He made contributions to botany, geology, and ornithology, as well as to astronomy, chemistry, and mathematics. Throughout his scientific career he kept a diary, recording his public and private life. The diaries from to , years spent making astronomical observations at the Cape of Good Hope, are reproduced in this book and prove to be much more than an ordinary scientist's logbook.
They present personal and social history, literary commentaries, the results of close observations of nature and numerous scientific experiments, the excitement of travel, political intrigues, gossip, and philosophical reflections—all interpreted through an alert and versatile mind. Sir John devoted his working time at the Cape primarily to a systematic observation of the southern sky, complementing his earlier ''sweeping'' of the northern sky at Slough, England.
He later became one of the founders of photography, but at the Cape he used a simple optical device, the camera lucida, in the production of numerous landscape drawings. Many of these, along with reproductions of sketches contained in the diaries and botanical drawings made by Sir John and Lady Herschel, are used to illustrate this book. Sir John was also a leading spirit in the foundation of the educational system of the Cape and a supporter of exploratory expeditions into the interior.
As the son of Sir William Herschel, in his day the most famous British astronomer and the discoverer of the planet Uranus, Sir John was already celebrated when he arrived from England. Every individual of note, resident at the Cape or visiting, went to see him. He was supported in his work by his wife, who ran an enormous establishment and bore a huge family, but who nevertheless found time to travel in the country round the western Cape with him and to assist in his observations. The diaries and letters are supplemented by especially valuable editorial notes that provide much needed and highly interesting information concerning persons and events mentioned and described by Sir John.
All the original manuscript material used in this volume is held by the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. Toon meer Toon minder. Lees de eerste pagina's. Not surprisingly, Ja- cob Burckhardt figures largely in this discussion. People generally encounter Burckhardt, not directly, but through the hands of another scholar. After his careful summary of Burckhardt, Caferro traces the main lines of the debate that followed Burckhardt and still continues.
As it stands, most scholars agree that there was a Renaissance, but there is little agreement about its central characteristics. In fact, even at an in- troductory level there is no generally accepted synthesis. The Renaissance is presented differently from one to the next; even its beginning and end dates are up for grabs. The ensuing chapters consider subtopics within the larger Renaissance de- bate. Again, Burckhardt plays a big role. He argued that Renaissance men had a keen sense of their own identity and by their skill and ability advanced their personal interest.
By contrast, medieval men saw themselves primarily as members of a group. Students meet the Renaissance primarily through talented and remarkable individuals: There are, however, some complications in the study of individualism. Scholars have often struggled to find a definition that fits the explorers—many of whom lived in the Renaissance—as well as it does the humanists. Further, the individ- ualism of the humanists is often overstated.
They too emphasized corporate bonds. This raises the question discussed in chapter 3: Joan Kelly initi- ated this debate by arguing emphatically that there was not. Admittedly, there were some exceptional women, such as Christine de Pizan. But they were exceptions, rather than examples of a larger trend. Humanism is the subject of chapter 4.
Caferro notes that Paul Oscar Kris- teller offered a particularly influential definition of humanism. Kristeller saw humanism as not necessarily opposed to scholasticism, but different from it. Scholastics were interested in philosophy and theology while humanists em- phasized grammar and rhetoric. There were some prominent phi- losophers during the Renaissance, such as Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola.
There is also debate about the centrality of Florence. That is, scholars are concerned about overemphasizing Florentine humanists. Recent work has emphasized how different localities developed their own brand of humanism. Caferro considers the economy in chapter 5. Economic history is often divorced from other branches of history. However, Caferro does highlight the work of Rob- ert Lopez, who linked Renaissance art to the vicissitudes of the economy.
The study of Renaissance politics, the subject of chapter 6, has been very much influenced by a search for the origins of the modern state. Subsequent historians have tempered this argument and recognized that Re- naissance kingdoms were heavily influenced by medieval forms. The city-states of Italy, in particular Florence, have been viewed from a different angle. Prominent scholars, such as Hans Baron, emphasized the difference between Republican government in Florence and Venice, and despotic rule in Milan.
Here too, more recent research has tempered this approach, showing that the differences were not nearly so stark. Finally, in chapter 7, Caferro examines the study of religion and science. For a long time, historians saw the Renaissance as a period of rationalism and sec- ularism, as opposed to the religiosity—and, in the eyes of some, superstition— of the Middle Ages.
They credited this change in worldview for the accom- plishments of the Renaissance. However, scholars have now abandoned this argument. Recent work has made clear that humanists were deeply religious. The scientific achievements of the Renaissance have also occasioned debate, because historians have sought the relationship between the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution that followed it.
Of course, the traditional narrative of the Renaissance lives on, precisely be- cause, as Caferro notes, it is popular. There is also no clear replacement. Yet for scholars and amateur historians who are looking for a less problematic but more complex understanding of the Renaissance this work is a great place to start. Caferro admirably accomplishes his goal of leading his readers through the historiographical debates about the Renaissance.
