Search results for ""medieval institute publications""

Essays in this volume explore wide-ranging topics: Constantinople, Cloistered Women, Popes and Holy Images, Kingship, Pastoral Care, and Pilgrimages to the works or lives of Sidonius Apollinaris, Gregory of Tours, John Damascene, and Anselm of Havelberg. Like the scholarship of the man who inspired the essays (Richard Sullivan) the essays are broad and incisive.

Read more less

The medieval cycle plays from such cities as York and Chester culminated in a drama about the end of time, the Last Judgment. David Bevington and the other contributors to this book look at this final event of history as depicted in pre-modern times, and the result is a work of scholarly precision that, according to Bevington's introduction, attempts to see medieval drama in the context of other medieval art forms.

Read more less

Proceedings of the First International Interdisciplinary Conference on Medieval Prosopography (Bielefeld, Germany, December 1982).

Read more less

While the study of rhetoric has received a much-needed revival dating from about 1945, historical writing was not a favored object of scrutiny among the many studies of rhetoric's influence on medieval literature, education, and preaching (from the introduction). By 1978, some scholars had resolved to rectify this problem, and organized sessions at the thirteenth International Congress on Medieval Studies. This volume stands as a selection of works presented there, helping to fortify the strength of interest and inquiry directed toward rhetoric's symbiosis with historiography in centuries past (from the introduction).

Read more less

The publication of Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur by William Caxton was a signal event in the history of English literature and printing. Compiled to mark the five-hundredth anniversary of that occasion, this volume contains critical studies of Malory's work, supplemented by essays that place that work in the larger context of Caxton's canon. The different approaches and methodologies in the essays reflect the variety of means through which an understanding of the Morte has been sought.

Read more less

Despite the paramount importance of confraternities (especially to males) in medieval European society, scholars have tended to neglect not only the social role they played but also the influence they had on the art, drama, music, and thinking of the society in which they not only existed but thrived. This collection of essays serves to illuminate this oft-ignored facet of medieval society, and each essay carefully examines some element of the influence of confraternities on society and its products.

Read more less

An asset to any study of gender in medieval England, this volume contains three poems that complement each other in their treatments of relations between the sexes. The Floure and the Leafe explores the courtly imagery of the flower and leaf, wherein the flower symbolizes the fickleness and shallow attraction characteristic of men, compared to the evergreen persistence of the leaf, likened to the long-suffering of women. Meanwhile, The Assembly of Ladies recounts the activities of a group of women while describing the differences between the sexes. Finally, the dream poem The Isle of Ladies tells of a male dreamer's interactions with the ladies of an all-female island. All of the poems include contextualizing introductions and helpful glosses; there is also an extensive glossary for the entire volume, rendering the volume useful to not only beginning students of Middle English but also to more advanced students of this topic.

Read more less

Before he suddenly passed away, John W. Robinson was working on a manuscript that he saw as effecting a marriage between the dramatic and the theatrical, as he felt there was too large a divide between literary scholars and practitioners of the theater. In it, Robinson stated that his "purpose it to expound as plays the New Testament plays of the Wakefield Master and some of the related York plays, including two by the York Realist. . . . hop[ing] to show that the meaning and effect of the Wakefield Master's and York Realist's plays will not appear unless they are approached with the understanding that they were performed, with some idea of how they were performed, and with some appreciation of what they meant to a medieval audience." That manuscript is presented here, a close study of eight plays and the elements Robinson considers essential to performance: playwright, sponsors, location, plot, script, players, and audience.

Read more less

In recent years, Gower's reputation has begun to evolve. Scholars and critics have opened his books once more to discover there a talent worthy of respect, rather than something to be viewed as tedious or dull. Recently it has seemed easier to understand Chaucer's good will toward the moral friend and fellow author into whose tutelary watchfulness he commended Troilus and Criseyde-and easier to assess the positive value Chaucer's adjective must have borne. The thirteen essays included here all represent a fresh approach, an effort by North American and European scholars to offer a representative sample of the many diverse directions taken by Gower studies today. The essays demonstrate the life still present in Gower's work and serve as both an excellent introduction and update on the state of Gower scholarship.

