BOB2024MOME

This book explores the broad scope of political, economic, and social aspects of relations between Central Europe (focused on Poland and the lands of the Czechs) and Ireland. Taking a longitudinal approach, this study charts the interaction between the western and the central-eastern peripheries of Europe from the Middle Ages to the period after the Third Partition of Poland-Lithuania in 1795. The authors examine how the relationship between the geographically opposite ends of Europe evolved. Shaped by the shifts of ‘political tectonic plates’ they argue that the evolution can be described in general terms: from a largely unidirectional to an interconnected chain of events. This book demonstrates similarities and analyses differences in a complex, yet unexplored, past of the three emergent nations; nations which in the public perception were overshadowed by their mighty neighbours for far too long.

Este libro reúne las traducciones anotadas de las obras hagiográficas latinas publicadas en el volumen Hagiographica hispana regnorum Aragonum et Castellae Legionisque saeculorum IX-XIII (Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaeualis, vol. 310), publicado en 2022. Se trata de las más importantes Vidas, traslados de reliquias y colecciones de milagros compuestas en la Edad Media en los monasterios de San Juan de la Peña, San Millán de la Cogolla y San Zoilo de Carrión en honor de san Indalecio (uno de los siete míticos evangelizadores de Hispania); dos santos de época visigoda, san Felices de Bilibio (maestro de San Millán) y el propio san Millán; y dos santos medievales: san Voto y san Félix de Zaragoza (fundadores de lo que más tarde sería San Juan de la Peña). Los otros dos escritos del volumen son dos Vidas dedicadas a san Urbez (eremita aragonés de posible origen francés) y, sobre todo, al famoso patrón de la ciudad de Madrid, san Isidro Labrador. La mayoría de estas traducciones son las primeras que se han realizado en una lengua moderna.

Ce livre est consacré aux relations entre écriture épigraphique et art médiéval. Il se propose de placer les inscriptions tracées sur la pierre, le métal, le bois, la peinture ou la mosaïque dans le contexte des pratiques écrites et artistiques du Moyen Âge occidental, et de signaler quelques pistes de recherche originales pour appréhender le statut, la forme et la fonction de la rencontre entre l’écriture épigraphique et les oeuvres d’art médiévales.

Cet essai se situe à la confluence de l’histoire de l’écriture et de l’histoire des formes. Il est fondé sur l’analyse d’un certain nombre d’objets graphiques du Moyen Âge central produits en Europe occidentale. Il s’inscrit donc dans une pensée chrétienne de l’écriture et de l’image, et accorde une place importante à la théologie. Il est moins pensé comme un manuel épigraphique à l’attention des historiens de l’art que comme un répertoire de questions à explorer, à repenser ou encore à traiter, et s’adresse à quiconque aspire à la réunion des cultures écrite, visuelle et matérielle du Moyen Âge.

La Chanson d'Otinel est une chanson de geste qui narre les aventures d'Otinel, guerrier musulman venu défier Roland à la cour de Charlemagne ; sur le point de gagner son duel contre le neveu de Charlemagne, un miracle le conduit à se convertir au christianisme ; il est alors promis en mariage à Belissent, la fille de l'empereur. La suite du texte raconte comment Otinel accompagne l'armée des Francs dans le Nord de l'Italie afin de bouter les troupes de l'empereur Garsie hors du territoire après la prise de Rome par les païens. La version anglo-normande, placée sous l'égide de la Fête des Innocents, met en scène un certain bestournement des codes épiques, le tout teinté d'un humour grinçant.

Vraisemblablement composée sur le continent dans la deuxième moitié du xii e siècle, le remaniement anglo-normand du texte semble dater de la fin du xii e siècle. La chanson version anglo-normande du texte est préservée dans deux manuscrits, le codex de Cologny (Cologny, Fondation Martin Bodmer, 168) et le fragment de Mende (Paris, BnF, nouvelles acquisitions françaises, 5094,). La présente édition permet au lecteur d'apprécier la version anglo-normande du texte, en offrant une introduction critique proposant une réflexion sur les aspects littéraires (versification, adaptation) et linguistiques du remaniement.

