Brepols

The purpose of this volume is to question traditional notions of city space in pre-modern Europe (with its stress on space being incorporated, regulated and integrated, dominated by its merchants and crafts), and to investigate how far it was in fact economically and politically pluralistic with a great variety of functions and juridictions. The volume examines comparatively the range of different urban spaces in and outside the medieval and early modern city from gardens, farmland and wasteland to industrial sites, poor and rich suburbs, shooting grounds, green space, grey space and military zones. Case studies cover cities in France, Germany, Italy, the Low Countries, England, Portugal and the Middle East. We ask: how far was the pre-modern city a compact city? Or was it in fact a ‘subaltern city’, as geographers have recently proposed, where many urban spaces were contested and the municipality has to be seen as only one key spatial actor?

This book is the result of an international conference organized by the University of Tours in May 2021. It sets out to explore the notion of sequel in literature by examining the Homeric poems. While Gérard Genette evoked Homer in a considerable number of pages of his essay Palimpsestes, he however paid particular attention to forms of continuity from the front, from the back and from the sides, afterwards and sideways, which seem to make Homeric material the first victim of the cyclical additions that appear to constitute the ineluctable future of the great epics. In recent decades, however, these positions have been strongly nuanced and the time was ripe, therefore, for diachronic reflection on the validity of the notion of the ‘Homeric sequel’ by testing the meaning it has in various geographical and cultural contexts, from Antiquity to the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

The authors of this volume contribute to the discussion of the literary concept of ‘continuation’ and offer a wide panorama of the poet's fruitful reception over time; they do so without neglecting the phenomena of transformation made possible by the survival of a mythology of Homeric origin which exists despite the absence of a direct reading of the Greek texts.

Dom Donatien De Bruyne's work of a century ago has been all but unobtainable since it was first published quasi-anonymously just before the outbreak of the Great War. Originally conceived as an instrumentum laboris to the great Benedictine project to produce a critical edition of the Vulgate, it now has a new life as a unique collection of the division systems that were used with the biblical books before the twelfth century. These constitute a primary interpretation of the text, anterior to, and more pervasive in influence than any work of formal biblical exegesis.

This collection makes available the raw material for a new chapter in the study of the Latin Bible and the study of its reception in the later patristic and medieval periods. Moreover, it may usher in a new chapter in the history of biblical exegesis.

Donatien De Bruyne (1871-1935), a monk of the abbey of Maredsous (Belgium), worked from 1907 onward as a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Revision of the Vulgate. Visiting the European libraries he collected a great amount of material for the critical edition of the Vulgate, with a special attention to the Old Latin and also to ‘parabiblical’ texts such as summaries, divisions, and prefaces, a care uncommon at that time. His expertise in Latin palaeography and patristics was broadly recognised.

The Icelandic sagas have long been famous for their alleged realism, and within this conventional view, references to the supernatural have often been treated as anomalies. Yet, as this volume demonstrates, such elements were in fact an important part of Old Norse literature and tradition, and their study can provide new and intriguing insights into the world-view of the medieval Icelanders.

By providing an extensive and interdisciplinary treatment of the supernatural within sagas, the eleven chapters presented here seek to explore the literary and folkloric interface between the natural and the supernatural through a study of previously neglected texts (such as Bergbúa þáttr, Selkollu þáttr, and Illuga saga Gríðarfóstra), as well as examining genres that are sometimes overlooked (including fornaldarsögur and byskupa sögur), law codes, and learned translations. Contributors including Ármann Jakobsson, Margaret Cormack, Jan Ragnar Hagland, and Bengt af Klintberg explore how the supernatural was depicted within saga literature and how it should be understood, as well as questioning the origins of such material and investigating the parallels between saga motifs and broader folkloric beliefs. In doing so, this volume also raises important questions about the established boundaries between different saga genres and challenges the way these texts have traditionally been approached.

Amongst the rites for procurating prodigies, those ominous signs of divine anger, the supplication holds a special place.