Read more less

Vernacular Poetics in the Middle Ages deals with the attitudes and assumptions about vernacular poetry from the eleventh to the fifteenth century. In contrast to most previous studies, the essays consider not only the formal poetics but, more importantly, the self-conscious examination of poetry which is increasingly evident in the poems themselves in this period as writers turn from Latin to the imperfect, mutable language of the vernacular. The approaches of the contributors to this volume represent a variety of methodologies and points of view, valid in their own right, and complementary in their visions. The conclusions, in many cases, qualify our assumptions about the body of vernacular literature and draw attention to issues we must now begin to address. Scholars considering the major European vernaculars and the development of vernacular poetics will take great interest in this collection of essays that range from broad surveys of the changing conceptions of poetry to close studies of the emerging literary languages in France, Germany, Italy, England, and Scotland and the significant contributions of individual poets.

Read more less

It is the artistic use of the female voice (as role, persona, or rhetorical stance) in particular lyrical traditions or by particular poets, that is of interest here. Woman's songs are found in all parts and periods of medieval Europe; the study of medieval woman's song is primarily the study of the image of a voice. This is not an attempt to completely cover the field but to offer an introduction and guide to those who are not familiar with woman's song, and a stimulation to those who are.

Read more less

"Sir Isumbras," "Octavian," "Sir Eglamour of Artois," and "Sir Tryamour" are important works in a major literary development of the fourteenth century: the flourishing of Middle English popular romance. These four narratives were among the most popular; all survive in multiple manuscripts and continued to circulate in prints through the sixteenth century. All were composed in the northeast Midlands in the fifty years between 1325 and 1375, and they appear together in several manuscripts. The tale the romances tell—of exiled queens, orphaned children, and penitent fathers—was one of the most prevalent medieval stories. Sometimes called the Constance/Eustace legend (after two well-known pious versions), its influence can be seen in numerous romances.

Read more less

John Gower's Confessio Amantis (The Lover's Confession) is one of the most important English works of the Fourteenth Century. Within its frame of the lovesick lover's confession are well over a hundred stories, mainly derived from classical mythology, the Bible, and history which exemplify the Middle Ages. Echoing the octosyllabic line of the original, this is the first translation of the entire (33,000-line) poem, including its Latin verses and glosses.

Read more less

Focusing on the ninth-century beginnings of Byzantine writings against the Latin addition of the Filioque to the creed, Inventing Latin Heretics illuminates several aspects of Byzantine thought-their self-definition, their theology, their uniquely constituted state-based both on what they had to say for themselves and on modern approaches to the study of group identity, religious conflict, and sociology of knowledge. The book introduces the concept of heresiology in general, defining terms, summarizing a vast body of secondary scholarship, and bringing the history of Byzantine antiheretical texts down to the ninth century. It discusses relations between Latin and Greek Christians before and into the time of Photios, as well as his knowledge of Latin customs. The next chapters examine the transmission, form, and contents of the three anti-Filioque texts attributed to Photios and other texts that exemplify what ninth-century Byzantines were saying about Latin errors, raising textual questions that cannot be ignored and ultimately providing a window onto Byzantine mentalities.

Read more less

The Cloud of Unknowing describes the contemplative method centered around eliminating all noise and images from the mind, and in that encounter with nothingness, finding God. Meanwhile, despite the austerity of the content, the style of the author is warm and congenial and eminently readable. Patrick J. Gallacher further makes this text accessible to students and teachers by including a gloss, introduction, notes, and glossary. This text gives a great introduction to the ethos of mysticism in the middle ages.

