Handbook of Medieval Studies Volume 1
Handbook of Medieval Studies Terms - Methods - Trends Edited by Albrecht Classe...
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Handbook of Medieval Studies Volume 1
Handbook of Medieval Studies Terms - Methods - Trends Edited by Albrecht Classen
Volume 1
De Gruyter
ISBN 978-3-11-018409-9 e-ISBN 978-3-11-021558-8 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Handbook of medieval studies : terms, methods, trends / edited by Albrecht Classen. p. cm. ISBN 978-3-11-018409-9 (alk. paper) 1. Middle Ages - Historiography. 2. Middle Ages - Study and teaching. 3. Literature, Medieval - History and criticism. 4. Middle Ages - Bibliography. 5. Medievalists - Biography. I. Classen, Albrecht. D116.H37 2010 940.1072-dc22 2010040766
Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.
쑔 2010 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/New York Typesetting: Dörlemann-Satz GmbH & Co. KG, Lemförde Printing: Hubert & Co. GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ⬁ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com
V
Table of Contents
Table of Contents Volume 1: Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
XV
Survey of Fundamental Reference Works in Medieval Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
XXV
Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
LXVII
List of Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . LXXVII
Main Topics and Debates of the Last Decades and their Terminology and Results Arabic and Islamic Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Arab West (Thomas F. Glick) . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Arab East (Mark David Luce) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Arabic Literature (Mark Pettigrew) . . . . . . . . . . . . Archeology and History of Art in Pre-Islamic Iran and Central Asia (Matteo Compareti) . . . . . . . . . . Classical Persian Literature (Mark David Luce) . . . . . . Islamic Philosophy (Alessandro Cancian) . . . . . . . . . Islamic Theology (Livnat Holtzman) . . . . . . . . . . . Natural Sciences in the Islamic Context (Glen M. Cooper) Qur’anic Studies (Erik S. Ohlander) . . . . . . . . . . . . Shi’ism (Alessandro Cancian) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Archaeology in Medieval Studies (Christopher Landon) . Art History (Elina Gertsman) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Astronomical Instruments (David A. King) . . . . . . . . Bakhthinian Discourse Theory, Heteroglossia (Stephen M. Carey) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Biblical Exegesis (Frans van Liere) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Botany (Alain Touwaide) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Byzantine Science . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Byzantine Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Byzantine Art and Architecture (Sophia Germanidou) . . Byzantine Philosophical Treatises (Georgi Kapriev) . . .
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3 6 14
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25 38 46 56 69 81 93 104 117 126
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131 137 145
181 185
Table of Contents
Byzantine Sciences (Alain Touwaide) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Byzantine Theology (George Arabatzis). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Classics and Mythography (Gregory Heyworth) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Codicology and Paleography (Alain Touwaide) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Communication (Albrecht Classen) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Computer-Based Medieval Research (with an Emphasis on Middle High German) (Ulrich Müller) . . Conversion (Matthew J. dal Santo) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cornish Literature (Brian Murdoch). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Crusades Historiography (Andrew Holt) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Deconstruction in Medieval Studies (Maurice Sprague) . . . . . . . . Diplomatics (Theo Kölzer) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Disability Studies (Julie Singer) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Editing of Medieval Texts (Craig Baker) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . English Studies (Robin Gilbank) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Enlightenment Perspectives on the Middle Ages (Reinhold Münster) Epigraphy (Walter Koch) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Eschatology (Peter Dinzelbacher) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Everyday Life in Medieval Studies (Valerie L. Garver) . . . . . . . . . . Feminism (Barbara Stevenson) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Folklore in Medieval Studies (Salvatore Calomino) . . . . . . . . . . . Formalism (Scott L. Taylor) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . French Studies (Wendy Pfeffer) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Friendship and Networks (Walter Ysebaert) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gender Studies (Hiram Kümper). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . German Studies (Francis G. Gentry) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Heraldry (Heiko Hartmann) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hermeneutics and Textual Criticism (Raymond J. Cormier) . . . . . . Historical Studies (Andrew Holt) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Historiography of Medieval Medicine (Carrie Griffin). . . . . . . . . Historiography of Medieval Science (Sarah Powrie) . . . . . . . . . . Iberian Studies (James A. Grabowska) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Icelandic, Danish, and Old Norse Studies (Russell Poole) . . . . . . . Inter-/Crosscultural Studies (Barbara Stevenson) . . . . . . . . . . . . Interdisciplinarity in Medieval Studies (Gerhard Jaritz). . . . . . . . Intertextuality and Comparative Approaches in Medieval Literature (Sarah Gordon) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Irish Studies (William Sayers) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Italian Studies (Claudia Boscolo) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Japan, Medieval (Barbara Stevenson). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
VI 195 240 253 266 330 343 353 369 379 393 405 424 427 450 468 489 506 525 540 550 558 565 580 594 602 619 624 639 651 666 678 685 706 711 716 727 738 749
VII
Table of Contents
Jewish Studies (Jean Baumgarten) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Law in the Middle Ages (Scott Taylor) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Legal Historiography (German) (Gerald Kohl) . . . . . . . . . . . Manuscripts: Past and Present Approaches (Susan Noakes) . . . Marxist Approaches to Medieval Studies (Sarah Gordon) . . . . . Masculinity Studies (Daniel F. Pigg) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Material Culture (Mark Cruse) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Medievalism (Ulrich Müller). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Medievalism in Modern Children’s Literature (Siegrid Schmidt) . Mentalities in Medieval Studies (David F. Tinsley) . . . . . . . . . Metrology (Moritz Wedell) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Museums and Exhibitions (Siegrid Schmidt) . . . . . . . . . . . . Music in Medieval Studies (James Zychowicz) . . . . . . . . . . . . Mysticism (Debra Stoudt). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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756 771 788 807 822 829 836 850 866 874 897 919 931 939
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967
Volume 2: Narratives of Technological Revolution (Adam Lucas) . . . Narratology and Literary Theory in Medieval Studies (Jonathan M. Newman) . . . . . . . . New Philology (Susan Yager) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Numismatics (Rory Naismith) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Occitan Studies (Michelle Bolduc) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Performance of Medieval Texts (Ulrich Müller) . . . . . . . Pharmacy (Alain Touwaide) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Philosophy in Medieval Studies (Stephen Penn) . . . . . . . Political Theory in Medieval Studies (Scott L. Taylor) . . . . Popes and Papacy (Frances Parton) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Popular Religion / Spirituality in Medieval Studies (Daniel E. O’Sullivan) . . . . . . . . . Post-Colonialism in Medieval Studies (James Tindal Acken). Queer Studies (Forrest C. Helvie). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Race and Ethnicity (Diane Auslander) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rediscovery of the Middle Ages (Late 18th Century / Turn of the Century) (Berta Raposo) Religious Studies (The Latin West) (Peter Dinzelbacher) . . . Research Institutes, Archives, and Libraries for the Middle Ages (Gertrud Blaschitz) . . . . . . . . . . Scripts (Peter A. Stokes) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Semiotics of Culture (Sarah-Grace Heller) . . . . . . . . . . .
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990 999 1007 1023 1039 1056 1090 1111 1122
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1129 1137 1142 1155
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VIII
Table of Contents
Slavic Studies (Marta Deyrup) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Social Constructionism (Daniel F. Pigg) . . . . . . . . . . . Social and Economic Theory in Medieval Studies (Harry Kitsikopoulos) . . . . . . . . . . Social History and Medieval Studies (Harry Kitsikopoulos). Technology in the Middle Ages (Thomas F. Glick) . . . . . The Term ‘Middle Ages’ (Hiram Kümper) . . . . . . . . . . . Text and Image in the Middle Ages (James Rushing) . . . . Theology (Christian) (Leo D. Lefebure) . . . . . . . . . . . . Time Measurement and Chronology in Medieval Studies (Camarin M. Porter) . . . . . . . . . . Transfer of Knowledge (Alain Touwaide). . . . . . . . . . . Utopias / Utopian Thought (Heiko Hartmann) . . . . . . . Welsh Studies (Andrew Breeze) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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1270 1292 1305 1310 1319 1339
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1350 1368 1400 1409
Aesthetics (Mark Cruse) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Allegory (Bettina Full) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Author (Michelle Bolduc) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Body (Scott Pincikowski) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chivalry (John A. Geck) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Comic (Sarah Gordon) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Contrafacture (Daniel E. O’Sullivan). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Curialitas (Courtliness) (Gregory Heyworth) . . . . . . . . . . . Discourse (Karen K. Jambeck) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fictionality (Stephen Mark Carey) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Frontier, Transgression, Liminality (Waltraud Fritsch-Rößler). Game (Maurice Sprague) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gestures (Klaus Oschema). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Images (Gerhard Jaritz) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Laughter (Waltraud Fritsch-Rößler) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Memory (Paula Leverage) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mouvance (Roy Rosenstein) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Parody (Sarah Gordon) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Prosopography (Christian) (K.S.B. Keats-Rohan) . . . . . . . . Ritual and Performance (Gerhard Jaritz) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Space and Nature (Christopher Clason) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Text (Mark Cruse) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Transcendental (George Arabatzis) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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1421 1430 1440 1450 1459 1468 1478 1482 1488 1500 1504 1508 1513 1520 1524 1530 1538 1548 1552 1559 1563 1576 1582
Important Terms in Today’s Medieval Studies
IX
Table of Contents
Typology (Heiko Hartmann) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1589 Violence (Scott Pincikowski) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1593
Textual Genres in the Middle Ages Adversus-Iudaeos Literature (Hiram Kümper) . Art Manuals (Flavio Boggi). . . . . . . . . . . . . Autobiography and Biography (Julie Singer) . . Ballads, Songs, and Libels (Christian Kuhn) . . . Bestiaries, Aviaries, Physiologus (Renee Ward) . . Bibles (Popular) (Brian Murdoch) . . . . . . . . . Books of Hours (Elina Gertsman) . . . . . . . . . Calendars, Islamic (Simone Cristoforetti) . . . . . Cantigas de amigos (Samuel G. Armistead) . . . . Ceremonial Texts (Christine Maria Grafinger) . . Chansons de geste (Stephen Mark Carey) . . . . . Charms and Incantations (Russell Poole) . . . . Charters (Philip Slavin). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chronicles (Graeme Dunphy). . . . . . . . . . . . Cookbooks (Timothy J. Tomasik) . . . . . . . . . . Courtesy Books (Klaus Oschema) . . . . . . . . . Debate Poetry (Patricia E. Black). . . . . . . . . . Dictionaries / Glossaries (Albrecht Classen) . . . Didactic and Gnomic Literature (Russell Poole) Dits (Steven Millen Taylor) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Drama (John A. Geck) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Encyclopedias (Nadia Margolis) . . . . . . . . . . Financial and Tax Reports (Georg Vogeler). . . . Glosses (Frans van Liere) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gospel Harmonies (Heiko Hartmann) . . . . . . Hagiographical Texts (Michelle M. Sauer) . . . . Heroic Epics and Sagas (Hermann Reichert) . . . Historical Romances (Jaime Leaños) . . . . . . . Kharjas (Samuel G. Armistead) . . . . . . . . . . .
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1605 1607 1614 1618 1634 1642 1647 1652 1657 1660 1683 1700 1706 1714 1722 1728 1735 1742 1750 1755 1760 1767 1775 1785 1791 1798 1807 1831 1840
Volume 3: Lapidaries (Rosmarie Thee Morewedge) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1845 Last Wills (Hiram Kümper) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1862 Latin Comedies (Gretchen Mieszkowski) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1872
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Table of Contents
Legal Texts (Hiram Kümper) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Letters (Christian Kuhn) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Letter Collections (Latin West and Byzantium) (Walter Ysebaert) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Minnereden (Maurice Sprague). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Miracle Narratives (Daniel E. O’Sullivan) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mirrors for Princes Islamic (Mark David Luce) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Western (Cristian Bratu) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Notarial Literature (Edward D. English). . . . . . . . . . . . . . Numismatic Literature (Rory Naismith) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Papal Bulls (Herwig Weigl) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Penitentials and Confessionals (Michelle M. Sauer) . . . . . . . Pharmaceutical Literature (Alan Touwaide) . . . . . . . . . . . Political Treatises (Vasileios Syros) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Prayer Books (Elina Gertsman). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Proverbs (Rosmarie Thee Morewedge) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Religious Lyrics (Daniel E. O’Sullivan) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Schoolbooks (Michael Baldzuhn). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Scientific Texts: Artes Liberales and Artes Mechanicae (with Emphasis on Anglophone Research) (Carrie Griffin) Sermons (Robert W. Zajkowski) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Short Verse Narratives (Norris J. Lacy) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sisterbooks (David F. Tinsley) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Travelogues (Maria E. Dorninger) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Trobadors, Trouvères, Minnesinger (Ulrich Müller) . . . . . . Villancicos (Samuel G. Armistead) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Visionary Texts (Elizabeth Boyle) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . World Maps ( Jens Eike Schnall) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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1916 1921 1950 1956 1963 1968 1979 2000 2021 2026 2056 2061
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2069 2077 2086 2093 2102 2118 2128 2131 2136
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2145 2150 2153 2160 2165 2170 2176
Key Figures in Medieval Studies from ca. 1650 to 1950 (selection) Adler, Guido (Pieter Mannaerts) . . . . . . . . Árni Magnússon (Jens Eike Schnall) . . . . . . Auerbach, Erich (Bettina Full). . . . . . . . . Baer, Yitzhak (Philip Slavin) . . . . . . . . . . Barbi, Michele (Beatrice Arduini). . . . . . . . Bédier, Joseph (Craig Baker) . . . . . . . . . . Benecke, Georg Friedrich (Gertrud Blaschitz)
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XI Besseler, Heinrich (Pieter Mannaerts). . . . . . . . . Bezzola, Reto Raduolf (Mark Cruse) . . . . . . . . . Billanovich, Giuseppe (David Lummus) . . . . . . . Bischoff, Bernhard (Hiram Kümper) . . . . . . . . . Bloch, Marc (Nadia Margolis) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bodmer, Johann Jakob (Maurice Sprague) . . . . . . Borst, Arno (Judith Benz). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bosl, Karl (Stephen Mark Carey) . . . . . . . . . . . . Boyle, Leonard Eugene (Christine Maria Grafinger) . Branca, Vittore (Federica Anichini) . . . . . . . . . . Braune, Wilhelm (Joshua M. H. Davis) . . . . . . . . Brunner, Otto (Judith Benz) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Burdach, Konrad (Gertrud Blaschitz) . . . . . . . . . Cappelli, Adriano (Christine Maria Grafinger) . . . . Cardini, Franco (Daniel Rötzer) . . . . . . . . . . . . Castro (y Quesada), Américo (Samuel G. Armistead) . Chenu, Marie-Dominique (Leo D. Lefebure) . . . . . Cleasby, Richard (Marc Pierce) . . . . . . . . . . . . Cohen, Gustave (Nadia Margolis) . . . . . . . . . . . Contini, Gianfranco (Beatrice Arduini) . . . . . . . . Curtius, Ernst Robert (Alexander Sager) . . . . . . . D’Ancona, Alessandro (Claudia Boscolo) . . . . . . . Docen, Bernhard Joseph (Maurice Sprague) . . . . . Donaldson, E. Talbot (Kathy Cawsey) . . . . . . . . Dopsch, Alfons (Valerie L. Garver) . . . . . . . . . . . Duby, Georges Michel Claude (Carol R. Dover) . . . Duhem, Pierre (Sarah Powrie) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ehrismann, Gustav Adolph (Alexander Sager). . . . Ewert, Alfred (Craig Baker) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Faral, Edmond (Anne Latowsky). . . . . . . . . . . . Frappier, Jean (Raymond J. Cormier). . . . . . . . . . Fuhrmann, Horst (Karina Marie Ash). . . . . . . . . Funkenstein, Amos (Yossef Schwartz). . . . . . . . . Furnivall, Frederick James (Kathy Cawsey) . . . . . Ganshof, François-Louis (Valerie L. Garver) . . . . . Gerbert, Martin (Christine Maria Grafinger) . . . . . Gilson, Etienne (Daniel Rötzer) . . . . . . . . . . . . Gollancz, Sir Israel (Stephen Penn) . . . . . . . . . . Grabar, André (Linda Marie Rouillard) . . . . . . . . Grabmann, Martin (Yossef Schwartz) . . . . . . . . .
Table of Contents
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Grimm, Jacob Ludwig Karl, and Grimm, Wilhelm Karl (Scott E. Pincikowski) . . . . . . . . . Gurevich, Aron Iakovlevich (Elena Lemeneva) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hagen, Friedrich Heinrich August Wilhelm von der (Christopher R. Clason) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Haupt, Moriz (Gertrud Blaschitz) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Heer, Friedrich (Peter Dinzelbacher) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hibbard, Laura Alandis (Linda M. Rouillard). . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hilka, Alfons (Wendy Pfeffer and Albrecht Classen) . . . . . . . . . . . . Hilton, Rodney Howard (Candace Barrington) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Holmes, Urban Tigner, Jr. (Nadia Margolis) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Holthausen, Ferdinand (Marc Pierce) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Huizinga, Johan (Tracy Adams) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . James, Montague Rhodes (Mark Cruse) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jeanroy, Alfred-Marie-Henri-Gustave (Beverly J. Evans) . . . . . . . Jónsson, Finnur (Russell Poole) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Junius F. F., Franciscus (Jens Eike Schnall and Robert K. Paulsen) . . . . Kane, George J. (Marilyn Sandidge) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kantorowicz, Ernst Hartwig (Roberto Delle Donne) . . . . . . . . . . Katz, Jacob (David Graizbord) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ker, Neil Ripley (Peter A. Stokes) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ker, W. P. (Barbara Stevenson) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kibre, Pearl (Carrie Griffin) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kittredge, George Lyman (Kathy Cawsey) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Klaeber, Friedrich (Helen Damico) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Klibansky, Raymond (Sarah Powrie) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kuhn, Hugo Bernhard (Markus Stock) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kuhn, Sherman M. (Marc Pierce) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kurath, Hans (Marc Pierce). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kuttner, Stephan (Scott L. Taylor) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lachmann, Karl Konrad Friedrich Wilhelm (Stephen Mark Carey) . Ladner, Gerhard B. (Christine Maria Grafinger) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lagarde, Georges de (Scott L. Taylor) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lamprecht, Karl Gotthard (Christopher R. Clason) . . . . . . . . . . . Lassberg, Joseph Maria Christoph, Freiherr von (Maurice Sprague) Leclerq, Jean (Daniel J. Watkins) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Le Goff, Jacques Louis (Carol R. Dover) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lehmann, Paul (Alison Beringer) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lejeune, Rita (Kevin B. Reynolds). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lewis, C. S. (Jason Herman) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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XIII Lexer, Matthias von (Graeme Dunphy) . . . . . . . Liepe, Wolfgang (Albrecht Classen) . . . . . . . . . Loomis, R. S. (Amy L. Ingram) . . . . . . . . . . . . Lot, Ferdinand (Amy L. Ingram) . . . . . . . . . . . Lowe, Elias Avery (Peter A. Stokes) . . . . . . . . . . Lubac, Henri de (Michael Johnson) . . . . . . . . . Luick, Karl (Jerzy Wełna) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Maier, Anneliese (Sarah Powrie). . . . . . . . . . . Maitland, Frederic William (Janice M. Bogstad) . . Malkiel, Yakov (Samuel G. Amistead) . . . . . . . . Mallet, Paul-Henri (Jens Eike Schnall) . . . . . . . Manitius, Max (Alison Beringer) . . . . . . . . . . . Manly, John Matthews (Anita Obermeier) . . . . . Massmann, Hans Ferdinand (Maurice Sprague). . Maurer, Friedrich (Brian Murdoch) . . . . . . . . . Menéndez-Pidal, Ramón (Kimberlee Campbell) . . Meyer, Marie-Paul-Hyacinthe (Anne Latowsky). . Mitteis, Heinrich (Albrecht Classen). . . . . . . . . Mohr, Hans Wolfgang Julius (Ulrich Müller) . . . Müllenhoff, Karl Victor (Maurice Sprague). . . . . Murray, J. A. H. (Marc Pierce) . . . . . . . . . . . . Mustanoja, T. (Kirsti Peitsara) . . . . . . . . . . . . Nardi, Bruno (David Lummus). . . . . . . . . . . . Noreen, Adolf Gotthard (Marc Pierce) . . . . . . . Ohly, Ernst Friedrich (Graeme Dunphy) . . . . . . Paris, Gaston Bruno Paulin (Daniel E. O’Sullivan) Paul, Hermann (Marc Pierce) . . . . . . . . . . . . Pfeiffer, Franz (Gertrud Blaschitz) . . . . . . . . . . Prawer, Joshua (Philip Slavin). . . . . . . . . . . . Rajna, Pio (Claudia Boscolo) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reese, Gustave (Beverly J. Evans) . . . . . . . . . . Rico Manrique, Francisco (Enrico Santangelo) . . . Riquer Morera, Martín de (Kimberlee Campbell). . Robertson, D. W. (Jason Herman) . . . . . . . . . . Robinson, Fred Norris (Anita Obermeier) . . . . . Rougemont, Denis de (Linda Marie Rouillard) . . . Ruh, Kurt (Freimut Löser and Ulrich Müller) . . . . . Runciman, Sir Steven (Robert W. Zajkowski) . . . . Sapegno, Natalino (Enrico Santangelo) . . . . . . . Sapori, Armando (Christine Maria Grafinger) . . . .
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Scherer, Wilhelm (Maurice Sprague). . . . . . . . . . . . . Schlegel, August Wilhelm (Christopher R. Clason) . . . . . Schlegel, Friedrich (Berta Raposo). . . . . . . . . . . . . . Schoepperle Loomis, Gertrude (Karina Marie Ash) . . . . Schramm, Percy Ernst (Janos M. Bak) . . . . . . . . . . . Schultz, Alwin (Gertrud Blaschitz) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Schwietering, Julius (Heiko Hartmann). . . . . . . . . . . Sievers, Georg Eduard (Russell Poole). . . . . . . . . . . . Simrock, Karl Joseph (Christopher R. Clason) . . . . . . . . Skeat, Walter William (Kathy Cawsey) . . . . . . . . . . . Southern, R. W. (Amy Ingram) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Spitzer, Leo (Bettina Full) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stengel, Edmund Ernst (Andreas Meyer) . . . . . . . . . . Strauch, Philipp (Albrecht Classen) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tellenbach, Gerd (Christine Maria Grafinger) . . . . . . . . Tolkien, John Ronald Ruel (Katharina Baier) . . . . . . . Traube, Ludwig (Francesco Roberg) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Vilmar, August Friedrich Christian (Marc Pierce) . . . . Vinaver, Eugène (Amy L. Ingram) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wackernagel, Karl Heinrich Wilhelm (Maurice Sprague) Waddell, Helen (Robin Gilbank) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Weber, Gottfried (Waltraud Fritsch-Rößler) . . . . . . . . . Wehrli, Max (Heiko Hartmann) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . White, Lynn Townsend, Jr. (Candace Barrington) . . . . . Whitelock, Dorothy (Ben Snook) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wright, Joseph (Marc Pierce). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Young, Karl (Regula Meyer Evitt). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Zingerle, Ignaz Vinzenz (Gertrud Blaschitz) . . . . . . . . Zumthor, Paul (Tracy Adams) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Introduction The present reference work aims to fill a significant lacuna in scholarship that I will address throughout this introductory article, and subsequently in a critical survey of the relevant resources in our field. As a Handbook, it wants to make available detailed and meticulous surveys of the state of art in Medieval Studies and to reflect upon the historical development of our field in its myriad manifestations (research areas, terms, topics, figures, methods, theories, etc.). After all, the Middle Ages continue to create a lot of excitement both within the academy and outside, and we are, it seems, on a positive growth curve, particularly now in the early 21st century, considering the astounding proliferation of critical editions, translations, and interpretations that flood the book market. The history of research in all kinds of areas in Medieval Studies constitutes an essential component in our understanding of where we have come from and where we will probably turn to in the near future. More precisely, any of our comments on and interpretations of any phenomenon in the Middle Ages depends considerably on the scholarly context past and present. Evaluations change, the foci on specific periods, genres, figures, themes, etc. vary, and new theoretical concepts have considerable influence on how we view the medieval past. Much fundamental work was produced already in the 19th century, whether we think of critical editions, individual studies, bibliographies, and other kinds of databases. But each discipline or subject matter has been examined from many different perspectives since then, both in light of various theoretical models and through the kaleidoscopic lens of a multitude of methodologies. Some of these approaches have maintained their validity until today, others have been dismissed, and the intense debate continues until today how best to examine the Middle Ages critically. It is not uncommon to realize that older scholarship still has to tell us a lot even now, or once again, if carefully viewed in light of what medieval voices revealed in reality.1 The relevance and meaning of specific statements in medieval documents and our
1 See the entry on “Religious Studies” by Peter Dinzelbacher for excellent insights in this regard. Another illuminating example proves to be the discussion of Lynn Townsend White Jr.’s contribution to the history of technology (see Candace Barrington’s article on White).
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reading of medieval art objects, architectural designs, and musical compositions, to mention just a few areas of scholarly investigations in Medieval Studies, have changed and continue to be in flux even today, depending on new approaches, readings, interpretations, perspectives, critical lenses, and methodologies. In other words, as in most other academic fields, the process of learning, criticizing, re-evaluating, re-assessing, canonizing, and deconstructing the very canon proves to be endlessly ongoing because we are all part of the same large scholarly discourse, or rather, we create this discourse and determine its continuous development.2 But this process requires regular review and substantive analysis, which the present Handbook hopes to provide both for the present and future generations of scholars in Medieval Studies. Total completion cannot be achieved, and comprehensive coverage of all aspects would be elusive, but the present Handbook covers a considerable breadth of a multitude of research fields. As my own criticism of previous efforts in this field will indicate (see the following survey article on the relevant reference works in Medieval Studies), the very ideal that carries such efforts seems to be almost elusive and deceptive because we can only hope to capture a faint sense of what life in the Middle Ages was really like. We can read what some philosophers had to say, and we can ponder the meaning of specific statements by poets, artists, composers, and preachers, but how easily do we fall prey to a myopic perspective, either because of our lack of comprehensive approaches, or because the texts and works by their contemporaries have not survived. A full understanding seems impossible however, wherefore the concept of discourse, as developed by Michel Foucault,3 promises a good alternative since it does not require a complete coverage of what people thought, said, and argued about at a specific time, yet takes into account the widest array of statements and reflections that constituted that discourse. In this sense, we always need to probe what the dominant discussion at a specific time can reveal about specific topics, ideas, and concerns. The entries in our Handbook do not focus primarily on the medieval discourse, but on the scholarly discourse since the late 18th century, tracing the growth of the important disciplines particularly over the last hundred years, outlining what we know, what is being discussed, and how we have approached the critical issues at stake.
