Giles Constable presents the first critical edition of the letters of Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny from 1122 to 1156, to appear since the first printed edition was published in 1522. The text, based upon a comparison of all known manuscripts, is printed in Volume I and is an important source for the history of the first half of the twelfth century. An introduction, appendices, and notes which touch broadly upon the ecclesiastical, intellectual, and political history of the period are provided in Volume II.
Starting from the premise of the letter as literary artefact, with a potential for ambiguity, irony and textual allusion, this innovative analysis of the correspondence between the Cluniac abbot, Peter the Venerable, and the future saint, Bernard of Clairvaux, challenges the traditional use of these letters as a source for historical and (auto)biographical reconstruction. Applying techniques drawn from modern theories of epistolarity and contemporary literary criticism to letters treated as whole constructs, Knight demonstrates the presence of a range of manipulative strategies and argues for the consequent production of a significant degree of fictionalisation. She traces the emergence of an epistolarly sequence which forms a kind of extended narrative, drawing its authority from Augustine and Jerome, and rooted in classical rhetoric. The work raises important implications both for the study of relations between Cluniacs and Cistercians in the first half of the 12th century and for the approach to letter-writing as a whole.
For over four centuries the principal source of Christian European knowledge of Islam stemmed from a project sponsored by Peter the Venerable, ninth abbot of Cluny, in 1142. This consisted of Latin translations of five Arabic works, including the first translation of the Koran in a western language. Known as the Toledan Collection, it was eventually printed in 1543 with an introduction by Martin Luther. The abbot also completed a handbook of Islam beliefs and a major analytical and polemical work, Liber contra sectam Saracenorum; annotated editions of these texts are included in this book. Originally published in 1964. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
In this collection of over 100 primary sources, many translated for the first time, Faith Wallis reveals the dynamic world of medicine in the Middle Ages that has been largely unavailable to students and scholars.
An exhaustive guide to every significant Christian theologian who lived from the first century to 1308, the year in which John Duns Scotus died. The dictionary encompasses the Catholic, Orthodox, Nestorian and Monophysite traditions, including information not previously available in English. Thoroughly indexed, the dictionary incorporates common variants of names and concepts which will help and direct the reader. The main criterion for inclusion has been contribution to the development of Christian theology. Sub-criteria by which that is measured include, above all, originality and influence on later figures. With over 290 entries, the dictionary provides a handy summary of theologiansi lives and writings together with recent scholarship,as well as an up-to-date, definitive bibliography listing primary texts, translations and secondary literature in the major western European languages. Useful for all levels of academia; no other text matches the depth of the dictionaryis bibliographies. The unprecedented thoroughness of Hill's compilation provides an essential resource for studies at all levels on such a large and varied range of Church thinkers.
This book provides a needed overview of the scholarship on medieval public culture and popular movements such as the Peace of God, heresy, and the crusades and illustrates how a changing sense of the populus, the importance of publics and public opinion and public spheres was influential in the evolution of medieval cultures. Public opinion did play an important role, even in the Middle Ages; it did not wait until the era of modern history to do so. Using modern research on such aspects of culture as textual communities, large and small publics, cults, crowds, rumor, malediction, gossip, dispute resolution and the European popular revolution, the author focuses on the Peace of God movement, the era of Church reform in the tenth and eleventh centuries, the rise and combat of heresy, the crusades, and the works of fourteenth-century political thinkers such as Marsiglio of Padua regarding the role of the populus as the basis for the analysis. The pattern of changes reflected in this study argues that just as in the modern world the simplistic idea of “the public” was a phantom. Instead there were publics large and small that were influential in shaping the cultures of the era under review.
In Figuring Racism in Medieval Christianity, M. Lindsay Kaplan expands the study of the history of racism through an analysis of the Christian concept of Jewish hereditary inferiority. Imagined as a figural slavery, this idea anticipates modern racial ideologies in creating a status of permanent, inherent subordination. Unlike other studies of early forms of racism, this book places theological discourses at the center of its analysis. It traces an intellectual history of the Christian doctrine of servitus Judaeorum, or Jewish enslavement, imposed as punishment for the crucifixion. This concept of hereditary inferiority, formulated in patristic and medieval exegesis through the figures of Cain, Ham, and Hagar, enters into canon law to enforce the spiritual, social, and economic subordination of Jews to Christians. Characterized as perpetual servitude, this status shapes the construction of Jews not only in canon law, but in medicine, natural philosophy, and visual art. By focusing on inferiority as a category of analysis, Kaplan sharpens our understanding of contemporary racism as well as its historical development. The damaging power of racism lies in the ascription of inferiority to a set of traits and not in bodily or cultural difference alone; in the medieval context, theological authority affirms discriminatory hierarchies as a reflection of divine will. Medieval theological discourses created a racial rationale of Jewish hereditary inferiority that also served to justify the servile status of Muslims and Africans. Kaplan's discussion of this history uncovers the ways in which racism circulated in pre-modernity and continues to do so in contemporary white supremacist discourses that similarly seek to subordinate these groups.