Read more less

This volume serves as an excellent introduction to Middle English, Scottish poetry. Gavin Douglas's The Palis of Honoure is a dream poem from early sixteenth-century Scotland. It operates within the courtly tradition of Scottish poetry, establishing a dichotomy of earthly and heavenly things, instructing the audience in becoming more like the heavenly things in their comportment. This edition includes an ample gloss and notes, as well as an informative introduction and glossary, making it a perfect edition for use in classrooms of all levels.

Read more less

The collection opens with Gneuss's Rawlinson Center lecture, delivered just a few months prior to the Handlist's publication. The lecture is followed by essays by Donald Scragg and Thomas N. Hall that examine the scribes, contents, circumstances of production, and intended uses of selected manuscripts from the late Anglo-Saxon period. Four essays follow, by Kees Dekker, Rebecca Brackmann, Aaron J Kleist, and Rolf H. Bremmer Jr., investigating the fates of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts at the hands of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century antiquaries. The resulting collection addresses the concerns of Anglo-Saxon manuscript studies today, which have been given new energy by the publication of the Handlist.

Read more less

Beginning in 1987, the yearbook was the preeminent venue for scholarship on "Piers Plowman"; on related poems in the tradition of didactic alliterative verse and on the historical, religious, and intellectual contexts in which such poems were produced in late medieval England. Each volume contains essays, reviews and an annotated bibliography.

Read more less

In recent years, Gower's reputation has begun to evolve. Scholars and critics have opened his books once more to discover there a talent worthy of respect, rather than something to be viewed as tedious or dull. Recently it has seemed easier to understand Chaucer's good will toward the moral friend and fellow author into whose tutelary watchfulness he commended Troilus and Criseyde-and easier to assess the positive value Chaucer's adjective must have borne. The thirteen essays included here all represent a fresh approach, an effort by North American and European scholars to offer a representative sample of the many diverse directions taken by Gower studies today. The essays demonstrate the life still present in Gower's work and serve as both an excellent introduction and update on the state of Gower scholarship.

Read more less

This compelling volume contains ten articles drawn from papers presented at the Sixth Triennial Colloquium of the International Society for the Study of the Medieval Theatre. Each essay examines the fascinating connection between medieval art and medieval drama, which, when presented together in a single volume, comprehensively represent the wide range of approaches on the topic. The connections between medieval art and drama are explored in topics ranging from English mystery plays to the Assumption to the Cuzco Corpus Christi paintings.

Read more less

Surveys of the history of biblical exegesis and, in particular, the history of Apocalypse commentaries rarely fail to allude to Nicholas of Lyra O.F.M. (1270-1349) as the greatest biblical exegete of the fourteenth century. Late medieval and Reformation verses were written about him. Nicholas was born in the town of Lyre, near Evreux in Normandy. Since Evreux was a center of Jewish studies, he was able to cultivate his interest in Hebrew and to become thoroughly acquainted with the Talmud, Midrash, and the works of Rashi (Solomon ben Issac, 1045-1105). Lyra's attraction to Rashi's literal method would have a profound influence on his exegetical style.

Read more less

Technology, Guilds, and Early English Drama is designed to open up a broader scope of study that calls attention to both social organization and material culture as integrally related to the civic drama of England in cities such as Coventry, York, and Chester. It addresses many questions that have been frequently asked about the sources and design of those things that were used in the production of plays. The book will serve as a model for future interdisciplinary research based on records, archaeological finds, evidence from the visual arts, and the playtexts themselves.

Read more less

This collection represents most of the papers delivered on the conference theme of the Fifth Meeting (1991) of the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists, which was the first ISAS meeting in the United States: how the subject of Anglo-Saxon Studies is conducted in the United States. After an introduction by the dean of Anglo-Saxon Studies in America, Fred C. Robinson, the seventeen papers discuss Historiography, Medieval Reception of Anglo-Saxon England, Art and Archaeology, Literary Approaches, and Manuscript Studies. There is an index of the whole, manuscript citations included.