2 I examine the larger implications at much greater length in my introductory article. 3 Michel Foucault, L’ordre de discourse: Leçon inaugurale au Collège de France prononcée le 2 décembre 1970 (Paris: Gallimard, 1971).
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The goal pursued in this Handbook does not consist in an attempt to compete with such seminal reference works as the Lexikon des Mittelalters or the Dictionnaire de Spiritualité. Instead, the question pursued here focuses on how individual subject matters have developed in historical-scholarly terms over time. What were the various methodological approaches to specific themes, and what source materials were regarded as most relevant? What primary documents have been seen as truly relevant at what time and by whom for what purposes? In fact, all these questions allow us to probe not only further into the history of the Middle Ages at large, they also facilitate a much better understanding of how we have learned to understand the medieval world from our modern perspectives, if not how we have misunderstood it. The term ‘history’ in our context only means the specific time frame, not the narrow discipline of Historical Studies. Medieval Studies embrace virtually each and every field of human activities and ideas, whether literature, fashion, the arts, religion, technology, agriculture, banking, or architecture. But this amazing spectrum also proves to be a remarkable challenge, hence, after all, the need for encyclopedic treatments of that period. There are four different categories of entries that make up this Handbook of Medieval Studies. First the major topics of disciplinary nature come into play, such as Feminism, German Studies, English Studies, Art History, Crusade Studies, Queer Studies, and Islamic Art. Next contributors examine specific terms that have influenced Medieval Studies deeply, such as curialitas, frontier, game, rhetorics, satire, irony, and violence.4 The third group consists of articles covering the wide range of textual genres prevalent in the Middle Ages, though even here I had to make compromises and leave lacunae for a number of reasons, though I would have preferred a comprehensive coverage. However, to aim for totality would have been hubris, and no encyclopedia or lexicon has ever achieved such a goal. The truly critical ap-
4 There are, of course, numerous reference works on critical and literary terms relevant for all of world literature, see, for instance, Henri Morier, Dictionnaire de poétique et de rhétorique, 2nd augmented and rev. ed. (1961; Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1998); The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, ed. Alex Preminger and T. V. F. Brogan (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993); Wendell V. Harris, Dictionary of Concepts in Literary Criticism and Theory, Reference Sources for the Social Sciences and Humanities, 12 (New York, Westport, CT, and London: Greenwood Press, 1992); Ross Murfin and Supryia M. Ray, The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms, 3rd ed. (1997; Boston and New York: Bedford/St. Martin, 2009); Metzler Literatur Lexikon: Begriffe und Definitionen, orig. ed. by Günther and Irmgard Schweikle, ed. Dieter Burdorf, 3rd completely rev. ed. (1984; Stuttgart: Metzler, 2007).
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proach requires selection, discrimination, prioritization, and categorization, and this is the case in our Handbook as well. Finally, the fourth group deals with some of the key figures in Medieval Studies, that is, both the grandfathers and founders in our field, and major scholars who deeply influenced their academic discipline at least until 1950, and in a number of cases even beyond that.5 There was no way to draw an artificial line of separation a few years after the end of the Second World War, so I chose a flexible approach in this regard. Some scholars enjoyed a very long career, others only a short one, but those who became active really only after ca. 1960 are not considered here (here disregarding one or two where the circumstances justified it). After all, it was not possible, with very few exceptions, to take into consideration the last thirty and forty years of research in terms of individual participants because it would have inundated all reasonable limits for such a reference work. The emphasis hence rests on those figures who laid the foundations and have continued to be deeply influential in their specific areas of investigations until today because of their seminal work.6 The overall purpose of our reference work consists of an effort to outline the major steps in the history of research since the 19th century (in some cases since the 18th century). The articles covering the scholarly disciplines, technical terms, and textual genres are supposed to trace in a concise, yet not too skeletal fashion, who the major players were, what significant positions and schools dominated the respective field, who published the most seminal studies, who provoked major debates and influenced the discourse, and then to determine what the most critical issues have been in the evolution of each discipline. Readers should not expect to be presented with a comprehensive bibliography; instead the entries address a more substantive need, that is, to learn quickly how research on, say, the history of astronomy, medicine, German Studies, Gender Studies, Arabic literature, Biblical exegesis, Crusade Studies,
5 For an impressive and comprehensive overview of the major historians in our field, now see John Burrow, A History of Histories: Epics, Chronicles, Romances and Inquiries from Herodotus and Thucydides to the Twentieth Century (New York: A. A. Knopf, 2007); Rüdiger vom Bruch and Rainer A. Müller, Historikerlexikon: von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 2nd rev. and expanded ed. (1991; Munich: Beck, 2002). Cf. also Norman F. Cantor, Inventing the Middle Ages: the Lives, Works, and Ideas of the Great Medievalists of the Twentieth Century (New York: W. Morrow, 1991). 6 Rewriting the Middle Ages in the Twentieth Century, ed. Jaume Aurell and Francisco Crosas (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), contains biographies of some of the most important medievalists from England, France, Spain, Germany, Belgium, the United States, and Italy.
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hermeneutics, etc., has developed over time. Likewise, in the next category, the entries cover critical terms that have been highly influential in Medieval Studies, and again the intent was to provide an overview of how each term underwent crucial transformation and how it has been used in Medieval Studies over the last hundred to two hundred years or so. Similarly, the categories of ‘genres’ and of ‘figures’ pursue the same concept. I had hoped to incorporate as much non-European research and research topics as possible, and I am rather pleased with the present result, despite all kinds of shortcomings. Particularly the research on the worlds and cultures of Asian, African, and Arabic societies in the Middle Ages could not be dealt with as exhaustively as I would have liked, either because the task itself – and this actually applies to all aspects covered or, alas, left out – was too challenging, or because of certain natural limits that we all have in reaching out to the wide world of scholarship in those, at least for scholars in the Western world, somewhat remote areas and far beyond the scope of our traditional area of expertise. The reality of academic and other professional demands made it impossible for a number of contributors to submit their promised work either in time or at all. So, horribile dictu, ‘Religion’, for example, is not as extensively covered by itself as I would have wished, but there is an entry on ‘Theology in Medieval Studies.’7 Overall, there are certain problems that cast this matter in a different light. The history of Christianity represents a huge field for which many different lexica and encyclopedias have already been published (see the following survey article). To do justice to the many branches of research on medieval religion would require a separate Handbook, for which there is no space here. Admittedly, there is a separate entry on Jewish religion, and even here severe challenges surface immediately. But despite the erroneous assumption of a monolithic medieval Christianity, the number of individual groups, orientations, interpretations, institutions, organizations, and even whole churches is legion.
7 I am particularly grateful to Peter Dinzelbacher for accepting this entry at the last minute, so to speak, after a previous author had suddenly withdrawn. See also Dinzelbacher’s excellent book series “Handbuch der Religionsgeschichte im deutschsprachigen Raum in 6 Bänden.” The individual volumes have not appeared in a chronologically linear progression; instead vol. 1 appeared in 2008, vol. 2, by contrast, already in 2000: Peter Dinzelbacher, Hoch- und Spätmittelalter. Mit einem Beitrag von Daniel Krochmalnik (Paderborn etc.: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2000). Apart from the historical overview, he discusses the media of how faith was conveyed, the world of imagination, spiritualization of concrete, earthly space, spiritualization of time, sacred performance, sacred words, and spirituality of human beings. Krochmalnik examines Jewish spirituality at the same time.
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All articles were written independently, and ultimately the quality of the content was the authors’ individual responsibility. Of course, as the editor I have made my utmost effort to guide, to probe, to correct, to suggest, and to add information as much as possible, but overall I had to trust the contributors in having made their own best judgment in selecting the most important publications, editions, and reference works in their specific areas. Formally, I have tried to streamline every entry as much as possible, but absolute conformity could not be achieved because of the vast differences in individual contributors’ approaches, styles, and methods, and also because of the differences of the various disciplines. For instance, scholarly literature on the history of medieval law or on prosopography had to be dealt with in structural terms that are different than in the research fields of medieval Occitan or German Studies, for instance. In general, and it is worth repeating this to make it absolutely clear what the objectives were and what was realistic altogether, comprehensiveness or an exhaustive treatment of every aspect in the medieval world, has not been possible right from the start. Nevertheless, I hope that the present result offers at least an approximation of the overarching goal. Above all, we are providing important overviews of the history of research in a wide array of fields, stretching, for instance, from Byzantine architecture to German legal historiography, and beyond. Some disciplines proved to be just too demanding and too extensive, or no contributor could be found to meet the challenge, who had the time, or who was willing to volunteer for this massive enterprise. The field of medieval law would have required a whole cohort of experts, but I am pleased that at least one contributor deals with a broad overview of legal historiography, whereas another focuses on the history of German medieval law. The same can be stated for almost all other areas, so I must beg indulgence from the future readers of this Handbook. It can provide guidance only so far, yet the current result promises to establish a solid groundwork for the wide discipline of Medieval Studies. After all, whenever we begin to investigate any aspect of the Middle Ages, irrespective of the specific angle we might pursue, immediately a plethora of new perspectives, topics, texts, works, etc. opens up almost limitlessly. In a way I also beg the reader for his/her indulgence if a specific entry is missing because circumstances beyond my control made it impossible to cover everything to the extent desirable. Perhaps some of the shortcomings can be addressed and dealt with in a second edition or in a future volume with addenda. The deeper we analyze a topic, the more sub-genres, sub-fields, sub-categories etc. tend to emerge, and then require careful and detailed critical
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treatment. That is, however, exactly one of the critical limits that could not be breached without excessive, highly time-consuming efforts to the detriment of all other contributions. I prefer to have at least published a fragmentary Handbook of Medieval Studies that covers the majority of fields, terms, genres, and key figures than none. The bibliographical information in the main body of the text in each entry is mostly provided in a truncated manner, though this should still allow the user to trace and find each individual reference in the library with ease. By contrast, the last section then offers the full information. The titles of book series and the volume numbers, however, have always been left out. For the large topics, it was not practical to force the contributors to follow a very stringent model, so there is a certain variety of structures applied. By contrast, the entries of figures follow by and large the same pattern. After a general introduction about the person’s significance comes his or her biography. The next section deals with the scholar’s publications, and the subsequent one focuses on the impact the scholar has had on his or her field. The entry concludes with a list of the scholar’s major publications, and with a short bibliography of the relevant reference works. There are mostly six categories for these biographical entries, but some authors have collapsed one or two for practical reasons. The entries on genres and terms pursue more of a chronological perspective, but the emphasis here rests, just as in the category of topics, on the internationality of research. Contributors were strongly encouraged to consider not only secondary literature published in English, but to take into account all (!) relevant material, whether in Spanish, French, Italian, German, Dutch, Swedish, etc. Everyone has linguistic limitations, of course, but I believe that the contributors have made good to excellent attempts to be as inclusive as possible. After all, Medieval Studies are an interdisciplinary discipline by default, and there is truly an international community of Medievalists, many of whom I have had the pleasure of getting involved in this Handbook. Having said all that, I have only left the pleasant task of expressing my great gratitude to many different individuals involved in this massive project. Without the numerous contributors this project would never have been possible, of course, but I am particularly thankful for the consistently high caliber of their work. I am very thankful to the University of Arizona Alumni Foundation for giving me a small grant to support me in my endeavors. I am grateful to my research assistant, Courtney Johnson, University of Arizona, for her help in the last stages, and I must also extend my thanks to the editorial staff at Walter de Gruyter in Berlin, especially Christine Henschel and Markus Polzer. Johanna Kershaw, Oriel College, Oxford University, provided excellent
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translations of some of the articles. My greatest gratitude, however, goes to Heiko Hartmann, erstwhile editorial director at de Gruyter, who had first conceived of this plan and approached me several years ago, proposing that I assume this daunting task. I hope that the present result will meet at least most of the expectations and more or less serve the needs of our discipline outlined above. Despite all my trepidations regarding the feasibility of editing such a massive reference work, I am firmly convinced of its usefulness and of the importance in charting a field that has grown so vigorously from the late 18th century to the early 21st century, that is, today. The fact that such a reference work still can be published by a major academic press indicates clearly what I indicated at the beginning and what I will continue to examine in the introductory survey article. Despite many challenges of linguistic, institutional, administrative, financial, and even political nature, Medieval Studies are doing very well both in the academy and outside, and they continue to provide a major framework of learning and a source of inspiration for anyone interested in Western civilization and the related cultures. Of course, we would not be what we are today without the Middle Ages, and any modern university that claims to live up to minimal standards of current academics, especially in the Humanities, will have to acknowledge first and above all the fundamental significance of Medieval Studies both for teaching and research. Hence I would like to salute my own academic home, The University of Arizona, for providing me with some financial support and free time, including a one-semester sabbatical, to accomplish the goal of preparing such an extensive reference work. However, I need to emphasize as well that I basically worked without any staff and only very little supplemental financial support. Fortunately, many colleagues who contributed to this project were so gracious to alert me to problems or to provide additional information, but the ultimate responsibility for the entire Handbook rests on me, of course. If the long-term editing process has taught me anything, it is the absolute need to work in an interdisciplinary fashion in Medieval Studies. In this sense, as I believe, this field sets a standard for many other disciplines. Almost ironically, Medieval Studies have much to offer for the future of the academy.8 Presentism, as Kathleen Biddick called this phenomenon, deeply
8 I would like to express my gratitude to Pieters Maennerts (Research Foundation–Flanders / Katholieke Universiteit Leuven), for valuable last minute input. My thanks also go out to many other colleagues whose names are mentioned in the final footnote to my “Survey of Fundamental Reference Works in Medieval Studies” article.
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impacts all our research of the Middle Ages. Jaume Aurell and Francisco Crosas offer the following observation: “Presentism dominates over preterism, its opposite, in our relations with the medieval period, because we are capable of identifying the Middle Ages more as a mirror than as a mirage. Presentism brings us closer to the period studied, no matter how distant it may be, but it undoubtedly also has the possibly perverse effect of anachronistically applying the parameters of present culture in analysing it.”9 Of course, we have all vested interests, and our modern concerns in a way always direct and influence our investigation of the past. Nevertheless, Medieval Studies represent truly interdisciplinary approaches and have demonstrated over decades and centuries the degree to which sound philological, historical, art-historical, socio-economic and other research methods can yield highly significant and trustworthy results. The present Handbook strives to provide a comprehensive overview of this long-term struggle, and as much as we are dwarfs standing on the shoulder of giants, we hope one day to offer the necessary support for future generations to look further and deeper than we have been able to do today. Finally, I have tried to be as comprehensive as possible in covering all the major topics, terms, genres, and figures relevant for our field. But the reader will certainly notice some lacunae, basically unavoidable and painful in the case of an encyclopedic reference work like this Handbook. But overall, I believe, most important topics are represented here, and if not, then there were painstaking and also difficult circumstances beyond my control.
9 Rewriting the Middle Ages, 11. See also Katheleen Biddick, The Shock of Medievalism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998), 83; William H. Dray, “Some Varieties of Presentism,” id., On History and Philosophers of History, Philosophy of History and Culture, 2 (Leiden and New York: Brill, 1989), 164–89; Matthew Davidson, “Presentism and the Non-Present,” Philosophical Studies 113.1 (2003): 77–92; Craig Bourne, A Future for Presentism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006).
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Survey of Fundamental Reference Works in Medieval Studies Albrecht Classen1
We can only concur with Joseph R. Strayer’s assessment from 1982 that “Interest in the Middle Ages has grown tremendously in the last halfcentury” (ix), and we would have to add nothing but that this growth has amazingly proliferated since then, now more than a quarter of a century later. This growth has occurred both in quantitative and also in qualitative terms, considering the impressive extent of topics covered by medievalists today, as richly documented by major and minor conferences, symposia, and workshops all over the world, such as at the Medieval Institute of Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, or at the University of Leeds, the University of Cologne, the Centro di Studi sull’alto medioevo of Spoleto, etc. The sheer output of academic and non-academic books on the Middle Ages is truly staggering, and the range of topics dealt with seems almost endless, whether we think of political history, literary history, history of fashion, architecture, music, history of technology, everyday life, religion, philosophy, the relationship between man and animals or man and nature, travel, transportation, communication, the experience of death, sickness, birth, love, marriage, money, spirituality, or heresy. Whereas, in previous decades, scholarship tended to focus on Western Europe primarily, today we have learned to recognize the tremendous influence from many different cultures and the impact of the contacts between the Christian and the Muslim world, not to forget the vast and deeply learned Jewish culture within the heartland of medieval Europe. As Strayer emphasizes, “it has become impossible to ignore the Byzantine, Jewish, and Muslim contributions. They were the sources from which Western Europe drew its material and intellectual luxuries – silks and spices, algebra and astronomy – and even an undergraduate finds 1 In deliberate contrast to all the entries in this Handbook of Medieval Studies, this introduction always provides the full bibliographical information, which explains the appearance of a regular apparatus with footnotes in the traditional format.
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himself confronted by references to the scholars and techniques of these civilizations.”2 Whether the chronological demarcation of the Middle Ages still should be, for its beginning phase, at ca. 500 and, for its waning, or autumn, to borrow Johan Huizinga’s term, around 1500 C.E., respectively, might be questioned today. After all, we have learned even more than had former generations of scholars to recognize the important continuation of countless traditions from the world of antiquity to the early Middle Ages, and also from the 15th century to the world of the Reformation and the Renaissance, if not beyond. But this is a matter of recent explorations once again and should not necessarily concern a Handbook of Medieval Studies that is trying to take stock of what we know about that period today from various perspectives. Nevertheless, this should be kept in mind for many of the entries in this Handbook because literary, philosophical, economic, artistic, and religious traditions continued certainly far beyond the somewhat artificial milestone of 1500, and indeed throughout the entire Ancien Régime until 1789 (in France) or 1917 (in Russia), such as in the case of the Mirror of Princes, a highly popular didactic genre instructing rulers about how to govern and how to live an honorable, virtuous life that continued to be written and to be published far into the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The enormous quantity of facts and data determining that past world is so huge, indeed, that only an encyclopedia might really accomplish the task of summarizing all relevant information, for individual scholars can no longer hope to deal with the entire universe of the medieval world all by themselves. But facts alone do not tell the whole story, and they can be rather deceiving in that we have learned just too many times how much so-called “facts” were primarily the product of imagination, wishful thinking, or simply of an ideological program. Moreover, scholars have always been victim to the selective nature of the surviving evidence, regularly produced by the winners of history, the dominant class or social group, and many times by male scribes and artists to the disadvantage of their female counterparts or minority groups within their society. The number of pertinent chronicles is legion, and they are what they are, that is, attempts by individuals to come to terms with their own past as they perceived it, some injecting a strong dose of subjectivity, others striving for as much objectivity as possible. Chronicles
2 Dictionary of the Middle Ages, ed. Joseph R. Strayer, vol. 1 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1982), ix. It consists of 13 vols., the last vol. and the index having appeared in 1989. An important supplement volume followed in 2004, see below.
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are texts in the first case, and hence subject to some of the same limitations as many literary texts.3 The only reasonable approach to Medieval Studies can be, to state the obvious, a critical one, informed both by traditional and contemporary theoretical concepts, methodologies, and interpretive tools. We have to be critical with regard to the sources, to the proper evaluation, and to our full understanding of their meaning, an approach that already characterized the high point of the Middle Ages when rationality entered the philosophical discourse during the 12th century.4 This critical approach, however, has ever been subject to ideological influences, interpretations, and even subjective interests/agendas. Schools of thought have regularly formed and dominated intellectual life. Academia is not an institution free of value systems and programmatic principles. Of course, here I am preaching to the converted, but all this still needs to be observed and reviewed, nevertheless. Medieval libraries are filled with falsifications, and individuals and political parties even then tried their hardest to undermine their opponents’ position, esteem, authority, and power, or simply to hold on to their own property, whether properly acquired or ill secured.5 Poets competed against each other, and so did artists and composers. Scholars, theologians, medical doctors, teachers, and architects argued and polemicized hard and bitterly, which also determined the sources we have left about and from them. Our modern attempts to gain some kind of understanding requires a careful balancing of how we evaluate the documents, always keeping in mind that they represent subjective perspectives.6
3 Graeme Dunphy is currently editing a comprehensive encyclopedia on this genre, Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming). 4 Edward Grant, Good and Reason in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). 5 Robert F. Berkhofer III, Day of Reckoning: Power and Accountability in Medieval France. The Middle Ages Series (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004); Fälschungen im Mittelalter: Internationaler Kongress der Monumenta Germaniae Historica, München, 16.–19. September 1986, Schriften der Monumenta Germaniae Historica, 33 (Hanover: Hahn’sche Buchhandlung, 1988–1990). 6 A great example for the excellent results that we can achieve if we consider as many different voices within one discourse, especially in the field of religious competitions since late antiquity when the bitter conflicts among Christians, Jews, and Muslims really began, now proves to be Alexandra Cuffel’s superior and well researched Gendering Disgust in Medieval Religious Polemic (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), see my review in Mediaevistik, forthcoming.
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Again, all that would not need to be stated here once again, yet it sheds important light on the ever-present necessity to evaluate where we stand today vis-à-vis the sources and the various interpretations. Neither a lexicon nor a dictionary, let alone an encyclopedia with its much more ambitious scope, normally reflects such problems. Only occasionally do we observe more specific attempts to outline the history of research, although that history informs us as much about the past as the actual sources and documents. Considering the absolutely overwhelming amount of information available today about almost any aspect of medieval life in material and intellectual/ spiritual terms, we need both an encyclopedic approach and a critical approach. The primary purpose of this Handbook of Medieval Studies, which I will illuminate in greater detail below, consists of offering such critical overviews, which will lay the foundations for future research considering that the readers will be able to learn of the major stepping stones in each respective field, avoiding the often observable dilemma of reinventing the wheel when we investigate specific aspects in medieval history, language, culture, literature, technology, economics, and agriculture. To aim for the goal of grasping the whole medieval universe, that is, to try to be a ‘Renaissance man,’ an ‘uomo universale,’ with regard to the Middle Ages, would amount to hubris in light of some 1000 years of medieval history, more than three dozen of distinctly spoken languages, and a huge geographical expanse and cultural and ethnic diversity determining medieval Europe. Just as in so many other fields of academic investigations, the more we know today about the medieval world, the more we have also to realize how limited this very knowledge truly is because it has grown almost exponentially, both horizontally and vertically over the last two hundred years.7 Interdisciplinarity proves to be a conditio sine qua non for modern Medieval Studies, whether we deal with the experience of love, death, friendship, fear, God, or natural disasters and catastrophes. Violence, hatred, contempt or fear of the other, persecutions of minorities, or wars against enemies often find their explanations in fundamental concepts common among all people. 7 Surprisingly, just such an attempt was made by Karl Bertau, Schrift–Macht–Heiligkeit in den Literaturen des jüdisch-christlich-muslimischen Mittelalters, ed. Sonja Glauch (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 2005); for some critical comments, see my review in Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 42, 1 (2007): 155–59. Basically, Bertau draws most of his information from the Lexikon des Mittelalters and tries to establish global intercultural links without a thorough grounding in most of the cultures, languages, and documents dealt with. Hence, the number of problems of his approach is legion, unfortunately.
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Since the early Middle Ages, for instance, if not considerably earlier, the representatives of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam fought against each other drawing from deep-seated and commonly shared feelings of disgust of bodily effluents, especially blood and the excrements. The polemics launched against each other were surprisingly similar and indicate that Christians knew fairly well what Jewish thinkers argued, and vice versa, and the same applies to the Muslims and their religious counterparts.8 Simply put, the more complex the image that we can sketch of the medieval world or parts of it becomes, the more accurate it actually emerges, even though the vast diversity of aspects pertaining to any of those huge topics threatens to make us not to see the forest for just too many trees. Strayer and his colleagues aimed at North American high school and college students, and scholars, which represents a considerable challenge concerning how to design the individual articles, offering solid and in-depth information, yet without overpowering the individual readers who obviously would have very different backgrounds, interests, and abilities. Strayer noted, however, that the Dictionary would provide “definitions and explanations of medieval terms and ideas that arise in their reading. Those at the university level will find further information on the people, events, and concepts of the Middle Ages. Finally, there is the specialist, and every medievalist is a student throughout his career, for the deeper digs, the wider the gaps. By combining previously fragmented areas of Medieval Studies, the Dictionary enables the scholars and others to survey the field quickly, offering them a singular means of coordinating the various branches of medieval scholarship into an accessible and coherent whole” (x). The problems with this three-pronged approach are self-evident and have often been pointed out by critics who find this Dictionary at times too superficial and simplistic, and particularly too much focused on the English Midlands, Normandy, or the Île de France, neglecting, above all, social-historical, mental-historical, and spiritual-religious aspects, as William Chester Jordan commented in the “Preface” to a supplement volume from 2004 edited by himself.9 This additional volume laudably tries to address many of 8 See the excellent study by Alexandra Cuffel, Gendering Disgust in Medieval Religious Polemic. The author impressively commands all the relevant languages and displays an amazing knowledge of the specific sources in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Arabic, not to mention various medieval vernacular languages. Cf. now John Sewell, ‘The Son Rebelled’, Laughter in the Middle Ages, ed. Albrecht Classen, forthcoming. 9 Dictionary of the Middle Ages: Supplement, 1, ed. William Chester Jordan (New York, Detroit, San Diego, et al.: Thomson Gale, 2004), vii.