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Jeffrey Bloechl, a prolific writer in the field of philosophy of religion, has compiled an assemblage of essays addressing the intersection of secularism and theology as part of a series entitled Thresholds in Philosophy and Theology with Kevin Hart as co-editor of the series. The volume consists of nine essays, many of which were originally presented as outlines for a seminar organized by the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture at the College of the Holy Cross.
The present volume begins with Adriaan T. How Natural Is Reason? How Universal is Faith? By cri- tiquing modern reason, Peperzak opens up the door to other elements, such as the role of emotion and the heart, the role of discipleship, and the role of com- munication, affection, and a return to faith. Marrone and Andreas Speer. Thomas Aquinas and the Italian Renaissance. Casarella wraps his survey with his own insightful conclusion on the nature of religion and secular reason. One sphere cannot be substituted for another and neither can exist in a vacuum.
Corrigan advocates a breakdown of the boundaries be- tween the two spheres and an opening to both academic and non-academic approaches. Lacoste ponders the dialectic between theology as a rational articulation of God as love, and philosophy as involving analysis of the phenomenality of freedom, hope, and faith. Hart examines three different premises: Swindal understands that the secular order does not erase the religious, as religion is well suited to exis- tentialism and secularism is not completely divorced from religiosity and in fact can contribute to an understanding of spirituality.
In this context, Swindal wonders how could prayer in public school be unwelcome. In the end, both Benedict and Lonergan agree that moder- nity can only provide a limited sensibility while theology can provide human beings with a higher purpose. Jeffrey Bloechl has compiled an intelligent, inquisitive, and far-ranging vol- ume of essays exploring the many facets and implications of Christianity and secularity, and for that he is to be lauded. The topic selection and its develop- ment are welcome additions to the scholarship in this most relevant area of discussion. Hieatt Blackawton, Totnes, UK: Prospect Books pp.
The food of the Middle Ages has gradually captured the imagination of medie- valists over the past generation. One of the first scholars to seriously study and edit medieval European recipes, Constance Hieatt published her final cookery edition before her death in December Hieatt was also a scholar of medie- val English literature, but actively published a variety of culinary articles and manuscript editions, recipe compendiums, and adaptations of medieval recipes for modern cooks beginning in the s.
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While smaller in scope than many of her projects, Cocatrice and Lampray Hay: This edition and translation is based on a group of culinary recipes in a fif- teenth-century manuscript written in Middle English, Corpus Christi College Oxford MS F Hieatt collaborated with Sharon Butler, also now deceased, on the project of transcribing and editing the manuscript.
Hieatt and Butler worked together on other medieval cookery editions and modern recipe adapta- tions, including Curye on Inglysch: Hieatt and Butler initially en- countered MS F around , but set the manuscript aside due to its diffi- cult nature. The vocabulary, unusual instructions, and even some culinary prep- arations proved too challenging until Hieatt returned to the manuscript after decades of experience Cocatrice and Lampray Hay contains three main sections: Thirteenth through Fifteenth Centuries, co-au- thored with J.
Terry Nutter and Johnna Holloway. The heart of Cocatrice and Lampray Hay, the cookery text, now consists of 99 recipes. Following each recipe transcription, Hieatt provides a modern Eng- lish translation and a commentary. The commentary is particularly valuable, containing literary and historical notes, as well as occasional suggestions for readers interested in preparing the recipes.
As an edition rather than a monograph, Cocatrice and Lampray Hay does not contain a grand historical or literary argument. However, Hieatt repeatedly stresses the uniqueness of this text, and indeed, the recipes are exceptional. It is this characteristic which will appeal to a variety of scholars within medieval studies. Although many recipes in this collection are familiar to readers inter- ested in medieval food, the collection has no relationship to any other known manuscript cookeries and was composed independently of extant culinary texts.
The recipes are longer and more detailed than most extant medieval recipes, even containing specifications of ingredient quantities. Scholars of medieval literature and authorship will find the strong, yet often forgetful, authorial voice distinct and intriguing. The original author seems absentminded yet determined to record these recipes; as a result, the text is much more colorful than the typical medieval recipe. Although the recipe collection includes preparations for typical noble feast fare, such as veal, capon, swan, and porpoise, other dishes prove most unusual.
The mythical cockatrice, or basilisk, appears as a dish constructed from parts of a pig and cock. Cocatrice and Lampray Hay proves to be another excellent medieval cook- ery edition by Hieatt. The role of Prospect Books in creating such a volume should not be neglected: Medie- valists who require a convenient resource for substantive or summative infor- mation on historical culinary topics should embrace these volumes. Like other editions in the Prospect Books catalogue, the transcription, commentary, and notes in Cocatrice and Lampray Hay are useful and easy to reference.