Ce livre propose d'étudier l'expression locale d'un texte, maillon essentiel pour comprendre l'essor de la légende d'Otinel au Nord de l'Europe, puisque la version anglo-normande servira de modèle pour différentes traductions médiévales du texte en Anglais, Gallois et Norrois à partir du xiv e siècle.

Le cardinalat, depuis la fin du XIVème siècle jusqu’au début du XVIème siècle, est une entité en transformation, rythmée par les crises successives que traverse l’Eglise d’Occident. Ces crises et les transformations socio-culturelles du Quattrocento ont amené les théoriciens du cardinalat – qu’ils soient juristes, théologiens ou diplomates – à reconsidérer à la fois la place et les modes représentation des cardinaux, influençant également leur incarnation matérielle, et en nous laissant de riches témoignages sur leur réflexion. L’étude présente entend analyser le développement, les transformations, et les perceptions des représentations symboliques et matérielles de l’identité cardinalice idéale depuis le Moyen Âge tardif jusqu’à l’orée de la Réforme. Les éléments mis à jour sur la construction et les mutations de l’identité cardinalice idéale correspondent parfaitement au phénomène transitionnel associé à ce siècle. Le cardinalat apparaît, à travers l’ensemble des sources, comme un palimpseste sur lequel se réécrit constamment les empreintes de sa construction symbolique, matérielle et théorique, chaque couche laissant des traces visibles à celui qui en fait la lecture. Les formes de représentations pérennes qui définissaient le cardinalat et qui apportaient à la fois une justification sacrée et politique par la revendication d’origines prestigieuses finissent au Quattrocento par s’étioler ou se transformer pour laisser place à de nouvelles formes. Ces « couches successives » forment tout entières cette identité cardinalice, qui ne peut se concevoir que de façon multiple par la diversité et la richesse de son développement.

Franciscain d’origine ombrienne, Matthieu d’Aquasparta (v. 1240-1302) est maître en théologie à l’université de Paris au moment de la censure de 1277. Il rejoint ensuite la Curie pontificale en 1279. Doté de talents politiques certains, il est brièvement ministre général de l’ordre franciscain avant d'être créé cardinal par Nicolas IV en 1288. Il obtient la charge de grand pénitencier et devient un soutien fidèle de Boniface VIII. Depuis le début du XXe siècle, la pensée du théologien avait surtout fait l'objet d'études construites à partir de l'édition progressive de ses Questions disputées. Cet ouvrage propose une biographie complète de Matthieu d’Aquasparta au prisme de ses textes universitaires grâce à l’analyse de sa bibliothèque personnelle, de ses manuscrits de travail, légués aux couvent d'Assise et de Todi et de ses Quodlibets, encore inédits.

By comparison with Latin Europe, Anglo-Saxon civilization is notable for the amount of literature preserved in contemporary manuscripts in the vernacular language, formerly called ‘Anglo-Saxon’ but now more usually called ‘Old English’. This literature includes some remarkable poetry, which is the subject of the present collection of essays. Some of the earliest poems may well have been written at a time when northern England held the intellectual leadership of Europe. The approach is holistic, investigating important issues in the manuscripts that affect the integrity of the texts to be studied or the way they relate to each other, examining metrical issues that affect the way the poems are appreciated for their compositional skill, studying particular textual problems that require elucidation or even emendation to make the meaning clear, and finally offering readings of particular poems focussing on themes that are central to Old English poetry. A postscript examines Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky, which is presented as a ‘Stanza of Anglo-Saxon Poetry’.

La famille châtelaine de Lusignan est un excellent exemple du phénomène de diffusion dynastique de l'aristocratie française. Elle connaît à la fin du xii e siècle et surtout au début du xiii e siècle, une ascension fulgurante, étendant son emprise sur le Haut puis le Bas-Poitou, s'emparant du comté de la Marche puis de celui d'Angoulême, imposant sa domination sur le nord du duché d'Aquitaine. Une série de mariages ajoute au patrimoine de ses membres le comté d'Eu, en Normandie, celui de Penthièvre et les seigneuries de Fougères et de Porhoët, en Bretagne, ainsi que, dans les îles Britanniques, les honneurs de Hastings et de Tickhill, l'évêché de Winchester, les comtés de Pembroke et de Wexford. La couronne de Jérusalem et son substitut, le trône chypriote, reste leur plus marquante acquisition, d'autant qu'elle est directement liée à la perte de la ville sainte.