A lavish ceremony in which not only the priests but the whole Roman people took part, it gathered men, women, and children who were due to visit all the sanctuaries of the City in order to address their prayer to the gods, according to a religious rhetoric where verbal request and body language were associated. Through the supplicatio, ‘self-abasement’ rather than a properly ‘kneeling’ rite which a much debated etymology suggests, Roman people intended to placate deities of whom they acknowledged in the same way as the undeniable superiority.

The purpose of the present work is to define this rite, regarding the people, the places and the various elements it involved. At the same time, the point is also to clarify the controversial origins of a ceremonial traditionally related to the ritus Graecus. Quite similar to the supplication ‘between human people’ with which it shares most of its ritual elements, the religious supplication seems to have been influenced by the ritus Graecus and the practices which come under it, without asserting, though, a Greek origin. Complexity and contradictions characterise, as well, the supplication which, without breaking thoroughly with the austerity of ancestral rites, still belongs to the typically Roman procuration. Officially attested since the fifth century B. C., this rite disappeared in the last century of the Roman Republic, just as the notion of prodigy changed, under the influence of a new way of thinking.

Caroline Février is maître de conférences in Latin language at the University of Caen. Her research work focuses mainly on Roman religion. Her doctoral thesis and several of her articles are devoted to the expiation of prodigies.

Cet ouvrage rassemble des écrits épars, souvent peu connus des milieux universitaires et pour beaucoup d’entre eux difficiles à trouver. Au-delà de leur regroupement en six parties aux intitulés en apparence académiques, le lecteur ne manquera pas de découvrir la diversité de la nature des textes ici rassemblés autour de la notion de Culte, considérée en particulier dans le lien étroit et complexe qu’elle entretient avec la Musique tout au long de l’histoire du christianisme. Articles de fond incontournables pour tout chercheur intéressé par les questions de culte, de cérémonial et de musique ecclésiastique, se mêlent ainsi à des textes à visée plus large, transcriptions de conférences ou d’interviews, ou textes de présentation de disques.

L’implication personnelle de l’auteur durant sa vie professionnelle et intellectuelle, étendue sur plus d’un demi-siècle, favorise la dimension de témoignage qu’ont acquis plusieurs de ces textes face aux évolutions historiques récentes des pratiques cultuelles, toujours interrogées, sous des angles variés ressortant de l’histoire, de l’anthropologie, de la musicologie, voire de la théologie.

Toutefois, par le regard distancié qu’il a toujours réussi à maintenir sur son propre engagement, ils contribuent aussi, au même titre que les articles d’approche historiques ou méthodologiques, à reposer les questions essentielles qui permettent de mieux saisir et d’interroger les axes fondamentaux qui gouvernent la diversité des pratiques au sein du culte chrétien en Occident à travers son histoire.

This book, a tribute to an exceptional scholar known for his broad-ranging interests, brings together the new work of students, friends, and colleagues of Prof. Dyer. The volume reflects his interests in the twin disciplines of history and archaeology and his ground-breaking work in medieval standards of living, social tensions, and town-country relations. The varied and stimulating essays presented in this volume examine a host of critical issues dealing with diet, settlement, employment opportunities, taxation, credit and debt, and the tensions felt in town and country alike which often exploded into full-scale revolt. This new work not only looks at these issues from the standpoint of new evidence and theoretical perspectives, but also imparts a strong sense of the controversy surrounding many of these central issues in medieval history, ranging from how well common people managed to live and reproduce to the nature of their relationships with each other and with their social superiors. The volume, in short, stimulates a vital reconsideration of many of the key concerns pertaining to the study of medieval societies.

In 1617, after seven years of war between Sweden and Russia and talks facilitated by English and Dutch diplomats, the peace treaty of Stolbovo was signed. This important but little-studied document was to form the basis for relationships between Sweden and Russia for the next one hundred years, before it was replaced by the Peace of Nystad in 1721, and it had a huge influence on the lives of the people who lived in the region.