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the concerns that had been voiced regarding the original conceptual design of the Dictionary, adding many new perspectives, themes, topics, and subject matters relevant for the Middle Ages that have surfaced in the scholarly investigations during the last decades and continued to evolve in the international academic discourse as significant for our full comprehension of that past world. Most noteworthy might be the articles on “Medievalism” and on “race,” which suggest some new approaches scholarship has pursued in the recent decades. After all, our field is in constant flux, reflecting new methodologies, concepts, theoretical approaches, and perceptions. In fact, this supplement volume impressively indicates the vibrancy and innovative character of Medieval Studies at large, whether we think of minority groups, poverty, intra-religious exchanges, the history of mentality, the history of everyday life, or the history of emotions. But despite all those attempts to internationalize and to open up our field to the widest possible range of research topics, we continue to be severely hampered by linguistic challenges, a lack of communication, and access to the primary sources, not to mention the disciplinary boundaries that limit us excessively to very narrow and specific research agendas, as if medieval poets or chroniclers, for instance, had pursued a similarly narrow viewpoint as we do today. To put it bluntly, taking into account an extreme situation, medieval scholarship published in the Far East, whether China, Japan, or Korea, normally remains inaccessible to European scholars, and vice versa. But we do not have to go so far as to realize how limited we all are because most medievalists outside of the following areas are not particularly, or not at all, versed in Scandinavian, Dutch, Finnish, Hungarian, or Gaelic, to mention just a few languages. Major contributions to Medieval Studies have been produced by Russian or Polish colleagues, but there does not seem to be a good linguistic bridge to Western languages, unless we can rely on a translation into any of the major languages spoken in the West (and always the other way around as well). Sadly, this linguistic limitation also emerges even within Western Europe, if we think of the many Anglophone, Francophone, or Iberophone scholars who cannot read German, Danish, Flemish, Czech, or even Italian, and vice versa. And there are many more languages that we ought to understand in order to do justice to the actual needs and demands of our academic discipline. I like to think that Latin continues to be a lingua franca, at least among the experts, though we do not speak it anymore, except, perhaps, in the Vatican, among Latin teachers, and Neo-Latin scholars. At least a certain degree of reading ability common among us all still might be the norm, irrespective
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of the specialized field within Medieval Studies. By the same token, what languages were known among medieval and early-modern poets? Most of them could probably not understand more than one or two languages other than their mother tongue, although exceptions must also have existed, particularly among poets, travelers, and artists. After all, as we increasingly begin to fathom, there was, for example, a steady stream of Indian, Persian, and Arabic literature into medieval Europe, as a considerable corpus of late-medieval verse or prose narratives indicates (e.g., Barlaam and Josaphat).10 Many translators were involved, however, even then, which ultimately made the international transfer of literary themes and motifs possible, and this probably on a much broader basis than has been previously assumed, though many details still escape us because Western medievalists do not know the complimentary material produced in the east, and vice versa. How could we expect, for instance, a 15th-century scholar working on Dutch or Slavic literature to know anything about Persian or Indian literature transmitted through many different channels and languages? In other words, there remains much work to be done, though on a more comparative and interdisciplinary level than ever before. And, to return to the issue of Latin, we must strive to reinvigorate the modern study of this lingua franca commonly used in the Middle Ages by the political elite, the Church, and the administration. Otherwise, despite the best efforts at making medieval texts available to modern readers through translations, the access to the vast depository of medieval documents will be in danger.11 The editors of the famous German Lexikon des Mittelalters, with the first fascicle of the first volume having appeared in 1977, the ninth, and last volume in 1998, aimed specifically at the scholar and intend to provide detailed and in-depth information about history, culture, and everyday life (‘lifestyles’ in their words) of the entire medieval world on the basis of written
10 Albrecht Classen, “Kulturelle und religiöse Kontakte zwischen dem christlichen Europa und dem buddhistischen Indien während des Mittelalters: Rudolfs von Ems’ Barlaam und Josaphat im europäischen Kontext,” Fabula 41, 3/4 (2000): 203–28. See also Sabine Obermaier, Das Fabelbuch als Rahmenerzählung: Intertextualität und Intratextualität als Wege zur Interpretation des Buchs der Beispiele der alten Weisen Antons von Pforr, Beihefte zum Euphorion, 48 (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2004). 11 Paul Freedman, “Medieval Studies,” Dictionary of the Middle Ages. Supplement 1, ed. William Chester Jordan (New York, Detroit, et al.: Thomson Learning, 2004), 383–89; especially 388.
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documents and visual objects.12 They realized, of course, as many other editors before them, that the spectrum of our current understanding of the Middle Ages has expanded so much that no individual scholar would be in a position any longer to gain a more or less complete overview and understanding of that world and culture. Most impressively, the Lexikon offers erudite articles about a seemingly inexhaustible range of topics, themes, ideas, people, works, and objects from the Middle Ages.13 But this Lexikon also intends to reach out to a general readership, which necessarily forced a (too) clean separation of the actual presentation of the topic covered in each entry and the relevant research literature (X).14 Moreover, the editors were faced with the difficult decision: how to limit the range of aspects because there might not be an end in sight. Consequently, they decided not to exclude any particular area, “da das der Überzeugung, ein Gesamtbild der mittelalterlichen Epoche könne nur unter Einschluß aller uns überlieferten Erscheinungsformen mittelalterlichen Lebens vermittelt werden, widersprochen hätte” (XI; because this would have contradicted the conviction that a comprehensive picture of the medieval period could be conveyed only if all forms of medieval life that have survived until today would be included). This challenge, however, could not be met for the countless numbers of medieval art works, which are therefore dealt with more collectively in a type of topography of art (“Kunsttopographie”). Mindful of these complex parameters, the Lexikon deliberately takes into account also those worlds and cultures located at the margin of the European Latin world, including the Byzantine Empire, the Arabic-Islamic kingdoms, and the Ottoman Empire. Moreover, the editors underscore that the history of medieval Jewry represents an integral aspect of medieval European history at large, irrespective of, or rather also because of, countless pogroms, persecutions, and expulsions (XI), that sometimes blind us to the intensive cohabitation and collaboration of both religious groups in everyday-life situations,
12 Lexikon des Mittelalters, 9 vols. (Munich and Zurich: Artemis Verlag, 1980–1998), a separate volume with the index appeared in 1999. By now it already seems high time to produce an updated, revised, and expanded edition because Medieval Studies make such rapid progress. 13 However, there are inexplicable gaps, such as the absence of a lemma on the Inquisition or on chess. 14 When one resorts to the digital version of the Lexikon, available on a CD-ROM, the bibliography appears in a separate window only after one has clicked on the respective button, which visually distances the text even further from the critical apparatus.
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in scholarship, and medicine. Insofar as many medieval Europeans sought contacts with distant lands, including Mongolia, China, the Philippines, and India, relevant entries have been added to this Lexikon. As to the chronological framework, the editors defined as their historical period the time between 300 and 1500 C.E., meaning that late antiquity and then also the period until the end of the 15th century are considered here as well. The editors do not deny that the Middle Ages continued to hold sway well after 1500, actually extending even to the 18th century in some specific areas, but the turn from the 15th to the 16th century actually represents a decisive turning point in history that would allow us to determine the end of the Middle Ages from many viewpoints (XII). The cultural-historical lexicon for the Nordic Middle Ages, Kulturhistorisk Leksikon for Nordisk Middelalder fra vikingetid til reformationstid (CulturalHistorical Lexicon for the Nordic Middle Ages, from the Time of the Vikings to the Age of the Protestant Reformation), first published between 1956 and 1978, with a second (identical) edition in 1980, also needs to be considered here as a major reference work.15 Each article provides in-depth information about a wide range of topics, including religion, law, agriculture, crafts, literature, social conditions, architecture, painting, sculpture, nutrition, cooking, etc., accompanied by excellent bibliographies. The editors have made every effort to meet their own theoretical goal of truly addressing cultural history in the Middle Ages, whether the respective articles deal with “Arbeidsfest” (workers’ holidays), “Bergsprivilegier” (mining privileges), “Biskop” (Bishop), or “Vindue” (window), “Vinhandel” (wine trade), or literary topics such as Volsunga saga. There are no lemmata on historical persons/characters, however. Appropriate for the targeted audiences, the articles are written in Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian. It would have been helpful, however, if at least the entry titles had been translated into English or German. Those unfamiliar with any of the Scandinavian languages, can now turn to a newer one-volume encyclopedia dealing with that world, Medieval Scandinavia, ed. by Phillip Pulsiano, who extended the time frame a bit further into the past, beginning roughly with the Migration Period, but ending likewise with the time of the Protestant Reformation. The range of themes is considerably broader, at least far beyond ‘cultural history’ per se, and includes such aspects as “Cosmography,” “Eddic Poetry,” “Graves,”
15 Kulturhistorisk Leksikon for nordisk Middelalder fra vikingetid til reformationstid, ed. by a whole gremium of scholars from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. 2nd ed. 20 vols., with one supplement vol. and one vol. for the register (1956–1978; Viborg, Denmark: Rosenkilde og Bagger, 1980–1982).
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“Homilies,” “Land Tenure and Inheritance,” “Outlawry,” “Reliquaries,” and “Saints’ Lives.” Although addressing a wider audience, each article is appropriately accompanied by a solid bibliography, avoiding the usual shortcoming of Anglophone publications to include only English titles for an English-reading group of users of this type of reference work.16 Slavic scholarship has also produced an excellent reference work for the Middle Ages, particularly the comprehensive Lexicon Antiquitatum Slavicarum: Summarium Historiae Cultus Humanitatis Slavorum, published in Polish.17 Scholars in neighboring countries have, of course, made many attempts to come to terms with the Middle Ages in their own areas, see, for example, A Handbook for Slavic Studies, ed. by Leonid Ivan Strakhovsky (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1949), which is, however, not at all limited to the Middle Ages.18 See also Slovar’ srednevekovoi kul’tury, ed. Aron Akovlevich Gurevich; M. Andreev, Summa culturologiae. 2nd ed. (2003; Moscow: Rosspen, 2007); and Derzhava Riurikovichei: slaviane, Rus, Rossiia: entsiklopedicheskii slovar’ v shesti tomakh, ed. V(ladimir). V(olfovich). Boguslavskii, 6 vols. (Tula: Russkii leksikon, 1994–).19 Similarly as the Nordic cultural history, Kulturhistorisk Leksikon for Nordisk Middelalder fra vikingetid til reformationstid, especially in the Lexicon Antiquitatum Slavicarum the following topics are covered: culture, social and economic conditions, literature, linguistics, archeology, anthropology, art, religion, politics, and historical events of the Slavic peoples from their origin to the end of the 12th century. The contributors do not only deal with the cultures
16 Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia, ed. Phillip Pulsiano, co-ed. Kirsten Wolf (New York and London: Garland, 1993). 17 Słownik starorytno ´sci słowianskich: ´ Encyklopedyczny zarys kultury Słowian od czasów najdawniejszych, ed. Władysław Kowalenko, Gerard Labuda, and Tadeusz Lehr-Spławi nski ´ (with changing editors), 8 vols. (vol. 8 ed. by Antoni G‰siorowski, Gerard Labuda, and Andrzej We˛ dzki), Institutum Scientiae Rerum Slavicarum Academiae Scientiarum Polonae (Wrocław, Warsaw, and Cracow: Zakład Narodowy imienia Ossolinskich-Wydawnictwo ´ Polskiej Akademii Nauk, 1961–1996). 18 See also Georgij Petrovic Fedotov, The Middle Ages: The 13th to the 15th Centuries, ed. John Meyendorff, The Russian Religious Mind, 2 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966). 19 Cf. Kirilo-metodievska entsiklopediia v tri toma, ed. Boniu Angelov, Petur Nikolov Dinekov, Dimitur Simeonov Angelov, and Liliana Grasheva, 4. vols. (Sofiia: Izd-vo na Bulgarska akademiia na naukite, 1985–2003); Sima M Cirkovic, Leksikon srpskog srednjeg veka = The Lexicon of Serbian Middle Ages (Beograd: Knowledge, 1999). I have not been able to examine all these reference works through autopsy.
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and histories of the Slavs, but also with those of peoples in contact or in neighborhood with them. Moreover, we find countless entries on locations, figures, objects, rituals, performances, texts, art works, music instruments, epitaphs and inscriptions, foodstuff, countries, tribes, territories, and archeological finds. Occasionally there are also larger topics covered, such as monastic movements, charters, the church, feudalism, trade (including with slaves), and many others. The initial goal had been to publish two volumes only, which determined the usual length of entries, but since the Lexicon then grew to eight volumes, the articles accordingly increasingly gained in length and depth. They are accompanied by most useful bibliographies. There are numerous illustrations, tables, and maps. Other attempts to update this Slavic Lexicon and to produce an equivalent in German, for instance, failed, see, for example, Enzyklopädie zur Frühgeschichte Europas, ed. Joachim Herrmann and Gerard Labuda (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1980), of which only a sample fascicle appeared. See also Enzyklopädie zur Geschichte des östlichen Europas (6.–13. Jahrhundert), ed. Christian Lübke and Andrzej Wêdzki (Greifswald: n.p., 1998; only the letter ‘A’ was covered).20 But we have now Siegfried Tornow’s Was ist Osteuropa? Handbuch der osteuropäischen Text- und Sozialgeschichte von der Spätantike bis zum Nationalstaat. Slavistische Studienbücher, Neue Folge, 16 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2005). The author deals with the Slavic world from prehistory to the present, focuses on the languages in Eastern Europe, the expanding influence of Christian missionaries, the emergence of sacred languages and scripts, education and culture, and the various text genres used in Eastern Europe. Above all, he covers the history of Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, in the age of Humanism, and the Protestant Reformation, in the Baroque, Enlightenment, the 19th, and in the 20th century. The extensive and international bibliography provides an excellent research tool. A most important reference work of recent date proves to be Wieser Enzyklopädie des europäischen Ostens, ed. Günther Hödl and Lojze Wieser, together with Feliks J. Bister et al. (Klagenfurt: Wieser, 1999–); vol. 18: Selbstbild und Fremdbilder der Völker des europäischen Ostens (Image of Self and Images of Foreigners by the Peoples in the European East), ed. Karl Kaser and Martin Prochazka, section 3: Dokumente-Abteilung (Klagenfurt: Wieser, 2006). See also vol. 10: Lexikon der Sprachen des europäischen Ostens, ed. Milosˇ Okuka with Gerald Krenn (Klagenfurt: Wieser, 2002). I have not been able to autopsy this new reference work, but it promises to emerge as a 20 See also Maciej Gotwski, Komizm w polskiej sztuce gotyckiej (Warsaw: Panstwowe ´ Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1973).
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most significant data base for all studies focused on Eastern Europe in many different fields, from the Middle Ages until today.21 Although the major historical lexicon Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe does not limit itself at all to the Middle Ages, it still contains a wealth of relevant articles, whether we turn to the topic “Bauer” (farmer), “Bildung” (education), “Christentum” (Christianity), “Monarchie” (monarchy), “Natur” (Natur), or “Politik” (politics).22 If we use the entry for “Zivilisation, Kultur” (civilization, culture) as an example, we can quickly gain an idea how this monumental reference work is structured and where its true value lies, and this also for Medieval Studies. The author of this article, Jörg Fisch, begins with a global discussion of culture, then turns to ancient Greece, Rome, and the Middle Ages, whereas the term ‘civilization’ was unknown in those times. Instead, it emerged, first exclusively in its Latin form, only in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, that is, in the wake of Humanism, and then was translated into the various vernaculars. Subsequently, Fisch takes his readers to the history of culture in the following centuries.23 Although the subtitle of this huge lexicon focuses on “political-social” language in Germany, the contributors regularly take all of European intellectual history into view, which is particularly prevalent in the period of the Middle Ages, and so is regularly covered here as well. In this context we need to refer to another fundamental reference work that is unfortunately much too little known outside of the Germanophone world despite its extraordinary scholarly value: the Handwörterbuch zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte (Handbook of the German Legal History). Initiated by the famous Germanist Wolfgang Stammler in 1960, this Handbook was edited by him and the legal historians Adalbert Erler and Ekkehard Kaufmann until Stammler’s death in 1965. Vol. 5, edited by Erler (deceased), Kaufmann, Dieter Werkmüller, and Ruth Schmidt-Wiegand, appeared in 1998. Although the emphasis rests on the Germanic aspects of legal history, particularly Roman Law and most neighboring laws have also been consulted. The historical time frame is not at all limited to the Middle Ages, in fact it extends down to the late 20th century, but medievalists will still be 21 I would like to thank Jerzy Strzelczyk, Instytut Historii, Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza, Poznan, ´ Poland, for his help in identifying and understanding these important publications. 22 Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe: Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland, ed. Otto Brunner, Werner Conze, and Reinhart Koselleck, 8 vols. (Stuttgart: E. Klett, 1972–1999). 23 Jörg Fisch, “Zivilisation, Kultur,” Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe, vol. 7, 1992, 679–774.
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exceedingly well served by this reference work. Each article is composed by an individual contributor, each followed by a solid bibliography.24 A second, completely revised edition is currently in progress, ed. by Albrecht Cordes, Heiner Lück, and Dieter Werkmüller (2004–). The most erudite and comprehensive reference work for medieval German literature proves to be the famous Verfasserlexikon, also founded and published by Wolfgang Stammler,25 and completely revised and expanded in the second edition under the leadership of Kurt Ruh, together with Gundolf Keil, Werner Schröder, Burghart Wachinger, and Franz Josef Worstbrock. Here the complete corpus of texts written by authors in the German Middle Ages, along with a considerable selection of authors writing in Latin, is dealt with most comprehensively. Stammler had already set the tone when he insisted on incorporating also authors of historical, philosophical, theological, legal, medical, and scientific texts and treatises.26 The editors additionally included writers from antiquity and the Middle Ages who exerted considerable influence on German literature, such as Aristotle, Augustine, Bernard of Clairvaux, Boethius, Bonaventura, etc. Similarly, Middle Dutch authors, insofar as their impact was noticeable in medieval German literature, were also included. The editors, closely following Stammler’s guidelines, tentatively drew a line at ca. 1480 for Latin literature when humanism developed more strongly, but the major historical date really serving as a milepost was the government of Emperor Maximilian I (1493–1519). Many text traditions, such as the late-medieval drama, continued well into the 16th century. The most important editorial decision for this Verfasserlexikon consists in the inclusion of the manuscript tradition with exact call numbers and references to the locations where the manuscripts are housed. Furthermore, we are informed about critical editions, interpretations, and bibliographical and historical studies pertinent for each topic, author, genre, text, etc. As in the case of virtually all encyclopedic enterprises, once a dictionary or lexicon has been completed, supplemented volumes become necessary, and this was the case with the Verfasserlexikon as well.27 There is no doubt that future ex24 Handwörterbuch zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte, ed. Adalbert Erler and Ekkehard Kaufmann, co-founded by Wolfgang Stammler. Vol. 5 ed. Adalbert Erler (†), Ekkehard Kaufmann, and Dieter Werkmüller, with the philological assistance of Ruth Schmidt-Wiegand, 5 vols. (Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 1971–1998). 25 Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon, ed. Wolfgang Stammler, 5 vols. (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1933–1955). 26 Vol. 1, “Vorrede,” V–VII; here V. 27 See also the supplement to the Dictionary of the Middle Ages, cf. above.
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pansions of the general scope of texts to be covered here, new discoveries, new critical editions, and interpretations, hence new perspectives and realizations will one day require a third edition.28 Medieval French literature is also treated rather comprehensively in the Dizionario critico della letteratura francese, ed. by Franco Simone, but this work comprises the entire history of French literature.29 Of more interest to the medievalist is the excellent volume on Le Moyen Age, edited by Robert Bossuat, Louis Pichard, and Guy Raynaud de Lage, in the Dictionnaire des lettres françaises/Le Moyen Age, substantially updated since the 1960s under the editorship of Geneviève Hasenohr and Michel Zink.30 It mirrors, in many ways, though still limited by size, the Verfasserlexikon; it also offers qualified articles on related subjects, such as “Courtoisie,” “Musique au Moyen Âge,” or “Troubadours,” and many more. See also Dictionnaire des littératures de langue française, ed. Jean-Pierre Beaumarchais, Daniel Couty, and Alain Rey, 3 vols. (Paris: Bordas, 1984). The same constraints apply to the Dizionario enciclopedico della letteratura italiana,31 containing, overall, good entries, along with bibliographies. In fact, there is a plethora of similar dictionaries for Spanish, English, or Portuguese, for instance, but I believe that in terms of scholarly breadth, depth, and fundamental research presented, not to for-
28 Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon, 2nd, completely new ed. by Kurt Ruh, together with Gundolf Keil, Werner Schröder, Burghart Wachinger, and Franz Josef Worstbrock, 10 vols. (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1977–1996; supplement fascicles 1–5 as vol. 11: 2000–2004; Handschriftenregister (Register of Manuscripts), ed. Christine Stöllinger-Löser, vol. 12: 2006; Register der Drucke. Sonstige Textzeugen, Initien: vol. 13: 2007). 29 Dizionario critico della letteratura francese, ed. Franco Simone, 2 vols. (Turin: Unione Tipografico-Editrice, 1972); see also The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French, ed. Peter France (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995). 30 Dictionnaire des lettres françaises, ed. Georges Grente. Ed. entièrement rev. et mise à jour sous la direction de Geneviève Hasenohr et Michel Zink (1951; Paris: Fayard 1992). The volume on Le Moyen Age appeared in 1964. See also the useful Dictionnaire du Moyen Âge, ed. Claude Gauvard, Alain de Libera, and Michel Zink, Série “Quadrige” 386 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2002). It contains 1790 truly relevant entries on concepts and practices/customs such as “intuition,” “cénobitisme,” “courtoisie,” “cuisine,” “dot,” “encyclopédisme,” “lois somptuaires,” “pauvreté,” “peinture,” “regalia”, etc., as well as on people, places, movements, and events in Europe and the Middle East in the fields of history, literature, art history, law, philosophy, etc. I would like to express my gratitude to Nadia Margolis, Mount Holyoke, for pointing out this dictionary to me. 31 Dizionario enciclopedico della letteratura italiana, ed. Giuseppe Petronio, 6 vols. (Bari: Gius. Laterza & Figli; Rome: Unione Editoriale, 1966–1970).
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get the clarity of presentation, the Verfasserlexikon certainly serves as an ideal model for the study of any other language and culture in medieval Europe.32 A major attempt to address this desideratum was made by Hans Robert Jauss and Erich Köhler when they launched the book series “Grundriss der romanischen Literatur des Mittelalters” in 1972, which is incomplete until today. It was supposed to replace the book series “Grundriss der romanischen Literatur des Mittelalters,” ed. by Gustav Gröber (Berlin and Leipzig: Walter de Gruyter, 1897–1906), and has, indeed, accomplished much, though the project has been riddled by many technical problems that make it rather cumbersome and difficult to utilize it easily and efficiently. Vol. 1, Généralités, ed. by Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht (Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, 1972), outlines the overarching plan. Following this overview, vol. 2 covers lyrical genres; vol. 3: the epic romances; vol. 4: courtly romances; vol. 5: short verse narratives; vol. 6: didactic, allegorical, and satirical literature; vol. 7: the age of Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarch; vol. 8: 14th- and 15th-century French literature; vol. 9: 14th- and 15th-century Spanish literature; vol. 10: 14th- and 15th-century Italian literature; vol. 11: historiographical literature from the origin to 1500; vol. 12: medieval theater; and vol. 13: a synthesis, chronology, and index. Each volume consists of individual articles composed by experts in the specific fields, writing in the various Romance languages. One of the most comprehensive reference works for the history of literature both on a global level, but then also, specifically, focusing on the Middle Ages, was the “Handbuch der Literaturwissenschaft,” ed. Oskar Walzel, the first volume of which focused on Die altgermanische Dichtung, by Andreas Heusler (Wildpark-Potsdam: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft Athenaion, 1926). Of course, the passing of time required the publication of a completely new handbook, which was edited by Klaus von See, beginning with a volume on Altorientalische Literatur by Wolfgang Röllig (Wiesbaden: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft, 1978). Von See edited the volume on Europäisches Frühmittelalter. Neues Handbuch der Literaturwissenschaft, 6 (1985), followed by Henning Krauss, who edited Europäisches Hochmittelalter (vol. 7, 1981), and by Willi Erzgräber, who edited Europäisches Spätmittelalter 32 There are, of course, massive biographical dictionaries for almost all European countries, see, for instance, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, ed. Alberto M. Ghisalberti, 70 vols. (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana, 1960–2004), but they are not specifically geared for medievalists, though they are often also most helpful for them. For space limitations, I abstain from listing some of the major reference works; by the same token, I will not examine the many excellent dictionaries for medieval languages here.