Cet ouvrage est né d’une interrogation sur le potentiel politique que pouvait constituer un tel ensemble familial, pourvu que les liens du sang perdurent. De fait, la famille de Lusignan forme un groupe cohérent, structuré par les liens de la parenté, dont les membres partagent une identité entretenue par un certain nombre de repères communs ainsi qu’un réseau de coopération et de soutien mutuel. Leur union constitue une véritable puissance politique et territoriale, qui transcende les limites des royaumes et des principautés. Le concept de « parentat » a été forgé à partir d’un vocable latin emprunté à une chronique médiévale pour saisir de manière holistique ce pouvoir politique réticulaire fondé sur la solidarité des membres d’une même famille, ayant rassemblé, au fil des générations, une grande diversité de principautés et de seigneuries parfois voisines, parfois très dispersées.

Cette étude du parentat Lusignan s’intéresse à sa propagation transrégionale, au pouvoir exercé, à l’échelle de l’individu, comme à celle du groupe familial, sur les hommes et les biens, aux pratiques de gouvernementalité, aux procédés de matérialisation du pouvoir comme aux modes de sa contestation, ainsi qu’aux dynamiques familiales qui concourent à structurer le parentat politiquement et socialement, qui entretiennent sa cohésion, forgent sa mémoire, construisent son identité et affermissent son unité.

Boethius’ De divisione or Liber divisionum was the authoritative book on mereology in medieval scholasticism. Together with other Boethian works it formed part of the Ars vetus, the core of which was constituted by Porphyry’s Isagoge and Aristotle’s Categories and Peri hermeneias, but after c. 1250 the Boethian works were but rarely taught in university. One master who did do courses on De divisione was Radulphus Brito (c. 1270 – 1320/21), who taught in the Parisian Faculty of Arts in the 1290’s and possibly some years into the 1300’s after having become a student of theology about 1299.

Radulphus was an innovative thinker with a considerable impact on the philosophical de-bate in his lifetime, and he continued to be considered relevant till the end of the 15th century. He left a vast amount of writings, most of them from his days as a teacher of the arts. Among those preserved are quaestiones on the whole of the Ars vetus and Ars nova, Parva naturalia, Physics, De anima, Metaphysics and Ethics, as well as Priscianus minor.

Radulphus taught some courses more than once, and each time revised the text of his lectures, leaving us with two or more versions of the relevant questions. On De divisione there are even two completely different sets of questions, both of which are edited for the first time in the present volume. The introduction contains a detailed study of the way Brito’s question commentaries developed over time.

Cambridge University Library, MS Additional 2604 contains a unique collection of prose saints’ lives evenly divided into eleven universal and eleven native saints (predominantly culted at Ely). Clearly intended for the devotional life of nuns, presumably in an East Anglian convent, the volume comprises nineteen female figures, all of whom are virgins, martyrs, or nuns, and three male saints (two apostles and a hermit). These late Middle English lives are translated from a variety of Latin sources and analogues including material by Jacobus de Voragine, John of Tynemouth, and others. The collection demonstrates an interest in showcasing native saints alongside their universal sisters. Luminaries of the English Church, such as Æthelthryth of Ely and her sister Seaxburh, are found in the company of notable virgin martyrs like Agatha and Cecilia. Famous saints like John the Evangelist and Hild of Whitby feature alongside others such as Columba of Sens and Eorcengota. Fully analysed and contextualised in its companion volume Saints’ Lives for Medieval English Nuns, I: A Study of the ‘Lyves and Dethes’ in Cambridge University Library, MS Additional 2604, these texts are edited here for the first time. Alongside the edition of the twenty-two saints’ lives and full textual apparatus, there are extensive overviews and commentaries providing details of the sources and analogues as well as explanatory historical and literary notes. The edition concludes with three appendices, a detailed select glossary, and a bibliography of works cited.