Read more less

"Since the audience for this text is assumed to be primarily students of medieval history, nothing from a specifically literary text has been included. Further, since archaeology deals in artifacts and other physical remains, it is impractical to supply material from that discipline. Therefore, only material from record sources is provided . . . These are the only written materials that permit some measure of personalized contact with specific men and women from the past, so this gives them a special importance." - from the Introduction

Read more less

This volume collects poems and historical documents relevant to understanding the political climate of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Britain, many of which have been out of print for a century. This new edition, geared towards classroom use with its notes, introductions, gloss, and glossary, opens up the fascinating study of late medieval English history. This volume contains five sections: Poems of Political Prophecy; Anticlerical Poems and Documents; Literature of Richard II's Reign and the Peasants' Revolt; Poems against Simony and the Abuse of Money; and Plowman Writings-all tied together by a common attitude of satire and complaint, and a distrust of those who may abuse power. This volume would make an excellent source for a class on English satire or late medieval politics.

Read more less

Audrey Ekdahl Davidson was a professor of music for many years at Western Michigan University. In honor of her retirement and her history with the Society for Old Music, an organization that she founded in 1966, this collection of music has been selected and prepared. The transcriptions were all designed for performances by the Society for Old Music, and were used in concerts for the local community, the International Congress on Medieval Studies, and other audiences in Michigan. The Society's concerts ranged from medieval chant and monophonic song to polyphonic choral works, and each concert focused on a particular topic, perhaps most successfully when music-drama was joined to liturgical display. The collection is a fitting tribute to tireless scholar, and an asset to any student of early music performance.

Read more less

Haimo of Auxerre's Commentary on the Book of Jonah was probably written as a study text for scholars in the monastery. His basic method is to present a verse from the Book of Jonah, then offer condensed versions of the diverse and occasionally contradictory interpretations of that verse that were available to him. For example, he displays familiarity with the commentaries written earlier by Jerome and Origen. He provides allegorical, literal, moral, and ecclesiastical interpretations. He moves freely between the language of his commentary and the language of the Bible, and he demonstrates the interrelatedness of his own text and biblical teachings. Sometimes he recalls interpretations from earlier in his own commentary. This rich interrelatedness makes Haimo's commentary both challenging and satisfying. In his work we can see the medieval mind at work, trying to interpret not only the biblical text but also his own world.

Read more less

There are few experiences as discouraging to a researcher trained in art history, drama, music, folk arts, or social history as the first encounter with an original medieval or Renaissance document. Despite Satan's claim, there is little comfort in the company of others who are miserable, but it may be comforting to know that many untrained researchers have learned to read original documents without formal instruction or years of practice. While some of the skills of a professional paleographer—the ability to identify various transitional hands, localize regional variations, or date documents by their handwriting, for instance—do require considerable training, a researcher can learn on his or her own to make some sense of a manuscript with little help on the way letters were formed, on standard abbreviations and formulaic constructions, and on the sheer need to practice transcription. Wasson here provides the basic tools necessary to transcribe documents, without regard for the historical development of alphabets, letter forms, and the like. This manual will be of great interest to scholars of the arts in need of a guide for their journeys into the archives.

Read more less

Illustrations and major decoration of sixteen Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, fully described and indexed, are reproduced here in 454 photographs, many for the first time. Manuscripts included are: the Athelstan Psalter, the Harley Psalter, the Bury Psalter, the Paris Psalter, the Boulogne Gospels, the Arenberg Gospels, the Trinity Gospels, the Eadui Codex, Pembroke College MS 301, the Bury Gospels, the Judith of Flanders Gospels (Pierpont Morgan MSS 709 and 708), the Monte Casino Gospel Book, the Hereford Gospels, the Psychomachia of Prudentius, and the Junius Manuscript.