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(vol. 8, 1978). The highly interdisciplinary character of these volumes deserves to be praised, and to elucidate it following I will outline briefly the topics covered in the last volume as an example: European literature in its political, social, and religious context (Willi Erzgräber); Dante and the Italian literature of his time (August Buck); late-medieval German epic narratives (Kurt Ruh); short verse narratives (Oskar Roth); English secular romances (Dieter Mehl); Langland, Gower, and Chaucer (Erzgräber); literature composed by representatives of the Teutonic Knights (Hans-Georg Richert); English saints’ legends (Theodor Wolpers); German lyric poetry (Alfred Karnein); medieval popular ballads in the Germanic context (Ernst Erich Metzner), French lyric poetry from Gauillaume de Machaut to Jean Marot (Klaus Heitmann); Middle English secular poetry (Wolpers); etc.33 But one of the most comprehensive, and still ongoing project focusing on world literature, including the European Middle Ages and Renaissance, must be mentioned as well, the “Dictionary of Literary Biography,” which began with a volume on The American Renaissance in New England, ed. Joel Myerson (Detroit, MI: Gale Research Company, 1978), and most recently issued a volume on Castilian Writers, 1200–1400, ed. George D. Greenia and Frank A. Domínguez (2008). Here each author and/or text finds philologically and critically sound treatment, beginning with a survey of the manuscript tradition, followed by a bibliography of the translation/s and edition/s, then by a full discussion of the content and/or significance of the author, and concluding with a list of references of secondary studies. Numerous illustrations of manuscripts, statues, paintings, etc. accompany the individual articles.34 Certainly a huge field of research, medieval Latin literature and its dissemination and reception throughout the subsequent centuries until today are remarkably well covered by Spazio letterario del medioevo.35 But the reader
33 There are, of course, many multi-volume literary histories in other languages, see, for a rather obscure example, Otto Maria Carpeaux, História da literatura ocidental, 8 vols. (Rio de Janeiro: O Cruzeiro, 1959–1966). 34 Another example would be: German Writers and Works of the High Middle Ages: 1170–1280, ed. James Hardin and Will Hasty, Dictionary of Literary Biography, 138 (Detroit, Washington, DC, and London: Gale Research, 1994). 35 Spazio letterario del medioevo, ed. Guglielmo Cavallo, Claudio Leonardi, Enrico Menestò, Piero Boitani, Mario Mancini, and Alberto Vàrvaro, 5 vols. (Rome: Salerno Editrice, 1992–1998). Vol. I covers the broad topic of text production; vol. II focuses on the dissemination of texts; vol. III deals with the reception of texts (history of reception); vol. IV is concerned with the modern perception of the Middle Ages from Humanism to Romanticism, Realism, and the modern
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faces the problem of little transparency insofar as s/he has to plough through a massive amount of information displayed in lengthy narratives that do not necessarily make it easy to identify and comprehend the crucial information. Nevertheless, the critical discussion of the specific authors, texts, and aspects in general is soundly based on the relevant research literature, coupled with solid references to the important manuscripts. Some of the major medieval authors have also been dealt with in encyclopedic fashion, such as Dante, see the Dante Encyclopedia, ed. Richard H. Lansing and Teodolinda Barolini (New York and London: Garland, 2000), or Geoffrey Chaucer (see All Things Chaucer: An Encyclopedia of Chaucer’s Works, ed. Shannon L. Rogers [Westport, CT, and London: Greenwood Press, 2007]). The world of King Arthur in its countless literary, artistic, and also cinematographic manifestations is impressively covered by The New Arthurian Encyclopedia, ed. Norris J. Lacy, Garland Reference Library of the Humanities, 931 (1986; New York and London: Garland, 1996). Francis G. Gentry, Winder McConnell, Ulrich Müller, and Werner Wunderlich edited a comparable reference work for the most important Middle High German epic poem, the Nibelungenlied, The Nibelungen Tradition: An Encyclopedia (New York and London: Routledge, 2002). Similar publications exist also for many other genres, topics, and writers, but for our purpose suffice this short list. The enormous interest in the Middle Ages among the academic and nonacademic audience in the modern world also finds expression in smaller, more pragmatic reference works, such as Joseph Dahmus’s Dictionary of
time, including film, theater, television, opera, and the arts. Vol. V contains an extensive chronological overview (with specific data), and a bibliography of medieval Latin literature using a chronological system, concluding with Pietro d’Abana (1250/57–1315/18). In many respects, most of the above mentioned reference works, such as the Literatur des deutschen Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon, provide an important basis, combined with more recent primary and secondary literature. The bibliography is followed by an alphabetical index, an index of names and noteworthy topics, and index with passages cited, an index of manuscripts cited in the previous volumes, an index of the studies cited in the bibliographies following each entry, and an index of the bibliography itself. Overall, these 5 volumes (actually 6 because vol. 1 is divided into two) represent most important critical surveys and analyses. Unfortunately, because published in Italian, many international medievalists do not seem to be familiar with it, and many non-Italian libraries do not own a copy. World-wide only sixty-six research libraries currently hold a copy. I would like to thank Peter Dinzelbacher for pointing out this major reference work to me.
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Medieval Civilization,36 which contents itself with offering only short explanations of terms, names, places, concepts, objects, and texts. There is no bibliography anywhere, not even in a cumulative list that might have been included at the end of the volume. But Dahmus intended his work really as a dictionary, hence there would be no need for a scholarly apparatus because of the pragmatic purpose of this reference work. The two-volume Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages, edited by André Vauchez in conjunction with Barrie Dobson and Michael Lapidge (2000),37 represents a considerable improvement, both in scope and depth, particularly with regard to the brief bibliographies that are added to each entry. These are limited to about five to eight titles, though they often also contain only one to two references. The editors are fully aware of the tremendous progress Medieval Studies have witnessed, as illustrated by the outstanding International Medieval Bibliography and Medioevo Latino. Moreover, as they hasten to add, “This rapid growth is accompanied by a renewal of methods and approaches that has affected every medieval discipline, from history and art history to archaeology, philosophy and musicology” (vii). Their purpose, therefore, was “to harvest and publish the fruits of this rich growth, to which most of the contributors to the Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages have themselves contributed” (ibid.). True to the ideals of good encyclopedists, André Vauchez and his colleagues made every possible effort to address also the culture and history of those people who did not subscribe to Christianity, that is, Jews, Muslims, and “pagan” people, including Lithuanians, Lapps, Cumans, and Mongols (ibid.). Nevertheless, the focus still rests on the Christian world of medieval Europe, though this extends for them from Iceland and Vinland in modernday Canada to Ethiopia and Central Asia. This encyclopedia is primarily driven by the goal “to help Europeans of the third millennium identify with an inheritance that still marks their way of life and some of whose aspects still charm them, but whose meaning escapes them. With this intention, we have deliberately given a privileged place to philosophy, theology, spirituality, liturgy and iconography” (ibid.). Encyclopedias focused on the Middle Ages, but considerably smaller in scope include, for instance, the Encyclopedia of the Medieval World, ed. by 36 Joseph Dahmus, Dictionary of Medieval Civilization (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company; London: Collier Macmillan Publisher, 1984). See also the quite useful publication by Madeleine Pelner Cosman, Medieval Wordbook (New York: Facts On File, 1996). 37 Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages, edited by André Vauchez in conjunction with Barrie Dobson and Michael Lapidge (Paris: Editions du Cerf; Cambridge: James Clarke & Co.; Rome: Città Nuova, 2000).
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Edward D. English (2005),38 which also offers some further readings for each article, but again severely limits the number of titles and focuses, instead, simply on the factual information without problematizing anything. A special perspective finds most welcome consideration in the encyclopedia on women in the Middle Ages, attempting to encompass non-Western cultures (China, Japan, India, even some Aztec) in addition to the more familiar Western European topics – these too with some new approaches – edited by Katharina M. Wilson and Nadia Margolis, and also, though narrower in scope, Women and Gender in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia, edited by Margaret Schaus (New York and London: Routledge, 2006).39 The series “Routledge Encyclopedias of the Middle Ages” concentrates on a variety of specific cultural aspects, or groups of people, in the Middle Ages, such as Medieval Jewish Civilization and Medieval Islamic Civilization, and treating many other ‘national’ entities or identities from an encyclopedic perspective.40
38 Encyclopedia of the Medieval World, ed. Edward D. English (New York: Facts On File, 2005). 39 Women in the Middle Ages: An Encyclopedia, ed. Katharina M. Wilson and Nadia Margolis, 2 vols. (Westport, CT, and London: Greenwood Press, 2004). Schaus’s encyclopedia also appeared in the series “The Routledge Encyclopedias of the Middle Ages” as no. 14. 40 Medieval Jewish Civilization: An Encyclopedia, ed. Norman Roth (New York and London: Routledge, 2003); Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia, ed. Josef W. Meri, 2 vols. (New York and London: Routledge, 2006). As Meri emphasizes in the introduction, “Such fundamental questions as to what Islamic civilization is and what Muslims did to contribute to European understanding of the sciences, mathematics, arts, literature, philosophy, and government remain largely unanswered. What was the nature of ‘interfaith’ relations in the Islamic world, and what roles did Jews and Christians play in medieval Islamic societies?” xi). Clearly, despite its enormous progress, Medieval Studies continue to open up many unchartered areas and there is no end in sight as to what we still need to learn about that world. For other relevant encyclopedias, see also Medieval Italy: An Encyclopedia, ed. Christopher Kleinhenz, 2 vols. (New York and London: Routledge, 2004); earlier volumes include Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia, ed. Phillip Pulsiano (New York and London: Garland, 1993); Medieval France: An Encyclopedia, ed. William W. Kibler and Grover A. Zinn (New York and London: Garland, 1995); Medieval England, ed. Paul E. Szarmach, M. Teresa Tavormina, and Joel T. Rosenthal (New York and London: Garland, 1998); Medieval Germany: An Encyclopedia, ed. John M. Jeep (New York and London: Garland, 2001); and Medieval Iberia: An Encyclopedia, ed. E. Michael Gerli (New York and London: Routledge, 2003). See also The Oxford Illustrated History of Medieval England, ed. Nigel Saul (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).
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Though of an older vintage, and primarily focused on a summary of factual knowledge, Aryeh Grabois’s Medieval Civilization (1980) still seems to serve its purpose very well even today,41 especially because of its unique emphasis on civilization on a broad scale, extending considerably beyond the medieval European latinitas. As Grabois notes, “the fact remains that most of mankind did not inhabit Western Europe, nor was civilization by any means confined to this part of the world. The Islamic culture, for example, reached a higher level of achievement than that of Western Europe before the 13th century, and cannot be ignored in an encyclopedia of the Middle Ages. Nor is it possible to leave out the great Oriental civilizations – those of India, China and Japan – which, isolated from the Western and Middle Eastern world, achieved great heights. While a similar compendium on the classical world can concentrate on the Mediterranean region, an encyclopedia of medieval civilization must be almost universal in scope” (7). Grabois’s scholarly position still can be fully approved today and demands our respect: “Perhaps there is no better way of demonstrating the universality of the medieval world than by studying the continuous interrelationships in the intellectual and scientific fields, wherein, on the foundations of the classical heritage, Christians, Jews, Moslems and Orientals taught and learned from each other, despite their political and religious animosities” (8). In this regard, the Encyclopaedia Judaica proves to be an invaluable resource, at least as far as Jewish culture and history are concerned.42 The contributors to The Medieval World, edited by Peter Linehan and Janet L. Nelson, took upon themselves the task of expanding on that notion of universality and interdisciplinarity and to deepen the encyclopedic ap-
41 Aryeh Grabois, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Medieval Civilization (Jerusalem: The Jerusalem Publishing House, 1980); trans. as Enzyklopädie des Mittelalters. Deutsche Übersetzung von Michael Toch. Wissenschaftliche Redaktion der deutschen Ausgabe von Peter Dinzelbacher (1981; Zurich: Atlantis, 1988). See also Die visuelle Weltgeschichte des Mittelalters, ed. Edmund Jacoby (Hildesheim: Gerstenberg, 2005); Medieval Panorama, ed. Robert Bartlett (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2001; trans. into various languages). 42 See the very impressive, broadly designed, yet detail-oriented Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd ed., Fred Skolnik, Editor in Chief, Michael Berenbaum, Executive Editor, 22 vols. (1972; Detroit, New York, et al.: Thomson Gale, 2007). One of its worthy predecessors was the English-language Jewish Encyclopedia, 12 vols. (New York and London: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1901–1906). Berenbaum identifies also successful Hebrew and Russian efforts to publish comparable, though always much smaller publications, vol. 1, 15. All these reference works, however, are not specifically geared toward the Middle Ages, yet also include them in multifarious ways.
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proach considerably, focusing on (I) identities: selves and others, (II) beliefs, social values, and symbolic order, (III) power and power structures, and (IV) on elites, organizations, and groups.43 The problem here rests in the highly selective treatment of specialized topics in the form of lengthy articles, which cumulatively might achieve the desired goal, but still fall short of the ideal to examine that period comprehensively. Again, however, such a lofty goal seems to elude all of us too easily, yet the critical issue affecting most such scholarly enterprises needs to be addressed. Smaller dictionaries of the Middle Ages have appeared in most European languages, such as the linguistic Diccionario medieval español: desde las Glosas Emilianenses y Silenses (s. X) hasta el siglo XV, ed. Martín Alonso, 2 vols. (Salamanca: Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, 1986) and the more specialized Diccionario español de textos médicos antiguos [Spanish Dictionary of Ancient Medical Texts], bajo la dirección de María Teresa Herrera, 2 vols. (Madrid: Arco Libros, 1996), which clearly signals how much that cultural-historical period is regarded as a cornerstone of Western civilization in every country. And recently there are serious attempts (once again) to provide encyclopedic overviews for individual regions and countries in Europe, including the Middle Ages, such as The Welsh Academy Encyclopaedia of Wales, ed. John Davies, Jigel Jenkins, Menna Baines, and Peredur I. Lynch (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2008). Although the Middle Ages constitute only one relatively small aspect among many pertinent to the entire history, culture, politics, and religion of Wales, the information offered spans many different themes, objects, works, monuments, texts, and figures from that period, accompanied by good maps, illustrations, photos. Shockingly, however, there is no bibliography, neither for the individual entries nor cumulatively because such matters have been “deemed impractical” (xxv). A unique perspective on the world of the Middle Ages is pursued in the encyclopedia dedicated to Trade, Travel, and Exploration in the Middle Ages, edited by John Block Friedman and Kristen Mossler Figg, who approach their task from a global perspective, defining their task as providing an “introduction to the history of travel, exploration, discovery, and mercantile activity in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the New World.” Moreover, considering the specific nature of their reference work, they also underscore the innovative and interdisciplinary nature of their enterprise which comes as by default because of their topic: “The encyclopedia has a cross-disciplinary focus that promotes the integration of historical, scientific, and literary per43 The Medieval World, ed. Peter Linehan and Janet L. Nelson (London and New York: Routledge, 2001).
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spectives, provides a synthetic view of parallel developments in East and West, and encourages immediate connections …”44 Medieval literature on a very broad scale is covered by the Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature, ed. by Jay Ruud (2006). This scale extends well into the Asian realm, including India, China, Japan, and Korea, whereas Africa and the Americas have been excluded because the medieval texts from those worlds have mostly survived only in oral traditions. And the written sources are modern renditions of the ancient material. Although each entry is accompanied by a short bibliography (with varying length), the editor really aims at English-speaking students, which also explains the greater emphasis on Old and Middle English literature. Unfortunately, instead of providing a solid overview as to which literary texts might really be the truly centrally important ones from the point of view of most recent research, Ruud has used as his guidelines “popular anthologies of world literature, of Western literature, and of English literature.” Consequently, he has “included entries from texts that are often used in introductory college or advanced high school classes, since the primary intended reading audience for this book comprises beginning students in these kinds of classes and their instructors who seek some background information.”45 Of course, this fully legitimizes his approach, and we should not look for higher, more scholarly goals, when they were not pursued in the first place. In fact, Ruud’s encyclopedia serves an excellent purpose and will provide a solid springboard for a possible cohort of future medievalists because these articles offer concisely written introductions, clear definitions, and all the necessary background information for readers of that age level.46
44 Trade, Travel, and Exploration in the Middle Ages: An Encyclopedia, ed. John Block Friedman and Kristen Mossler Figg (New York and London: Garland, 2000), vii. 45 Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature, ed. Jay Ruud (New York: Facts on File, 2006), v. 46 There are actually many similar encyclopedic enterprises for the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, see, for example, Lexikon der Renaissance, ed. Günter Gurst, Siegfried Hoyer, Ernst Ullmann, and Christa Zimmermann (Leipzig: VEB Bibliographisches Institut, 1989); A Concise Encyclopaedia of the Italian Renaissance, ed. J. R. Hale (London: Thames and Hudson, 1981). Similar publications can certainly also be found in Italian, Spanish, French, and other languages, but they do not need to be cited all. The four-volume Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation, ed. Hans J. Hillerbrand, 4 vols. (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), however, is a must to all interested in late-medieval and early-modern religious history.
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Most recently Gert Melville and Martial Staub tried their hands once again at this enormous and difficult task, editing a two-volume Enzyklopädie des Mittelalters, downloadable also as an e-book one time upon purchase of the print copy, addressing a German-speaking audience in which they asked their contributors to examine aspects far beyond the traditional concept of history and literary history.47 Other reference works are also being made available in electronic form, and we might soon witness a revolution in publishing of reference works in the near future deeply affecting Medieval Studies at large. In contrast to common approaches to the medieval world, the editors have not simply listed all kinds of topics as possibly relevant for medieval society from a historical perspective. Instead, along with a cohort of outstanding European medievalists, they collectively examine the world of the Middle Ages in a systematic fashion, above all, and thereby as comprehensively as possible. They discuss, at first, the structure of medieval society, then turn to social formations, kinship organizations, interaction and communication, faith and knowledge, finally, in the second volume, to literature, the visual arts and music, economy, technology, living spaces and conditions, and conclude with a section on the complex of events and regional history. Impressively, here the world of technology and production (agriculture and industry/craftsmanship) enjoys just as much attention as literature, the arts, and religion. But despite all the depth and detail provided in the individual contributions, this encyclopedia basically reiterates and summarizes our current knowledge and deliberately refrains from engaging in a more critical examination of the issues at stake although this was its explicit goal. Of course, in this sense Melville’s and Staub’s approach does not differ much, if any at all, from all previous efforts to create an encyclopedia covering that time and culture. Frankly, not much more can or should be expected from them as editors of an encyclopedia, though the question always looms large – what justifies the publication of yet another reference work, if the previous ones still meet all the demands and summarize appropriately and fully the current level of knowledge about the past? Most cumbersome, here the entire bibliography is placed at the very end of the second volume, without any possibility for the reader to grasp where the individual authors stand with regard to specific issues or positions in current scholarship, as if positivism still were 47 Enzyklopädie des Mittelalters, ed. Gert Melville and Martial Staub, 2 vols. (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2008), see my review, forthcoming in Mediaevistik.
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en vogue. Somewhat simplistically, the editors emphasize that they hope to appeal to the curiosity of an interested reading public, without defining at all what that means at large and what the implications might be as to the scholarly approaches for the composition of the individual entries. After all, Medieval Studies have grown so much over the last century that we have reached today a level of complexity and controversy in the interpretation of virtually every aspect in the Middle Ages that it almost seems impossible to make any simple and straightforward claims or to argue naively regarding the proper interpretation of a poem or a romance. In fact, I would almost submit that we might be beyond the point at which the publication of encyclopedias was still possible and feasible in practical terms, unless we re-conceptualize the genre altogether, refraining from plainly stating what the basic facts might have been. Actually, do we even believe that the Middle Ages, or any other culture and world, can be defined and described in straightforward terms? Do we not have to accept the fundamental discursive nature of virtually all manifestations of human life, and this also then, perhaps only five hundred years ago? And did not those who dominated that discourse determine what documents were created, what art works were commissioned, and what chronicles were written? The problem with this and all other encyclopedias rests in the assumption that the knowledge about the Middle Ages can be easily and factually summarized, which also applies to any other period in human history. We know, perhaps more than we would like to, how much our perception and understanding of that past age is significantly constructed by modern interests, or dominant viewpoints in the past, and at any rate today often determined by mythical thinking, as best represented, for instance, by the modern notion of the medieval chastity belt – both a satirical object and topic developed in the late Middle Ages and a mythical concept about the medieval past created in the modern world.48 And there are countless other examples of mythical thinking concerning the Middle Ages, as the volumes published by Ulrich Müller and Werner Wunderlich forcefully indicate, which in a way 48 For a typical example of how the myth has become ingrained in modern thinking, without any solid historical foundation or textual evidence, reflecting almost nothing but contemporary, basically uninformed and unreflected assumptions about the ‘dark’ Middle Ages, and this even among serious and highly respected scholars, see Vern L. Bullough, “Chastity Girdles,” Human Sexuality: An Encyclopedia, ed. id. and Bonnie Bullough (New York and London: Garland, 1994), 107. By contrast, see now Albrecht Classen, The Medieval Chastity Belt: A The Myth-Making Process, The New Middle Ages (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England, and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).
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also pursue encyclopedic goals.49 Whether we think of some of the major rulers, such as Charlemagne, the Crusades, then of specific locations, places, mountains, rivers, islands, poets, composers, magicians and sorcerers, we have always to realize how much modern notions have infused all those icons from the past, in a way colonizing them in order to gain a grasp on their meaning for us today. Most importantly, the myth of the ‘dark ages’ needs to be dispelled over and over again, especially because popular publishers like to perpetuate this notion because it appeals, in an intricate yet foolish fashion, to base instincts among modern audiences that prefer gruesome but fictional stories about a barbaric past over complex, sophisticated, yet scholarly accounts that seriously try to gain a full and critical understanding of events, people, texts, art works, and developments in the Middle Ages.50 Certainly, many aspects of the medieval world would have to be identified as barbaric, as primitive, as lacking in sophistication, culture, hygiene, etc. in comparison with those standards we are used to today. But any critic could raise similar charges even against the Western world in the 21st century resorting to different sets of criteria, such as the number of civilian casualties in modern wars, or ‘collateral damage’ in military parlance, the rate at which prisoners have been and continue to be tortured (see Guantanamo Bay), and the enormous contradiction between amazing and rapid advances in modern science and technology and the wide-ranging and extensive belief in superstition, magic, including religious explanations of the origin of our world, such as ‘Intelligent Design.’ At any rate, the term ‘Dark Ages’ does not help in any constructive fashion to comprehend the Middle Ages and only evokes Romantic, fanciful, titillating, horrifying, and deliberately shocking notions about a world that has been very little understood and continues to challenge us in our episte-
49 Ulrich Müller and Werner Wunderlich, ed., Mittelalter-Mythen, vol. 1 (St. Gallen: UVK Fachverlag für Wissenschaft und Studium, 1996), with a focus on: Herrscher, Helden, Heilige (Rulers, Heroes, Saints). Vol. 5, focusing on Burgen, Länder, Orte (Castles, Countries, Places), which seems to have concluded the series, appeared in 2008. 50 See the excellent contributions to Misconceptions About the Middle Ages, ed. Stephen J. Harris and Bryon Lee Grigsby, Routledge Studies in Medieval Religion and Culture, 7 (New York and London: Routledge, 2008). Unfortunately, in many cases when the arguments reach a critical point, the authors tend to break off and wrap up their discussion too quickly. And the bibliographical references, though certainly not brief, often lack some of the most important studies, particularly those not published in English.
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mological quest, constantly requiring further investigations. In this sense, our Handbook of Medieval Studies hopes to provide important stepping stones in this global endeavor by looking backwards, taking stock of where we are today and what might be, though this is not specifically the intent pursued here, the new directions of research in Medieval Studies. I strongly concur in this regard with Graeme Dunphy’s lucid and critical analysis of the term ‘Dark Ages’ as an ideological construct that could be applied to any period in the past depending on the particular interests pursued by those who either denigrate a special time or culture, or simply ignore it as not worthy their attention – a strategy that had already begun in the Italian Renaissance, if we think of Petrarch’s contemptuous comments about the literature composed prior to his own time.51 All this is not to say that there are no real facts available about the medieval world, but all those that we tend to rely on have been viewed through myriad lenses both in the past and in the present, hence the constant growth of new interpretations, approaches, methodologies, and perceptions. After all, throughout the entire Middle Ages, as in other periods, people, institutions, social groups, alliances, federations, and factions have made great effort to gain power and influence, to hold on to their authority and wealth, and to protect their property. Falsification was the name of the game, as historians have recognized for a long time, which means that we have to regard 51 Graeme Dunphy, “Literary Transitions, 1300–1500: From Late Medieval to Early Modern,” Early Modern German Literature: 1350–1700, ed. Max Reinhart, The Camden House History of German Literature, 4 (Rochester, NY, and Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell & Brewer, 2007), 43–87; 43–87, here 43: “If we compare the high medieval writings of Walther von der Vogelweide or Wolfram von Eschenbach with the Reformation writings of Martin Luther or Ulrich von Hutten, the cultural gulf that opens up before us seems enormous, leaving the impression that the intervening years were ones of rapid transition. But when we acknowledge that a full three centuries lie between these two familiar landmarks, we realize that the rate of change was doubtless no faster than in any other literary epoch. If the period from the mid-thirteenth century to the end of the fifteenth may be called a transition, it is because the early thirteenth and early sixteenth centuries are established coordinates in the discipline of literary history.” See also Lucie Varga, Das Schlagwort vom Finsteren Mittelalter, Universität Wien, Seminar für Wirtschafts- und Kulturgeschichte. Veröffentlichungen, 8 (1983; Aalen: Scientia Verlag, 1978). I particularly like Richard Raiswell’s wonderful article “The Age Before Reason,” Misconceptions About the Middle Ages, 124–34. Reinhold Münster illustrates convincingly in his contribution to this Handbook (“Enlightenment Perspectives of the Middle Ages”) how much the 18th-century discourse on the meaning and relevance of medieval texts and art works shaped and determined modern perceptions of the Middle Ages.
