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Most scholars know that the great universities were the institutional setting of Scholastic philosophical and theological activity in the later Middle Ages. Fewer realize, however, that perhaps far more Scholastic learning in the liberal arts and theology took place in the studia or study-houses of the religious orders, which out-numbered the universities and were more widely distributed across Europe. Indeed, most members of the mendicant orders received most or all of their learning in the liberal arts and theology in the studia of their order, and the most famous members of the orders (e.g., Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus) spent more time teaching in the studia than they did serving as Regent Masters in the university proper. As a consequence, the greater part of later medieval Scholastic literature was produced in the institutional context of the studia of the religious orders. Moreover, there were other significant institutional loci for Scholastic learning and discourse in the later Middle Ages besides the universities and the study-houses, namely the Papal Court—notably the Sacred Palace at Avignon—and several royal courts, for example, the courts of Robert the Wise in Naples and of the Emperor Lewis IV in Munich. It is not surprising, therefore, that many of the greatest Scholastic masters at different times taught in, or were associated with, all of these venues. This volume, which originated at the XVth annual Colloquium of the Société Internationale pour l’Étude de la Philosophie Médiévale held at the University of Notre Dame (USA) in October 2008, contains essays concerning the study and teaching of philosophy and theology in the studia of the Dominicans, Franciscans, Augustinian Hermits, Carmelites, Benedictines and Cistercians, as well as the intellectual activity at the Papal Court in Rome and Avignon and at various royal courts (London, Naples, Munich).Contributions by: Fabrizio Amerini, Luca Bianchi, Alain Boureau, Stephen F. Brown, Amos Corbini, William O. Duba, Russell L. Friedman, Hester G. Gelber, Joseph Goering, Wouter Goris, Guy Guldentops, Jacqueline Hamesse, Maarten J.F.M. Hoenen, Roberto Lambertini, Alfonso Maierù, Michèle Mulchahey, Patrick Nold, Adriano Oliva, OP, Alessandro Palazzo, Giorgio Pini, Sylvain Piron, François-Xavier Putallaz, Christopher D. Schabel and Garrett R. Smith, Neslihan ?enocak, Thomas Sullivan, OSB, Christian Trottmann, with an introduction by Kent Emery, Jr. and an epilogue by William J. Courtenay.

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.

Adorare caelestia, gubernare terrena indica una pericope dell’Asclepius che declina la natura essenziale e corporea dell’uomo in relazione alla duplice funzione del suo essere: «ammirare e adorare le realtà celesti, custodire e governare le realtà terrene» (Ascl. 8). Sotto questa epigrafe sono raccolti i contributi di venticinque studiosi che hanno inteso rendere omaggio a Paolo Lucentini (1937-2011), medievista di rilievo internazionale, fondatore e direttore di Hermes Latinus, il programma di ricerca per lo studio e per l’edizione dei testi ermetici, pubblicato nella collana del Corpus Christianorum. Continuatio Mediaeualis (Brepols, Turnhout). I saggi contenuti nel volume coprono un ampio arco cronologico, dalla tarda antichità all’epoca moderna, e sostanzialmente afferiscono ai tre filoni tematici perseguiti da Lucentini nella sua carriera scientifica: platonismo, ermetismo e eresia. Di filosofie dissidenti si sono occupate Alessandra Beccarisi e Antonella Straface. Allo studio della tradizione ermetica si sono dedicati Charles Burnett, Stefano Caroti, Chiara Crisciani, Peter Dronke, Michele Fatica, Françoise Hudry, Ilaria Parri e Pinella Travaglia; alle filosofie e alle tradizioni scientifiche medievali: Paul Kunitzsch, Fabrizio Lelli, Alfonso Maierù, Vittoria Perrone Compagni, Gregorio Piaia, Antonella Sannino, Valeria Sorge; agli influssi del platonismo: Pasquale Arfé, Carmela Baffioni, Irene Caiazzo, Luigi Catalani, Giulio d’Onofrio, Mark Delp, Michela Pereira e Pasquale Porro.

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.

Widely recognized as one of the main characteristics of Latin Aristotelianism, the ‘Christianisation’ of Aristotle from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century has received as yet little attention. Aiming to answer the need for a more systematic investigation, the articles here collected approach Christian readings of the Stagirite’s works from different perspectives. Setting aside abstract discussions about ‘degrees of orthodoxy’, they address a few specific questions: which ‘images’ of Aristotle were offered by Medieval and Renaissance interpreters, and in particular how did some of them argue that — far from being a pagan or even an impious thinker — he did not contradict the truths revealed by Holy Scripture? Which strategies did they adopt to harmonize Aristotelian philosophy with Christian religion, or at least to avoid their clash? How did they conceive the task of expounding Aristotle’s thought? How did they understand and apply the distinctions, developed since the mid-thirteenth century, between the point of view of the philosophers and that of the believers, between what is true ‘speaking naturally’ and what is true ‘according to faith’? Were these distinctions — and other disclaimers or cautionary statements — effective in protecting masters that taught Aristotle’s texts from accusations of heresy? To what extent were ideas issuing from Christian theology integrated within the Peripatetic worldview, or even treated within Aristotelian commentaries?

