Brepols

In recent years Byzantine hagiography has attracted renewed interest of the international community of Byzantine scholars and not only thanks to studies dedicated to this subject and critical editions of individual texts, but also because hagiography has been the main focus of numerous major research projects: databases, new repertories, a new version of the Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca and some very useful handbooks dedicated to this literary genre during the Byzantine Empire. These researches have analysed Byzantine hagiography in relation to the hagiographic writings composed in neighbouring areas, the West, the Syriac and Arabic Middle East, the Southern Slavs, etc. but also the relations between the hagiographical texts and other literary genres.

This volume introduces the current developments of hagiographical studies and on-going projects on the subject, and investigates a variety of texts and authors from the Patristic period to the end of Byzantium.

Since Byzantium never saw a consistent and definitive attempt at determining the status of philosophy and theology the way Western scholasticism did, the relationship between them in the Greek-speaking medieval world has always been regarded as a problematic issue. The essays contained in this volume work from the assumption that philosophy in Byzantium was not a monolithic doctrinal tradition, but related to a manifold set of intellectual phenomena, institutional frameworks, doctrines, and text traditions that influenced the theological literature in different ways according to the different manifestations and facets of philosophy itself.

Antonio Rigo is Professor of Byzantine Philology and Christianity at the University of Venice Ca' Foscari. His research focuses on religious life in Byzantium, with special emphasis on ascetical and mystical literature, heresiology, and theology during the Paleologan period.

The role of Byzantium in the Middle Ages is comparable to that of a modern political superpower such as the United States. The latter has a pervasive cultural impact on Europe and Asia, and similar cross-cultural relationships between East and West were also evident in medieval Europe, when Byzantine literature, music, art, and ritual were not only known but also studied and appropriated throughout the West. Scholarship on Byzantium and its relationship with Western Europe has yet to explore the full dynamics of this relationship or the extent to which the West was influenced by Byzantine culture. The papers presented in this volume offer a wide interdisciplinary perspective on the crucial importance of Byzantium for Western Europe, featuring articles on art and architectural history, social and religious history, musicology, literature, historiography, gender studies. The essays originate from an interdisciplinary conference, held in the Wissenschaftskolleg Greifswald in December 2007, which brought together an international group of scholars. The proceedings of this gathering give a new and compelling testimony to the exceptionally high status of Byzantine culture in Western Europe and invite further studies on the exceptional and unique role of the Byzantine Empire, positioned at the crux between Europe and Asia.

Michael Altripp received his PhD in Early Christian Archaeology and Byzantine Art from the University of Mainz, and currently holds an Associate Professorship at the University of Greifswald. His main fi elds of interests are at the crossroads of art and architecture with theology, and address in particular issues of exegesis, iconography and liturgy, as well as the dynamics of cross-cultural exchange between East and West.

The unique Arabic version of the Iberian canon law code 'Collectio Hispana', preserved in a mid-eleventh-century manuscript of the Royal Library of El Escorial, has been deemed “the most distinguished and characteristic” work of medieval Andalusi Christian writing. It represents an exceptional source witness to the internal legal organisation of Christian communities in Muslim-dominated al-Andalus as well as to their acculturation to Islamicate environments. Yet, the Arabic collection has received only little scholarly attention so far. This volume presents the results of a recent interdisciplinary research project on the Arabic canon law manuscript, flanked by contributions from neigbouring fields of research that allow for a comparative assessment of the substantial new findings. The individual chapters in this volume address issues such as the origins of the Arabic law code and its sole transmitting manuscript, its language and translation strategies, its source value for both the persistence and transformation of ecclesiastical institutions after the Muslim conquest, or the law code's position in the judicial practice of al-Andalus. The volume brings together the scholarly expertise of distinguished specialists in a broad range of disciplines, e.g. history, Arabic and Latin philology, medieval palaeography and codicology, archaeology, coptology, theology and history of law.

Erasmus Schetz, Gaspar Ducci, and Gilbert van Schoonbeke. Contemporaries made it indisputably clear that these three moneymakers were exceptional, from different perspectives and for different reasons, but all commentators implicitly or explicitly referred to their unique economic achievements, and they were right to do so. The exceptional careers of the three protagonists shed light on the potential of the most dynamic economic centre of Europe - and the world - during early globalization. Precisely because their economic initiatives were far more ambitious than what other businessmen in Antwerp could or would consider or achieve, their careers are ideal vantage points for observing and analysing ‘capital at work’. They also provide an opportunity to examine how commercial capitalism changed and/or was transformed, and in what measure the three protagonists extended the frontiers of capitalism.

Le présent volume dédié à la mémoire du Cardinal Julien Ries comporte deux parties : la première concerne la vie et l'oeuvre du prélat. Elle contient les contributions de plusieurs spécialistes de l'histoire des religions qui ont bien connu le Cardinal et ont eu le bonheur de travailler avec ce grand savant qu'il convient de ranger aux côtés de Franz Cumont, de Georges Dumézil ou encore de Mircéa Eliade. Sa réflexion sur l'Home Religiosus à la lumière des découvertes le plus récentes est essentielle. La bibliographie du Cardinal est impressionante et témoigne d'une activité débordante sur le plan universitaire; son enseignement tout comme ses recherches dans le cadre de l'Université catholique de Louvain, du Centre d'Histoire des religions qu'il y fonda, ou encore de l'Université du Sacré Coeur à Milan ont fait forte impression. Mais la personnalité universitaire du Cardinal J.Ries ne doit pas l'emporter sur l'homme d'Eglise. le « Pastor bonus » qu'il fut, le curé de campagne aimé et respecté.

La deuxième partie de l'ouvrage comporte la traduction actualisée et commentée de textes provenant de l'ancien Orient (monde anatolien, égyptien, iranien) et mettant en lumière la fonction sacerdotale dans l'Antiquité, à savoir le rôle et les devoirs du prêtre, la hiérarchie sacerdotale, son influence sur la société ainsi que son rôle politique et culturel.

This book discusses the significance of the Carmelite liturgy as practised in the Kraków convent over a period of some four hundred years. Specifically, it examines the liturgical contents of five medieval Carmelite choir books from the Kraków convent and another choir book from this collection which is now in Wroclaw, and discusses their contents (especially their significant feasts), in terms of the Carmelite order's historical self-understanding and established liturgical tradition. Carmelite Liturgy and Spiritual Identity outlines the role of liturgy in the life of the Kraków convent and in relationship to the apostolic activity of these mendicant friars. It argues that the order's unique liturgical tradition, one which remained distinctive even after the Council of Trent, was crucial to their self-understanding. It also articulates how the liturgical practices of the Kraków Carmelites made a significant contribution to the spiritual life of the city and its people.