound and Grendel’s Mere as Expressions of Anglo-Saxon Nation-Building.” Scholars have long noted differences in treatments of nature between Anglo-Saxon and other early Insular literatures. But such real (though not monolithic) differences in emphasis have never been adequately explained relative to cultural views of natural landscape that were fostered by the construction of Anglo-Saxon ethnic identity in the seventh and eighth centuries. An ecocritical approach to the most extensive surviving Anglo-Saxon landscape narratives, Beowulf and the Lives of St. Guthlac, enables us to understand how the formation of Anglo-Saxon cultural identity, in an Augustinian theological context, led to an allegorizing of landscape in literature and culture with political implications. In a seeming paradox, Augustinian emphases on the fallen nature of the world helped to shape a new ideology for dominating the natural landscape, thus meeting political needs of emerging Anglo-Saxon national elites.

“Ecclesiastical Lordship and the Politics of Submitting Tithes in Medieval Germany: The Thuringian Tithe Dispute in Social Context.” The ecclesiastical tithe in the Middle Ages was an important source of income for the church, but could serve in certain contexts as a profound symbol of episcopal power. In the mid-eleventh century, a number of German bishops began to reassemble their rights to ecclesiastical tithes which had previously been in the possession of monasteries or laymen. While this trend has been cast traditionally as part of the broader church reform movement of the eleventh century—an attempt to bring episcopal administration into line with canonical norms—it can be better understood as a strategy that responded to new political conditions in the Salian period. By examining a famous dispute between Archbishop Siegfried of Mainz (1060–1088) and the monasteries of Hersfeld and Fulda, the author shows how Siegfried’s extended campaign to recoup tithes from the monasteries and laymen in Thuringia follows the contours of a new sensibility towards social and political power emerging in medieval Germany during the reigns of Henry III and Henry IV that relied more on visible symbols of lordship and territorialized authority.

“Brides and Dominae: Abelard’s Cura Monialium at the Augustinian Monastery of Marbach.” This article explores the use of Peter Abelard’s sermon On alms for the nuns of the Paraclete (sermon 30) in the Guta-Sintram Codex (ca. 1154), a work of collaboration between Guta, an Augustinian canoness from Schwartzenthann, and Sintram, a canon from the nearby community at Marbach. Focusing on interactions between the men and women of the two communities, from their shared beginnings during the reform enthusiasm of the late eleventh century to the more cautious spiritual climate of the latter half of the twelfth century, the article reveals the ways in which Marbach’s commitment to the cura monialium, the pastoral care of women, was influenced by Abelard’s belief in the dignity of women. That Marbach viewed the cura monialium as an integral, and even obligatory, part of its active ministry is most clearly expressed in Beati pauperes, an extract from Abelard’s sermon 30 that was included in the Guta-Sintram Codex. This text presents an intricate justification for men’s obligation to support religious women based on Abelard’s philosophy of women’s weakness and dignity. The identification of Beati pauperes with Abelard’s sermon provides the sole proof for the medieval use of Abelard’s sermons outside of the Paraclete and provides the clearest evidence that we have of the real impact of his vision for the pastoral care of women within the religious life.

“Joachim of Fiore and the Division of Christendom.” Modern scholarship, including notably the work of R. I. Moore, generally portrays medieval Latin attitudes toward Greek Christians as marked by growing intolerance, hatred, and alienation. This article examines the representation of Latin and Greek difference as found in the writings of the famous Calabrian abbot Joachim of Fiore (1135–1202). Through his concordance of biblical and post-biblical history, Joachim came to the conclusion that the division of Christendom was a providential event, imparting to Latin Christians a place of primacy in God’s dispensation that was formerly reserved for the Jews and then for the Greeks. The abbot’s eschatological speculations, however, also lead him to foresee the peaceful reunion of the two churches through the efforts of a spiritual order of Latin monks, whose own religious tradition could be traced back to the Eastern Church. This influential vision of the divergence between the two Christian peoples calls on us to reconsider the proposition that intolerance and hatred were the normative Latin attitudes toward Greek Christians. At the same time, Joachim’s concern with the providential significance of the Latin Christian community suggests some of the ways that models of salvation history played a role in the formation of Western identity during a period that is frequently associated with the “making of Europe.”

“The Charitable Activities of the Templars.” Testimonies from the Templar trial as well as twelfth- and thirteenth century sources are used to determine the extent to which the Templars engaged in almsgiving, hospitality, and the protecting of pilgrims. The Order was under an obligation to dispense alms and to ensure the safety of pilgrims, and clearly almsgiving was undertaken throughout the Order’s history in all provinces, although alms may have been reduced in some districts, particularly in the later thirteenth century, partly because of financial difficulties. The protecting of pilgrims appears, however, to have occurred only in the Holy Land, and even there this activity was restricted by Muslim conquests. It has often been claimed that the Templars also maintained hospitals, but the Order was under no obligation to provide accommodation for travelers or the sick, and it is to be doubted whether it did so. It seems to have devoted its inadequate resources to the activities which it was bound to undertake.