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any statement from that time, whether in a chronicle or in a letter, in a poem or in a liturgical drama, with great care, and we really need to read between the lines. Simply put, we need to interpret them critically. Often it seems that we know considerably less about the real world in the Middle Ages than all the encyclopedias, dictionaries, and lexicons pretend to convey. Ironically, however, Melville and Staub claim to have published an encyclopedia based on a critical concept, which essentially only means that they have subdivided the major topics and specified in greater detail the individual subject matters for a more detailed examination. For them, the ‘critical approach’ finds its expression in the fact that they have granted each author considerable freedom in developing his/her topic according to their own orientation. Ultimately, then, there is no specific or noticeable attempt to examine their subject matter from a truly critical perspective. The history of research, as they perceive it, remains hidden in a rather selective, hardly international, and certainly not comprehensive bibliography. This is not to say that the authors would have ignored to cite some of the most seminal studies, but even here, in the bibliographies, the dominant emphasis on scholarly publications in German is evident because of the narrow target of this twovolume encyclopedia, a relatively sophisticated German reading audience outside of academia. Ultimately, the allegedly critical approach is actually missing because the editors cannot decide – which also might be the virtue and pragmatic strength of their publication – whom their reference work should serve above all. Can an encyclopedia actually aim for a critical treatment of its topics, or should it not rather try to digest, synthesize, summarize, and analyze the current level of knowledge and present it in a comprehensive manner? Intriguingly, the history of Medieval Studies as an academic field of research, particularly during the formative years in the late 19th century, proves to be almost as interesting as the study of the Middle Ages itself especially because here we observe how much our discipline – in its widest ramifications, whether we think of the history of fashion, of architecture, literature, foodstuff, arms, social history, or history of music52 – has been and 52 Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, ed. Friedrich Blume, 17 vols. (Kassel: Bärenreiter-Verlag, 1949–1986; 2nd ed. by Ludwig Finscher, 10 vols. [Sachteil] and 17 vols. [Personenteil], Kassel and New York: Bärenreiter; Stuttgart: Metzler, 1994–2007); the Neues Handbuch der Musikwissenschaft, ed. Carl Dahlhaus and Hermann Danuser, 13 vols. (Wiesbaden: Athenaion; Laaber: Laaber Verlag Müller-Buscher, 1980–1995; The New Grove of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie and John Tyrell, 20 vols. (London: Macmillan; Washington, DC: Grove’s Dictionary of Music, 1980); 2nd ed., 29 vols. (New York: Grove, 2001); the Dizion-
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will be truly determined by outstanding scholarly individuals, by multinational approaches, by a noteworthy gender balance (even in the older days), and by interdisciplinarity.53 ario enciclopedico universale della musica e dei musicisti, ed. Alberto Basso, 4 vols. (Turin: UTET, 1983–1984): le biografie, 8 vols. (Turin: UTET, 1985–1988); i titoli e i personaggi, 3 vols. (Turin: UTET, 1999). See also Diccionario de la música española e hispanoamericana, ed. Emilio Casares Rodicio, 10 vols. (Madrid: Sociedad General de Autores y Editores, 1999–2002). 53 Medieval Scholarship: Biographical Studies on the Formation of a Discipline, vol. 1: History, ed. Helen Damico and Joseph B. Zavadil (New York and London: Garland, 1995); vol. 2: Medieval Scholarship: Biographical Studies on the Formation of a Discipline: Literature and Philology, ed. Helen Damico, with Donald Fennema and Karmen Lenz (New York and London: Garland, 1998); vol. 3: Philosophy and the Arts (New York and London: Garland, 2000). See also the Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing, ed. Kelly Boyd, 2 vols. (London and Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1999). Further, see Harry Ritter, Dictionary of Concepts in History. Reference Sources for the Social Sciences and Humanities, 3 (New York, Westport, CT, and London: Greenwood Press, 1986); Marnie Hughes-Warrington, Fifty Key Thinkers on History. Routledge Key Guides (London and New York: Routledge, 2000). For the history of German philology, see Klaus Weimar, Geschichte der deutschen Literaturwissenschaft bis zum Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts (Munich: Fink, 1989); Lothar Bluhm, Die Brüder Grimm und der Beginn der Deutschen Philologie: Eine Studie zu Kommunikation und Wissenschaftsbildung im frühen 19. Jahrhundert, Spolia Berolinensia, 11 (Hildesheim: Weidmannsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1997); Rewriting the Middle Ages in the Twentieth Century, ed. Jaume Aurell and Francisco Crosas (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005). See also the contribution to this Handbook by Berta Raposo (“Rediscovery of the Middle Ages”), and A History of Arthurian Scholarship, ed. Norris J. Lacy, Arthurian Studies (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2006). Andrew E. Mathis, The King Arthur Myth in Modern American Literature (Jefferson, NC, and London: McFarland, 2002), also offers fascinating perspectives regarding the great popularity of medieval literature in the United States. One remarkable case of a medieval myth that still holds sway over modern fantasies and continues to influence modern media, politics, and quasi-religious groups concerns the Hohenstaufen Emperor Frederick II. Friedrich Nietzsche, just to mention one example, went so far as to identify him as a medieval superman who provided a role model for modern people. Stefan George adored Frederick as a global ruler who had been the only one capable of bridging the perennial divides between Orient and Occident; hence also between the various religions and cultures. Personalities such as Berthold von Stauffenberg (brother of Claus von Stauffenberg who attempted to assassinate Hitler on July 20, 1944) and Ernst Kantorowicz adulated this medieval emperor as a mythical figure that could heal and overcome all conflicts in the present time. David Abulafia tried to deconstruct this myth with his biography from 1988 (Frederick II: a Medieval Eemperor, London: Allen Lane The Penguin Press, 1988), but the Frederick myth has even grown ever since, particularly in Apulia and Sicily; see now Hubert Houben, Kaiser Friedrich II. (1194–1250): Herrscher, Mensch und Mythos (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2008), 176–228.
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Recently, Jane Chance published a most welcome biographical dictionary of women medievalists from Elizabeth Elstob (1683–1756) to Caroline Walker Bynum (1941–), which promises to inject the long-needed ‘feminization’ of Medieval Studies.54 But encyclopedias are not always the best medium through which to observe this intensive and complex development in the academic field of Medieval Studies from the late 18th century until today. Nevertheless, and this was the purpose of the investigation until here, the history of a specific type of encyclopedias also sheds important light on the general position of the subject matter both within the framework of scholarship and in light of public responses to it. In this sense, Strayer’s efforts more than 25 years ago were most remarkable, both for the specific accomplishments then and for the inspiration until today to produce and publish new encyclopedias, perhaps with a more narrow focus, or with a specific readership in mind. And they have spawned many comparable scholarly enterprises, though then always in much slimmer proportions. Henry Loyn, for instance, to parallel Grabois’s project, attempted to create an encyclopedic overview of a Middle Ages as “an age of real advance in every field, of political and social evolution, of intellectual and artistic creativity, and of commercial and scientific progress.”55 Without going into further details, we can be certain that similar publications focusing on the Middle Ages have appeared in many other languages as well.
54 Women Medievalists and the Academy, ed. Jane Chance (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2005), xxvii. 55 H. R. Loyn, The Middle Ages: A Concise Encyclopædia (London: Thames and Hudson, 1989); Sachwörterbuch der Mediävistik, ed. Peter Dinzelbacher (Stuttgart: Kröner, 1992); see also Deno J. Geanakoplos, Medieval Western Civilization and the Byzantine and Islamic Worlds: Interaction of Three Cultures (1968; Lexington, MA, and Toronto: D. C. Heath and Company, 1979). There are, of course countless other books that outline the history of the Middle Ages in brief sketches, but in this reference work we find at least the refreshing emphasis on the intercultural connectivity of Western with Eastern Europe and the Middle East. The various compendia, such as the Cambridge Medieval History, do not need to be mentioned here separately. For smaller, encyclopedic volumes, see The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Middle Ages, vol. II: 950–1250, ed. Robert Fossier. Trans. Stuart Airlie and Robyn Marsack (1982; Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997); Debating the Middle Ages: Issues and Readings, ed. and introd. Lester K. Little and Barbara H. Rosenwein (Malden, MA, and Oxford: Blackwell Publisher, 1998); Reading Medieval Culture: Essays in Honor of Robert W. Hanning, ed. Robert M. Stein and Sandra Pierson Prior (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005).
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Other scholars editing encyclopedias have turned their attention to those periods that are intimately connected with the Middle Ages, but represent, in one way or the other, transitional phases, such as the time between the fall of the Roman Empire and the emergence of early-medieval Europe, most noteworthy here the Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde, founded by Johannes Hoops,56 or the early-modern world from 1450 to 1789, commonly identified as the Renaissance and the Baroque.57 In other words, there is always a need for a critical review of the state of art of a study area in specific intervals so as to perceive more clearly the rungs in the ladder of research over decades, if not centuries. Otherwise we might no longer be able to see the forest for all the trees, and could run the risk of ignoring some of the most seminal studies, editions, concepts, and ideas developed by our predecessors. We do not want to reinvent the wheel, but it seems that every new generation turns its attention away from the accomplishments of previous ones and tries to chart its own map as if the beacons had not be established already a long time ago. No self-respecting medievalist, for instance, would admit his or her ignorance of Ernst Robert Curtius’s European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, first published in 1948, but there is little engagement with his profound insights in current scholarship, and those who acknowledge his ‘classical’ contributions to comparative literature, both
56 Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde, 2. völlig neu bearbeitete und stark erweiterte Auflage unter Mitwirkung zahlreicher Fachgelehrter, ed. Heinrich Beck, Herbert Jankuhn, et al., 33 vols. (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1973–2007). Not comparable at all, but for specific purposes certainly useful is Michael Frassetto, Encyclopedia of Barbarian Europe: Society in Transformation (Santa Barbara, CA, Denver, CO, and Oxford: ABC Clio, 2001). It seems rather problematic to approach such a huge task all by oneself, as in this case. The number of lacunae and desiderata is considerable, but each entry is accompanied by a short bibliography of English-language studies only, including translations. Frassetto does not indicate what kind of audience he intends to address, but it certainly seems to be specifically Anglophone, and mostly the general readership. 57 Europe 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World, ed. Jonathan Dewald, 6 vols. (New York, Detroit, et al.: Thomson Learning, 2004), which contains solidly researched and extensive articles accompanied by mostly good bibliographies. See also Encyclopedia of the Renaissance, ed. Thomas G. Bergin and Jennifer Speake (New York and Oxford: Facts on File, 1987); Gordon Campbell, The Oxford Dictionary of the Renaissance (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), which is also single-authored, with the accompanying problems, as in the case of Frassetto’s encyclopedia. Much more impressive proves to be the Encyclopedia of the Renaissance, ed. Paul F. Grendler, 6 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1999).
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ancient and medieval, early-modern and modern, are mostly unaware of its original date of publication.58 Moreover, we also have to pay attention to major encyclopedias and reference works in such fields as anthropology, sociology, musicology, art history, medicine, religion, philosophy, etc., insofar as they concern the Middle Ages.59 In particular, I would like to point out the famous Dictionnaire de spiritualité, along with related encyclopedias.60 Particular mention deserves the 58 Ernst Robert Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, trans. from the German by Willard R. Trask. With a New Afterword by Peter Godman. Bollingen Series, XXXVI (1948; trans. 1953; 1983; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990); see also Albrecht Classen, “Ernst Robert Curtius and the Topos of the Book. The Impact of an Idea on Modern Philological Research,” Leuvense Bijdragen 87, 1–2 (1998): 59–78. 59 See Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart: Handwörterbuch für Theologie und Religionswissenschaft, dritte, völlig neu bearbeitete Auflage, ed. Kurt Galling, together with Hans Freiherr von Campenhausen, Erich Dinkler, et al., 6 vols., 1 vol. for the index (1909–1913; 2nd ed. 1927–1932; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1957–1965); vierte, völlig neu bearbeitete Auflage, ed. Hans Dieter Betz et al., 9 vols. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998–2007); The Encyclopedia of Christianity, ed. Erwin Fahlbusch, Jan Mili cˇ Lochman, John Mbiti, Jaroslav Pelikan, and Lukas Vischer. Currently vol. 1–4; vol. 5 forthcoming (Grand Rapids, MI, and Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans; Leiden, Boston, and Cologne: Brill, 1999–2005); based on the German Evangelisches Kirchenlexikon, ed. Heinz Brunotte and Otto Weber, 3rd ed. Erwin Fahlbusch (orig. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1956–1961; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986–1997); cf. also Sacramentum Mundi: An Encyclopedia of Theology, ed. Karl Rahner SJ, and Juan Alfaro, SJ, Alberto Bellini, et al., 6 vols. (New York: Herder and Herder, 1968–1970; orig. in German). Invaluable also proves to be the Theologische Realenzyklopädie, ed. Gerhard Krause and many collaborators, 36 vols. (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1977–2004). It is accompanied by two vols. of a Gesamtregister (2006–2007), one vol. with abbreviations and acronyms (1994), and one vol. with an index of the complete work (1998). 60 Dictionnaire de spiritualité ascétique et mystique, doctrine et histoire, publié sous la direction de Marcel Viller, S.J., assisté de F. Cavallera, et J. de Guibert, S.J., avec le concours d’un grand nombre de collaborateurs, 17 vols. (Paris: G. Beauchesne et ses fils, 1937–1995). Vol. 17 (1995) consists of the “Tables Générales.” This dictionary proves to be so important because of its comprehensive coverage and the bibliographies attached to each article, many of which consist of older research that still holds great value but is often ignored today. See also the valuable Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, contenant l’exposé des doctrines de la théologie catholique, leurs preuves et leur histoire, commencé sous la direction de A. Vacant et E. Mangenot, continué sous celle de É. Amann. 3rd ed., 15 vols. (1902; Paris: Librairie Letouzey et Ané, 1930–1950, with three volumes for the Tables Générales, 1951–1972). A major research tool also proves to be the Enciclopedia Cattolica, 12 vols. (Vatican City: L’Enciclopedia Cattolica e Il Libro Cattolico, 1948–1954);
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Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie ecclésiastiques, ed. by Alfred Baudrillart, Albert Vogt, and Urbain Rouziès, with the first volume having appeared in 1912 (Paris: Letouzey et Ané), which is still in the process of being completed, having currently reached the letter ‘k’ (ed. R. Aubert, Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 2004), and which is by now also available online for a charge. It provides highly detailed information about significant personalities, locations, and historical events relevant for the history of the Christian Church. See also the excellent Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. Walter Kasper with Konrad Baumgartner, Horst Bürkle, et al., 11 vols. (Freiburg, Basel, Rome, and Vienna: Herder, 1993–2001). Though the individual entries are considerably shorter, they cover a much broader thematic spectrum and offer more bibliographical references of more recent date.61 The history of the early Christian Church from the time of Jesus to ca. 600 C.E. is well served by the Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, ed. Everett Ferguson, together with Michael P. McHugh, Frederick W. Norris, and David M. Scholer (New York and London: Garland, 1990). Here we find detailed information about doctrines, practices, liturgy, heresies, locations, persons, countries, concepts, texts, terms, and art work, and each entry is most pleasantly accompanied by a detailed bibliography.62 Most useful and highly insightful prove to be the handbook of (in fact not only) German superstition, Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens, and the encyclopedia of the fairy tale, Enzyklopädie des Märchens. The fact that they have been published in German has unfortunately meant that many intersee also the English version, New Catholic Encyclopedia, 14 vols. (New York, St. Louis, San Francisco, et al.: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1967; Index: vol. XV, 1967; Supplement: 1967–1974: vol. XVI, 1974; Supplement: Change in the Church: vol. XVII, 1979). In all these encyclopedias, the articles regularly conclude with helpful bibliographies. Most recently, the publishing house Brill has launched a huge new Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie ecclésiastique on its website, in 2008, consisting of 30 volumes and 70,000 entries. I have not yet been able to autopsy this dictionary. 61 See also The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, based on the third ed. of the Realencyklopädie founded by J. J. Herzog, and ed. by Albert Hauck, prepared by Samuel Macauley Jackson with Charles Colebrook Sherman and George William Gilmore, 12 vols. (New York and London: Funk and Wagnalls Company, 1908–1912). Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche, ed. Albert Hauck, 21 vols., 3rd and expanded ed. (1896–1913; Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1969); see also The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, ed. F. L. Cross. Sec. ed. id. and E. A. Livingstone (1958; London, New York, and Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1974). 62 The editors also include a general bibliography for topics such as patrology, the rise of Christianity, the popes, and archeology (viii).
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national scholars are either not familiar with them or cannot utilize the treasure trove of specific information contained in them.63 Certainly, both deal with the global world of superstition and fairy tales throughout times, but a vast percentage of the material in both areas is anchored in the Middle Ages. Art historians are exceedingly well served, here disregarding numerous other encyclopedias for the entire history of art world-wide throughout time, with the Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie64 and with the encyclopedia for the Iconography of Christian Art, originally edited in German, and translated into English, to name just two major reference works.65 Then there are also the useful lexica on animal symbolism in the Middle Ages, which involves iconography, religion, mentality, art history, and other disciplines.66 From here we also need to consider quickly the world of architecture, so magisterially represented by Sir Banister Fletcher’s A History of Architecture, 19th ed. John Musgrove, with John Tarn and Peter Willis (London: The Royal
63 Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens, ed. Hanns Bächtold-Stäubli, together with E. Hoffmann-Krayer. Handwörterbücher zur deutschen Volkskunde. Abteilung I: Aberglaube, 9 vols. (Berlin and Leipzig: Walter de Gruyter, 1927–1938/1941; vol. X: Register: 1942); Enzyklopädie des Märchens, ed. Kurt Ranke, together with Hermann Bausinger, Wolfgang Brückner, et al. Since Vol. 5 (1987): ed. Rolf Wilhelm Brednich (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1977–; vol. 12, fascicle 3 (up to the letters Su …) appeared in 2007). 64 Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie, ed. Engelbert Kirschbaum, 8 vols. (Rome, Freiburg, et al.: Herder, 1968–1976). 65 Gertrud Schiller, Ikonographie der christlichen Kunst, 5 vols. 3rd ed. (1966; Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1966–1991); Iconography of Christian Art, trans. Janet Seligman, 2 vols. (Greenwich, CT, and New York: Graphic Society, 1971). See also Louis Réau, Iconographie de l’art chrétien, 3 vols. (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1955–1959). But there are many other similar reference works for art history, such as Erhard Aeschlimann and Paolo D’Ancona, Dictionnaire des miniaturistes du Moyen Age et de la Renaissance dans les différentes contrées de l’Europe, 2nd rev. and expanded ed. (Milan: U. Hoepli, 1949); Michèle Beaulieu and Victor Beyer, Dictionnaire des sculpteurs français du moyen âge (Paris: Picard, 1992); see also the useful encyclopedia for French castles, Charles Laurent Salch and Dominique Martinez, Dictionnaire des châteaux et des fortifications du Moyen Age en France (Strasbourg: Éditions Publitotal, 1979), and Edward G. Tasker, Encyclopedia of Medieval Church Art, ed. John Beaumont (London: B. T. Batsford, 1993). 66 Sigrid and Lothar Dittrich, Lexikon der Tiersymbole: Tiere als Sinnbilder in der Malerei des 14.–17. Jahrhunderts. Studien zur internationalen Architektur- und Kunstgeschichte, 22 (Petersberg: Imhof, 2004); see also Clemens Zerlin, Lexikon der Tiersymbolik: Mythologie, Religion, Psychologie, ed. Wolfgang Bauer (Munich: Kösel, 2003). There are many other reference works for symbols that are, however, too general to be cited here.
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Institute of British Architects and The University of Architecture, 1987; the 20th ed. was edited by Dan Cruickshank, together with Andrew Saint, Peter Blundell Jones, Kenneth Frampton; assistant editor Fleur Richards; Oxford and Boston: Architectural Press, 1996; the latest ed., 20a, appeared in 1998).67 Reflecting its more pragmatic approach in the first place, in its original 1896 edition, this monograph carried the subtitle: for the student, craftsman and amateur, being a comparative guide of the historical styles from the earliest period. Fletcher’s extraordinary reference work proves to be invaluable until today, excelling through its wealth of illustrative material (photos and drawings, including blueprints, detailed information about individual buildings, designs, architects, styles, and history of architecture).68 The long list of re-editions and lately also of translations into other languages has proven the enormous durability and foundational value of this magisterial reference work. What, then, by contrast, is the purpose of the present Handbook of Medieval Studies with its own claim on a certain encyclopedic approach? I have begun discussing this question in the introduction to this Handbook, but we need to pursue this topic further in the present context. Are there not already enough reference works available (see above)?69 Would there not be the great
67 Now see also Günther Binding and Susanne Linscheid-Burdich, together with Julia Wippermann Planen und Bauen im frühen und hohen Mittelalter nach den Schriftquellen bis 1250 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2002). 68 See also, though a bit dated, Russell Sturgis, A History of Architecture, 4 vols. Vol. 3–4 by A. L. Frothingham (New York: The Baker & Taylor Company, vol. 1: 1906; vol. 2: 1909; vol. 3–4: Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1915); David Watkin, A History of Western Architecture (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1986). There is, of course, a legion of similar studies of older and more recent vintage, both in English and in many European languages; see, for instance, Barbara Borngässer Klein and Rolf Toman, Geschichte der Architektur: von der Antike bis in die Gegenwart; photographs by Achim Bednorz (Bath: Parragon, 2008). 69 The subsequent cultural periods are also gaining in interest both among the academic and the lay audience, see, for instance, Encyclopedia of the Renaissance, ed. Paul F. Grendler, 6 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1999). Looking back, we also discover massive efforts to cover specific events in the past through quasi encyclopedic writing, see, for example, Kenneth M. Setton, A History of the Crusades, 2 vols. (Madison, Milwaukee, and London: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1969). The volume on The Middle Ages in the series obviously for younger readers: The History of the Ancient & Medieval World, ed. Henk Dijkstra. Vol. 9 (New York, Toronto, and Sydney: Marshall Cavendish, 1969), proves to be beautifully illustrated. Many publications focus on world history, including the Middle Ages, and march through thousands of years, claiming to cover a solid stretch of human history from the stone age to the present, such as Chronology of European His-
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danger of repeating what others have done already, if not to perfection, but at least highly comprehensively and in depth? All the criticism raised against some of the earlier publications would sound hollow, if not hypocritical, if the present publication did not try to set new standards and pursue innovative goals. In fact, the simple answer to the questions raised at first would have to be an unconditional ‘yes,’ but even if the goal would be to produce another encyclopedia focusing on the Middle Ages, we could at least point out huge differences between older and newer works, and since scholarship is continuously advancing, there is no doubt that we are in need of new broad surveys and summaries of our current knowledge perhaps every ten or twenty years. Nevertheless, the primary purpose of this new Handbook of Medieval Studies does not follow this path. Instead, the overarching and principle goal consists of examining the history of scholarship and of our understanding of how we have reached the current level of our knowledge about all kinds of subject matters, people, topics, texts, works, etc. We are, after all, as Bernard of Chartres pointed out in the 12th century, as John of Salisbury had summarized in his Metalogicon, and as this survey illustrates, nothing but dwarfs perched on the shoulders of giants.70 Yet, despite our small size, we are still positioned high up and can today see further than those giants, or than cohorts of previous generations of medievalists upon whose findings we base our own research and thus reach our own goals.71 This is not meant to belittle our predecessors; on the contrary, we pay tribute
tory 15,000 B.C. to 1997, ed. John Powell, 2 vols. (Chicago and London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1998). There are countless other encyclopedias for ancient history, the world of Islam, the Near and Far East, and so forth. Actually, in the last decade or so publishers all over the world have produced so many encyclopedias and similar reference works about premodern history, culture, and literature that one wonders who still might be able to gain a critical perspective faced with such a flood of factual, or rather almost no longer so factual, literature, written very much in the vein of late 19th-century positivist Leopold von Ranke (1795–1886). 70 R[ichard] W[illiam] Southern, The Making of the Middle Ages (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953), 203. For the actual quote, see John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, ed. J. B. Hall and K. S. B. Keats-Rohan, Corpus Christianorum. Continuatio mediaevalis, 98 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1991), 116. 71 Regarding this topic and its implications for us, see Walter Haug, “Die Zwerge auf den Schultern der Riesen: Epochales und typologisches Geschichtsdenken und das Problem der Interferenzen,” id., Strukturen als Schlüssel zur Welt: Kleine Schriften zur Erzählliteratur des Mittelalters (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1989), 86–109, esp. 89–92 (orig. 1987).
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to their great accomplishments and build on their knowledge to further our own understanding. The field of research in the Middle Ages is still fairly young, barely two hundred years old, including some philologists who had begun to explore the history of medieval literature, religion, and philosophy already in the late 18th century, if not before. The 19th century witnessed an incredible surge in scholarship, and today Medieval Studies, a term originally coined by David Knowles for an inaugural lecture at the University of Cambridge in 1947,72 are practiced all over the world, focusing on virtually every aspect of human life and the human mind. We might scoff at some of the older text editions or histories of literature, but we would not be where we are today without them. This also applies to the history of art, history of technology, history of architecture, and other fields. As Paul Freedman has already observed: Although the nature of what is called medieval studies thus depends to some extent on academic organization and other external influences, some degree of interdisciplinary collaboration is essential to comprehending the medieval period. From the seventeenth century onward such great undertakings as the medieval Latin dictionary of Charles du Cange, the Bollandist project of describing the lives of the saints, or Jean Mabillon’s De re diplomatica have required an immense range of sources. The importance of literary, numismatic, and philological evidence was recognized early on, as was the peculiar way in which the Middle Ages has left more written records than the classical era but in a more disorganized fashion. The significance of religious controversy in forwarding pursuit of medieval texts and interpretations also meant that, from the beginning, fields, methods, and the use of sources could not be narrowly limited.73
Medieval Studies in a way have also witnessed, and responded to, all those ideological shifts and changes that have determined modern humanistic scholarship at large, whether we think of positivism, Geistesgeschichte (intellectual history), explication de texte, immanent, or close, reading, Marxism, structuralism, deconstructionism, feminism, Gender Studies, postcolonialism, Queer Studies, etc.74 Some of those have left a deep impact also on the 72 Paul Freedman, “Medieval Studies,” 383. Knowles specifically evoked a similar inaugural lecture given in 1944 by his predecessor, Z. N. Brooke, “The Prospects of Medieval History,” but by widening his own perspective, Knowles laid the theoretical foundation for the highly interdisciplinary nature of Medieval Studies today. 73 Paul Freedman, “Medieval Studies,” 383. 74 Some of the best reflections on the impact of theory on Medieval Studies can be found in Paul Strohm’s Theory and the Premodern Text, Medieval Cultures, 26 (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2000). See also the contributions to The Future of the Middle Ages: Medieval Literature in the 1990s, ed. William
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way how we view and approach the Middle Ages, others less so, but all of them have affected our field as well which seems to grow in leaps and bounds at least in terms of scholarship. The same observation might not hold true for teaching the Middle Ages, and in fact there are many warning signs because basic knowledge necessary for the study of that past world (medieval Latin, paleography, manuscript studies, liturgy) is taught to smaller and smaller groups of students wherever we look all over the world, even if the popular interest in the Middle Ages, also expressed in growing general education classes, not to speak of countless medieval fairs, festivals, concerts, costumes, games, etc., is steadily growing. The introduction to Medieval Studies, edited by James M. Powell first in 1976, and in a second edition in 1992, clearly signals how much we have to realize the necessity to have a solid command of many different disciplines in order to carry out comprehensive and well-grounded research in our field, especially when the focus rests on history and manuscript studies. The contributors to Powell’s volume deal with Latin paleography (James J. John), diplomatics (Leonard E. Boyle), numismatics (Philip Grierson), archeology (David Whitehouse), prosopography (George Beech), computer-assisted analysis of the statistical documents of medieval society (David Herlihy), medieval chronology R. Dean Ware), medieval English literature (Paul Theiner),75 Latin philosophy (Edward A. Synan), medieval law (Kenneth Pennington), medieval science and natural philosophy (Edward Grant), tradition and innovation in medieval art (Wayne Dynes), and
D. Paden (Gainesville, Tallahassee, et al.: University Press of Florida, 1994); Modernes Mittelalter: Neue Bilder einer populären Epoche, ed. Joachim Heinzle (Frankfurt a. M.: Insel Verlag, 1994); The Future of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: Problems, Trends, and Opportunities for Research, ed. Roger Dahood, Arizona Studies in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, 2 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1998); Medieval German Voices in the 21st Century: The Paradigmatic Function of Medieval German Studies for German Studies. A Collection of Essays, ed. Albrecht Classen, Internationale Forschungen zur Allgemeinen und Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft, 46 (Amsterdam and Atlanta: Editions Rodopi, 2000). See now Postcolonial Approaches to the European Middle Ages: Translating Cultures, ed. Ananya Jahanara Kabir and Deanne Williams, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 75 It remains entirely elusive once again why, in this context, medieval literature is exclusively identified with English literature. For another rather disappointing example, see Theodore L. Steinberg , Reading the Middle Ages: An Introduction to Medieval Literature (Jefferson, NC, and London: McFarland & Co., 2003), who includes The Tale of Genji and Jewish literature, but entirely ignores Iberian, Latin, or German medieval literature, not to mention mystical literature at large.