Read more less

This volume would comprise a great unit on anticlerical poetry in late medieval England, collecting Piers the Plowman's Crede, The Plowman's Tale, Jack Upland, Friar Daw's Reply, Upland's Rejoinder, and Why I Can't Be a Nun. These Middle English poems attack ecclesiastical corruption; most of the poems were written by disgruntled Lollards about clerics and friars in the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century. Piers the Plowman's Crede deals with a poor man trying to learn the Apostle's Creed from friars, who cannot teach him and only want his money; eventually the man can only learn the creed from Piers the Plowman. The Plowman's Tale casts an anticlerical tale in the mold of one of the Canterbury Tales. Jack Upland, Friar Daw's Reply, and Upland's Rejoinder comprise a debate over the hypocrisy of friars. Meanwhile, Why I Can't Be a Nun decries the sins of nuns in convents. These texts are well glossed and include introductions and copious notes, making them approachable for students of Middle English of any level of experience.

Read more less

The abbreviated Psalms commentary by Honorius Augustodunensis (ca. 1070 – ca. 1140)—a redaction of his own, much larger commentary on the entire Psalter—participates in a long tradition of Christian interpretation of the Book of Psalms. A prolific author closely associated with Anselm of Canterbury, Rupert of Deutz, and Gilbert of Poitiers, Honorius wrote a massive commentary on the Psalms when the so-called “school of Laon” was at work on the Glossa ordinaria. Honorius’s work shares the academic interest of that school, while simultaneously serving the devotion of the Benedictine Reform. His Exposition of Selected Psalms highlights a tripartite division of the Psalter, even as it discovers in the psalms an apocalypticism fitting to the Church in its last age.

Read more less

Blanchardyn and Eglantine and Paris and Vienne were last edited in 1890 and 1957, respectively. The proposed edition incorporates recent scholarship and criticism, including new critical editions of French texts closely related to Caxton’s sources for both romances. Other relevant scholarly traditions include: studies of the two romances and late medieval romance in England and France; gender studies, especially the role of women in these narratives; scholarship relating to the owners and readers of Caxton’s romances and associated manuscripts; studies of courtesy literature and its relationship to romance; and scholarship on Caxton, his career, publications, prose style, and language.

Read more less

The renowned scholar-poet John of Garland wrote the Integumenta Ovidii (“Allegories on Ovid”) in early thirteenth-century Paris at a time of renewed interest in Classical Latin literature. In this short poem, John offers a series of dense, highly allusive allegories on various Greek and Roman myths in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. This important but difficult work has fascinated and challenged generations of modern students and scholars. The text is here edited and translated for the first time in 90 years, drawing on the evidence of over two dozen manuscripts. Comprehensive explanatory notes help readers to understand John’s condensed allegories in their medieval context. Textual notes discuss the various difficulties in the transmitted text of the poem, and offer several improvements on the texts of the older editions.

Read more less

This is the first critical edition of The Honourable, Pleasant and Rare Conceited Historie of Palmendos (London, 1589), a chivalric romance translated into English by Anthony Munday. The original text, Primaleón de Grecia I (Salamanca, 1512), soon became a bestseller on the Spanish market and was translated into many continental European languages. Munday’s translation derives from the French version by François de Vernassal (1550). It comprises the first thirty-two chapters of the French text and focuses on the adventures of Palmendos on his journey to Constantinople. Anthony Munday died in 1633 at the age of seventy-three. He left behind a long career as a poet, playwright, author of civic pageantry, chronicle writer, pamphleteer and translator that made him one of the most versatile and prolific authors of his age. A controversial figure in his own time, he worked as a spy for Elizabeth’s government and wrote and translated works of religious controversy as well as pamphlets on contemporary European politics. This is an original-spelling edition that produces a text as close as possible to Munday’s original manuscript.