“The Story of the Fallen Jew and the Iconography of Jewish Unbelief.” Medieval Christian thought on the Jews often took the form of popular tales, miniature allegories that drew on symbols of sin and corruption. This article discusses one such story, a tale of a Jew who falls in a sewer and refuses to be helped out. The tale circulated from the twelfth century to the seventeenth, in both verse and prose. In its trappings of historicity and use of symbols, it claims to represent a larger truth about Jewish corruption and backwardness. The symbolic system of this story, which highlights excrement as the earthly manifestation of sin, was shared with many other medieval stories about Jews, as well as with exegesis and the Bible. As a whole, the story presents Jews as the icons of earthly sinners, and seeks to express and define popular ideas about Jewish unrighteousness.

“‘True Anchoresses Are Called Birds’: Asceticism as Ascent and the Purgative Mysticism of the Ancrene Wisse.” This article engages in the longstanding debate over the mysticism of Ancrene Wisse, an early thirteenth-century treatise for female recluses. With few exceptions, critics have answered the question in the negative, finding it difficult to fit its spirituality into a Pseudo-Dionysian model of mysticism defined by schema of spiritual ascent and experience of union with God. This article contends that study of patristic and monastic texts that employ images of birds and flight as metaphors for contemplative experience reveals that the Wisse author also uses bird imagery to describe the contemplative lives of the anchoresses for whom he writes. Furthermore, the way that the bird imagery resonates with crucifixion imagery fuses the two, teaching that the penitential suffering of the anchoritic life enables contemplative flight and unites the anchoresses with Christ crucified. In Ancrene Wisse, asceticism and penance are ascent and union, hence what this article calls a purgative mysticism.

“Twilight of the Byzantine Lascarid Basileia in Anatolian Exile, 1254–1258: Continuity and Change in Imperial Geopolitical Strategy.” In 1254 the new basileus Theodore II Lascaris inherited the relentlessly coherent geopolitical strategy of his warrior predecessor John III for the restoration of the Byzantine oecumene from her Anatolian exile. In the last year of his reign John III had for a second time come tantalizingly close to reaping the ultimate prize of Latin-controlled Constantinople—despite the many regional geopolitical currents buffeting his waxing empire—only to be forestalled yet again by the renewed advent of the dreaded Mongol storm. The aim of the current essay is to assess Theodore’s success in revising his predecessor’s policies so as to continue the dynasty’s grand strategies—as he coped with a debilitating terminal illness and the growing unrest of key Byzantine aristocrats. Theodore’s regional policies vis-à-vis Turks, Franks, Bulgars, and Epirotes are framed within the context of the overriding contemporary geopolitical factor, the ebbing and flowing of Mongol ambitions in western Eurasia.

“‘... mais tot por le servise Deu’? Philippe III le Hardi, Charles d’Anjou, and the 1273/74 Imperial Candidature.” The 1273 imperial candidature of the French king Philippe III le Hardi (1270–1285) has long been regarded as little more than a curiosity, a trivial footnote in the attempts of the king’s uncle, Charles d’Anjou, to establish his ascendancy over the Italian peninsula. This article sets out to question the veracity of this judgment. It seeks to demonstrate that both Philippe and Charles pursued the proposal that Philippe should become ruler of the western Empire extremely seriously, to the extent that both were willing to waive their rights over a sizeable and important region, the Comtat-Venaissin, in order to obtain this end. It proposes that the reasons for this lay in concerns associated with the successful prosecution of a future crusade and that the candidature reflected a view of the proper ordering of Christian society which for both Philippe and Charles incorporated the existence of a form of temporal authority that was superior to that of individual kings.

“Is the Tretise of Miraclis Pleyinge a Lollard Tract against Devotional Drama?” The essay argues that the Tretise is neither a Lollard text nor one that attacks devotional drama (biblical plays or liturgical representationes). The essay opens with a list of reasons terminological, dialectal, regional, and historical—for being skeptical that the Tretise is a Lollard tract or an attack on the devotional drama. There is a more detailed discussion of terminology “miraclis pleyinge,” theatrica, and related terms—before turning to the manuscript context of the Tretise. The arguments for Lollard authorship and ideology of the text that have been presented by Nicholas Davis and Ruth Nissé are critiqued. The analysis suggests that the writer of the tract was using a Dominican preaching manual for the construction of the argument and that the Tretise is directed against ludic indiscretions similar to those condemned by Innocent III, English synods, and English bishops. John Bromyard’s Summa Predicantium contains graphic descriptions of the kinds of activities the Tretise is probably talking about. The essay concludes that BL Additional 24202 is a commonplace book put together by a secular cleric, possibly a parish priest, who used a Dominican preaching manual to guide him in writing not only the Tretise but also the tract on dicing and related anti-ludic items. These texts promote the same penitential attitude towards play that are found in Dominican as opposed to Franciscan texts.