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medieval music (Theodore Karp).76 Of course, here as well numerous lacunae mar the overall picture, such as the absence of liturgical studies,77 of the investigation of foodstuff,78 of weapons and armies, fortifications, and castles,79 and of Byzantine Studies, including respective prosopography of the various areas.80 This list could be easily expanded, but it would be ultimately futile because the history of people in the Middle Ages, their culture, mentality, private and public life, etc. found expression in a myriad of material and spiritual manifestations that no one can cover in totality. Can the teaching of the Middle Ages ever live up even only to a small portion of the global expectations? But let us not sink into a jeremiad over daily woes here and there in academia, since they are often quite the same that can be heard in other fields of the Humanities generally, and have been voiced for a long time (if not for ever). Concerns about the survival of Medieval Studies within the university are legitimate because we do not directly produce money when teaching the Middle Ages; instead we seem only to create costs for the institutions of higher learning. This also applies to all other fields under this vast umbrella, and 18th-century Spanish literature is not necessarily faring considerably better than 16th-century French literature, 3rd-century Roman architecture, ancient Greek philosophy, etc. I hasten to add, however, that this might ea-
76 Medieval Studies: An Introduction, ed. James M. Powell, 2nd ed. (1976; Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1992). 77 See, for instance, Cyrill Vogel, Medieval Liturgy: An Introduction to the Sources, revised and trans. William G. Storey and Niels Krogh Rasmussen, with the assistance of John K. Brooks-Leonard, NPM Studies in Church Music and Liturgy (1966; Washington, DC: Pastoral Press, 1986). 78 Melitta Weiss Adamson, Food in Medieval Times. Food through History (Westport, CT, and London: Greenwood Press, 2004); Ernst Schubert, Essen und Trinken im Mittelalter (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2006). 79 Jean-Denis G. G. Lepage, Castles and Fortified Cities of Medieval Europe: An Illustrated History (Jefferson, NC, and London: McFarland & Company, 2002); id., Medieval Armies and Weapons in Western Europe: An Illustrated History (Jefferson, NC, and London: McFarland & Company, 2005); id., The Fortifications of Paris: An Illustrated History (Jefferson, NC, and London: McFarland & Company, 2006). 80 Robert Browning, The Byzantine Empire (New York: Scribner, 1980); Cyril A. Mango, Byzantium and Its Image: History and Culture of the Byzantine Empire and Its Heritage, Varirorum Reprints, CS 191 (London: Variorum Reprints, 1984); The Oxford History of Byzantium, ed. id. (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2002); see also the multi-volume Prosopographical Lexicon of Byzantine History and Civilization, ed. Alexes G. C. Savvides, Benjamin Hendrickx, Alicia J. Simpson, Thekla Sansaridou-Hendrickx (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007 [1st vol.], 2008 [2nd vol.]–).
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sily constitute a fallacious conclusion depending on the criteria we use to determine the true cost effectiveness of individual subject matters or research areas (faculties) at any given university over a long period and considering the wider social implications and the value of educating our younger generations at large. There are no valid arguments – and here I am, unavoidably, preaching to the converted – to downplay the significance of the Middle Ages for a solid education in the Humanities, both today and in the future. In fact, as Bruce Holsinger has discovered, the medieval intellectual world continues to hold sway over the postmodern world insofar as most of the leading theoreticians of our time, whether Barthes, Foucault, or Derrida, but so also Panofsky, Habermas, and others, apparently received their fundamental philological training through an in-depth exposure to that world.81 Leaving aside common laments (justified or not), we witness a growing number of excellent critical investigations done in Medieval Studies, without facing any neglect in the traditional and still fundamental areas of philology and editorial work. Depending on one’s viewpoint, we are also fortunate in gaining access to more and more medieval texts from all kinds of languages and cultures through translations, which has a tremendous impact on the way how we can teach the Middle Ages. Further, there are efforts all over the world to make medieval manuscripts available in digital form, which provides us with unheard of new possibilities to carry out detailed and comparative research based on the original documents. Moreover, we also realize a slow but steady rapprochement of the various disciplines, considering the important, though still somewhat tentative collaboration of historians, art historians, musicologists, and literary historians, to mention just a few subject areas. Synergies are of greatest importance if they can be created meaningfully and effectively.82 Of course, there needs to be some common ground, shared interest, significant parallels and similarities, which are not hard to come by if we look carefully. But we do not know enough of each other, and are mostly ignorant regarding how each individual field has evolved over decades, if not centuries. Collaboration and interdisciplinary activities require shared 81 Bruce Holsinger, The Premodern Condition: Medievalism and the Making of Theory (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2005); see also Michael Johnson’s entry on Henri de Lubac in the present volume. 82 In fact, there exists a new review journal titled just that: Synergies Inde, ed. Vidya Vencatesan, whose special issue (no. 2 [2007]), honoring renowned French medievalist Jean Dufournet, devotes itself “Aux sources du dialogue des cultures: Regards croisés sur le Moyen Age en France et en Inde” (Mumbai: Revue du Gerflint, 2007). I appreciate Nadia Margolis’s pointing out this review to me.
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ground, and this ground can be established by looking at the foundational work that has been done in each area of research from the earliest days until the present. Of course, this would not be the conditio sine qua non for efforts to bring together colleagues from different disciplines to investigate topics of broader, hence shared, nature, yet each from his or her individual perspective. For instance, in order to understand how medieval people viewed children or old people we need to consult both chronicles and art objects, literary texts and musical pieces.83 After all, the history of mentalities, one of the most probing and innovative fields of research in Medieval Studies, requires a most comprehensive investigation of medieval culture, drawing all available information from a wide gamut of perspectives for the understanding of people’s mentality, that is, psychological conditions and motivations, desires, fears, and hopes.84 The same now also applies to cultural and anthropological approaches to Medieval Studies (Culture Studies), to Gender Studies, and also, though perhaps to a slightly lesser extent, Queer Studies and psychological approaches. We would also have to consider the latest methodological and theoretical approach determined by the interest in the human senses and the ability to perceive external signals via the various sensory organs, as reflected by medieval writers and artists.85 Albeit not encyclopedic in its format, the journal Annales: Economies, Sociétés, Civilisations, founded by Lucien Febvre and Marc Bloch (1929, originally as Annales d’histoire économique et sociale), deserves mention here. Ferdi83 Shulamith Shahar, Childhood in the Middle Ages (London and New York: Routledge, 1990); Childhood in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: The Results of a Paradigm Shift in the History of Mentality, ed. Albrecht Classen (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 2005); Old Age in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: Interdisciplinary Approaches to a Neglected Topic, ed. Albrecht Classen, Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture, 2 (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 2007). 84 Europäische Mentalitätsgeschichte: Hauptthemen in Einzeldarstellungen, ed. Peter Dinzelbacher, Kröners Taschenausgabe, 469, 2nd rev. and expanded ed. (1993; Stuttgart: Kröner, 2008). See also Hans-Werner Goetz, Moderne Mediävistik: Stand und Perspektiven der Mittelalterforschung (Darmstadt: Primus Verlag, 1999). 85 Again, see Goetz, Moderne Mediävistik; and C. M. Woolgar, The Senses in Late Medieval England (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2006). Cf. also Emotions and Sensibilities in the Middle Ages, ed. C. Stephen Jaeger and Ingrid Kasten, Trends in Medieval Philology, 1 (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2003); Lachgemeinschaften: kulturelle Inszenierungen und soziale Wirkungen von Gelächter im Spätmittelalter und in der frühen Neuzeit, ed. Werner Röcke and Hans Rudolf Velten, Trends in Medieval Philology, 5 (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2005); Elke Koch, Trauer und Identität: Inszenierungen von Emotionen in der deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters, Trends in Medieval Philology, 8 (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2006).
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nand Braudel (Mediterranean World and Philip II [1949; New York: Harper and Row, 1962) was another important member. Although they cover all centuries, this school’s adherents have added much to multidisciplinary Medieval Studies, perhaps best known through the work of Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie.86 More modern descendants are Pierre Nora, whose monumental Lieux de Mémoire (Realms of Memory) volumes contain valuable information on medieval myths carrying over into post 18th-century French culture (7 vols., Paris: Gallimard, 1984–1992) and have been translated into several languages, as was the case with the studies published by the founders and leading members of the Annales. Legal and religious documents can essentially contribute to our global understanding of such issues that are indeed most important for medieval society at large, even though they seem to fall, at first sight, into the category of private life, or everyday history.87 Sexuality, one of the most pervasive issues that have troubled and excited people throughout the ages, cannot be adequately studied through the narrow lens of the historian alone, for instance, not to speak of the medievalist working in the area of religion and the arts.88 But the collective of medievalists in the widest possible range of disciplines promise to meet some of the challenges to build on past accomplishments and to forge a path toward future Medieval Studies.89 So, we are taking
86 Montaillou, village occitan de 1294 à 1324 (Paris: Gallimard, 1975). Now see Autour de Montaillou, un village occitan: histoire et religiosité d’une communauté villageoise au Moyen Age: actes du colloque de Montaillou, 25–26–27 août 2000, ed. Anne Brenon et Christine Dieulafait; sous la direction de Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie (Castelnaudla-Chapelle: L’Hydre éditions, 2001). 87 Brilliant in the broad approach, opening up a new window into a specific, heretofore mostly ignored aspect of medieval society, but astonishingly naive and uncritical, prove to be the contributions to A History of Private Life, ed. Philippe Ariès and Georges Duby, 5 vols. (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1987–1991). 88 Sexuality in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age: New Approaches to a Fundamental Cultural-Historical and Literary-Anthropological Theme, ed. Albrecht Classen, Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture, 3 (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 2008). 89 I would like to thank the following colleagues for their critical comments, suggestions, and corrections: Peter Dinzelbacher (Werfen/Salzburg), Heiko Hartmann (Berlin), Herwig Weigl (Vienna), Graeme Dunphy (Regensburg), Nadia Margolis (Mount Holyoke College, MA), Wendy E. Pfeffer (University of Louisville, KY), Raymond Cormier (Longwood University, Farmville, VA), Klaus Oschema (Heidelberg), Ulrich Müller (Salzburg), and Pieter Mannerts (Research Foundation–Flanders/Katholieke Universiteit Leuven). I am very grateful for all their observations, corrections, additional information, and above all for
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stock here, as comprehensively as possible, but in this process we also hope to lay the foundation for much more interdisciplinary research, traditionally a hallmark of Medieval Studies, and this also in the coming decades and centuries. With the help of this Handbook we can expect to meet the challenges of critical approaches to medieval research in the widest context. Knowing fully where we have come from and what the current state of research proves to be, we will be empowered to pursue our studies further on a more advanced level. More boldly, we might even claim that such a Handbook can be the springboard for all future Medieval Studies insofar as the past has always informed the present, and our knowledge of this process translates into the catalyst for future efforts, investigations, and interpretations.
their encouragement and support. Their help also strongly indicates the way how Medieval Studies will probably proceed in the future, relying much more on interdisciplinary, collaborative, and comparative research and approaches.
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Abbreviations
Abbreviations ABäG ABD ABGB ABMHRA ACIMP
ACPQ ADB AdM AE AEM AfD AfdA AfMw AHDLMA AHR AHVKB AJ AJS Review AK AKAWB Al-Qantara ALR Annales.HSS APSR AS ASNSL ASNSP (CLF)
Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik The Anchor Bible Dictionary Allgemeines Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch Annual Bulletin of the Modern Humanities Research Association Atti del convegno internazionale su Marsilio da Padova (Padova,18–20 settembre 1980) [Medioevo 5 (1979] American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie Annales du Midi American Ethnologist Anuario de estudios medievales Archiv für Diplomatik Anzeiger für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur Archiv für Musikwissenschaft Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen âge American Historical Review Archi des historischen Vereins des Kantons Bern The Archaeological Journal Association for Jewish Studies Review M. Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge (London: Tavistock, 1972) Abhandlungen der Königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften in Berlin Revista de estudios árabes Allgemeines Landrecht Annales. Histoire, Sciences sociales American Political Science Review American Speech Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa
Abbreviations
ASP ASQ AUU B.C.E. BBAL BCLSMP BEC BEO BIHR BIRHT BISI BJHP BJMES BMGS BMHG BPM BSOAS ByzZ C.E. CCCM CCM CCSL CEHE CFMA CHJ ChR CL CMA CN CNRS cols. CPh CSEL CT
LXVIII Arabic Sciences and Philosophy Arab Studies Quarterly Språkvetenskapliga sällskapets i Uppsala förhandlingar. Acta Societatis Linguisticae Upsaliensis Before Common Era Biografie e bibliografie degli accademici lincei Bulletin de la classe des lettres et des sciences morales et politiques (Académie royale de Belgique) Bibliothèque de l’École des chartes Bulletin d’Études Orientales Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research Bulletin de l’Institut de recherche et d’histoire des Textes Bulletino dell’Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medioevo e Archivio Muratoriano British Journal for the History of Philosophy British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies Bijdragen en Mededelingen van het Historisch Genootschap Bulletin de philosophie médiévale Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London Byzantinische Zeitschrift Common Era Corpus Christianorum, continuatio mediaeualis Cahiers de Civilisation Médiévale Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina The Cambridge Economic History of Europe Classiques français du Moyen Age Cambridge Historical Journal Chaucer Review Comparative Literature Concilium Medii Aevi Cultura Neolatina Centre National de Recherche Scientifique columns Classical Philology Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum Canterbury Tales
LXIX CUP D. Hist. DA DBE DDJb DFS DMA DP DR DSAM DTÖ durchges. DVE DVG DVjs E&S ed. EdM EETS EH EHR EI.2 EJ (1) EJ (2) ELLMA ELP ENC EQ erg. erw. Est ÉT fasc.
Abbreviations
Cambridge University Press Deutsche Historiker Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters Deutsche Biographische Enzyklopädie Deutsches Dante-Jahrbuch Dalhousie French Studies Dictionary of the Middle Ages M. Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York: Pantheon, 1977). Duquesne Review Dictionnaire de spiritualité ascétique et mystique: Doctrine et histoire Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Österreich durchgesehen De Vulgari Eloquentia De Vlaamse Gids Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte Essays and Studies edited or editor Paul Lehmann, Erforschung des Mittelalters, vols. I–V (Stuttgart: Anton Hirsemann, 1959–1962). Early English Text Society Encyclopedia of Historians The English Historical Review The Encyclopaedia of Islam, second edition (Brill: Leiden 1960–2004) Encyclopaedia Judaica, first edition, (Jerusalem: Encyclopaedia Judaica 1971–1972) English Journal European Literature in the Latin Middle Ages Einleitung in die lateinische Philologie, ed. Fritz Graf (Stuttgart and Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1997). École nationale des chartes Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an ergänzt erweitert English Studies École de théologie fascicle
Abbreviations
FFC FMSt FSt GALex GCFI GLLM GLQ GQ
GRLMA
GRM Habil.schr. HAD
HEI History HJb HLF HPS HPT HRG
HS HSMS HVjS HZ IASL IC id. IGL IJCT
LXX Folklore Fellows’ Communications Frühmittelalterliche Studien French Studies (Oxford) A Greek and Arabic Lexicon Giornale Critico della Filosofia Italiana Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters. Vols. 1–3 (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1911–1931). Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies Theodor Nöldeke et al., Geschichte des Qorans, (1860–1938, rpt. 3 vols. in 1, Hildesheim: Olms, 1961) Grundriss der romanischen Literaturen des Mittelalters, ed. Hans Robert Jauss and Erich Köhler (Heidelberg: Winter, 1968–) Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift Habilitationsschrift The Handbook of Discourse Analysis, ed. D. Schiffrin, D. Tannen, D. and H. Hamilton (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001) History of European Ideas History. The Journal of the Historical Association Historisches Jahrbuch Histoire littéraire de France Hebraic Political Studies History of Political Thought Handwörterbuch zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte, ed. Adalbert Erler, Ekkehard Kaufmann and Dieter Werkmüller, 5 vols. (Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 1971–1998) M. Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: Introduction (New York: Vintage, 1990). Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies Historische Vierteljahrsschrift Historische Zeitschrift Internationales Archiv für Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Literatur Islamic Culture idem Internationales Germanistenlexikon 1800–1950 International Journal of the Classical Tradition
LXXI IJMES IMB IOS IRMAE
ITS JAOS Jb. d. BAdW Jb. JEGP JHI JKAWLSK
JMEMS JMH JNES JÖBG JPSR JQS JR JRAS JSJT LA LCI LexMA
LGB2
Liber Floridus
Abbreviations
International Journal of Middle East Studies International Medieval Bibliography Israel Oriental Studies Ius Romanum Medii Aevi, auspice Collegio antiqui iuris studiis provehendis (Milano: Giuffrè, 1961ff.) Irish Texts Society Journal of the American Oriental Society Jahrbuch der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften Jahrbuch Journal of English and Germanic Philology Journal of the History of Ideas Jaarboek/Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies Journal of Medieval History Journal of Near Eastern Studies Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinischen Gesellschaft Jewish Political Studies Review Journal of Qur’anic Studies Journal of Religion Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought L’Alighieri Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie Lexikon des Mittelalters, vols. I–VI (Munich and Zürich: Artemis, 1980–1993); vols. VII–IX (Munich: LexMA Verlag, 1995–1998); Registerband (Stuttgart and Weimar: J. B. Metzler, 1999) Lexikon des gesamten Buchwesens, 2nd ed. Severin Corsten, Günther Pflug, and Friedrich Adolf Schmidt Künsemüller (Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, 1995). Bernhard Bischoff and Suso Brechter, ed., Liber Floridus. Mittellateinische Studien Paul Lehmann zum 65. Geburtstag (St. Ottilien: Eos Verlag der Erzabtei, 1950).
Abbreviations
LiLi LM
loc. cit. LSE LThK
MA MA&R MAevum
MCDA MED Medieval Latin
Medioevo MedPers MET MF MGH MGWJ MGWJ MHG MHJ MiB Milde and Schuder MIÖG Misc. Med. MKVA MlatJb
LXXII Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik Karl Langosch, Lateinisches Mittelalter. Einleitung in Sprache und Literatur (1963; Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1983). loco citato Leeds Studies in English Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. Walter Kasper, 3rd revised ed., 11 vols. (Freiburg i. Br.: Herder, 1993–2001). Le Moyen Âge Die Musik des Mittelalters und der Renaissance Medium Ævum Marsilio da Padova (Padova, 18–20 settembre 1980) [Medioevo 5 (1979] Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis, ed. Ruth Wodak and Michael Meyer (London: Sage, 2001). Middle English Dictionary Medieval Latin: An Introduction and Bibliographical Guide, ed. F. A. C. Mantello and A. G. Rigg (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1996). Medioevo. Rivista di storia della filosofia medievale Medieval Perspectives Medieval English Theatre Die Musikforschung Monumenta Germaniae Historica Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums Middle High German The Medieval History Journal Musikgeschichte in Bildern Wolfgang Milde and Werner Schuder, ed., De captu Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung Miscellanea Medievalia Mededelingen Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie van België, Klasse der Letteren Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch
LXXIII MLN MLR MMIS MP MR MRS ms/mss. MTSC MTSR MW N. F. NCMH NDB NH NM NOHM NRCF
OEN OUP PAAJR PAAJR PBB PG PIASH PIASH PL PM PMLA Poetics Today Poetics Today PPM
Abbreviations
Modern Language Notes Modern Language Review Medieval and Modern Irish Series Modern Philology Medioevo Romanzo Medieval and Renaissance Studies manuscript/manuscripts Medieval Technology and Social Change Method and Theory in the Study of Religion Muslim World Neue Folge New Cambridge Medieval History Neue Deutsche Biographie Nederlandsche Historiebladen Neuphilologische Mitteilungen New Oxford History of Music Nouveau recueil complet des fabliaux, ed. Willem Noomen and Nico van den Boogaard, 10 vols. (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1983–2001) Old English Newsletter Oxford University Press Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research Paul und Braune Beiträge = Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur Patrologia Graeca Proceedings of the Israel Academy of Science and Humanities Proceedings of the Israel Academy of Science and Humanities Patrologia Latina Patristica et Medievalia Publications of the Modern Language Association Poetics Today. A Journal for Analysis of Literature and Communication Poetics Today: A Journal for Analysis of Literature and Communication Pensiero Politico Medievale
Abbreviations
PPTSL PQ PT PUF QFIAB QS R RAN RB RBA RBPh RC RCPR RDM REB RÉJ RES rev. RF RHC RHD RHDF Rhetorica RhM RHPR RIDC RLA RMS RORD RP RPA RPh RR RSF RSO RSPT RTh
LXXIV Palestine Pilgrims’ Text Society Library Philological Quarterly Political Theory Presses Universitaires de France Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken Quaderni storici Romania Rendiconti dell’Accademia di Archeologia, Lettere e Belle Arti di Napoli Revue bénédictine Revue belge d’archéologie et d’histoire de l’art Revue belge de philologie et d’histoire Revue Celtique Revue Critique de Philologie Romane Revue des Deux Mondes Revue des Études Byzantines Revue des Études Juives Review of English Studies revised Romanische Forschungen Recueil des Historiens des Croisades Revue d’histoire du droit Revue historique de droit français et étranger Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric Rheinisches Museum für Philologie, Theologie und Philosophie Revue d’histoire et philosophie religieuse Rivista Internazionale di Diritto Comune Romance Languages Annual Reading Medieval Studies Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama Review of Politics Revue de philosophie ancienne Romance Philology Romanic Review Rivista di Storia della Filosofia Revista degli Studi Orientali Revue des Sciences philosophiques et théologiques Revue Thomiste
LXXV RUB SAC SATF Scand. Econ. Hist. Rev. SD SF SFI SH SI SMC SNPL SO SP sqq. SSD
TAPA TRE TRHS TS überarb. UNC unveränd. Viator Vivarium VL vol. VSWG WW YWES ZCPh ZfdA ZfdPh
Abbreviations
Revue de l’Université de Bruxelles Studies in the Age of Chaucer Société des anciens textes français Scandinavian Economic History Review Studi Danteschi Studi francesi Studi di filologia italiana Scripta Hierosolymitana Studia Islamica Studies in Medieval Culture Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature Symbolae Osloenses Studies in Philology sequentes Sign, Sentence and Discourse: Language in Medieval Thought and Literature, ed. Julian Wasserman and Lois Roney (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1989). Transactions of the American Philological Association Theologische Realenzyklopädie Transactions of the Royal Historical Society Theological Studies überarbeitet University of North Carolina unverändert Viator. Medieval and Renaissance Studies Vivarium. A Journal for Mediaeval Philosophy and the Intellectual Life of the Middle Ages Deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon volume Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte Wirkendes Wort The Year’s Work in English Studies Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie
LXXVI
Abbreviations
ZfrP ZNR ZP ZRG, Germ. Abt. ZRG, Kan. Abt.
Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie Zeitschrift für Neuere Rechtsgeschichte Zeitschrift für Politik Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte/Germanistische Abteilung Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte/Kanonistische Abteilung
LXXVII
List of Contributors
List of Contributors Acken, James Centre for Medieval Studies, Canada Adams, Tracey University of Auckland, New Zealand Anichini, Federica The College of New Jersey, Ewing Arabatzis, George Academy of Athens, Greece Armistead, Samuel G. University of California, Davis, CA Ash, Karine Marie Los Angeles, CA Auslander, Diane P. Graduate Center, City University of New York Baier, Katharina Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Germany Bak, Janos Central European University, Budapest, Hungary Baker, Craig Laval Université, Quebec, Canada
Baldzuhn, Michael Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Germany Barrington, Candace Central Connecticut State University, New Britain, CT Bashir, Hassan Texas A&M University at Qatar, Qatar Bashir, Shahzad Stanford University, CA Baumgarten, Jean Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS); École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris, France Berindeanu, Florin Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH Benz, Judith Juniata College, Huntingdon, PA Beringer, Alison Colgate University, Hamilton, NY Black, Patricia California State University, Chico, CA
LXXVIII
List of Contributors
Blaschitz, Gertrud Institut für Realienkunde des Mittelalters und der Frühen Neuzeit der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Krems, Austria Boggi, Flavio University College Cork, Ireland Bogstad, Janice M. University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, WI
Cawsey, Kathey Dalhousie University Halifax, Canada Clason, Christopher Rochester Hills, MI Classen, Albrecht The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ Clivio, Gianrenzo Toronto, Canada
Bolduc, Michelle University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, WI
Compareti, Matteo Stra (Venezia), Italy
Boscolo, Claudia Royal Holloway University of London, UK
Cooper, Glen M. Brigham Young University, Provo, UT
Boyle, Elizabeth University of Cambridge, UK
Cormier, Raymond Longwood University, VA
Bratu, Cristian Baylor University, Waco, TX
Cruse, Mark Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ
Calomino, Salvatore Madison, WI
D’Alessio, Nuncio The University of Texas, Austin, TX
Campbell, Kimberlee Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Dal Santo, Matthew University of Cambridge, UK
Cancian, Alessandro Foundation for Dialogue Among Civilizations, Geneva, Switzerland Carey, Stephen Mark Oakland University, Rochester, MI
Damico, Helen University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM Dangler, Jean Tulane University, New Orleans, LA
LXXIX Davis, Joshua University of Central Missouri, Warrensburg, MO Delle Donne, Roberto Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Italy De Ventura, Paolo The University of Birmingham, UK Deyrup, Marta Seton Hall University, South Orange, NJ Dines, Ilya Jerusalem, Israel Dinzelbacher, Peter Werfen/Salzburg, Austria Dorninger, Maria E. Universität Salzburg, Austria Dover, Carol Georgetown University, Washington D.C. Dunphy, Graeme Universität Regensburg, Germany Egger, Christoph Universität Wien, Austria English, Edward D. University of California, Santa Barbara, CA
List of Contributors
Evans, Beverly State University of New York-College at Geneseo, Geneseo, NY Evitt, Regula Meyer Colorado College, Colorado Springs, CO Fritsch-Rößler, Waltraud Universität Innsbruck, Austria Full, Bettina Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg, Germany Fynn, Jeffrey Paul Tolland, CT Garver, Valerie L. Northern Illinois University, Dekalb, IL Geck, John A. Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto, Canada Gentry, Francis G. Spring Mills, PA Germanidou, Sophia Kalamata, Greece Gertsman, Elina Southern Illinois University School of Art and Design, Carbondale, IL Gilbank, Robin University of Wales, UK
LXXX
List of Contributors
Glick, Thomas F. Boston University, Boston, MA Gordon, Sarah Utah State University, Logan, UT Graizbord, David The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ Grabowska, Jim Minnesota State University, Mankato, MN Grafinger, Christine Maria Biblioteca Vaticana, Città del Vaticano Griffin, Carrie University College Cork, Ireland Grosse, Max Universität Tübingen, Germany Grove, Jonathan University of Cambridge, UK Harbison, Robert Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, KY Hartmann, Heiko Freie Universität Berlin, Germany Haywood, Louise University of Cambridge, UK Heller, Sarah-Grace Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
Herman, Jason The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ Heyworth, Gregory University of Mississippi, MS Hollengreen, H. Laura University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ Holt, Andrew Starke, FL Holtzman, Livnat Bar-Ilan University, Israel Horowitz, Jeannine University of Haifa, Greece Huda, Qamar-ul Washington D.C. Ingram, Amy Northern Illinois University, Dekalb, IL Jaques, R. Kevin Indiana University, Bloomington, IL Jambeck, Karen K. Western Connecticut State University, Danbury, CT Jaritz, Gerhard Central European University, Hungary Johnson, Michael A. University of Texas at Austin, TX
LXXXI Kapriev, Georgi St. Kliment Ochridski University, Bulgaria Keats-Rohan, K.S.B. Oxford University, UK King, David Universität Frankfurt, Germany Kitsikopoulos, Harry New York University, New York, NY Koch, Walter Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich, Germany Kölzer, Theo Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, Germany
List of Contributors
Leanos, Jaime University of Nevada, Reno Lefebure, Leo D. Georgetown University, DC Lemeneva, Elena Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto, Canada Leverage, Paula Purdue University, W. Lafayette, IN Löser, Freimut Universität Augsburg, Germany Lucas, Adam Department of Aboriginal Affairs, Surrey Hills, NSW, Australia Luce, Mark David University of Chicago, IL
Kohl, Gerald Universität Wien, Austria
Lummus, David Stanford University, CA
Kümper, Hiram Universität Vechta, Germany
Macierowski, Edward M. Benedictine College, Atchison, KS
Kuhn, Christian Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg, Germany
Mack, Gregory McGill University, Canada
Lacy, Norris J. Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA Latowsky, Anne University of South Florida, Tampa
Mannaerts, Pieter Research Foundation – Flanders, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium Margolis, Nadia Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA
LXXXII
List of Contributors
Marner, Dominic University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada Meyer, Andreas Philipps-Universität Marburg, Germany Meyer Evitt, Regula Colorado Springs, CO Mieszkowski, Gretchen University of Houston-Clear Lake, Houston, TX Morewedge, Rosmarie Binghamton University, NY Müller, Ulrich Universität Salzburg, Austria
Niederkorn-Bruck, Meta Universität Wien, Austria Nijhuis, Letty University College Cork, Ireland Noakes, Susan University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN Obermeier, Anita University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM O’Brien, Juliet Princeton University, NJ O’Sullivan, Daniel E. The University of Mississippi, MS
Münster, Reinhold Universität Bamberg, Germany
Ohlander, Erik S. Indiana University, Purdue University, Fort Wayne
Munson, Marcella Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL
Oschema, Klaus Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, Germany
Murdoch, Brian University of Stirling, Scotland, UK
Paddock, Mary Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, Blacksburg, VA
Murray, K. Sarah-Jane Baylor University, Waco, TX Nagi, Joseph UCLA, Los Angeles, CA Naismith, Rory Cambridge University, UK
Parra Membrives, Eva Universidad de Salamanca, Spain Parton, Frances Cambridge University, UK Paulsen, Robert Universität Freiburg i.Br., Germany
LXXXIII
List of Contributors
Peitsara, Kirsti University of Helsinki, Finland
Reichert, Hermann Universität Wien, Austria
Penn, Stephen University of Stirling, Scotland, UK
Reinhart, Max University of Georgia, Athens, GA
Pettigrew, Mark Queens College, City University of New York Pfeffer, Wendy University of Louisville, Louisville, KY
Reynolds, Kevin York University, Toronto, Canada Rezakhani, Khodadad UCLA, Los Angeles, CA
Pierce, Marc University of Texas, Austin, TX
Rider, Jeff Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT
Pigg, Daniel The University of Tennessee at Martin, Martin, TN
Roberg, Francesco Hessisches Staatsarchiv Marburg, Germany
Pincikowski, Scott E. Hood College, Frederick, MD
Rodíguez-Velasco, Jesús University of California, Berkeley, CA
Poole, Russell University of Western Ontario, Canada Porter, Camarin University of Wisconsin at Madison, Madison, WI Powrie, Sarah St. Thomas More College, Saskatchewan, Canada Raposo Fernández, Berta Universidad de Valencia, Valencia, Spain
Rötzer, Daniel Paris-Lodron-Universität Salzburg, Austria Rosenstein, Roy The American University of Paris, France Rouillard, Linda Marie The University of Toledo, Toledo, OH Rushing, James Rutgers University, Camden, NJ
LXXXIV
List of Contributors
Sager, Alex University of Georgia, Athens, GA Sandidge, Marilyn Westfield State University, MA Santangelo, Enrico Università di Torino, Italy Sauer, Michelle M. University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND Sayers, William Cornell University, Ithaca, NY Schmidt, Siegrid Universität Salzburg, Austria Schnall, Jens Eike Universität Freiburg i.Br., Germany Schwartz, Yossef Tel Aviv University, Israel Singer, Julie Washington University, St. Louis, MO
Stevenson, Barbara Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, GA Stock, Marcus University of Toronto, Canada Stokes, Peter University of Cambridge, UK Storey, Wayne Indiana University, Bloomington, IN Stoudt, Debra Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA Syros, Vasileios University of Chicago, IL Taylor, Scott L. Pima Community College, Tucson, AZ Taylor, Steven Millem Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI
Slavin, Philip Yale University, New Haven, CT
Tinsley, David University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA
Snook, Ben Selwyn College, London, UK
Tomasik, Timothy Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, IN
Sprague, Maurice Universität Salzburg, Austria
Touwaide, Alain National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.
LXXXV Vallerani, Massimo Università degli Studi di Torino, Italy Van Liere, Frans Calvin College, Grand Rapids, MI Vogeler, Georg Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich, Germany Vogtherr, Thomas Universität Osnabrück, Germany Ward, Renée University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada Wedell, Moritz Universität Zürich, Switzerland Weigl, Herwig Universität Wien, Austria
List of Contributors
Wełna, Jerzy Warsaw University, Poland Whitford, David Victoria, Canada Yager, Susan Iowa State University, Ames, IA Ysebaert, Walter Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Research Foundation-Flanders, Belgium Zajkowski, Robert Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, Binghamton University, NY; Hudson Valley Community College, NY Zychowicz, James Madison, WI
List of Contributors
LXXXVI
1
Main Topics and Debates of the Last Decades and their Terminology and Results
2
3
The Arab West
A The Arab West A. Introduction The Arab West is a cultural area that conventionally includes the Maghrib (Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, but usually not Libya), Sicily and al-Andalus (Islamic Spain and Portugal). The three Maghrib countries then acquired in the course of the 19th century a distinctive historiographical overlay due to French colonization that imparted idiosyncratic views of social organization (the importance of autonomous Berber “cantons”) and political organization (opposition of territory controlled by the state – bled al-makhzen – versus that under tribal control (land of dissidence, bled al-siba). B. History of Research. North Africa A series of important monographs in French formed the basis of modern North African historiography: Robert Montagne, Les Berbères et le Makhzen dans le sud du Maroc, 1930; Emile Félix Gautier, Le passé de l’Afrique du nord: Les siècles obscurs (1937); Robert Brunschvig, La Berbérie orientale sous les Hafsides (1940); Hady R. Idris, La Berbérie orientale sous les Zirides (1962). Gautier and Montagne argued similar points, that Morocco had never been unified because of the prevalence of free Berber “cantons” (Montagne), or that unification never happened because of a millennial struggle between sedentary peoples (Berbers) and nomads (Arabs and Arabized Berbers) (Gautier). Gautier’s argument, fascinating but hyperbolic, is based to an extent on the hypothesis of the 14th-century polymath, Ibn Khaldun, on the role of sedentary – nomad conflict in the rise and falls of dynastic states (in his Muqaddimah and Kitab al-‘Ibar). Reevaluation of the nature of Berber society was largely the work of anthropologists, especially Jacques Berque (Structures sociales du Haut-Atlas, 1955); and Ernest Gellner (Saints of the Atlas, 1969), both of whom had immense influence on historians. A landmark in urban history was Roger Le Tourneau’s Fès avant le protectorat (1949), which however perpetuated the notion of a city-based society dating back to the early Middle Ages.
The Arab West
4
C. al-Andalus The 19th-century Spanish historiography of Islamic Spain was vitiated by an inability to distinguish between race and culture and therefore to assume that indigenous Hispano-Romans converted to Islam somehow remained “Spanish” in culture. This essentialist approach was first attacked by Américo Castro (The Structure of Spanish History, 1954; revised as The Spaniards, 1971), who first made the case that the culture of al-Andalus was a normative Arabo-Islamic one; and then definitively by Pierre Guichard (Al-Andalus: Estructura antropológica de una sociedad islámica en Occidente, 1976), who provided the social mechanism by which indigenous peoples were assimilated into Arabo-Muslim culture, and, at the same time, demonstrated (most importantly through a study of tribal toponyms) the tribe-based nature of settlement. The first comprehensive narrative history of al-Andalus was written by the Dutch Arabist Reinhart Dozy (Histoire des Musulmans d’Espagne: jusqu’à la conquête de l’Andalousie par les Almoravides, 1861), a political history that extended only through the Almoravid period. The next was by Evariste Lévi-Provencal, in the form of an updated version of Dozy’s Histoire, with the same title (1932). However this political narrative was accompanied by an influential volume on the social and economic history of al-Andalus (L’Espagne musulmane au XIème siècle: Institutions et vie sociale, 1932). Because the kingdom of Granada lasted 250 years longer than the heartland of Islamic Spain, it has a distinctive historiography. The standard histories are Rachel Arie, L’Espagne musulmane au temps des Nasrides (1973); and L. P. Harvey, Islamic Spain, 1250–1500 (1990). The notion of social organization underlying much of this literature was a tacit adaptation of the bled al-makhzen/bled al-siba model to al-Andalus, under the assumption that the polity of the emirate, caliphate and independent kings alike was one of centralized control, punctuated by tribal rebellions. One of the problems of western Islamic historiography – especially that of al-Andalus – is the lack of Arabic documentation. As a result there has been methodologically interesting work, using Christian archival documentation for the reconstruction of aspects of Islamic history: Olivia R. Constable, who made use of Genoese notarial archives to document Italian trade with al-Andalus (Trade and Traders in Muslim Spain: The Commercial Realignment of the Iberian Peninsula, 900–1500, 1994), Charles Du Fourcq (L’Espagne catalane et le Magrib au XIIIe et XVe siècles, 1965), using documents from the Archives of the Crown of Aragon to reconstruct relations between the Catalonia and the Magrib; and the entire literature of the Christian resettlement of al-Andalus,
5
The Arab West
using land partition documents (Libros de repartimiento) to reconstruct the social and agricultural organization of Islamic Spain (see Glick, From Muslim Fortress to Christian Conquest, 1996, ch. 6). D. Medieval Archeology In the 1980s, a new approach to Andalusi society was adumbrated by a new wave of medieval archeologists who reexamined the social structure of al-Andalus from the perspective of Guichard who in an important study of fortifications together with André Bazzana and Patrice Cressier (Les chateaux ruraux d’Al-Andalus, 1990), replaced the older tacit paradigm of rural social organization with a new one, based on free tribal settlements under the protective wing of “castle-refuges” (husun) that were inhabited only in times of unrest. A huge investment of energy was spent over the next ten to fifteen years on identifying castle/village complexes. The paradigm was subsequently somewhat modified by Miquel Barceló and his students at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, who demonstrated convincingly that water systems, not castles, were the central organizing feature of such settlement complexes. A model study is given by Helena Kirchner (La construcció d’un espai pagès a Mayurqa (1997), who demonstrates the relationship between systems of irrigation canals and tribal settlements. E. Current Trends The wave of enthusiasm that carried the new medieval archeology for twenty years seemingly dissipated around 2000, or rather, its energies were devoted to regional syntheses. Representative works are Guichard’s on Valencia (Les Musulmans de Valence et le reconquete, 1990); Rafael Azuar on Alicante and the Islamic kingdom of Denia (Denia islámica: arqueología y poblamiento, 1989), and Virgilio Martínez Enamorado on Málaga (Al-Andalus desde la periferia: la formación de una sociedad musulmana en tierras malagueñas, 2003). Methodologically what is notable about these syntheses is that their sources are both documentary and archeological. There has also appeared a kind of revanchist retrieval, although also regionally delimited and with an archeological basis, of the older line of “continuism” that stressed continuity of culture and social organization from Roman through early Islamic times (see Sonia Gutiérrez, La cora de Tudmir, de la antigüedad tardía al mundo islámica: poblamiento y cultura material, 1996).
The Arab East
6
Select Bibliography Arabs and Berbers: From Tribe to Nation in North Africa, ed. Ernest Gellner (Lexington: Heath, 1972); Pierre Guichard, Al-Andalus, 711–1492 (Paris: Hachette, 2000); Thomas F. Glick, From Muslim Fortress to Christian Castle (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995; revised as Paisajes de conquista, Valencia: University of Valencia Press, 2006); Abdelmajid Hannoum, Colonial Histories, Post-Colonial Memories: The Legend of the Kahina (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2001); Michel Terrasse, Islam et Occident méditerranéen: de la conquête aux Ottomans (Paris: CTHS, 2001).
Thomas F. Glick
The Arab East A. General Introduction The Arab East can be defined as the regions including modern day Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and the eastern portion of Turkmenistan. The Arab conquests of these regions began in the third decade of the 7th century and continued through the middle of the 8th century. In the 7th century, these lands were under the influence of three major powers: the Sasanian Empire in Persia, the T’ang dynasty in China and the Gupta dynasty in India. The Sasanian Empire encompassed Iraq, Iran, southwestern and northern Afghanistan and parts of Turkmenistan. On its western and northern frontiers, it bordered the Byzantine Empire, which controlled the Levant, the Caucasus and Asia Minor. Its northeastern boundaries were roughly defined as south of the Oxus River and the western bank of the Murghab River and the great Ghuzz Desert. Its easternmost province, Khurasan was less settled and expanded and contracted with the times. It comprised four main administrative centers in Marw, Abrashahr (Nishapur, modern day Mashhad), Herat and Balkh. The military command for the region was based in Marw, in present day Turkmenistan. Sijistan (Sistan), the region presently comprising portions of southeast Iran, northwestern Pakistan and southwestern Afghanistan had been nominally under Sasanian rule. Its easternmost boundary was Bust, situated at the confluence of the Helmand and Arghandab rivers. Further to the east the local rulers were aligned with the Indian Empire. North of the Oxus River (Transoxiana) were Khwarazm, which bordered the southern shore of the Aral Sea and Sogdia, which occupied the Oxus –
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Jaxartes Basin. Sogdia was a federation of loosely allied Iranian city-states that were nominally under Chinese suzerainty. The major city-states of Sogdia were Paykand, Bukhara and Samarqand. Further north in Ushrusana was Shash, near present day Tashkent. The peoples of this region were primarily of Iranian stock with a mixture of Turkic speaking peoples. B. The Righteous Caliphs (632–661 C.E.) The Arabs quickly colonized Iraq during this period. The two garrison towns of Basra and Kufa were established and soon became cities that experienced massive Arab emigrations. They were the main bases of operation from which campaigns to the east were launched. Under the caliph Umar (r. 634–644 C.E.), raids were launched into Persia. Persian resistance against the Arabs continued through the caliphate of Uthman (r. 644–656 C.E.). The Arabs established garrisons and appointed governors in the major cities and relative calm prevailed. The Arab governors of Iraq administered the eastern lands from Basra and reported to the caliph in Damascus. They were largely responsible for appointing governors in the east. The furthest frontier on the eastern border of the newly emerged Arab Empire was called Khurasan. This region comprised the former Sasanian province of Khurasan as well as Sijistan (Sistan) and Transoxiana beyond the Oxus. These three regions known as “Greater Khurasan” are the main focus of this article. The Makran and Sind were conquered by the Arabs in the early 8th century, but they remained backwaters during the period which concerns us. The Arabs quickly subdued Sasanian Khurasan and Sijistan. They raided as far east as Kabul and the Sind. Treaties were negotiated with the individual rulers of the major towns and cities of Khurasan and annual tributes were agreed upon. The local rulers were responsible for the collection and payment of this tribute. The Arabs did not maintain a large physical presence there during this period. Initially, after campaigning, they typically returned to Basra in Iraq. Due to this and internal Arab upheavals, such as the assassinations of the caliphs Umar, Uthman and Ali, the Khurasanis frequently used these periods of Arab unrest to rebel. This resulted in additional Arab campaigns, which necessitated the renegotiation of treaties. C. Umayyad Period (661–750 C.E.) Under the Umayyad caliph Muawiya (r. 661–680 C.E.), 50,000 soldiers and their dependents were sent to colonize Khurasan in 671 C.E. The majority of this group settled in the administrative capital of Khurasan, Marw. In 673 C.E., the Arabs mounted campaigns, which crossed the Oxus into Trans-
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oxiana (Ar. Ma wara al-nahr), where they attacked the Sogdian city-states. These campaigns resulted in an enormous amount of booty, but the treaties established there were short-lived. Rebellions continued until the governorship of Qutayba b. Muslim (705–714 C.E.). Qutayba launched a sustained campaign against the Sogdians with the military support of local levies. Paykand was completely destroyed and Bukhara and Samarqand were subjugated and Arab garrisons were stationed in these cities. Qutayba’s campaigns extended as far east as Kashgar. Qutayba’s conquests proved to be superficial. The Sogdians allied themselves with the western Turks, whose power had surged and during the last portion of Umayyad rule, Transoxiana was nearly lost to the Arabs. Sijistan was plagued with rebellion and Umayyad control was effectively restricted to the two major cities of Zaranj and Bust. In 736 C.E., in an effort to hold Greater Khurasan together, the Umayyad governor, Asad b. Khalid moved the administrative capital from Marw to Balkh. The majority of the population of Greater Khurasan did not convert to Islam. Religiously, the area was extremely diverse with a Zoroastrian majority and Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Manichaean and pagan minorities. Among the Arabs and new converts, tribal, political and sectarian differences were rife. These divisions among the Muslims coupled with continued rebellion weakened Umayyad authority. An anti-Umayyad movement had begun around 720 C.E. Its propaganda concentrated on the populations of Khurasan and finally in 746 C.E., the Abbasid Revolution under the leadership of Abu Muslim al-Khurasani began there. It quickly gained success in Khurasan and toppled Umayyad authority there and spread westward into Persia and Iraq. Continued victories propelled the movement into Syria and in 750 A. D. the Umayyads were defeated and the Abbasid dynasty was established. Abu Muslim al-Khurasani retained control of Khurasan and reestablished Muslim control over Transoxiana. However, in 755 C.E., he was assassinated by the Abbasid caliph, al-Manur, who appointed his own governor to Khurasan. D. The Abba¯ sid High Caliphate (750–833 C.E.) The establishment of the Abbasid dynasty was a turning point in the history of the Arabs and Islam. Previously, Arab Umayyad rule had dominated. Non-Arabs converting to Islam became clients (mawali), which made them “honorary Arabs.” However, their status was not equal to that of the Arabs. After the Abbasid revolution, things began to change. The capital of the empire was moved from Damascus to Baghdad and the victorious Khurasanis, who were a mixture of Arabs and Persians obtained a special status in the
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government. Non-Arabs increasingly attained high offices and positions of authority. The Umayyads heavily exploited Greater Khurasan. The Arab governors had amassed great wealth and did little to improve the infrastructure or public services. With the establishment of a new “Muslim dynamic,” trade increased and cities along the trade routes grew and prospered. While the majority of the population remained non-Muslim until the late 10th century, the number of new converts to Islam grew, as did the number of religious scholars. Arab religious scholars were no longer an overwhelming majority and a growing class of non-Arab scholars writing in Arabic flourished. The second half of the 8th century was a period of cultural and religious synthesis. The Arabs in the east became more assimilated into the overall society while for a period of three hundred years the Persians abandoned Middle Persian and adopted Arabic as their administrative, liturgical and literary language. The Arab conquests set into motion the conditions that led to the emergence of New Persian after this period. New Persian was written in a modified form of the Arabic script and included a large number of Arabic loan words. It developed an Islamic literature and gradually became the dominant Iranian language replacing Sogdian as the lingua franca of Central Asia. As the Arabs became more Persianized, the Persians became more Arabized. Additionally, the Turks, who had traditionally adopted Sogdian as their written language, replaced it with new Persian (Dari). However, Dari did not begin to emerge as a literary language until the 10th century. The Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad experienced a major schism in the beginning of the 9th century, which ultimately resulted in the loss of the east to Arab authority. Upon his death in 809 C.E., Harun al-Rashid’s son, al-Amin, became caliph and his son, Mamun, became the governor of Khurasan. A rift developed between the two brothers and a civil war ensued. Mamun, who governed from Marw, eventually triumphed. Born of a Persian mother, he was at home in the east and had seriously pondered moving the capital of the empire from Baghdad to Marw. However, rebellions in the western portions of the empire forced him to decide whether he wanted to be the governor of Khurasan or the caliph of the Arab Empire. In 819 C.E., he moved to Baghdad. The Abbasid reign from its beginnings in 750 C.E. through the caliphate of Mamun is generally known as the period of the High Caliphate. After this time, Arab authority in the east rapidly declined. Mamun appointed governors to Khurasan but none were able to govern it well or keep the peace. Finally, in 821 C.E., Tahir b. al-Husayn, a trusted general of Mamun of Persian origin was appointed to Khurasan. He reestablished order and soon became a patron of Arab learning. Politically, he estab-
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lished his autonomy from Baghdad and Arab rule and founded his own dynasty, the Tahirids (821–873 C.E.). TheTahirids were the last rulers in the east to make a pretense of being Arab. The successors of the Tahirids in the east, in the late 9th century and the early 10th century, the Saffarids from Sijistan and the Samanids in Transoxiana and Khurasan were ethnically Persian and actively patronized things Persian while promoting Islam. Arab control over the east ended. Subsequent dynasties of the Ghaznavids and Saljuqs were ethnically Turkish but culturally Persian. The Arab caliphs ruling from Baghdad gradually lost control of their once large empire that fragmented into a number of different states. The caliphs were unable to reclaim their past political power and eventually became only figureheads. The institution of the caliphate continued in Baghdad until 1258, when the Mongols invaded and killed the last Arab caliph. E. History of Research Scholarship on the Arabs in the East has primarily concentrated on the Umayyad dynasty and specifically the causes of the Abbasid revolution. Gerlof Van Vloten and Julius Wellhausen led this research in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Europe. Van Vloten’s Recherches sur la domination arabe, le chi’isme et les croyances messianiques sous les Omayyades (1894) perceived the Abbasid revolution as a Persian nationalist movement, which struggled against repressive taxes and social inequality in order to overthrow the Arab oppressors. He believed the revolution was energized by the rise of Shi’ism and the expectation of a liberator or messiah. Wellhausen supported Van Vloten’s views; however, in opposition to Van Vloten, he saw the revolution as having its roots in Islam rather than Persian nationalism. Julius Wellhausen’s The Arab Kingdom and Its Fall appeared in 1902. It was the first critical work to use Tabari’s History of the Prophets and the Kings and the first presentation of an Islamic subject using modern historical method. Wellhausen, as a product of his age, was concerned with nations, states and persons and the struggle between them for power. This preoccupation with politics and nationality completely disregarded economics. Wellhausen saw the Umayyad dynasty as essentially an Arab kingdom. He further forwarded the belief that the empire had become factionalized along north/south (Qays/Yaman) Arab tribal lines during the Islamic era. His views established the paradigm that remained virtually unassailed, for more than 70 years. Wellhausen closely and critically examined his and their sources. He favored the earliest ones. He strongly believed that the literary tradition should be subjected to intense criticism and analyzed for contradictions and biases. Wellhausen’s works were followed by a number of modern
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scholars, who advanced scholarship in the field by collating and editing critical editions of important manuscripts. European institutions had continued to collect Arabic manuscripts from the Middle East, Central Asia and India. As these works were described and catalogued a major effort began to produce critical editions of them. In these pursuits, Vasily Barthold, Hamilton A. R. Gibb and Richard N. Frye figured prominently. Vasily Barthold was a polymath. He was one of the first scholars to critically use both Arabic and Persian sources in his research. He saw the Umayyad period as one of exploitation. He believed that the Arabs had no real administrative aims and that they were content to maintain control over the Khurasani Arab population while extracting taxes and tribute from all. The rapid succession of Umayyad governors and their acquisition of vast fortunes proved this point to him. Barthold’s major contribution to this early phase of Islamic history was his groundbreaking work on the history and geography of Central Asia. He was meticulous and systematically identified cities, towns and landmarks throughout Central Asia, utilizing a variety of scientific methods and incorporating archaeological and numismatic findings. He was a prolific writer, who wrote primarily in Russian and German. His works were considered so important that his major work, Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion (1900) was translated into English from the Russian with Barthold’s collaboration by Hamilton A. R. Gibb in 1928. Hamilton A. R. Gibb continually added to the prior studies of his colleagues. In examining Greater Khurasan, he contrasted a highly decentralized Transoxiana with the centralized former Sasanian realm of Khurasan proper and he stressed that their social and political systems had developed independently. He viewed Qutayba b. Muslim’s conquests in Transoxiana as superficial and held that Sogdian resistance to the Arabs was based on commercial interests and their tradition of regional independence. He highlighted the roles of Asad b. Abdullah and Nasr b. Sayyar at the end of the Umayyad period in trying to right injustices and unify the frontier by bringing the Arabs and mawali closer together. He tried to demonstrate that once the Arabs began to focus on trade that resistance decreased dramatically. Gibb was one of the first to utilize Chinese sources. His major work on this subject is The Arab Conquests in Central Asia (1923). Gibbs other works focus on Islam, literature and the interaction of Islamic societies with other cultures. Richard N. Frye concentrated on examining all facets of ancient Persia. While others had primarily focused on changes that were ushered in with the Arabs and Islam, Frye maintained the point of view, that the Persians were a dominant and changing force. Some of his major works are The Golden Age of Persia: the Arabs in the East (1975), Islamic Iran and Central Asia (1979) and The
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History of Bukhara (1954). Frye took special effort to inform us as to what sources on the subject have apparently been lost to time. C. E. Bosworth’s contribution to the study of the Arabs in the East must also be mentioned. Wellhausen and Gibb examined the East as a whole. Barthold had concentrated on Central Asia and Frye on Iran. Bosworth’s contributions are in geography and particularly on Sijistan (Sïstan). His Sïstan Under the Arabs, (1968) greatly complements the study of the Arabs and the East. These six scholars comprise what has been termed as the classical school of thought. Our understanding of Umayyad Khurasan has been shaped by their seminal works. Together they have provided a firm historiographical and geographical knowledge of this period, while advancing textual criticism and exploring all available sources. F. The Revisionists In the absence of an abundance of detailed information on the causes and factors leading up to the Abbasid revolution (747–750 C.E.), a new school grew up. The common thread linking the two schools has been an emphasis on the discontent in Khurasan caused by oppressive taxes for all, the assimilation of the Arabs into Khurasani society and their subsequent loss of political status, coupled with constant ongoing inter-tribal rivalries. The ruling dynasty was viewed as mostly impious and wrongly guided. The chronicles of Tabari, Ibn al-Athir, al-Baladhuri, Ibn A’tham and Ya’qubi provided the foundation for these ideas. The discovery of new sources such as the anonymous Akhbar dawlat al-Abbasiya and Tarikh al-Khulafa, and other works have helped to feed the fire of an ongoing classical versus revisionist battle. M. A. Shaban’s radical interpretation of the character of the Abbasid revolution in his Islamic History, C.E. 600–750 (A.H. 132): A New Interpretation (1971) attacked the classical school and claimed that the Arabs had no interest in war, opposed taxes, resented the Persian elite in charge of collecting taxes and were fully assimilated with the local population and were sympathetic to conversion. He saw the Abbasid revolution as primarily Arab, emerging out of Marw, as a result of lost status and privilege. He viewed the revolution as a three-way struggle between old military, new military and settlers. He dismissed the existence of tribal rivalries and transformed the north/south (Qays/Yaman) rivalries into ideological parties with common political, social and economic interests. He claimed the northern Arabs (Qays) were advocates of expansionist policies, while the southerners (Yaman) were proponents of assimilationist ones. He further claimed that there were few converts to Islam at this time.