This wide-ranging volume draws together contributions by scholars from Britain, Sweden, Germany, Estonia, Russia, and Finland to offer new insights into, and analysis of this peace treaty and its impact on the wider region during the seventeenth century. Covering disciplines including political and economic history, church history, and Slavonic and Classical philology, the chapters gathered here shed new light on, and provide a new understanding of, the Early Modern period in the Baltic Sea area.

Sympozjum Egejskie. Papers in Aegean Archaeology is a peer-reviewed series that has been designed to full the role of a platform for presenting and introducing a wide range of new research approaches and themes within the broad area of Aegean Archaeology. This is primarily achieved through showcasing the work of newcomers to the discipline, in other words those scholars who are currently at the beginning of their research career in the field of Aegean Archaeology, as well as scholars working outside the traditional university structure such as independent scholars, professional field archaeologists, museum curators and conservators. It is our hope that this series will serve as a concise guide to the most recent research undertaken by early career scholars and the diverse and inspiring new trends in the archaeology of the Prehistoric Aegean, as well as shining a light on the future direction of the discipline.

Philosopher and man of letters, Lybian magnate, political writer in Constantinople, pupil of Hypatia the neoplatonist, and eventually metropolitan bishop of Ptolemais - Synesius of Cyrene is among the most interesting figures of Late Antiquity.

The present volume brings together the papers presented at the conference “Synesios von Kyrene: Politik - Literatur - Philosophie”, held at the University of Constance in November 2008. They offer a broad approach to selected aspects concerning Synesius’ works as well as to the historical background, philosophical contexts, and reception in scholarship and literature, from Late Antiquity to the present.

Helmut Seng is Associate Professor at the University of Constance and Lecturer at the Institute of Classical Philology at the University of Frankfurt. Main research interests include Synesius and the Chaldaean Oracles as well as aspects of form and of intertextuality in Greek and Latin literature.

Lars Hoffmann was a researcher at the University of Mainz, where he taught in all fields of Byzantine studies. Since 2010 he has been a researcher at the Max-Planck-Institute for European Legal History at Frankfurt and in collaboration with other scholars, he is responsible for a new edition of a collection of Byzantine legal sources. Main research interests include the cultural history of Byzantium as well as the tradition and reception of ancient and Byzantine Greek texts.

Chapitre important de l’histoire du XXe siècle religieux européen, l’itinéraire de la communauté de Taizé a croisé les différents événements qui ont marqué la recherche de l’unité des chrétiens divisés et l’histoire de nombreuses églises du continent entre la Seconde Guerre mondiale et la chute du rideau de fer. Première communauté cénobitique masculine née sur terrain réformé, vite devenue point de rencontre d’une sorte d’église œcuménique en gestation, Taizé a interpellé les chrétiens et les églises en des lieux et en des temps différents. Observatoire original des événements caractéristiques de la soif d’unité qui a fait irruption parmi les chrétiens au cœur du XXe siècle, Taizé attendait encore un nécessaire effort d’historicisation. Ce volume essaie de répondre à cette exigence grâce à l’étude d’une très riche documentation inédite, conservée à Taizé et en beaucoup d’autres archives européennes. Ce travail est le fruit d’une recherche de nombreuses années, consacrée aux premières décennies de l’histoire de la communauté fondée par Roger Schutz : depuis les premiers projets communautaires partagés avec quelques amis au lendemain du déclenchement de la guerre, jusqu’à l’annonce, au printemps de 1970, d’un « état conciliaire » tout à fait inédit pour sortir de l’impasse où se trouvait l’œcuménisme après les promesses du début des années 60. Les origines, l’évolution, l’accueil et les résistances rencontrées par cette création communautaire originale constituent donc l’objet de ce volume. Cette ouvrage entend donc suivre, reconstruire et documenter l’« itinérance » de Taizé entre les différentes réalités ecclésiales ainsi que le dynamisme déployé par cette communauté au long des différentes lignes de fracture de l’histoire du XXe siècle.