The Old English Life of Saint Pantaleon survives in one eleventh century manuscript: it appears here for the first time in an easily available edition. This edition is based both on independent research and on the work of previous scholars. It is a challenging text, from a much-damaged manuscript, but well  worth reading: it is  interesting both from a linguistic point of view, as a testimony of late Anglo-Saxon language, and also as a sign of continental influence on Anglo-Saxon culture and of a change in literary taste in England on the eve of the Norman Conquest.  It is preceded by a full introduction dealing with the history of the text, from Greece to Western Europe and the context of its translation into Old English. The text is accompanied by copious notes dealing with difficult passages and it is made more accessible by a Modern English translation. The edition is completed by a 12th century Latin version which seems to be the closer to its Old English counterpart. The edition is completed by an Anglo-Saxon glossary.

1066 is one of the most well-known dates in English history: but how far do we understand the mental and emotional lives of those who experienced it? In just over a month, England was rocked by two separate invasions, multiple pitched battles, and the deaths of thousands. The repercussions of these traumatic events would echo through the history and literature of northern Europe for centuries to come.

Drawing on studies of trauma and cultural memory, this book examines the cultural repercussions of the year 1066 in medieval England, Normandy, and Scandinavia. It explores how writers in all three regions celebrated their common heritage and mourned the wars that brought them into conflict. Bringing together texts from an array of languages, genres, and cultural traditions, this study examines the strategies medieval authors employed to work through the traumas of 1066, narrating its events and experiences in different forms. It explores the ways in which history and memory interacted through multiple generations of writers and readers, and reveals how the field of trauma studies can help us better understand the mental and emotional lives of medieval people.

This book explores the intersection between the early development of medieval universities and the arrival of Aristotle's works in the Christian West, especially De anima: one of his most famous and obscure writings, straddling the fields of biology and psychology, and devoted to the functions of living beings – including the human being.

The leading figures in this very special meeting of cultures, also involving scientific writings from the Islamic world, are the Masters of Faculties of Arts. From the first half of the 13th century, they embarked on a theoretically very demanding enterprise, namely to restore a complete understanding of De anima; and they accomplished this difficult task by establishing a close – and often polemical – relationship with their more famous colleagues: theologians such as Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas.

By resorting to the research and teaching methods of their time, the Masters of Arts addressed crucial topics such as the soul/body relationship, sense perception, intellectual knowledge and the special status of the human intellect, mediating, as far as possible, between scientific requirements and those of the Christian faith.

Authors such as Adam of Buckfield, Peter of Spain, Siger of Brabant, John of Jandun and John Buridan, together with other, less famous ones and a small crowd of completely anonymous – yet theoretically no less interesting – scholars, gave rise to a choral narrative that disclosed new philosophical perspectives on man. It is in this intellectual context that the roots of Modern philosophical thought lie.

The ‘Leiden Glossary’ provides a record of the understanding and interpretation of the patristic and grammatical texts studied at the Canterbury School of Theodore and Hadrian, regarded by Bede as the high point of Christian culture in early Anglo-Saxon England. Each entry in the ‘Leiden Glossary’ is provided with detailed commentary on the sources consulted by the two Canterbury masters (earlier glossaries; Isidore; Eucherius) and the later uses of the glossary by compilers of the Epinal-Erfurt and Corpus glossaries. The ‘Leiden Glossary’ is thus a key witness to one of the greatest schools of learning in the early Middle Ages.

Based on the evidence of epigraphic material in combination with monumental painting, this book explores important dedicatory inscriptions (9th-beginning of the 13th c.) from Macedonia and Thrace, which have so far been investigated mainly from a philological-historical standpoint, thus neglecting the major issue of Middle Byzantine patronage. Through patron inscriptions and textual sources, the role and the motives of military officials in the patronage of defensive and fortification works, and the manner of publicizing them, are examined systematically. Patronage is looked at through the ideological messages that the donors endeavor to promote in a local society or monastic community, and which echo their relationship with the state and their views on education and faith. Interesting methodologically is the co-examination of the various categories of inscriptions in combination with historical texts and donor portraits, which opens up new avenues of research for the study of the interdisciplinary material in question.

Cet ouvrage se penche sur une région peu étudiée jusqu’à présent : le Bas-Poitou, situé en périphérie des principautés bretonnes, angevines et charentaises. Grâce à la diversité de ses terroirs et aux circonstances politiques particulières qu’elle a connues, cette région est privilégiée pour étudier l’organisation des sociétés médiévales durant la période charnière des xi e-xiii e siècles.