“Humanist Horticulture: Twelve Agricultural Months and Twelve Categories of Books in Piero de’ Medici’s Studiolo.” Piero de’ Medici’s design of his studiolo in the Palazzo Medici, Via Larga, in the 1450s and 1460s is early evidence of the taste for vegetative symbolism within the Medici dynasty. The vaulted ceiling roundels of calendar months by Luca della Robbia, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, highlight productive individual labor both in agricultural fields and in the learned fields of Piero’s twelve categories of manuscripts arranged on desks below. Creating visual cues to his collection, Piero aids observers in finding a subject with his two catalogues, color-coded to match bindings, as well as by a subject’s location under a specific month. The texts of Seneca, Quintilian, Virgil, Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, and Battista Guarino help elucidate the analogy between horticulture and culture apparent in Piero’s association of working vineyards with studying objects of antiquity. Filarete honors Piero by describing Piero’s weekly and monthly cyclical ritual of examining his ornamented manuscripts, his effigies of emperors, his jewels and engraved stones, his vases, and his arms and other treasures. Sculpted by Mino da Fiesole in a floral garment, and hiring illustrators to illuminate manuscript pages in vine-stem border and later in a green-tendril border, Piero imitates Pliny the Younger in withdrawing to a rural retreat, granted that it is one in an urban villa as artificial as the perspective intarsia designs of his influential cabinetry. In bequeathing to his son Lorenzo the studiolo with its collection of arts and letters, Piero contributes to the image of Lorenzo bringing about a springtime of arts and letters.

“Marginality and Justice in 1500: The Theft of Sacred Objects in Châlons en Champagne.” In 1500, the bishops and aldermen (échevins) of Châlons in Champagne held a trial for a youth named Jean Paulmier, who was accused of stealing chalices from the church and monastery of Saint Pierre le Vif in Sens and attempting to sell them to local goldsmiths. The surviving transcriptions and annexes surrounding this case are almost unique for the beginning of the sixteenth century and provide a rare look into the practice as opposed to theory of seigneurial justice in Champagne, demonstrating not only how judicial procedure worked but also how judges reached verdicts. Furthermore, these documents tell the story of how a marginal young man came to commit a serious crime and the repercussions that followed. This article provides a close reading of the trial transcripts, contextualizing Paulmier’s case within the larger framework of medieval and early modern French justice, followed by a transcription of the surviving text.

“‘Plus que assez’: Simon Bourgouyn and His French Translations from Plutarch, Petrarch, and Lucian.” Although more or less entirely ignored by modern scholarship Simon Bourgouyn (d. post 1532) was the first known translator of Petrarch’s Triumphs into French verse and very likely the first to render Plutarch’s Lives into French. He also translated Lucianus Samosatensis and is thus a major figure in the introduction of humanist texts into vernacular culture in France. “Plus que Assez” represents the first detailed study of his life and works. Both printed books and manuscripts are examined, and the complex relationships between the surviving manuscripts of his translations, in terms both of text and image, are described. The biographical details which emerge from his own writings and other documents are used to construct a framework for a literary career which took him from the world of Antoine Vérard’s Parisian publishing house to the court of Francis I. There are three appendices: one giving a description of surviving manuscripts, one providing transcriptions of incipits and explicits of Plutarchian Lives, and one outlining the changing role of the gens de métier in Francis I’s reign.

“Polydore Vergil Reconsidered: The Anglia Historia and the English Universities.” This article reassesses the caliber of Polydore Vergil as a historian in the light of an analysis of the data on the English Universities scattered throughout the Anglica Historia, a study that has not hitherto been attempted. Although Vergil had ready access to the relevant information, his depiction of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge is most inadequate, even by the standards of the early sixteenth century. His evaluation of their origins, development, and collegiate foundations is marred by so many shortcomings, inaccuracies, omissions, eulogies, and superficial or careless research that this area of Vergil’s Anglica Historia is hard to reconcile with his eminence as a historian who did much to introduce to the English literary scene the advanced critical standards of historiography that were generated by the Renaissance. The fact that Vergil, with one or two exceptions, is so often adrift when commenting upon English university and collegiate affairs demonstrates that this celebrated humanist author did not always employ that discerning approach or those systematic investigative techniques that have so enhanced his reputation. This being so, his patent deficiencies in this area of university history casts a rather dubious light upon the author and, to some degree, detracts from his overall standing as a humanist scholar of high renown.

“God’s Time, Rome’s Time, and the Calendar of the English Protestant Regime.” This paper examines calendar compulsion and calendar contest in English religious culture in the century following the Reformation. Using legal, liturgical, literary, and folkloric sources, it exposes the tensions between authority and custom, power and choice, as governments regulated the year for religious and political purposes. It shows how the liturgical calendar remained a work in progress in Protestant England, how saints’ days suppressed under the Tudors had a vestigial half-life under the Stuarts, and how the national Protestant dynastic state created time-markers of its own providential deliverances and political anniversaries. The calendar provided prompts to memory, aids to devotion, and stimuli to expressions of allegiance. Involving clergy and laity, traditionalists and reformers, governors and governed, England’s early modern calendar remained a zone of controversy and enduring contest over the marking and management of time. Traditional, official, and reformed calendars narrated nuanced stories of divine intervention, with varying shadings of confessional, national, and political significance.