Read more less

This sourcebook is designed to introduce students to the everyday lives of the Jews who lived in the German Empire, northern France and England from the 11th to the mid-14th centuries. The volume consists of translations of primary sources written by or about medieval Jews, each source accompanied by an introduction that provides historical context. Through the sources, students can become familiar with the spaces that Jews frequented, their daily practices and rituals and their thinking. The subject matter ranges from culinary preferences and even details of sexual lives, to garments, objects and communal buildings. The documents testify to how Jews enacted their Sabbath and holidays, celebrated their weddings, births and other lifecycle events, and mourned their dead. Some of the sources focus on the relationships they had with their Christian neighbours, the local authorities and the Church, while others shed light on their economic activities and professions. With contributions by members of the "Beyond the Elite: Jewish Daily Life in Medieval Europe" research team: Neta Bodner, Nureet Dermer, Aviya Doron, Miri Fenton, Etelle Kalaora, Albert Kohn, Andreas Lehnertz, Adi Namia-Cohen, Hannah Teddy Schachter and Amit Shafran.

Read more less

This sourcebook is designed to introduce students to the everyday lives of the Jews who lived in the German Empire, northern France and England from the 11th to the mid-14th centuries. The volume consists of translations of primary sources written by or about medieval Jews, each source accompanied by an introduction that provides historical context. Through the sources, students can become familiar with the spaces that Jews frequented, their daily practices and rituals and their thinking. The subject matter ranges from culinary preferences and even details of sexual lives, to garments, objects and communal buildings. The documents testify to how Jews enacted their Sabbath and holidays, celebrated their weddings, births and other lifecycle events, and mourned their dead. Some of the sources focus on the relationships they had with their Christian neighbours, the local authorities and the Church, while others shed light on their economic activities and professions. With contributions by members of the "Beyond the Elite: Jewish Daily Life in Medieval Europe" research team: Neta Bodner, Nureet Dermer, Aviya Doron, Miri Fenton, Etelle Kalaora, Albert Kohn, Andreas Lehnertz, Adi Namia-Cohen, Hannah Teddy Schachter and Amit Shafran.

Read more less

One of the most popular mirrors for princes, Christine de Pizan's Epistre Othea (Letter of Othea) circulated widely in England. Speaking through Othea, the goddess of wisdom and prudence, in the guise of instructing Hector of Troy, Christine advises rulers, defends women against misogyny, and articulates complex philosophical and theological ideals. This volume brings together for the first time the two late medieval English translations, Stephen Scrope's precise translation The Epistle of Othea and the anonymous Litel Bibell of Knyghthod, once criticized as a flawed translation. With substantial introductions and comprehensive explanatory notes that attend to literary and manuscript traditions, this volume contributes to the reassessment of how each English translator grappled with adapting a French woman's text to English social, political, and literary contexts. These new editions encourage a fresh look at how Christine's ideas fit into and influenced the English literary tradition.

Read more less

This volume joins new editions of both texts of John Lydgate's The Dance of Death, related Middle English verse, and a new translation of Lydgate's French source, the Danse macabre. Together these poems showcase the power of the danse macabre motif, offering a window into life and death in late medieval Europe. In vivid, often grotesque, and darkly humorous terms, these poems ponder life's fundamental paradox: while we know that we all must die, we cannot imagine our own death.

Read more less

In the early ninth century Theodulf of Orleans and Smaragdus of Saint Mihiel served as advisers to Charlemagne. This book provides English translations of a Latin commentary on the Apocalypse written by Theodulf and three homilies on the Apocalypse by Smaragdus. A comprehensive essay introduces these texts, their authors, sources and place in ninth-century biblical exegesis.