Cette étude se concentre sur l’ensemble des familles aristocratiques de la région, soit plus de 128 lignées identifiées par des tableaux de filiation, une cartographie, et des recherches archéologiques et monumentales sur les lieux de pouvoir. L’ouvrage se structure autour de trois articulations majeures : l’écrit et la façon dont les moines scribes ont perçu et mis par écrit l’organisation des lignages, la nature des pouvoirs exercés et leurs liens particuliers avec la divinité manifestés par les nombreuses aumônes accordées et l’élévation d’églises et d’abbayes. Leur implantation au sein des territoires en a constitué la seconde, pour comprendre comment ils ont pu transformer un espace en châtellenies polarisées autour d’un château, délimitées précisément et soumis à leur autorité. L’exercice du pouvoir en est la troisième : comment ces familles ont-elles progressivement constitué un réseau capable de relayer leur influence et de surmonter les principaux défis que sont les disparitions et les crises de succession. Si des tendances communes se dégagent, chaque lignage développe ses propres stratégies, (resserrement lignager, viage) et surtout renforce ses liens avec les communautés monastiques, les seules capables de lutter, par leurs prières, contre le pire des fléaux, l’oubli.

À travers l’étude de ces familles, c’est toute l’histoire d’une région qui se construit, intégrant ses rythmes, ses particularités topographiques et historiques qui continuent à dessiner la Vendée d’aujourd’hui.

Saint Patrick is a central figure in the medieval Irish Church. As the converter saint he was a central anchor through which Irish people came to understand their complicated religious past as well as their new place in the wider Christian world. This study considers some of the earliest and most influential writings focused on Saint Patrick, and asks how successive generations forged, sustained and redirected aspects of the saint’s persona in order to suit their specific religious and political needs.

In this book Elizabeth Dawson, for the first time, treats the Hiberno-Latin vitae of Patrick as a body of connected texts. Seminal questions about the corpus are addressed, such as who wrote the Lives and why? What do the works tell us about the communities that venerated and celebrated the saint? And what impact did these Lives have on the success and endurance of the saint’s cult? Challenging the perception that Patrick’s legend was created and sustained almost exclusively by the monastic community at Armagh, she demonstrates that the Patrick who emerges from the Lives is a varied and malleable saint with whom multiple communities engaged.

How did medieval authors publish their works in the age before print? This study seeks to achieve new insights into the publishing strategies of medieval authors by focusing on Nicholas Trevet, an English Dominican friar and Oxford master. Shortly after 1317, Trevet was commissioned by his provincial prior to write a literal commentary on the Psalter. He chose as his reference version the less commonly used Latin translation by Jerome from the Hebrew, and delivered his work before 1321/22.

The first book-length examination of Trevet’s commentary, this detailed study traces the ways in which the work was circulated by the author and his proxies. Through a combined analysis of codicological, textual, and historical features of the nine extant fourteenth-century manuscripts, this study identifies contemporary efforts to make Trevet’s work available to readers within and without the Dominican Order, in England and on the Continent. Even during the author’s lifetime the commentary was copied in Paris and reached readers in Avignon and likely in Naples.

From the time of the Roman Republic, continental Europeans traveling to England brought knowledge of Greek and Roman intellectual culture in the form of books of every genre. But, until 1111 CE, the island contained not a single Platonic dialogue. And for the next two centuries, it had only a partial Latin translation of the Timaeus. A Latin Phaedo eventually appeared, in 1340, and the Meno in 1423. But this hardly limited the number of ideas people had about Plato. He was a proto-Christian, a sage, a scholar of the cosmos, and a healer. And he had an elaborate oeuvre that did exist in England, works of astrology, numerology, medicine, and science, including Cado, Calf, Circle, Herbal, Question, Alchemy, and Book of Prophecies of a Greek King. This book tells the story of Plato in Medieval England, from a name with too few works to a sage with too many. Based on a complete survey of all extant manuscripts, publications, and library records until the fifteenth century, it traces with extraordinary precision the movement of opinions and information about Plato from Europe to England and then into its various monasteries, schools, and universities. This erudite and illuminating sociology of knowledge provides novel insight into the dubious English career of our best-known philosopher. This is intellectual history and reception studies at its most surprising.