That Genesis was a key text in the formation of the medieval intellectual world is well recognised. But what were the motives and methods of those who used it? This book looks at the writers and how they wrote about Genesis to reconstruct the intellectual history of the period. It explores how their use of Genesis discloses common attitudes to revelation, authority, and one another.In turn the book examines, how awareness of their self-understanding, can help in understanding their exegesis. Since they built on authorities and one another, and wished 'to remain true' to their authorities, how did exegesis change and develop? This study reveals a group who saw themselves as a single body dispersed over time, charged with a common task as 'Christian Schoolmasters', and who wished to retain all the had received, make it suitable for teaching their students, and ensure its continuance. The book explores the intellectual bonds between those we usually study (e.g. Augustine) and umpteen others whose often anonymous exegeses we tend to ignore - yet it was the cumulative impact of both that created medieval theology. born in 1958 in Ireland, Thomas O'Loughlin is a lecturer in theology in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies in the University of Wales Lampeter. His research in recent years has focused on the theology of the early medieval period, especially as seen in their biblical exegesis.

Over the span of his career, Gernot R. Wieland has been actively engaged in the contribution and promotion of the study of medieval literature, particularly in Anglo-Latin and Old English. From his early work on glosses in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, to his later editorial work for The Journal of Medieval Latin, Wieland has provided the field with diverse, diligent, and creative scholarship. The contributors of this volume pay tribute to the significance of Wieland’s teaching and learning in the literature of medieval Europe by presenting him with twelve essays on varied aspects of the subject.

The first section of the volume aims to honour Wieland’s contributions to the study of medieval glossing. It deals with the history of glossing from early medieval Latin literature to late Middle English grammatical texts, as well as the early interpretative history of Walter of Châtillon’s Alexandreis and Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia regum Britannie. The following section corresponds with Wieland’s interest in Anglo-Saxon literature, with essays on the bilingual letters of Ælfric of Eynsham, the poetry of Alcuin of York, and the Old English Hexateuch. The second half of the volume, which examines elements of Latin literature from the eleventh to the fourteenth century, is divided into two sections containing essays that well represent Wieland’s diverse philological and literary interests in medieval Latin. The third section of the volume on the texts and contexts of Latin literature presents essays on the books of Abbot Maiolus of Cluny, on scholastic virtues of good teaching, and on Walter Map’s Dissuasio Valerii. The final section on the texts and manuscripts of Latin literature provides editions of and commentaries on a Latin-Greek phrase-book, a treatise on the firmament of Genesis 1:6.

With these contributions, this volume honours the research interests of a great teacher and learner of the Middle Ages: Gernot Weiland.

This book surveys teaching and learning in the mathematical and occult sciences, medicine and natural philosophy in various Islamicate societies between 800 and 1700. It focuses in particular on Egypt and Syria between 1200 and 1600, but looks also at developments in Iran, India, Anatolia, and Iraq. It discusses institutions of teaching and learning such as house and court teachers, madrasas, hospitals, in-family teaching, and travelling in search of knowledge, as well as the content of the various sciences taught by or at them. Methods of teaching and learning, teaching bestsellers and their geographical and temporal dissemination, as well as encyclopaedias and literature on the classification of the sciences are treated in further chapters.

The importance of training and education is on the increase. While the production of ‘human capital’ is seen as a motor for a competitive economy, skills and expertise proof to be necessary for social mobility. Remarkably, in conceiving modern forms of ‘apprenticeship’, several mechanisms from the acien régime, seem to return. The difference between public and private initiative is disappearing, education and training is being confused, and in order to acquire generic skills as flexibility, communicability, self-rule, creativity and so on, youngsters have to learn ‘in context’. Even for maths, scholars now talk of ‘situated learning’.

