The Sea and Medieval English Literature
The Sea and Medieval English Literature

Author: Sebastian I. Sobecki

Publisher: DS Brewer

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 234

ISBN-13: 9781843841371

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A fresh and invigorating survey of the sea as it appears in medieval English literature, from romance to chronicle, hagiography to autobiography. As the first cultural history of the sea in medieval English literature, this book traces premodern myths of insularity from their Old English beginnings to Shakespeare's Tempest. Beginning with a discussion of biblical, classical and pre-Conquest treatments of the sea, it investigates how such works as the Anglo-Norman Voyage of St Brendan, the Tristan romances, the chronicles of Matthew Paris, King Horn, Patience, The Book of Margery Kempe and The Libelle of Englyshe Polycye shape insular ideologies of Englishness. Whether it is Britain's privileged place in the geography of salvation or the political fiction of the idyllic island fortress, medieval English writers' myths of the sea betray their anxieties about their own insular identity; their texts call on maritime motifs to define England geographically and culturally against the presence of the sea. New insights from a range of fields, including jurisprudence, theology, the history of cartography and anthropology, are used to provide fresh readings of a wide range of both insular and continental writings.

Law, History, the Low Countries and Europe
Law, History, the Low Countries and Europe

Author: Ludovicus Milis

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 1994-01-01

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 1852850884

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R.C. Van Caenegem is the successor of Henri Pirenne and of F.L. Ganshof at the University of Ghent. These essays reflect Van Caenegem's main interests over his career: the Common Law in England and Customary Law in the Low Countries; the differences between institutional development in England and in the rest of Europe; and the forces making for autocratic as opposed to representative government. A number of pieces discuss the nature of history itself: how it compares with the sciences and what it can teach us. Two essays commemorate the lives and work of Pirenne and Ganshof.

Kashefi's Anvar-e Sohayli
Kashefi's Anvar-e Sohayli

Author: Christine van Ruymbeke

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2016-11-07

Total Pages: 428

ISBN-13: 900431475X

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Kashefi’s Anvar-e Sohayli (15th c. A.D.) is a Persian rewriting of the timeless and influential Kalila wa-Dimna text, done at the Timurid court. Christine van Ruymbeke offers a first in-depth analysis of the contents and style of this important text and also addresses the Kalila wa-Dimna field across its full rewriting history. This analysis shows how Kashefi’s additions function as an invaluable commentary that opens up our understanding and the appreciation of this seminal text. This studies revisits several received ideas and current misapprehensions about the text and shows why it has been such an international best-seller before being unjustly relegated to children’s literature. In Van Ruymbeke’s words, Kalila wa-Dimna is a grim text, exposing the mechanisms of sophisticated psychological manipulation and exploring universal philosophical themes, known since Antiquity and still relevant today.

Between Demonstration and Imagination
Between Demonstration and Imagination

Author: Lodi Nauta

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 1999-04-26

Total Pages: 443

ISBN-13: 9004247505

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The essays in this volume reflect the wide-ranging interests of John D. North, distinguished historian of science and philosophy. Section One has papers on horoscopes, astrolabes and time-reckoning, and it includes an edition of a twelfth-century treatise on the astrolabe and surveys of astrolabes. Section Two is devoted to the study of the medieval cosmos. These contributions discuss Calcidian astronomy, astronomy in the Spanish Jewish community, the role of God in scholastic natural philosophy, and other themes. New information is presented about previously unknown scholars such as Abd al-Masīḥ of Winchester and Simon Bredon. Section Three contains essays on philosophy and scholarship in the early modern period, including pieces about commentaries on Boethius’s Consolatio Philosophiae in the Northern Renaissance, Spinozistic philosophy, and the early modern concept of substance. These essays take up the various themes to which John D. North has made important contributions: the development of scientific knowledge and methodology, the style of scientific and philosophical thought, and the uses of scientific knowledge in the making of instruments or the casting of horoscopes: this book will be of much interest to all historians of science and philosophy. Contributors include: Charles Burnett, Bruce S. Eastwood, Owen Gingerich, Bernard R. Goldstein, Edward Grant, Keith Hutchison, David A. King, Richard Lorch, F.R. Maddison, Lodi Nauta, Detlev Pätzold, J.A. van Ruler, Julio Samsó, Keith Snedegar, A.J. Turner, Arjo Vanderjagt, and G. Frederici Vescovini.

Republicans
Republicans

Author: Wyger Velema

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2007-10-31

Total Pages: 259

ISBN-13: 9047431111

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The notion of being freeborn republicans bound the eighteenth-century Dutch together and constituted a significant part of their sense of national identity. Yet beneath this general label, many fundamental differences existed. Republicanism could stand for anti-monarchism, but it could also be a moral doctrine emphasizing the importance of the exercise of virtue, or refer to a certain way of life. During the revolutionary years of the late eighteenth century, it came to mean the permanent and active sovereignty of the people. This book explores the many varieties of eighteenth-century Dutch republicanism from a number of different methodological perspectives. It thereby significantly contributes to our understanding of a crucial period in the development of Dutch political thought.

Saxa judaica loquuntur, Lessons from Early Jewish Inscriptions
Saxa judaica loquuntur, Lessons from Early Jewish Inscriptions

Author: Pieter W. van der Horst

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2014-10-23

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 9004283234

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In Saxa judaica loquuntur (‘Jewish stones speak out’), Pieter W. van der Horst informs the reader about the recent boom in the study of ancient Jewish epigraphy and he demonstrates what kinds of new information this development yields. After sketching the status quaestionis, this book exemplifies the relevance of early Jewish inscriptions by means of a study of Judaism in Asia Minor on the basis of epigraphic material. It also highlights several areas of research for which this material provides us with insights that the Jewish literary sources do not grant us. Furthermore, the book contains a selection of some 50 inscriptions, in both their original languages and English translation with explanatory notes.