Cambridge University Library, MS Additional 2604 contains a unique prose legendary almost entirely of female saints, all of whom are virgins, martyrs, or nuns. The manuscript, which also has varied post-medieval items, is written in one hand probably dating from c. 1480 to c. 1510. This previously unstudied Middle English collection features twenty-two universal and native saints, both common (like John the Baptist and Æthelthryth) and rare (such as Wihtburh and Domitilla). These texts are dependent on a complex mixture of Latin sources and analogues. Specific linguistic and art-historical features, as well as attention to the predominant female saints of Ely and post-medieval provenance, suggest an East Anglian convent for the original readership. Through an exploration of the manuscript and its later ownership (both recusant and antiquarian), a discussion of its linguistic attributes, a consideration of local female monastic and book history, a comparison of hagiographical texts, and a wide-ranging source and analogue study, this Study fully contextualises these Middle English lives. The book concludes with a survey of the structural and stylistic aspects of the texts, followed by three appendices, and an extensive bibliography. The texts are edited for the first time in its companion volume, Saints’ Lives for Medieval English Nuns, II: An Edition of the ‘Lyves and Dethes’ in Cambridge University Library, MS Additional 2604.

Tales of treachery and friendship, adultery and murder, rape and revenge, as well as prophecy, repentance, forgiveness and thanksgiving — such is the stuff of the Anglo-Norman Bible’s Books of Samuel. They recount the life of the last of Israel’s judges but include some of the world’s best-known characters — Saul, David and Jonathan, Goliath, Bathsheba, and Absalom. 

The first book traces the life of Samuel, and the initial success of King Saul, chosen to satisfy the Israelites’ demand for a king. After Saul loses God’s favour, David enters his court to console him, but Saul envies David’s success. When Saul dies in battle, David succeeds him. In book two, David consolidates control over his kingdom, but his adultery with Bathsheba precipitates the reverses of the final chapters. Historically, the Books of Samuel trace the creation of Israel’s monarchy and explain its ultimate failure. Religiously, they relate Israel’s continuing relationship with God and the establishment of Jerusalem as the religious and political capital of the new kingdom.

Two mid-fourteenth-century manuscripts preserve the text of the Anglo-Norman Bible’s Samuel. The base manuscript (L), British Library Royal 1 C III, notable for its inclusion of multi-lingual glosses, was acquired by Henry VIII from the Benedictine Abbey of Reading in 1530. The lavishly illustrated Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS français 1 (P), produced in England for the baronial de Welles family, later belonged to King Louis XII of France. Brent A. Pitts has prepared the critical edition and Maureen Boulton’s introduction and notes elucidate the text and its interpretation by medieval commentators.

This volume revolves around three men who knew each other well, oversaw the political and spiritual life of much of northern France and Flanders during the first third of the twelfth century, and died within five years of one another: Charles the Good, count of Flanders from 1119 to 1127; John of Warneton, archdeacon of Arras from 1096 to 1099 and bishop of Thérouanne from 1099 to 1130; and their common biographer, Walter, archdeacon of Thérouanne from 1116 to 1132. The volume includes a detailed historical introduction and offers the first English translations of Walter's biographies of Charles and John and of several other texts: Lambert of Saint-Omer’s Genealogy of the Counts of Flanders and its continuation, poems on the death of Charles the Good, the inquest into his murder, and selections from Galbert of Marchiennes’ The Transferal of Saint Jonatus to the Village of Sailly-en-Ostrevant, Simon of Saint Bertin’s continuation of the Deeds of the Abbots of Saint ertin’s, Andreas of Marchiennes’ The Miracles of Saint Rictrude, and the third Genealogy of the Flemish Counts (Flandria generosa). The works translated in this volume are the principal sources for the reign and assassination of Charles the Good and the bishopric of John of Warneton that have not yet been translated into English. This volume will be of particular interest to scholars of medieval Flanders and to medieval legal, ecclesiastical, political and social historians in general.

Most of the source texts of this volume were edited in 2006 by Jeff Rider (Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis, vol. 217). References to the corresponding pages of the Corpus Christianorum edition are provided in the margins of this translation.