Brepols Online Books Medieval Monographs Collection 2018 - bob2018mome

The Ever-New Tongue (In Tenga Bithnúa) is a medieval Irish account of the mysteries of the universe, remarkable for its exotic background and for the fiery exuberance of its style. This translation, based on the definitive edition of the text, renders this extraordinary work available to a wider readership.

Composed in Ireland in the ninth or tenth century, The Ever-New Tongue purports to reveal the mysteries of the creation, of the cosmos, and of the end of the world, as related by the soul of the apostle Philip speaking in the language of the angels. Drawing on a multitude of sources, both mainstream and heterodox, it reflects the richness of early Irish learning as well as the vitality of its author’s imagination. Two apocryphal texts appear to have inspired its original composition: a lost Egyptian apocalyptic discourse, and one of the segments of the Acts of Philip (a work otherwise unknown in Latin Christendom).

Based on the critical edition of The Ever-New Tongue in the Corpus Christianorum, Series Apocryphorum, this book presents an English translation of the oldest (and most conservative) version of the text, preserved in the Book of Lismore, together with a fully updated introduction.

This book is the first comprehensive overview of how written administration was established in the royal towns of medieval Hungary. Using the conceptual framework of trust and authority, the volume sheds light on the growing complexity of urban society and the impact that the various uses of writing had on managing this society, both by the king and by the local magistrates. The present survey and analysis of a broad range of surviving sources reveals that trust in administrative literacy was built up gradually, through a series of decisive and chronologically distinct steps. These included the acquisition of an authentic seal; the appointment of a clerk or notary; setting up a writing office; drawing up town books; and, finally, establishing an archive from the assemblage of collected documents.

Although the development of literacy in Hungarian towns has its own history, the questions posed by the study are not unlike those raised for other towns of medieval Europe. For instance, both the gradually increasing use of various vernaculars and the controversial role of writing in Jewish-Christian contacts can be meaningfully compared with similar processes elsewhere. The study of Central European towns can therefore be used both to broaden seemingly disparate research frameworks and to contribute to studies that take a more general approach to Europe and beyond.

Précédant de peu Jeanne d’Arc et le duc René II, figures emblématiques d’un Moyen Âge lorrain flamboyant, Charles II apparaît comme un prince de second rang. Son règne (1390-1431) est associé, non sans raison, aux temps les plus sombres de l’histoire de la Lorraine, devenue l’épicentre douloureux d’une Europe qu’embrasait par le jeu des alliances le conflit franco-anglais de la Guerre de Cent Ans. Pourtant, s’en tenir là serait oublier que Charles II fut l’instigateur de la réunion des duchés de Lorraine et de Bar et qu’il posa les bases de l’État princier en Lorraine.

Rassemblant patiemment une documentation dispersée au gré des aléas de l’histoire, délaissant les impasses d’une historiographie longtemps préoccupée par la question de l’État-nation et prisonnière de l’antagonisme exacerbé entre la France et l’Allemagne, Christophe Rivière réévalue ici un règne trop longtemps méconnu et trop facilement renvoyé à ses archaïsmes. Son enquête prosopographique livre les contours d’une société politique originale ; il analyse le dialogue qu’elle entretient avec le prince dans un espace politiquement morcelé, au sein duquel se rencontrent et s’affrontent les influences venues du royaume de France et de l’Empire ; empruntant aux ethnologues les concepts d’ « acculturation » et de « métissage », il éclaire les valeurs qui cimentent cette société nobiliaire, valeurs par lesquelles elle se rapproche ou se distingue tour à tour des principautés voisines pour faire progressivement place à l’affirmation de la souveraineté ducale.

Village communities were the heart of the medieval countryside. But how did they operate? This book seeks to find some answers to that question by focusing on late medieval Drenthe, a region situated in a remote corner of the Holy Roman Empire and part of the prince-bishopric of Utrecht. Drenthe was an overwhelmingly localized, rural world. It had no cities, and consisted entirely of small villages. The social and economic importance of traditionally privileged sections of medieval society (clergy and nobility) was limited; free peasant landowners were the dominant social class.

Based on a careful reading of normative sources (Land charters) and thousands of short verdicts given by the so-called ‘Etstoel’ or high court of justice in Drenthe, this book focuses on three types of conflict: conflicts between villages, feud-like violence, and litigations about property. These three types coincide with three levels of involvement: that of village communities as a whole, that of kin groups, and that of households.

The resulting, comprehensive analysis provides a rigorous interrogation of generalized notions of the pre-industrial rural world, offering a snapshot of a typical peasant society in late medieval Europe.