Before the advent of a formal schooling system, training took place on the shop floor, under the roof of a master. The apprentice not only worked but also lived in his master’s house and was thus trained and educated at the same time. In cities, this system was formally complemented by an official apprenticeship system, prescribing a minimum term to serve and an obligatory masterpiece for those who wanted to become masters themselves. Traditionally, historians see this as an archaic and backward way of training, yet this book’s aim is to show that is was instead a very flexible and dynamic system, perfectly in tune with the demands of an early modern economy.

In order to understand it fully, however, we should differentiate the informal training system organised via a ‘free market’ of indentures on the one hand and the institutionalised system of craft guilds on the other. In Antwerp, early modern guilds had a project of ‘emancipating’ their members. They didn’t simply produce certain skills, but through a system of quality marks defended the honour of craftsmen. This is the difference with current practices. By representing hands-on skills as superior, guilds supplied a sort of symbolic capital for workers.

Bert De Munck is lecturer at the University of Antwerp and member of the Centre for Urban History. His research focuses on the history of the guilds, vocational training and social capital.

This interdisciplinary volume explores the ways in which time is staged at the threshold between the Middle Ages and the early modern period. Proceeding from the reality that all cultural forms are inherently and inescapably temporal, it seeks to discover the significance of time in mediations and communications of all kinds.

By showing how time is displayed in diverse cultural strategies and situations, the essays of this volume show how time is intrinsic to the very concept of tradition. In exploring a variety of medial forms and communicative practices, they also reveal that while the beginning of the age of printing (around 1500) may mark a fundamental change in terms of reproduction and circulation, artefacts and other historical traditions continue to employ earlier systems and practices relating time and space.

The volume features articles by leading researchers in their respective fields, including studies on mosaics as a medium reflecting space and time; the triptych’s potential as a time machine; winged altarpieces mediating eternity; texts and images of the passion of Christ permeating past, present, and future; dimensions of time embedded in maps; a compendium of world knowledge organized by forms of time and temporality; the figuration of prophecy in times of crisis; the portrayal of time in architecture.

The volume thus provides a new approach to media and mediality from the perspective of cultural history.

Édouard Jeauneau a déjà publié deux recueils d'articles. Le premier, Lectio philosophorum (1973) était centré sur l'École de Chartres, le second, Études érigéniennes (1987, prix Victor Cousin 1990) sur Jean Scot Érigène. Ce troisième recueil, "Tendenda Vela", combine les deux thèmes.

Les travaux qui y sont rassemblés, et qui couvrent plus de vingt années de recherches, portent non seulement sur Jean Scot et sur les maîtres chartrains, mais sur leurs sources bibliques, patristiques et profanes. Parmi les sources patristiques, une place de choix est faite aux Pères grecs: Denys l'Aréopagite, Grégoire de Nysse, Maxime le Confesseur. Pour les sources profanes, l'accent est mis sur les textes philosophiques qu'on lisait dans le monde latin en la première moitié du XIIe siècle, notamment le Timée de Platon et la Consolation de Philosophie de Boèce.

Ce nouveau recueil ne se distingue pas seulement par la diversité des sujets traités, mais aussi par la variété de leur approche. Tantôt l'auteur dresse le bilan des recherches qu'il a menées sur les manuscrits en pays tchèque (Plato apud Bohemos) ou en Californie (Berkeley UCB Ms. 95), tantôt il approfondit les thèmes philosophiques (Translatio studii, Processio et Reditus, Cogito érigénien) et théologiques (le Filioque) qu'il a rencontrés au cours de ses excursions à travers le Moyen Âge, tantôt il propose une nouvelle interprétation de quelques œuvres d'art appartenant à cette période: De l'art comme mystagogie, Les sirènes dans le chœur des Vieillards. Un livre qui devrait intéresser les historiens de l'art, de la philosophie et de la théologie.