Read more less

"Medieval Prosopography" was founded in 1980 when methodologies of social science were combined with social history in an attempt to explore and explicate the lives of people who, when treated as individuals, often remain obscure. Because relatively few sources were created by or about individuals during the Middle Ages the prosopographical method of analysis of groups of people has lent itself especially well to medieval history. The aim of this annual journal is to provide a venue for work engaged with the methodology of using data drawn from analysis of a group or relationships between individuals to restore to view the lives of those who would otherwise remain unexamined or to yield new insight into the medieval past. Scholarship taking the approach of collective or group biography also falls under the umbrella of prosopography and would be appropriate for the journal. Over the past four decades, "Medieval Prosopography" has published articles on a range of subjects from all periods and places of medieval history. The journal welcomes submissions on topics that relate to prosopography from late antiquity to the sixteenth century. Work on all areas and relevant aspects of the medieval world, including Islam and Byzantium, are welcome. Articles in the major European languages are invited and will be published in their original language.

Read more less

This volume addresses the history of saints and sainthood in the Middle Ages in the Baltic Region, with a special focus on the cult of saints in Russia, Prussia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, and Latvia (Livonia). Essays explore such topics as the introduction of foreign (and "old") saints into new regions, the creation of new local cults of saints in newly Christianized regions, the role of the cult of saints in the creation of political and lay identities, and the potential role of saints in times of war.

Read more less

In The Third Gender, McDaniel addresses the idea of the "third gender" in early hagiography and Latin treatises on virginity and then examines Aelfric's treatment of gender in his translations of Latin monastic Lives for his non-monastic audiences. She first investigates patristic ideas about a "third gender" by describing this concept within the theoretical frameworks of monasticism and then turns to creating a historical and theological cultural context within which to locate an interpretation of Aelfric's portrayals of male and female saints.

Read more less

In this volume, readers experience, in English translation, the colorful and varied textual fabric of the most important literary and creative repertory of the Middle Ages. The public, organized worship of the Church had a central role in medieval life. Studying its forms and genres allows readers not only to become aware of one of the most important influences on culture and religion, but also to consider these texts, which were widely disseminated and had fundamental effects on daily life.

Read more less

The Tractatus de tonis of Guy of Saint-Denis (written ca. 1300-10) differs from other treatises on plainchant in the depth of its analysis of the various tones into which chant was traditionally classified. Guy's treatise presents itself as a synthetic overview of both the theory and practice of plainchant in a way that combines the practical reflection of Guido of Arezzo with ideas of more Aristoteleian inspired theorists such as Johannes de Grocheio and Peter of Auvergne.

Read more less

The Tractatus de tonis of Guy of Saint-Denis (written ca. 1300-10) differs from other treatises on plainchant in the depth of its analysis of the various tones into which chant was traditionally classified. The treatise of Guy of Saint-Denis is preserved as the concluding item in an anthology of texts about plainchant that Guy compiled (now London, British Library, MS Harley 281), beginning with some writings of Guido of Arezzo and a Cistercian tonary, but also including the Ars musice of Johannes de Grocheio and the Tractatus de tonis of Petrus de Cruce. Guy's treatise presents itself as a synthetic overview of both the theory and practice of plainchant in a way that combines the very practical reflection of Guido of Arezzo with ideas of more Aristoteleian inspired theorists such as Johannes de Grocheio and Peter of Auvergne.

Read more less

Caroline M. Barron is the world's leading authority on the history of medieval London. For half a century she has investigated London's role as medieval England's political, cultural, and commercial capital, together with the urban landscape and the social, occupational, and religious cultures that shaped the lives of its inhabitants. This collection of eighteen papers focuses on four themes: crown and city; parish, church, and religious culture; the people of medieval London; and the city's intellectual and cultural world. They represent essential reading on the history of one of the world's greatest cities by its foremost scholar.

Read more less

Though little-known today, Nicholas of Lyra's commentaries are arguably among the most widely-read and influential commentaries of all time. For more than two hundred years, from the time of their composition, well into the Reformation era, they were copied and recopied, printed and reprinted, as an indispensable guide to the meaning of scripture. Naumann presents here a complete translation of Lyra's literal commentary on Galatians in English for the first time, with a freshly-edited Latin text, and provides ample notes on its significance in relation to the works of previous authors.

Read more less