Nigel of Longchamp, Speculum Stultorum

Nigel of Longchamp, Speculum Stultorum PDF Author: Jill Mann
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192857711
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 646

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Book Description
An edition and English translation of the Speculum Stultorum (The Mirror for Fools), a long Latin beast epic written near the end of the twelfth century by a monk of Christ Church, Canterbury. This was one of the most popular works of the Middle Ages, a favourite of Chaucer, Gower, and Henryson, and was copied for over three centuries, with a circulation extending as far as eastern Europe. It is not only a milestone in the history of medieval beast epic, but a rich source of information about contemporary life and events at Canterbury. The work is dedicated to William Longchamp, who was Richard I's chancellor, and the significance of this fact is shown. This is a highly entertaining narrative about a donkey who longs to have a longer tail and journeys to Salerno to buy some (imaginary) medicines which will provide it. When his medicines are destroyed in an accident, he decides to become learned instead, and goes off to study at the university of Paris for seven years, but can still say only 'heehaw'. Interwoven into this simple narrative are other stories and long rhetorical set-pieces which satirise the distorted values of contemporary religious life or the corruption of the papal curia, and describe the qualities of an ideal bishop (which the donkey hopes to become).

Nigel of Longchamp, Speculum Stultorum

Nigel of Longchamp, Speculum Stultorum PDF Author: Jill Mann
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192857711
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 646

Get Book Here

Book Description
An edition and English translation of the Speculum Stultorum (The Mirror for Fools), a long Latin beast epic written near the end of the twelfth century by a monk of Christ Church, Canterbury. This was one of the most popular works of the Middle Ages, a favourite of Chaucer, Gower, and Henryson, and was copied for over three centuries, with a circulation extending as far as eastern Europe. It is not only a milestone in the history of medieval beast epic, but a rich source of information about contemporary life and events at Canterbury. The work is dedicated to William Longchamp, who was Richard I's chancellor, and the significance of this fact is shown. This is a highly entertaining narrative about a donkey who longs to have a longer tail and journeys to Salerno to buy some (imaginary) medicines which will provide it. When his medicines are destroyed in an accident, he decides to become learned instead, and goes off to study at the university of Paris for seven years, but can still say only 'heehaw'. Interwoven into this simple narrative are other stories and long rhetorical set-pieces which satirise the distorted values of contemporary religious life or the corruption of the papal curia, and describe the qualities of an ideal bishop (which the donkey hopes to become).

A Benedictine Reader

A Benedictine Reader PDF Author: Hugh B. Feiss
Publisher: Liturgical Press
ISBN: 0879071753
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 736

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Book Description
A Benedictine Reader, 530–1530, has been more than twenty years in the making. A collaboration of a dozen scholars, this project gives as broad and deep a sense of the reality of the first one thousand years of Benedictine monasticism as can be done in one volume, using primary sources in English translation. The texts included are drawn from many different genres and from several languages and areas of Europe. The introduction to each of the thirty-two chapters aims to situate each author and text and to make connections with other texts and studies within and outside the Reader. The general introduction summarizes the main ideas and practices that are present in the Rule of Saint Benedict and in the first thousand years of Benedictine monasticism while suggesting questions that a reader might bring to the texts.

Virtuosos of Faith

Virtuosos of Faith PDF Author: LIT Verlag
Publisher: LIT Verlag
ISBN: 3643963637
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
For over a thousand years, monks, nuns, canons, friars, and others under religious vows stood at the pinnacle of Western European society. For their ascetic sacrifices, their learning, piety, and expertise, they were accorded positions of power and influence, and a wide range of legal, financial and social privileges. As such they present an important opportunity to consider the nature and dynamics of an "elite" in medieval culture. Using medieval religious life as their interpretive lens, the essays of this volume seek to uncover the essential markers of elite status. They explore how those under vows claimed and manifested elite status in complex spiritual, temporal, and social combinations. They explore the workings of elite status from day to day, across region and locale - who earned recognition and how, whether through specific achievements or the deployment of specific capacities; who recognized, conferred, or helped maintain elite status, how and why; how elite status could be redefined, contested or rejected. The essays also seek to understand how medieval European religious elites compared to those found in other cultures and settings, from Syria and South Asia to the early modern transatlantic world.

The Making of Manners and Morals in Twelfth-Century England

The Making of Manners and Morals in Twelfth-Century England PDF Author: Fiona Whelan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315524872
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
How different are we from those in the past? Or, how different do we think we are from those in the past? Medieval people were more dirty and unhygienic than us – as novels, TV, and film would have us believe – but how much truth is there in this notion? This book seeks to challenge some of these preconceptions by examining medieval society through rules of conduct, and specifically through the lens of a medieval Latin text entitled The Book of the Civilised Man – or Urbanus magnus – which is attributed to Daniel of Beccles. Urbanus magnus is a twelfth-century poem of almost 3,000 lines which comprehensively surveys the day-to-day life of medieval society, including issues such as moral behaviour, friendship, marriage, hospitality, table manners, and diet. Currently, it is a neglected source for the social and cultural history of daily life in medieval England, but by incorporating modern ideas of disgust and taboo, and merging anthropology, sociology, and archaeology with history, this book aims to bring it to the fore, and to show that medieval people did have standards of behaviour. Although they may seem remote to modern ‘civilised’ people, there is both continuity and change in human behaviour throughout the centuries.