Discussing these and related questions, the ten contributors to this volume examine relevant doctrines of outstanding thinkers – Roger Bacon (Chiara Crisciani), Siger of Brabant and Henry of Ghent (Pasquale Porro), Dante Alighieri (Gianfranco Fioravanti); offer a fine analysis of some commentaries on the Nicomachean Ethics (Iacopo Costa), the Politics (Stefano Simonetta) and the libri naturales (Amos Corbini); suggest innovative interpretations of the genesis of the Liber de bona fortuna (Valérie Cordonier) and of the condemnation of 1277 (Dragos Calma); inspect minor but significant figures of the Italian Renaissance such as Ludovico Beccadelli (Pietro Rossi) and Cesare Crivellati (Luca Bianchi).

Cet ouvrage rassemble les contributions de chercheurs en histoire de la littérature et en histoire de l’art sur les innovations qui ont marqué les lettres et la production manuscrite dans les dernières décennies du XIIIe siècle et les premières du XIVe siècle (1270-1340) en France. Cette période charnière de l’histoire de la littérature médiévale a souffert jusqu’à présent d’un certain désintérêt de la critique et reste de ce fait encore méconnue. Comblant cette lacune, les auteurs de cette étude collective ont évalué le poids du passé littéraire chez des écrivains et des artistes revendiquant leur statut d’héritier mais montrant aussi la faculté de s’approprier la tradition et d’imposer leur originalité. Ils ont mis en lumière les particularités et les innovations de la période tant au niveau des méthodes de traduction, qu’à celui des genres littéraires, des formes poétiques ou artistiques, ils ont étudié enfin les milieux politiques qui ont soutenu alors une production littéraire et manuscrite digne d’intérêt.

This volume is about the book itself, as shaped and made by medieval scribes and as conditioned by the cultural understandings that were present in the world where those scribes lived. Questions relating to the provenance, compilation, script, function, and use — both medieval and modern — of manuscripts are raised and are resolved in a fresh manner. The focal point of the volume is Anglo-Saxon England, approached as a cultural crossroads east and west, with attention given to English manuscripts produced both before and after the Conquest. The book thus contributes to a reassessment of early English culture as complex, emergent, and multi-stranded.

A number of different literary genres and types are explored, ranging from devotional materials (e.g. psalters, sermons, and illustrated gospel books) to texts of a more worldly orientation. A number of plates illustrate the work of particular scribes. While some beautiful codices are showcased, the emphasis falls on plain books written in English, including the Vercelli Book, the Exeter Book, and the Blickling Homilies. Analyses of the history of palaeography and the theory of editing raise the point that whatever we know from old books is conditioned by the tools used to study them.

The arrival of the Black Death in England, which killed around a half of the national population, marks the beginning of one of the most fascinating, controversial and important periods of English social and economic history. This collection of essays on English society and economy in the later Middle Ages provides a worthy tribute to the pioneering work of John Hatcher in this field. With contributions from many of the most eminent historians of the English economy in the later Middle Ages, the volume includes discussions of population, agriculture, the manor, village society, trade, and industry. The book’s chapters offer original reassessments of key topics such as the impact of the Black Death on population and its effects on agricultural productivity and estate management. A number of its studies open up new areas of research, including the demography of coastal communities and the role of fairs in the late medieval economy, whilst others explore the problems of evidence for mortality rates or for change within the village community. Bringing together broad surveys of change and local case studies based on detailed archival research, the chapters offer an assessment of previous work in the field and suggest a number of new directions for scholarship in this area.

The philosophical and theological ideas of John Wyclif, their dissemination among clerical and lay audiences, and the movement of religious dissent associated with his name all provoked sharp controversies in late medieval England. This volume brings together the very latest scholarship on Wyclif and Wycliffism, with its contributors exploring in interdisciplinary fashion the historical, literary, and theological resonances of the Wycliffite controversies. Far from adhering to the traditional binary divide between ‘orthodoxy’ and ‘heresy’ as a tool for explaining the religious turmoil of the late fourteenth, fifteenth, and early sixteenth centuries, essays here explore the construction and rhetorical use of those terms, collectively producing a more nuanced account of the religious history of pre-Reformation England. Topics include the use of religious lyrics and tables of lessons as indirect rebuttals of Wycliffite claims; the social networks through which dissenters transmitted their ideas; dissenting and mainstream readings of Scripture; the ‘survival’ of Wycliffism in the run-up to Henry VIII’s reformation; and the fate of Wyclif and Wycliffism in later historiography. Leading contributors include Anne Hudson, Alastair Minnis, and Peter Marshall.