De 1958 à 1992, Édouard Jeauneau (° 1924) á été chercheur et depuis 1975 directeur de recherche de 1ère classe au Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (Section Philosophie) à Paris. Depuis 1974 il est aussi fellow du Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies (Toronto).

Pendant longtemps, les travaux sur la cartographie ont surtout porté sur les mappemondes, aussi bien dans le monde latin que dans le monde arabo-musulman. Les représentations cartographiques des espaces locaux et régionaux ont suscité un intérêt plus modéré, même si les études sur la cartographie à grande ou à moyenne échelle des xii e-xv e siècles connaissent depuis quelques années un renouveau notable tant dans le domaine latin que dans le domaine arabe.

La publication des actes du colloque international qui s'est tenu à Tours en juin 2018 rassemble quinze études consacrées à la représentation cartographique du territoire, et, plus généralement, à la cartographie des espaces régionaux et locaux qui émerge dès le x e siècle dans le monde arabo-musulman et à partir du xii e siècle dans l’Occident latin, pour connaître un essor remarquable dans les deux derniers siècles du Moyen Âge. Le livre réunit des articles de synthèse et des études de cas, abordant les questions complexes de l'émergence de cette cartographie, de ses formes et de ses usages dans le monde arabo-musulman et dans l'Occident latin.

En présentant un petit recueil de textes rares et peu étudiés, écrits en langue vulgaire, que ce soit l'anglo-saxon, le moyen-haut-allemand, le moyen-anglais, l'ancien islandais ou le norrois, ce volume donne un panorama de la diffusion des connaissances géographiques et cosmographiques parmi les populations germaniques de l'Antiquité tardive jusqu'au début de l'époque moderne. Après avoir analysé le Heimlýsing, une description du monde en ancien Islandais qui paraît dépendre des écrits d'Isidore de Séville, et les Fornaldarsögur Norórlanda, c'est-à-dire le corpus des anciennes sagas en norrois, on examine l'itinéraire du Grafen von Katzenelnbogen, à savoir un compte rendu très précis d'un voyage dans la Terre Sainte ainsi que les voyages 'virtuels' imaginés dans le poéme Cartula perge d'Alcuin de York et dans les Pilgrimages to the Holy Land en moyen-anglais. L'Enchiridion anglo-saxon du moine Byrhtferth documente la diffusion des connaissances astronomiques dans la culture de l'Angleterre du Haut Moyen Age ; le Lucidarius allemand et le Niederreinischer Orientbericht nous apprennent quant à eux les merveilles de l'Orient.

Dagmar Gottschall (Lecce) a coordoné les travaux de neuf spécialistes des langues germaniques anciennes : Francesca Chiusaroli (Rome), Carla Del Zotto (Rome), Carmela Giordano (Arezzo), Maria Cristina Lombardi (Naples), Lorenzo Lozzi Gallo (Bari), Simonetta Mengato (Venise), Andrea Meregalli (Arezzo), Celestina Milani (Milan) et Lucia Sinisi (Bari), qui esquissent par leurs contributions les contours d'un espace littéraire et culturel peu connu - l'Europe septentrionale -, dans lequel les écrivains rédigeant en langue vulgaire ont developpé une littérature géographique d'une valeur documentaire de première main.

In emulation of Professor Éamonn Ó Carragáin, who has, over the last few decades, demonstrated how words and images together join in that extraordinary cultural achievement which is the Ruthwell Cross, the volume seeks to transcend the established methods of the single discipline.

The twenty-six essays draw together insights from fields as diverse as archaeology, art history, and liturgy to reflect on the literature and material culture of the Anglo-Saxons. The first section looks outwards from the insular context, to medieval Rome, more generally to western Europe, and backwards to the world-geography of the ancient world; its illustrations include colour plates to illumine the hangings, clothing and vestments extant from Anglo-Saxon England. A range of texts is considered in the central section, Latin, English, and Old Norse. The third section focuses on sculpture, buildings and the insular landscape, juxtaposing the sculptured stonework of Northern Britain with early Christian monuments and remains from Ireland; among the illustrations are striking coloured photographs of Irish ecclesiastical sites. The contributors are from Canada, the United States, Italy, Britain, and Ireland.

