Brepols Online Books Medieval Monographs Archive v2016 - bobar16mome
Collection Contents
3 results
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The Worldview and Thought of Tolomeo Fiadoni (Ptolemy of Lucca)
show More to view fulltext, buy and share links for:The Worldview and Thought of Tolomeo Fiadoni (Ptolemy of Lucca) show Less to hide fulltext, buy and share links for: The Worldview and Thought of Tolomeo Fiadoni (Ptolemy of Lucca)Tolomeo Fiadoni (1236-1327) was one of the most important political theorists and historians of the Middle Ages. He was central to developing a theory for the practices of Northern Italian republicanism and was hostile to kingship, portraying it as despotic and inappropriate for virtuous and freedom-loving people. He was the first writer to compare Aristotle’s examples of Greek mixed constitutions - Sparta, Crete, and Carthage - with the Roman Republic, the ancient Hebrew polity, the Church, and medieval communes, yet he remained a staunch defender of the absolute secular and spiritual monarchy of the pope.
Blythe explores various tensions in Tolomeo’s work that are often overlooked in scholarly treatments of him, and which derive from cultural preconceptions and the diverse influences on him: Aristotle, Augustine, apologists for papal power, his life in the Dominican Order, his educational experience with Thomas Aquinas, and his social position as a member of Northern Italy’s ruling class. These factors exerted contradictory influences on Tolomeo and led him to a sometimes unsuccessful intellectual struggle for consistency. This book is the first full-length study of Tolomeo’s thought and it gives full consideration not only to the political writings for which he is most known, but also to his historical and exegetical works. It is the companion to The Life and Works of Tolomeo Fiadoni (Ptolemy of Lucca).
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The Ways of Jewish Martyrdom
show More to view fulltext, buy and share links for:The Ways of Jewish Martyrdom show Less to hide fulltext, buy and share links for: The Ways of Jewish MartyrdomJewish martyrdom in the Middle Ages is a most intriguing social, cultural, and religious phenomenon. It was stimulated by ancient Jewish myths, and at the same time it was influenced by the Christian environment in which the Jews lived and operated. The result was a unique and unprecedented event in which the Jews did not simply refuse to convert to Christianity; they were ready to kill themselves and their children so they would not be forced to convert. The Ways of Jewish Martyrdom discusses the phenomenon of Jewish Martyrdom in medieval Germany, northern France, and England from the time of the First Crusade (1096) until the mid-fourteenth century (that is, the time of the ‘Black Death’), in light of modern research and with ample use of hitherto-neglected primary sources. In order to understand the unique phenomenon of Jewish martyrdom, the various Jewish and Christian antecedents that might have influenced the notion of Jewish martyrdom in the Middle Ages need analysis. The texts on which the analysis is based are various, ranging from chronicles through memorial books to liturgical materials and Piyyut. The last part of the book reviews the development of this phenomenon after the fourteenth century and delineates the essential changes and transformations therein at the dawn of the early modern period and beyond.
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Writing the Wilton Women
show More to view fulltext, buy and share links for:Writing the Wilton Women show Less to hide fulltext, buy and share links for: Writing the Wilton WomenThis collection of essays and translations brings together two closely related works by an important but little studied late eleventh-century author, Goscelin of Saint-Bertin. His Liber confortatorius (the earliest work of spiritual instruction for a female recluse known to have been written in England) is addressed to Eve. Goscelin, who may have been a chaplain at Wilton, had been Eve’s spiritual mentor since her childhood. Eve, however, left Wilton in her early twenties to become a recluse in Angers without even informing him of her plans, and in the Liber confortatorius, written in the form of an extended letter (c. 1082), Goscelin attempts to reassert and reconfigure their former close relationship.
Goscelin's account of the life and translation of St Edith, who was a member of the Wilton community until her death (in c. 986) at the age of twenty-three, was commissioned by the Wilton nuns and based on their oral report. Completed in c. 1080, the Legend gives a portrait of Edith and her mother Abbess Wulfthryth, and an account of the community’s posthumous relationship with its saint up until the time that Goscelin began work on it. It is (with the exception of Goscelin’s Life of Wulfhild of Barking) our only near contemporary narrative account of a late Anglo-Saxon women’s community.
The essays in this collection present a closely integrated account of some of the most central and striking aspects of the two texts. The essays and accompanying translations are the result of a collaborative research project undertaken at the University of Auckland.
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