The weaknesses of the book, then, are minor. First, Hieatt excludes substantial dis- cussion of the physical qualities of the manuscript, only briefly mentioning the quality of the ink and pages in one sentence. Second, the edition does not con- tain any images of the manuscript. Especially after reading the introduction, which touted the rarity of the manuscript, I eagerly awaited a visual example or, minimally, more attention to detailed descriptions of condition, marginalia, and presentation.
Because the ordinary and extraordinary merge in this recipe collection, it is both an ideal introduction to medieval culinary customs and a fresh text for the seasoned food scholar. Harvard University Press pp. Colors Between Two Worlds: Waldman, is a collection of essays resulting from a conference that strove to analyze the Codex in innovative manners and greater depth than ever before.
The book is also organized somewhat chronologically, beginning with the context of its production, mov- ing to the materials and methods of its production, its reception and context in Europe and then back to the New World for a comparison with texts from other locations. This book accomplishes the goal of rediscovering and reanalyzing the Florentine Codex through color phenomenally. Through a sustained and thorough analysis of the more than drawings, Kerpel strives to understand how they were made, including what materials, colors, or processes were used, how many painters participated in the project, and how they were organized.
The drawings are grouped by color and themes such as: Earth and Sky; coloring with flowers; coloring with minerals; the use of Maya blue and Emer- ald Green; the coloring of time; black and white rhetoric; and the colors of the rainbow. Through this method Magaloni Kerpel sheds light on the drawings themselves, and also on the artists, their techniques, and how these artists viewed their evolving world.
This chapter is a scientific analysis of the pigments and chemical compositions of the drawings in the Codex. While the first part of the book is dedicated specifically to the Codex, its colors, the plants represented, its structure, and the role of the indigenous scribes, the second part of the book has a broader focus so as to further con- textualize the Codex. Matthew looks at the pigment trade in Europe. Thomas Cummins argues that while in Mexico there was a vibrant and established tradition of production of illustrated documents, in which all groups participated, in Peru the situation was diametrically the opposite.
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This is bourn out by the fact that while in Mexico there were thou- sands of texts, in Peru there were only three. While the second part of the book may, at first, seem disjointed with the de- clared topic of color in the Florentine Codex, these comparative investigations are in fact extremely complementary and broaden the scope of exploration. By including texts beyond the Codex, the scholars in fact help to deepen the expla- nation of the significance of the Codex and anchor it within its time period in both Europe and the Americas. Colors between Two Worlds: Codicologists, historians, scholars interested in the colonial period in the Americas, scholars studying effects of the new world in Europe, and those interested in inter-racial studies should all begin by reading this book.
Ben Parsons and Bas Jongenelen Cambridge: A rich and varied dramatic tradition existed in the late medieval and early Re- naissance Low Countries. Some scholarly attention has been paid to the serious or tragic Dutch drama of this era, especially since the social, religious, and political turmoil of the Refor- mation and the Dutch wars of independence provide a natural entry into think- ing about those theatrical pieces. But as Ben Parsons and Bas Jongenelen argue, the comic drama of this period also repays scholarly attention, especially given the historicist turn of the last few decades of scholarship.
Many historicist scholars have had no access to this drama, however, since they do not read Dutch and most of this drama remains untranslated. Parsons and Jongenelen have thus done the scholarly community a great service in selecting ten fasci- nating pieces of theatrical comedy and translating them from Dutch into acces- sible modern English. This critical anthology of Comic Drama in the Low Countries, c. We can now hope that others will take a look. The editors have selected ten pieces of Dutch comic drama of two main types.
They can be quite lengthy, often approach- ing three hundred lines. Second, Parsons and Jongenelen have chosen five farces, pieces that require multiple actors and give a sense of the comic tastes in the Renaissance Low Countries. In each case, the editors have printed the original Dutch and the modern English translation on facing pages. The trans- lations are mostly accurate and accessible, though some ambiguity in the Dutch may have carried over into the English. The dramatic texts are sparingly edited, with no interpolated stage directions.
Such an intervention might have made the text even more useful for classroom purposes, as students may not be adept at imagining the action implicit in some speeches. Very helpfully, the editors preface each piece with a lengthy headnote, in which they introduce the piece and place it in context, often with reference to similar genres and themes.
The editors begin their anthology with a substantial critical introduction that develops the understudied tradition of Dutch comic drama. Such contests were a source of civic pride and the prizes for comic success could be just as meaningful as those for trag- edy.
Samenvatting
Like the serious drama of the time, the comedies written by these Dutch rhetoricians participated in the humanist revival of classical material and could draw on or allude to Latin sources. Moreover, as Parsons and Jongenelen show, the comic drama could carry with it a serious intention, serving to promote devotion and instruct its audiences, particularly the youth.
