Brepols

After about 1300, most schools in the Netherlands came under secular rule. It managed to create good and accessible schools, causing a hey-day for education in the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth century. As a result, more than half of the children participated in basic instruction and literacy rate went relatively high. A contemporary Italian visitor noted with awe that ‘in the Low Countries everybody could read and write, even the peasants’. In the sixteenth century, the curriculum changed because of the Reformation and the availability of printed texts. In this book, the favourable situation in the Netherlands is compared with the rest of Western Europe.

Medieval and Renaissance schools have been studied before, but never from the perspective of those who experienced it on a daily basis. Recent excavations on the sites of late-medieval schools and boarding houses revealed the objects used by pupils and teachers for reading, writing, mathematics, and school life in general. Combining those finds with texts and hundreds of depictions of school scenes in manuscripts, frescoes, sculpture, stained glass and early prints, the practice of education could be reconstructed. The book gives a detailed overview of the material school culture, allowing a rare glimpse into a late-medieval classroom.

Dr. Annemarieke Willemsen (1969) is art historian and archaeologist and works as curator of the medieval department of the National Museum of Antiquities at Leiden. Earlier she published books on Roman and medieval children’s toys and on the Vikings in the Netherlands.

À 50 km au Nord de Lattaquié, le site côtier de Bassit a été étudié sous la direction de Paul Courbin : après l’acropole (1971-1972) (périodes hellénistique et romaine), et la nécropole du Fer (1973-1974), le « tell » a été fouillé de 1972 à 1984. Sont présentés ici une description détaillée de la stratigraphie et de l’architecture du « tell », des ensembles céramiques associés, ainsi que le corpus du mobilier datant du Bronze Récent I et II. Bassit est installé aux marges Nord du royaume d’Ougarit à partir du milieu du xvi e s. av. J.-C.. Les importations chypriotes sont nombreuses durant tout le Bronze Récent, mais la céramique égéenne apparaît très rare. Le site est détruit bien avant le passage des « peuples de la mer » (vers 1200). À l’âge du Fer, la fonction constante de Bassit est de contrôler l’accès maritime depuis Chypre et le cabotage littoral. Le commerce de la céramique chypriote domine le Fer I et II, celui des céramiques égéennes et étrusques, puis attiques, le Fer III. À l’époque hellénistique, la production d’amphores et de monnaies confirme l’identification de Posideion avec Bassit. L’époque romaine est également marquée par une importante production de céramique.

The Bayuda, although an arid desert located in modern-day Sudan, has nonetheless been inhabited, farmed, worshipped in, and fought over by humans from the Palaeolithic onwards. Yet despite the longevity of its human occupation, the region has only in recent years become the focus of more intensive scholarly research. This volume, the first in a series dedicated to exploring the archaeology and history of Northeast Africa, aims to build on this trend by drawing together the very latest archaeological research and data, and shedding light on how the Bayuda Desert and its environs were transformed into a cultural landscape. The contributions gathered here introduce, examine, and (re)assess a number of important issues, many of which are new in the archaeology of Nubia, as well as considering them against a broader comparative background. From climate change over the past millennia - and its far-reaching consequences in the present - through to an examination of the cultural influences of the Kingdom of Kerma, and from analysis of funeral rites through to interpretations of rock art, forgotten trade routes, and the commerce in cattle and slaves, this insightful volume offers a wealth of new information into the history of ancient Nubia.

From shape-shifting Merlin to the homunculi of Paracelsus, the nine fascinating essays of this collection explore the contested boundaries between human and non-human animals, between the body and the spirit, and between the demonic and the divine. Drawing on recent work in animal studies, posthumanism, and transhumanism, these innovative articles show how contemporary debates about the nature and future of humanity have deep roots in the myths, literature, philosophy, and art of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The authors of these essays demonstrate how classical stories of monsters and metamorphoses offered philosophers, artists, and poets a rich source for reflection on marriage, resurrection, and the passions of love. The ambiguous and shifting distinctions between human, animal, demon, and angel have long been contentious. Beasts can elevate humanity: for Renaissance courtiers, horsemanship defined nobility. But animals are also associated with the demonic, and medieval illuminators portrayed Satan with bestial features. Divided into three sections that examine metamorphoses, human-animal relations, and the demonic and monstrous, this volume raises intriguing questions about the ways humans have understood their kinship with animals, nature, and the supernatural.