The Horned Moses in Medieval Art and Thought

The Horned Moses in Medieval Art and Thought PDF Author: Ruth Mellinkoff
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520017054
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
Good,No Highlights,No Markup,all pages are intact, Slight Shelfwear,may have the corners slightly dented, may have slight color changes/slightly damaged spine.

Laughter and Power in the Twelfth Century

Laughter and Power in the Twelfth Century PDF Author: Peter J. A. Jones
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198843542
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Towards the end of the twelfth century, powerful images of laughing kings and saints began to appear in texts circulating at the English royal court. At the same time, contemporaries began celebrating the wit, humour, and laughter of King Henry II (r.1154-89) and his martyred Archbishop of Canterbury, Saint Thomas Becket (d.1170). Taking a broad genealogical approach, Laughter and Power in the Twelfth Century traces the emergence of this powerful laughter through an immersive study of medieval intellectual, literary, social, religious, and political debates. Focusing on a cultural renaissance in England, the study situates laughter at the heart of the defining transformations of the second half of the 1100s. With an expansive survey of theological and literary texts, bringing a range of unedited manuscript material to light in the process, Peter J. A. Jones exposes how twelfth-century writers came to connect laughter with spiritual transcendence and justice, and how this connection gave humour a unique political and spiritual power in both text and action. Ultimately, Jones argues that England's popular images of laughing kings and saints effectively reinstated a sublime charismatic authority, something truly rebellious at a moment in history when bureaucracy and codification were first coming to dominate European political life.

The Stereotype of the Priest in the Old French Fabliaux

The Stereotype of the Priest in the Old French Fabliaux PDF Author: Daron Burrows
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9783039100729
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
The Old French fabliaux may be notorious for their bawdy content, but few aspects of these medieval comic narratives are as astonishing as their depiction of the parish priest, whose fiscal and sexual transgressions are on occasion so enormous that lay protagonists are driven to inflict graphic punishments ranging from public exposure and communal beating to castration and murder. In this study, Burrows draws on social psychological research into the cognitive and socio-motivational components of stereotyping to explore the forces underlying the creation and development of the fabliau priest. Through an assessment of the constituent elements of the figure against a background of a range of literary and historical sources, Burrows demonstrates that the literary figure is the product of the specific socio-historical context of contemporaneous changes in relationships between Church and laity in which anticlerical stereotyping, in a manner comparable to other instances of outgroup derogation, can be attributed to a quest for positive social identity and ingroup solidarity on the part of an inscribed lay audience.

Religious Conflict at Canterbury Cathedral in the Late Twelfth Century

Religious Conflict at Canterbury Cathedral in the Late Twelfth Century PDF Author: James Barnaby
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1783277661
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 414

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Book Description
The first comprehensive study of a bitter dispute which occupied the archbishops and monks of Canterbury throughout the 1180s and 1190s. For fifteen years the monks of Christ Church Canterbury waged a war against their archbishop, over a plan to build a church to provide funds for their administration, dedicated to Thomas Becket. Fearing the loss of their most beloved (and lucrative) saint to this new institution, the monks embarked on a course of action which saw rioting in the streets of Canterbury, their excommunication, and the cathedral placed under siege by the archbishop. Although at first glance an internal dispute between the archbishop and his cathedral chapter, it had a wide-ranging impact. The monks travelled thousands of miles in support of their cause, enlisting the backing of popes, cardinals, and the elites of Europe. In England, the kings during the period took a personal interest in the dispute, sometimes attempting to resolve it and sometimes hindering any chance of peace. This book, the first full account of the conflict, draws on the huge collection of letters it provoked (one of the largest compiled in the twelfth century), alongside other sources such as monastic culture, to offer a detailed narrative of this complicated feud between Archbishops Baldwin of Forde, Hubert Walter and their cathedral monks; it also considers the continuations of the dispute in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In addition, it analyses the key themes of the conflict: the role of royalty, travel, and the deployment of Thomas Becket.

The Clergy in the Medieval World

The Clergy in the Medieval World PDF Author: Julia Barrow
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316240916
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 471

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Book Description
Unlike monks and nuns, clergy have hitherto been sidelined in accounts of the Middle Ages, but they played an important role in medieval society. This first broad-ranging study in English of the secular clergy examines how ordination provided a framework for clerical life cycles and outlines the influence exerted on secular clergy by monastic ideals before tracing typical career paths for clerics. Concentrating on northern France, England and Germany in the period c.800–c.1200, Julia Barrow explores how entry into the clergy usually occurred in childhood, with parents making decisions for their sons, although other relatives, chiefly clerical uncles, were also influential. By comparing two main types of family structure, Barrow supplies an explanation of why Gregorian reformers faced little serious opposition in demanding an end to clerical marriage in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Changes in educational provision c.1100 also help to explain growing social and geographical mobility among clerics.

England under the Norman and Angevin Kings

England under the Norman and Angevin Kings PDF Author: Robert Bartlett
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0198227418
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 810

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Book Description
This vivid and and comprehensive account of the politics, religion, and culture of England in the century and a half after the Norman Conquest lays bare the patterns of everyday life and increases our understanding of a medieval society at a time when England was more closely tied to Europe than ever before.