Of course, the comic tradition exhibits traits that are uniquely suited to that form of theatre. Further, the comic drama has a unique character type, the zot, and this character figures prominently in the plays in this anthology. Other aspects of these comedies have a biting edge that aligns them with late medieval and early modern estates satire, critical especially of the indifference and corruption of certain elite groups.
The editors have tapped a rich vein in the vital and diverse tradition of ver- nacular Dutch comic drama. They have made texts that might have otherwise remained somewhat obscure available to a wider readership and increased the likelihood that serious attention to comedy from the early modern Low Coun- tries may gain some momentum.
And, of course, this could also be said of other national traditions. Making these texts more broadly avail- able will help new audiences to appreciate the comic plays of the early modern period and spark an interest in the windows they open onto early modern cul- ture. Contacts and Concepts in Medieval Brit- ain Philadelphia: Other medievalists have brought Animal Theory to the study of indi- vidual texts or used it to follow a particular thread through a series of texts, but Susan Crane casts a wider eye. Because Animal Encounters is a series of linked essays applying a methodology rather than an argument with a strong central thesis, I will review high points in several chapters.
The cat and scribe of the poem are equally pursuing their own purposeful work. Throughout her book Crane seeks to re- veal the living creature behind the text, sometimes to quite surprising effect. Chapter 2 again examines a theme through two works: For the creatures hunted, this seems right, but not for the hounds. Dogs bred by humans for specific tasks are not part of the natural, i.
One thinks of Sir Gawain being hunted for three days in the bedroom while the lord of the manor hunts down analogous beasts in the wild—two of them noble and one less so—that do end up dead, just as Gawain fears he will. Very often that trace emerges when boundaries are questioned. Some readers may criticize Crane for taking on too varied a range of materials and veering off from her clear aim into adjacent territory, but those side-essays about the hu- man-animal interface give rich support to her theme.
Just in Old English, three examples spring to mind of interspecies encounters that encourage Cranean analysis: Did the presence of cattle help Caedmon encounter a dream-angel? Hackett, pp. Erasmus has the first and last word in this version of the famous debate on free will. He needs all the help he can get, given that Luther captivates the readers with his scathing wit, pristine deductive logic, and pithy if dismissive rejoin- ders. As it stands, this volume of substantial excerpts translated by Clarence H. Miller and Peter Macardle, edited and annotated by Clarence H.
Miller, and introduced by James D. Tracy, provides Reformation scholars with the most comprehensive existing treatment of the exchange between Erasmus and Luther on the Reformation exegesis, philosophy, and politics of free will, grace, and Law. The comprehensive and detailed biographical and theological introduc- tion concisely covers the cultural history and the central doctrinal issues in- forming the debate, most notably the Pauline influences.
Such a discussion appears in the present edition in a humbly condensed form: Such an addition would be justified by the heavy emphasis on Augustine throughout the debate, as well as by the section on Augustine and merit that concludes the second part of The Shield-Bearer — A main interpretive achievement of this volume is the thoroughness and in- novation of its commentary, outline, and section headings—original contribu- tions to this edition that are not found in the original texts. In a corollary, Luther is most entertaining when he argues for extremes: The overall effect of the inclusion of the third section is to highlight the exegetical quality of the first two.
This is no longer a debate over the way St. Paul defines free will in relation to grace, the Law, and the gospel. This bifurcation destabilizes the generic determination of the debate as a dialogue, and, in so doing, aligns it with philosophical and literary texts concerned not exclusively with the doctrinal importance of free will in the history of Protes- tantism, nor the theological implications of approaching that issue, but the phe- nomenology of constituting free will as inherently tinged by the way images of it are put into words.
The discussion of grammatical moods is a case in point, and threatens to steal the show, as The Shield-Bearer carries the concerns of the debate away from an argument over free will and grace, and toward an argu- ment over the meanings of the indicative, imperative, and conditional moods, bringing previous fleeting grammatical references into the limelight 71, , Thanks to the rigor- ousness of the introduction, headings, and annotations, and to the careful translation in this volume, such an approach could found an inquiry into the relationship between the language and logic of free will and grace in the early stages of the Reformation.
Steven Vanderputten and Brigitte Meijns Leuven: Leuven University Press pp. Problems of religious communal life in the central middle ages.
Five of the essays are in French while two are in English. The essays that offer reviews of recent historiography on monasti- cism in the central Middle Ages will be greatly appreciated by readers hoping to understand where scholars have focused their energies over the last several decades. These essays, or portions of essays, allow us to map the terrain with- out having to do all of the leg work and, in that sense, are very useful to medie- val scholars. Essays moving the conversation forward will, of course, be useful to anyone reading the volume, not only scholars of medieval monasticism.
A guiding motif of the volume is a dialectic of inside and outside that relates to the back-and-forth nature of medieval perhaps all? How do monks and nuns maintain an inner life both personally and communally that is dedicated to the pursuit of God and achieving spiritual perfection while hav- ing to rely, sometimes heavily, on those outside of the monastery or endure outsiders forcing themselves in? This seems to be a helpful insight given the fact that oftentimes in the secondary literature monks and nuns are viewed as the ones on the receiving end of an aristocratic agenda as opposed to being a force that the aristocracy must take seriously.