C’est dans le cadre du renouveau de la linguistique diachronique et de l’attention croissante portée au moyen français que s’inscrivent les présentes études sur la linguistique textuelle du moyen français. Quels sont, dans cette période, les éléments linguistiques contribuant à la structuration du texte? Comment la cohésion textuelle et la continuité thématique sont-elles assurées? Les contributions réunies ici explorent ces domaines, en décrivant l’emploi d’une série de connecteurs, modalisateurs et signes de ponctuation et en analysant les mécanismes sous-jacents au fonctionnement des expressions anaphoriques et des constructions topicalisantes et focalisantes.

Le présent volume, qui est le fruit du XIe colloque international sur le moyen français tenu à Anvers (19-21 mai 2005), offre une analyse originale et détaillée des outils linguistiques dont dispose le moyen français pour rendre accessible son discours.

Ce volume réunit 27 articles que Geneviève Hasenohr a consacrés à la littérature de dévotion médiévale entre 1978 et 2007. Études et éditions de textes romans font toucher du doigt ce que furent au quotidien les modèles de vie chrétienne et les lectures spirituelles proposés aux laïcs en France entre e et e siècle, leur fonds monastique commun et leur touche propre. Cette reprise est complétée par la publication actualisée d’une documentation inédite, attendue depuis des décennies par les médiévistes : une partie des notices documentaires primitivement destinées à prendre place dans le t. 2 (jamais paru) du vol. VIII du Grundriss der romanischen Literaturen des Mittelalters : La littérature ançaise aux e et e siècles (t.1, Heidelberg, 1988). uelques études plus philologiques, une bibliographie de l’auteur et plusieurs index complètent la sélection.

Chartiste, ancien membre de l’École Française de Rome, Geneviève Hasenohr est une philologue, historienne des textes de spiritualité médiévaux en langue romane. Elle a dirigé la Section romane de l’Institut de Recherche et d’Histoire des Textes (CNRS) et enseigné à l’Université de Paris-Sorbonne ainsi qu’à l’École Pratique des Hautes Études. Elle est correspondante de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres.

Within the contemporary renewal of the exegetical and historical research on Jesus and early Christianity, this book focuses on a wider knowledge of the social and cultural context of the first two centuries, thanks to a systematic research of documentary materials and archaeological data (epigraphs and documentary papyri). Secondly, the book faces the increasingly perceived need to use all the existing literary material for the reconstruction of the historical Jesus and the first groups of his followers. Thirdly, the book stresses the importance of giving space to new epistemological and methodological perspectives in the field of human sciences. The last section of the volume is dedicated to the connection of contemporary research with the interpretations of Jesus and early Christianity developed in the modern age.

Textus Roffensis, a Rochester Cathedral book of the early twelfth century, holds some of the most significant texts issued in early medieval England, ranging from the oldest English-language law code of King Æthelberht of Kent (c. 600) to a copy of Henry I’s Coronation Charter (5 August 1100). Textus Roffensis also holds abundant charters (including some forgeries), narratives concerning disputed property, and one of the earliest library catalogues compiled in medieval England. While it is a familiar and important manuscript to scholars, however, up to now it has never been the object of a monograph or collection of wide-ranging studies. The seventeen contributors to this book have subjected Textus Roffensis to close scrutiny and offer new conclusions on the process of its creation, its purposes and uses, and the interpretation of its laws and property records, as well as exploring significant events in which Rochester played a role and some of the more important people associated with the See. The work of the contributors takes readers into the mind of the scribes and compiler (or patron) behind the Textus Roffensis, as well as into the origins and meaning of the texts that the monks of early twelfth-century Rochester chose to preserve. The essays contained here not only set the study of the manuscript on a firm foundation, but also point to new directions for future work.