There were, of course, always large and influential monasteries that had to be reck- oned with such as Corbie, Gorze, etc. Wilkin shows that monastics were able in many cases to free themselves from the traditional arrangements of medieval economic practices for example, the use of credit. He also shows that monastics, in their practices of management and making a profit, were striving to maintain a proper balance stabilitas as opposed to accumulating wealth.
This is an interesting argument given the fact that Cluny and its de- pendencies, for example, grew exceptionally wealthy, to the point that Bernard of Clairvaux in the twelfth century was able to demonize them for this failure in monastic lifestyle. One is left asking the question: Perhaps there is a disconnect between the textual and material evidence and the reality of medieval monastic wealth.
Is it possible that the monks, in texts, presented themselves as more benevolent than they were in actuality? A final essay to consider is that by Gert Melville. Melville operates from the perspective that the most accurate way of judging the relationships of monas- tics with the outside world is to investigate how the monks and nuns viewed themselves, rather than looking to external sources. The vita religiosa was understood to require both kinds of enclosure. Yet by the high Middle Ages there was a turn toward seeing monasticism as having two kinds of monks and nuns: Melville also marshals a number of texts to reach the same conclusion.
Overall, this is a helpful volume and should be welcomed and read by schol- ars of monasticism and those interested in the interactions of the church and society in the central Middle Ages. University of Penn- sylvania Press pp. In The Bride of Christ Goes to Hell, Elliott examines the metaphor of the sponsa Christi, or bride of Christ, as it evolved from the abstract to the literal. In her first chapter, Elliott casts Tertullian, who was decidedly against marriage, as the unlikely originator of the sponsa Christi imagery.
El- liott argues that in the late antique period there were two ways that early Chris- tians understood the relationship between gender and chastity. The first was represented by the image of the virile woman whose chaste body, like the De- sert Mothers and St. However, for Tertullian, the notion of the vita angelica became increasingly problematic as it created the context for miscegenation between female vir- gins and angels. Tertullian then used the imagery of the sponsa Christi to place female virgins, not on par with angels or men, but at the mercy of their bridegroom.
One of the more interesting developments during this period was the way in which women in- creasingly began to embrace the imagery of the sponsa Christi which afforded them both a place of honor and a recognized legal and social status, albeit at great sacrifice. Elliott also explores the case of Queen Radegund, and her male and female hagiog- raphers, who deployed the rhetoric of the sponsa Christi in various ways.
REVIEWS Elliott explores the emergence of chaste heterosexual couples such as Abe- lard and Heloise in the eleventh and twelfth centuries in chapters 4 and 5, which coincided with increasing importance of the idea of consent in medieval marriage. Elliott also analyzes the unique relationship between women and their male confessors: Elliott argues that partners in these heteroas- cetic unions described themselves as participating in a quasi-conjugal union and, in doing so, directly engaged with the language of the sponsa Christi.
In chapter 6, Elliott discusses the emergence of the eroticized bride within the hagiography of the Beguines, which happened at the moment in which mar- riage became an official sacrament of the church—a time when priests were becoming increasingly involved in the sexual lives of their parishioners. In the midst of these changes the Beguines, groups of lay women living together in communities without formal vows and with formal sanction from the church, emerged. According to Elliott, this mo- ment represented a turning point in the narrative of the sponsa Christi which was no longer restricted to the purview of monastic women but had become democratized enough to represent all women regardless of their sexual past.
In the final chapter, the democratization of the sponsa Christi becomes the demonization of the sponsa Christi who are increasingly subject to visitations from incubi, succubi, and other demonic manifestations. At times, her tone can be distracting, as there is sometimes a sense of inevitability that even the most positive incarnations of the sponsa Christi metaphor will ultimately be perverted to control the lives of devout women in increasingly devious ways.
Maijastina Kahlos, Cursor Mundi 10 Turnhout: Brepols pp. There are six articles on the subject of religious others in Part I, and three articles on the construction of ethnic others in Part II. The introduction, by Maijastina Kahlos, provides a thoughtful theoretical introduction to the construct of alterity. Oth- erness is explored as a relational category, employed to segregate or subordi- nate another group.
In the first part, Anders Klostergaard Peterson explores the rhetoric that the apostle Paul employed to characterize rival teachers in Corinth. Klostergaard Peterson begins with an extensive discussion of the process of othering, fol- lowed by a close reading of the second letter of Paul to the Corinthians. The identity that the apostle creates through his letter is dependent on a demarcation from the rival teachers. Paul also portrays the Corinthians as lacking a full under- standing of Christianity if they do not accept his leadership.
Marika Rauhala discusses Roman descriptions of the cult of Cybele, from the Republican to the late antique eras. She compares the techniques and pur- poses used by defenders of traditional Roman cults, and by the early Christians, to criticize the cult of Cybele. As Christianity grew among the Ro- man elites, the mention of eunuch priests in pagan sources came to an abrupt halt. Rauhala contends that the initial hostility towards these priests, who had challenged traditional social hierarchies by filling priestly roles that had been the exclusive domain of Roman aristocrats, was now redirected as anxiety about challenges from newly Christian elites.
Pagan elites such as Emperor Julian became keen to defend the cult of the goddess. Meanwhile, the popular- ity of the cult made it a necessary target for Christian authors, who attacked its immodest spectacles. This served to distance the two cults, which shared com- mon elements of salvation and initiation into mysteries.
Valentinus had become an influential Christian teacher in Rome in the early second century, and his fol- lowers continued to exert influence after his death. He refused to call them Christians, alluding to them only by the names of their teachers. Jacobson explores how these works were employed to reinforce Christian identity in a mixed society. In the Apologeticum, Tertullian addressed the mistreatment of Christians by Roman magistrates, which is pre- sented as proof that Roman society was turning away from the truth.
In De idololatria, Tertullian constructed boundaries separating Christians from the pagans, presenting them as idolaters. De spectaculis explained to new Chris- tians why they should avoid public shows, a part of the shared social life of the city. He wrote additional texts against Marcion, Praxeas, Hermogenes, and the Valentinians, developing his own theological position by describing their posi- tions as heretical.
Finally, women are represented as a challenge to Christian moral order. These texts defined an ideal Christian by emphasizing points of difference with other members of the larger community. The author analyzes the view of Chris- tians in the third century, when they were still in the minority, and then looks at the fifth century, when they had gained power.
The initial view of Christians as an unsettling, enemy presence was slowly reversed after the Edict of Toleration in , when non-Christian writers presented them as Romans. In the face of an increasing barbarian presence, the new emphasis was on unity and shared romanitas. Paganism was a concept invented by Christian authors to refer to a pan- oply of religious others. A series of dichotomies was employed to confirm Christian uniqueness, and the article includes an appendix listing the binary oppositions employed in Christian literature.
Kahlos also surveys the negative imagery used to depict pagans, such as beasts or disease. Conversely, the trope of the good pagan could be used as a rebuke for Christians whose behavior did not meet the ecclesiastical standard. Such constructions could be used as a weapon against political opponents or a tool to maintain discipline within the Church. The second part of this volume focuses on depictions of ethnic otherness.
Gallic and Germanic identities were creations of Roman interaction, imposing a conceptual unity on various northern peoples. Motifs of barbarism and primitivism were transferred from the Gauls to the Germanic tribes by Roman authors. Physical prowess and a warlike spirit were coupled with moral and intellectual inadequacy as traits that rendered the barbarians dangerous and unstable. With the Christianization of Germanic groups such as the Goths, a new sense of difference needed to be invented, in which heretical beliefs were seen as proof again of barbarian infe- riority.
Benjamin Isaac studies fourth-century perceptions of various groups outside the Roman Empire. The second essay by Maijastina Kahlos draws together the two threads, reli- gion and ethnicity, to examine the changing construction of Roman identity.
Similar authors to follow
Kahlos traces this change, from the Constitutio Anto- niniana of to the fourth-century definitions of heresy, to show how this reversal took place. When citizenship was extended to provincials in , Em- peror Caracalla expressed his conviction that Rome would be strengthened by the addition of new citizens honoring the Roman gods. From Decius to Diocle- tian, emperors linked the performance of traditional Roman rites to Roman loyalty and identity, while Christians were accused of disloyalty to the state for refusing to participate in those rites.
The Edict of Toleration in altered the criterion for loyalty from sacrifice to prayer. This allowed Christians to be in- cluded as loyal subjects. As the influence of Christianity grew, there was a continued shift in how Roman identity was viewed. Ambrose of Milan identi- fied non-Christian religious activity with barbarianism, a theme continued by Prudentius. Christian attempts to refine their beliefs by defining heresy meant that orthodox belief and Roman identity were further linked.
Increasingly, reli- gious dissidents were marginalized and deprived of rights as Roman subjects. A few themes emerge from this collection, which are discussed in the intro- duction. First is that the strongest sense of threat was raised by proximate groups that most closely resemble the groups creating the distinction. The identity of any group required the maintenance of clear boundaries, which were clarified by creating dichotomies between the identity-group and the other against which it defined itself. Finally, the homogenization of the other allowed boundaries to be drawn more easily.
The collection is strongest in its consideration of religious rivalry, considering this significant feature of the later Roman world from many angles. Scholars working on identity formation in this period, and more generally on the history of early Christianity in the Roman Empire, will welcome this addition to the literature. In The Case of Galileo: The Case of Galileo offers an accessible overview of the controversy in its time. Written for a popular audience, and based on a more scholarly earlier book Galileo: Fantoli introduces ancient, medieval, and early modern astronomers and concepts such as ephemerides simply and succinctly; interested non-experts should thus be able to follow the narrative with relative ease.
He pauses to assess the interpre- tive conflict that developed between the heliocentric adherents and the scrip- tural fundamentalists who rejected this understanding as incongruent with the literal truth of the Scriptures. As Fantoli shows, the Jesuits and the rest of the Church did not initially reject the heliocentric view. Before that pronouncement was made, Galileo himself, perhaps foolishly, joined the debate and in the Letter to Grand Duchess Christina offered to rein- terpret those passages of Scripture that seemed to point exclusively to the geo- centric understanding of the cosmos.
In the controversy over the comets, a prudent Galileo would have remained silent. Eventually, he persuaded him- self that the new pope, Urban VIII, would countenance his work and he al- lowed his friends to persuade him to comment on the question of Copernicus again. Galileo ultimately believed that he could write about heliocentrism in the hypothetical and in the Dialogue he could feign obedience while making a strong case for Copernicus. Fantoli suggests that his friends in Rome did not advise Galileo forthrightly, shielding him from some of the danger as he la- bored on the Dialogue.
These friends may also have led the pope to believe that the Dialogue would not articulate arguments for the heliocentric view as force- fully as it did. For this, Galileo was made to suffer. It was only late in the twentieth century that Galileo could be rehabilitated. It sides closely with Galileo and pardons his own pride and sensitivity and it blames the Church for its hasty embrace of dogma in matters that should not necessarily be matters of faith.
But beyond this partisan view, Fantoli intro- duces the reader to the issues and the cast of characters in simple, accessible terms. Most readers should find The Case of Galileo a fascinating and easy point of entry into a question that mat- tered deeply to early modern people and that resonates for us today. University of Notre Dame Press pp. Marguerite Porete stands out from the other beguine mystics of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in that she was the first to be put to death for writing a book.
Alt- hough she was ordered by the bishop of Cambrai to stop writing and speaking about her ideas because her first work was found to be heretically suspect, Marguerite defiantly composed a second book on the topic, for which she was eventually arrested, tried by the Dominican inquisitor William of Paris, found guilty of being a relapsed heretic, and burned along with copies of her book on June 1, In The Beguine, the Angel, and the Inquisitor: The author is also co-editor of a forthcoming volume of collected essays on Marguerite Porete, and The Beguine, the Angel, and the Inquisitor in some ways functions as a prequel or companion to that work.
For readers not familiar with The Mirror of Simple Souls or inquisitorial procedure, he helpfully provides a brief overview of both. In part, these errors stem from faulty readings or translations of the trial documents. The first chapter concerns the early lives of Marguerite and Guiard. For both, the sur- viving evidence is incredibly scant and barely extends beyond the residual trial documents.
Marguerite came from Valenciennes, a town just south of the mod- ern Franco-Belgian border, and given the tone of the Mirror and her apparent education, she was likely from a bourgeois or aristocratic background. Field questions whether Marguerite was actually a self-professed beguine or was simply labeled as such by contemporary sources as she appeared to match the stereotype.
About Guiard of Cressonessart even less is known, and this section is mostly building on the previous work of Robert Lerner. Guiard was a beg- hard who had taken minor orders. After Marguerite was arrested, Guiard began to speak out on her behalf, which in turn led to his own arrest. This approach continues in chapter 3, where Field traces the career of William of Paris, particularly his relationship with the French crown. Such loyalty to Philip did not sit well with Pope Clement V who revoked the author- ity of the French inquisitors, including William.
Although that authority was later reinstated albeit reluctantly by the papacy, Field contends that William was now walking a thin political line between crown and miter. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 examine the trials of Marguerite and Guiard with a particular eye to inquisitorial procedure, the ca- reers of the men who condemned them, and possible intellectual influences on Guiard based on the phrasing of his condemnations.
As she refused to answer the charges laid against her, William sought the outside opinion of a large number of canonists and theologians regarding not only the heretical na- ture of her book, but also to confirm that she could be tried as a relapsed here- tic. While Marguerite remained defiantly silent and was therefore burned at the stake for contumacy, Guiard eventually relented, confessed, and his life was spared under condition of perpetual imprisonment.
This concurrence is indeed fascinating, but the connection cannot be definitively proven. The book concludes with three short epilogues that treat the aftermath of the trial: The Beguine, the Angel, and the Inquisitor is at its heart an exercise in crafting a narrative based on residual legal sources, augmented by historical correlations and circumstantial evidence.
Nevertheless, this book is mostly well-informed specula- tion. Field posits a number of interesting questions: Who might Marguerite and Guiard have known or talked to? Why did William of Paris ask certain questions and not others? Many of these ques- tions cannot be answered with any certainty, leading the author to posit multi- ple theories for each of the many gaps in the narrative. Field does admit to the speculative nature of the book in his introduction, and his theories and expla- nations are usually well-reasoned, often supported by the extensive secondary literature on Marguerite and The Mirror of Simple Souls.
Occasion- ally, however, the author flirts with dangerous syllogisms when he uses his own theoretical conclusions to form the working premises of further theories. Such an approach is akin to reconstructing all the moves of a chess match based on two or three snapshots of the board. Although intriguing and eminently readable, this book perpetuates rather than resolves this problem. While each chapter of this, on the whole, insightful book could easily stand alone, Alan J. Fletcher supplies a unifying theme in his introduction: For what follows, the reader must accept a composition date be- tween and , not itself problematic but lacking overwhelming evi- dence in the argument as it is presented.
Furthermore, the only known echoes of the work may be found in the Morali- tates of the Dominican Robert Holcot d. Fletcher believes the reader- ship to have been largely, if not entirely, clerical and offers different scenarios by which Holcot may have come into contact with the text. The third chapter addresses Sir Orfeo for which a date of ca. The brunt of this chapter, though, argues that three available discourses for rationalizing chaotic experience are challenged in Sir Orfeo: The ostensible result is that the systems are shown to be human constructs. Fletcher offers a fourth possible hermeneutic: Chapter 4 turns to the text of Pearl.
Fletcher suggests that the author was clerical, as many of the sources are religious, even liturgical. He offers an ana- logue from a sermon collection by one Franciscan Nicholas de Aquevilla whose sermon for the Feast of the Holy Innocents raises the same questions concerning how two groups, the innocent and the righteous, are to be rewarded with salvation. Fletcher is convinced that the Pearl-poet is performing pastoral theology in the text, but contra Nicholas Watson , he does not find any- thing that goes against a doctrinal grain. Fletcher then seeks to find cultural influences for other aspects of the work, namely the accoutrements of the Pearl- maiden: Any possible asso- ciations that can be made between the Pearl-maiden and historical personages are by chance.
Piers Plowman is treated next. Within his convoluted articulation of the main point of this chapter, Fletcher adheres to the strongly contested idea that the Z-text is authorial and predates the other recensions. He argues that a focus on preaching escalates with each successive version of the text, across, as he believes, Z to A to B to C.
Fletcher zeros in on Passus V in the C-text to discuss the move from sermon to confession, a mendicant practice which Langland employs. He interprets the famous apologia in Passus V of the C- text lines 1— to be an example of this occurring in the Dreamer. So it is that Piers Plowman exists to its time at the interface of text and society. But as anyone who has read Chaucer has observed, one can never pin him down, never decide whether to take him seriously or ironically, leaving him teetering, therefore, on the edge between orthodoxy and heterodoxy.
Relating all of this to his biography, Fletcher indicates that Chaucer seems to have found himself in anything but a peaceful situation during his last years. The premise of this chapter is that the text exhibits a quest for authority, a preoccupation mirrored in the external world. Fletcher analyzes the tropes of authority represented in letters and on tombs within the text and the anxiety over their credibility.
By way of concluding, Malory writes himself and his society into his narrative, connecting the two realms, as Fletcher suggests, in his peti- tion for prayers. Such is the cultural embeddedness of this text. There is a great deal to be gained from these studies, even if they may prove a challenge to process. And though much more work remains to be done on these canonical texts, Alan J. Fletcher has certainly added to the discussion. Painting and Illumination, , ed.
Christine Sciacca Los Angeles: Getty Publications pp. Florence at the Dawn of the Renaissance is the catalogue produced in conjunc- tion with an exhibition at the Getty Center by the same name. Christine Sciacca edited the volume and curated the exhibition, while scholars from a range of fields contributed. Prior scholarly endeavors have marginalized manuscript illumination, but Sciacca took the effort to illustrate how the format was connected to, and on par with, large- scale painting. She did so by addressing artists who worked in both media, and by making cross-genre connections related to technique, function, and subject matter.
It is broken down into five parts, and each of the first four parts consists of one or two essays followed by several catalogue entries. The fifth part has three essays, two mini-essays, and two groupings of catalogue entries. Many of the works of art are so rich in detail that they can be visually overwhelming and difficult for modern viewers to decipher.
The catalogue entries are extremely useful in that they offer a form of verbal organization for the objects in the exhibition. Topics covered in the essays range from historical to technical. The first one firmly grounds the paintings in the cultural and economic context of late-thirteenth and early- fourteenth century Florence, explaining how the city became a bourgeoning mercantile power at the end of the Middle Ages. The next two essays address functional and conceptual differences between the genres of religious panel paintings and liturgical manuscripts.
The multifaceted approach to the topic is reflected in the vast array of con- tributors, which includes curators, professors, scientists, and conservators.