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Shaban’s theories caused quite a stir when they were published. They challenged Wellhausen’s paradigm. However, Shaban’s work has not withstood the critical scrutiny of scholarship. His theories were more interpretation than fact, and his use of the sources was fairly loose. However, while he is faulted for a lack of good scholarly practices, his fresh approach to the subject was much needed. His revisionist school grew to include Daniel Dennett (Conversion and the Poll Tax in Early Islam, 1950), Farouk Omar (The Abbassid Caliphate: 132/750–170/786, 1969), Moshe Sharon (Black Banners from the East: the Establishment of the Abbasid State: Incubation of a Revolt; and Revolt: the Social and Military Aspects of the Abbasid Revolution, 1983), and Jacob Lassner (Islamic Revolution and Historical Memory: an Inquiry into the Art of Abbasid Apologetics, 1986). All of them asserted the Arabness of the Abbasid revolution and minimalized the role of the Persians. G. Recent Scholarship In the wake of the classical and revisionist schools, there has been a search for new sources that could shed more light on our rudimentary understanding of this period. Again, the main interest for this period has been the Abbasid revolution and the proving or disproving of the various theories of Wellhausen and Shaban. Two others scholars, Saleh Said Agha (The Revolution which Toppled the Umayyads: neither Arab nor Abbasid, 2003) and Fukuzo Amabe (The Emergence of the Abbasid Autocracy: the Abbasid Army, Khurasan and Adharbayjan, 1995) have introduced studies, which systematically examined the ethnic character of the Abbasid revolution and questioned the Abbasid dynasty claim. Agha focused on demographics and convincingly established the varied ethnic composition of the Abbasid revolution, deconstructing Shaban. Amabe in his collection of essays examines the Qays-Yaman dispute and agrees with Shaban as to its political nature in Syria but finds that the tensions in Khurasan had nothing to do with the Syrian ones. Additionally, he has convincingly disputed Shaban’s claim of the limited numbers of troops enrolled in the payrolls and that the old military (muqatila) were all dismissed from the rolls and replaced by Syrians and new troops. Finally, both Agha and Amabe have shattered Shaban’s theory that the majority of revolutionaries came from Marw and that no propagandists (da’is) operated outside of it. The debates, rebuttals and different interpretations of the events culminating in the Abbasid revolution have provided an abundance of opinions and used a variety of approaches. Both the classical and revisionist schools have fueled a continual series of studies, but none of them have approached the subject by examining Khurasan as a whole, from the advent of Islam until
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the Abbasid revolution. Scholars will continue to search for new sources on this subject. As more and more manuscripts are described and catalogued each year, it is possible that more pieces of this puzzle will be found. Select Bibliography Salih Sa’id Agha, The Revolution which Toppled the Umayyads: Neither Arab nor Abbasid (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2003); Fukuzo Amabe, The Emergence of the Abbasid Autocracy: The Abbasid Army, Khurasan and Adharbayjan (Kyoto: Kyoto University Press, 1995); Vasily V. Barthold, Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion (London: Luzac & Co., 1928); Clifford E. Bosworth, Sistan Under the Arabs: From the Islamic Conquest to the Rise of the Saffarids, 30–250/651–864 (Rome: Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, 1968); Richard N. Frye, The Golden Age of Persia: The Arabs in the East (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1975); Hamilton A. R. Gibb, The Arab Conquests in Central Asia. (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1923); M. A. Shaban, Islamic History: A new Interpretation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1971); Gerlof van Vloten, Recherches sur la domination arabe, le chi’isme et les croyances messianiques sous les khalifat Omayyades (Amsterdam: J. Muller, 1894); Julius Wellhausen, Das arabische Reich und sein Sturz (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1902).
Mark David Luce
Arabic Literature A. Introduction Throughout the Middle Ages, Arabic was employed by millions of Arabs and Muslims, not only as a scriptural language, but also as a shared medium of scholarly and literary communication. Accordingly, medieval Arabic literature was a rich and diverse tradition. This article provides an overview of the formation of the medieval literary canon and a survey of major trends in the study of Arabic literature from the 19th century to the present. The modern Arabic term adab signifies both “good manners” and “literature” in its specialized sense (poetry, drama, and artistic prose). In the Middle Ages, however, adab had a broader semantic range, conveying conduct and manners, knowledge and refinement, and, especially, the kind of socialization expected of secretaries, courtiers, and intellectuals. Adab writings, by extension, were those that contributed to this socialization, works that were both aesthetically pleasing and instructive. (For a full discussion of this term, see Seeger Bonnebakker, “Adab and the concept of belles-lettres,” The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature: ^Abbasid Belles-Lettres, ed. Julia Ash-
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tiany et al., 1990, 16–30.) The focus of this article is the study of secular belles-lettres, but it is important to remember that in the Middle Ages, practically all non-technical writings were expected to be composed according to contemporary standards of adab. B. The Legacy of Medieval Literary Scholarship Modern scholarship on medieval Arabic literature has adopted much of the conceptual framework of literary categorization formulated in the Middle Ages. In particular, the medieval canon, with its attendant aesthetic judgments and assumptions, has had a lasting influence. Until relatively recently, modern scholars have devoted little attention to those texts regarded as inferior or marginal in the Middle Ages. The first and most fundamental criterion for determining the “literariness” of a text was its linguistic register. Early in the Islamic era, Arab linguists became concerned with the question of diglossia, the perceived corruption of formal, fully inflected Arabic into various uninflected regional dialects. With a few notable exceptions, sub-literary status was assigned to compositions in colloquial dialects. Poetry was the premier literary genre in the Middle Ages. Despite its pagan religious milieu, the orally transmitted poetic tradition of the preIslamic era (al-jahiliyya, literally, “the age of ignorance”) was especially admired and regarded as a rich repository of linguistic and cultural information. The most famous canonical collection, the mu^allaqat (“the pendants” or “hanging odes”), consists of exemplars of the qasida, a formal, polythematic, monorhymed ode, by the most highly esteemed pre-Islamic poets. Much medieval criticism was prescriptive, dwelling on ideals and models for imitation and codified norms (^umud al-shi^r, “the pillars of poetry”). Pre-Islamic poetry, the mu^allaqat especially, provided such models. The traditional periodization of Arabic literature after the coming of Islam is loosely based on dynastic shifts and perceived changes in poetic style. The early Islamic period (622–660) and the reign of the Umayyad caliphs (660–750) is generally viewed as a transitional phase. The rise of the ^Abbasid caliphate (750–1258), signaled a definitive break with the tribal, nomadic past. The panegyrical ode (madih) had served a tribal function in pre-Islamic Arabia, but became an important medium of state propaganda in the caliphal era. Its most celebrated proponents were Abu Tammam (d. 846), alBuhturi (d. 897), and al-Mutanabbi (d. 965). Shorter forms, notably the ghazaliyya (love poem) and khamriyya (wine-song), both frequently set to music, became popular in less formal court contexts. Medieval critics perceived marked differences in style and tone between pre-Islamic poetry and that of
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the ^Abbasid period. Badi^ (“innovative new style”), a trend towards complex rhetorical embellishment that came into fashion in the early 9th century, became a key means of distinguishing the ‘modern poets’ (al-muhdathun) from the ‘ancients’ (al-qudama#). In the later Middle Ages, poetry became increasingly imitative, hence the modern distinction between the ‘classical’ period (the ^Abbaasid caliphate) and the ‘post-classical’ period (beginning after the Mongol conquest of Baghdad in 1258). Artistic prose was largely an innovation of the caliphal era, although brief narratives in the form of first-person reports (akhbar) recording important tribal events had been transmitted since pre-Islamic times. Reports of this sort, considered nonfictional, became the basis of historiography and biography. Of special significance were the hadith reports that inscribed the deeds and utterances of the prophet Muhammad. In the ^Abaasid period, reports were sometimes embedded in essays, such as those of al-Jahiz (d. 869?), and included in large compilations of short narratives on a variety of subjects. The most famous were literary anthologies: Ibn Qutayba’s (d. 889) ^Uyun al-akhbar (“Choice Anecdotes”), Ibn ^Abd Rabbihi’s (d. 940) Al-^Iqd alfarid (“The Precious Necklace”), and Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani’s (d. 967) Kitab al-aghani (“Book of Songs”). Other compilations of this sort fell into an endless variety of sub-genres: histories, biographical dictionaries, manuals of etiquette, Fürstenspiegels, accounts of wonders and marvels, and so on. For the most part, prose narratives were expected to have a reliable chain of transmission and to deal with (plausibly) real events. Those fictional narratives that were tolerated were instructive allegories or sophisticated (therefore edifying) satires. An early experiment in this area was Ibn al-Muqaffa^’s (d. 757) Kalila wa-Dimna (“Kalila and Dimna”), a translation of animal fables from Pahlavi. The most popular fictional form of the Middle Ages was the maqama, a picaresque genre in rhymed prose developed by al-Hamadhani (d. 1008) and al-Hariri (d. 1122) and imitated up until the early 20th century. Medieval literary scholarship was prolific and remarkably introspective. The study of Arabic literary history depends on vast Medieval anthologies, commentaries, biographical and bibliographical compendia, and other resources. Medieval terms and conceptual categories – genres, modes, rhetorical terms, and so on – have, by and large, been adopted by modern scholars. Modern scholarship has also inherited a certain geographic bias (focusing particularly on the urban centers of the Fertile Crescent), and the traditional primitivist aesthetic that favored early ‘classic’ texts over later innovations. Naturally, issues that were of particular interest to medieval commentators and critics have continued to play a prominent role in the study of Arabic literature.
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C. The 19th Century: Discovery and Rediscovery Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1798 is often cited as the first significant cultural encounter between modern Europe and the Arab world, and an important catalyst for scholarly activity on both sides of the Mediterranean. Not incidentally, it was also the first significant military encounter, marking the beginning of European imperialist ambitions in the Middle East. Throughout most of the 19th century, scholarship on Arabic literature, both among Arab intellectuals and Orientalists, consisted mainly of collecting, cataloguing, editing, and publishing texts. In the early 19th century, modernization programs in the Arabic-speaking Middle East coincided with a new interest in classical literature. By midcentury, this interest had grown into a broad literary and cultural movement, al-Nahda (the “Revival” or “Renaissance”), which represented, among other things, a growing awareness among Arabs of their shared cultural heritage (al-turath). Al-Nahda was contrasted with ^Asr al-inhittat, a perceived “Period of Stagnation” or ‘Dark Ages’ (from the late Middle Ages through the Napoleonic invasion), characterized, politically, by the rule of non-Arab dynasties, and artistically, by an ostensible decline in originality. As Ottoman authority waned and European colonial activity intensified, al-Nahda became identified with both a revival of interest in medieval culture on the one hand, and rapid westernization on the other. Al-Nahda is chiefly associated with Egypt and the Levant, where the principle encounters with Europe took place. While the translation, imitation, and assimilation of European literary genres in the Arab world has been widely studied, far less attention has been devoted to the process by which classical Arabic literature became an object of study in the modern Arab world. (See, however, Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age 1798–1939, 1962; and Jack A. Crabbs, The Writing of History in Nineteenth-Century Egypt, 1984).The degree to which classical Arabic literature was ‘rediscovered’ in the 19th century is open to debate. Certainly some classical genres and authors had never ceased to be widely appreciated and studied in both the eighteenth and 19th centuries. The most dramatic development was not ‘rediscovery’ but wide distribution brought about as printing supplanted manuscript culture. In 1822, the Khedive Muhammad ^Ali established the Bulaq Press in Cairo as part of his modernization project. Although the Bulaq Press specialized in technical manuals and translations of European textbooks, it published editions of Alf Layla wa-layla (“The Thousand and One Nights”) and Ibn al-Muqaffa^’s Kalila wa-Dimna in 1822, soon followed by other medieval literary works. Protestant missionaries and the Jesuits set up presses in the Levant, and by the end of the century, most major Arab cities had presses. Newspapers and journals also published classical as
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well as contemporary literature, and soon became important fora for cultural dialogue. Some early contributors to al-Nahda include the Egyptian educator and translator Rifa^a al-Tahtawi (1801–1871), who advocated and supervised the publication of heritage texts at Bulaq, the Egyptian poet Ibrahim al-Dasuqi (1811–1883), an editor at the same press, and the Lebanese Christian poet Faris al-Shidyaq (1804–1887), an editor at the British Arabic press in Malta who later established an Arabic press in Istanbul. Butrus al-Bustani (1819–1883), a Lebanese Christian journalist and linguist, compiled the first modern Arabic dictionary (Muhit al-muhit, 1867–1870) and contributed to the first modern Arabic encyclopedia (Da#irat al-ma^arif, 1876–1882). The study of the Arabic heritage, including classical literature, became increasingly institutionalized with the foundation of national libraries and colleges, such as the Egyptian Dar al-kutub and Cairo Teacher’s College (both established in 1870). Efforts to preserve and disseminate the great works of the past involved constant negotiation with contemporary issues. It was chiefly modernists and reformers who guided the revival. Muhammad ^Abduh (1849–1905), the celebrated Islamic modernist, religious scholar, and educational reformer, introduced the study of classical Arabic literature at al-Azhar (Cairo’s medieval college of Islamic studies). This radical attempt to inject a ‘liberal arts’ program into al-Azhar’s hidebound religious curriculum scandalized ^Abduh’s colleagues, but inspired a new generation of Egyptian intellectuals (including Taha Husayn, on whom see below). Another prominent Arab academic, Luwis Shaykhu (Le Père Louis Cheikho, 1859–1927), a Lebanese Jesuit and professor at the University of Saint-Joseph, Beirut, played a greater role in preserving the classical canon than any other figure of al-Nahda. Shaykhu collected manuscripts and published critical editions of an amazing range of medieval texts, many of which are still used today. His Kitab shu^ara al-Nasraniyya (“Anthology of Christian Poets,” 1890) was an early (and contentious) study of Christian ‘identity literature.’ In Europe, Arabic studies were overshadowed by biblical and classical studies. The limited number of orientalists who did research in Arabic were rarely specialists, and many were adventurous amateurs rather than academics. Arabic was generally taught as if it were a dead language. Arabic studies did not coalesce into an institutionalized field of study until the end of the century (see Johann Fück, Die arabischen Studien in Europa, 1955; and Victor Chauvin, Bibliographie des ouvrages arabes et relatifs aux Arabes publiées dans l’Europe chrétienne de 1810 à 1883, 4 vols., 1892–1909.) Only a handful of medieval Arabic texts had been adequately edited and published before the 19th century, and few linguistic resources were available
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in Europe. Orientalists of the first half of the century laid much of the groundwork for further study, including a series of reliable grammars and various dictionaries and lexica. Gustav Flügel (1802–1870) edited a number of valuable sources for literary history, including Hajji Khalifa’s massive 17th-century bibliography of oriental manuscripts, Kashf al-zunun (in Latin translation as Bibliographicum et Encyclopaedicum, 1835–1858), an edition of Ibn al-Nadim’s 10th-century bibliography Kitab al-Fihrist (1871–1872) and a concordance to the Qur#an (Concordantiae Corani arabicae, 1842). One of the towering figures of late 19th- and early 20th-century orientalism was Ignaz (Ignác) Goldziher (1850–1921), best known for his groundbreaking work in Islamic studies (Muhammedanische Studien, 2 vols., 1888–1890, rpt. 1961), but also a pioneer in the study of Arabic literature (Abhandlungen zur arabischen Philologie, 2 vols., 1896–1899). Although an ever increasing number of literary texts were available to orientalists by the end of the century, aesthetic appreciation of medieval Arabic literature was often subordinated to philological interests and broad ethnographic generalizations. On one extreme, literary works were viewed as little more than sources of raw linguistic data, or, at best, as pedagogical aids (e.g. de Sacy’s Chrestomathie arabe, 1806; and two editions of Alf layla wa-layla, “The Thousand and One Nights” [designated Calcutta I (1814–1818) and Calcutta II (1839–1842)], both intended for linguistic study). On the other extreme, the idea that the study of Arabic literature represented a means of understanding ‘Oriental’ manners and customs exercised great appeal in the 19th century. This ethnographic approach had been introduced by Barthélémy d’Herbolet in his Bibliothéque orientale (1697), an early and largely anecdotal encyclopedia of Middle Eastern culture and history that was widely read in the 18th century. In the 19th century, this approach was adopted in such works as Edward Lane’s detailed study of culture and everyday life in Egypt, Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians (1836), and the notes to his translation of Alf layla wa-layla (later published separately under the title Arabian Society in the Middle Ages, ed. Stanley Lane-Poole, 1883). For the most part, both Arab and Orientalist scholars of the 19th century were guided by the tastes of medieval critics and anthologists, and evinced a similar reverence for the medieval canon. One interesting case of divergent evaluation deserves special notice. The variable assortment of Märchen collected under the title of Alf layla wa-layla (“The Thousand and One Nights,” often translated as “The Arabian Nights”) had been regarded as an entertaining but ultimately frivolous and sub-literary work in the Arab world. In Europe, a French translation by Antoine Galland was published between 1704 and 1717 (Les Mille et une nuits), and immediately captured the public
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imagination. What began as exoticist curiosity in the 18th century turned into a mania in the 19th. Several editions were published (including the Bulaq edition, 1822), along with numerous translations (the best known are Edward Lane’s bowdlerized and compulsively annotated translation, The Thousand and One Nights, 3 vols., 1838–1841; and Richard Burton’s eccentric and bawdy translation, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, 10 vols., 1885). As a result of all of this attention, “The Arabian Nights” remains the most famous work of medieval Arabic literature in the West. (On its history and reception, see Robert Irwin, The Arabian Nights: A Companion, 1995; and The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia, ed. Ulrich Marzolph and Richard van Leeuwen, 2 vols., 2004.) D. The 20th Century: Revolution and Re-evaluation 19th-century scholarship produced a sizable body of linguistic reference works and reliably edited literary texts. By the turn of the 20th century, Arabic literature had come to be recognized as an isolated object of study. Two watershed events of the 20th century, Taha Husayn’s challenge to the traditional canon and Edward Said’s postcolonial critique of Orientalism, helped to define the field and open the way for a variety of critical perspectives and methodologies. Both in Europe and the Arab world, literary history dominated the early part of the century. Notable surveys include Reynold Alleyne Nicholson, A Literary History of the Arabs, 1907; Jurji Zaydan, Tarikh adab al-lugha al-^arabiyya (“The History of Arabic-language Literatures”), 4 vols., 1911; Ignaz (Ignác) Goldziher, Arab irodalom rövid történte, 1912 (translated as A Short History of Classical Arabic Literature, 1966); Clément Huart, Histoire de la literature arabe (1923); Sir Hamilton Gibb, Arabic Literature, An Introduction, 1926; Carlo Nallino, La littérature arabe des origines à l’époque de la dynastie umayyade, 1950; Régis Blanchère, Histoire de la littérature arabe des origines à la fin du XVe siècle de J-C, 3 vols., 1952–1966). Two especially ambitious projects of this sort are Shawqi DAYF’s, Ta#rikh al-adab al-^Arabi (“The History of Arabic Literature,” 10 vols., 1960–1995); and the Cambridge History of Arabic Literature (commonly abbreviated CHAL), consisting of six volumes, each composed of articles by experts in particular subjects and sub-disciplines: Arabic Literature to the End of the Umayyad Period, ed. A. F. L. Beeston et al., 1983; ^Abbasid BellesLettres, ed. Julia Ashtiany et al., 1990; Religion, Learning and Science in the ^Abbasid Period, ed. M. J. L. Young et al., 1990; Modern Arabic Literature, ed. M. M. Badawi, 1992; The Literature of Al-Andalus, ed. Maria Rosa et al., 2000; and Arabic Literature in the Post-Classical Period, ed. Roger Allen, 2006. Other relatively recent contributions are Wolfhart Heinrichs, ed., Neues Handbuch
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der Literaturwissenschaft, vol. 5: Orientalisches Mittelalter, 1990; and Roger Allen, The Arabic Literary Heritage, 1998. In Europe, this interest in literary history coincided with a broader Orientalist project, the compilation of The Encyclopaedia of Islam, edited by Martin Theodor Houtsma and Arent Jan Wensinck, 4 vols., 1913–1938, printed in English, French, and German (now abbreviated EI1). This became a landmark reference work for Orientalists in a variety of fields, though it placed greater emphasis on Islamic history and civilization than on literature. The Encyclopaedia of Islam represented a major international effort, but Arab and Muslim contributors were largely excluded. The project was later repeated on an even grander scale with The New Encyclopaedia of Islam (EI2), 1954–, which remains one of the central reference texts for Arabists. Another important reference project was Carl Brockelmann’s Geschichte der arabischen Literatur (GAL) (2 vols., 1898–1902, 3 supplementary vols. 1937–1942, rev. ed. 1943–1949), a master catalog of books and manuscripts in Arabic, mostly culled from European manuscript catalogs, with brief biographical entries. Brockelmann’s work has since been supplemented by Fuat Sezgin, Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums (GAS), 12 vols., 1967–2000. Along with surveys of Arabic literature came specialized studies of particular periods, authors, and genres. Most of these were still fairly descriptive and conventional, with a strong philological emphasis. In Europe, one area that received special attention was Sufi mystical poetry (e.g., Reynold Alleyne Nicholson, Studies in Islamic Mysticism, 1921; and Louis Massignon’s highly eccentric and largely discredited study La passion d’al-Hallaj martyr mystique de l’Islam, 1925). In 1925, the British Arabist D. Samuel Margoliouth disputed the authenticity of pre-Islamic poetry, the cornerstone of the traditional canon of Arabic literature (“Origins of Arabic Poetry,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society [1925]: 417–49). The next year, the Egyptian academic, critic, and author Taha Husayn published his controversial work Fi al-shi^r al-jahili (“On Pre-Islamic Poetry,” 1926), a far more elaborate study that not only contested the origins of pre-Islamic poetry but also questioned the integrity of the Qur#an. The reliability of 8th-century transmitters and collectors of pre-Islamic poetry had long been held suspect, even in the Middle Ages, but no one had suggested that the entire pre-Islamic corpus needed to be reevaluated. Because of the book’s religious implications, it was immediately banned (later to be republished with considerable revisions). Husayn was tried, though not convicted, on charges of apostasy. Husayn approached every topic with gusto and bombast. Few current scholars of Arabic poetry now agree with Husayn’s absolutist iconoclasm,
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although most would admit that it is impossible to determine how much of the pre-Islamic corpus is genuine. Rather than the specific thesis of Fi al-shi^r al-jahili, it was Husayn’s willingness to question received wisdom that had lasting impact, particularly on Arab critics. Taha Husayn was not alone in being both a critic and a litterateur: interpretation and reinterpretation of the classical Arab-Islamic heritage was a cultural project in which artists, poets, academics, and professionals all participated (see David Semah, Four Egyptian Literary Critics, 1974). Some prominent contributors included the Egyptian cultural historian Ahmad AMIN, the Egyptian critic Shawqi Dayf, and the Palestinian critic Ihsan ^ABBAS. By mid-century, Arab critics had begun to experiment in surprising ways. The Egyptian academic and feminist author Suhayr al-Qalamawi wrote one of the first serious Arabic studies of “The Thousand and One Nights” (Alf layla wa-layla, 1943). The Egyptian critic Muhammad al-Nuwayhi applied psychological criticism to the works of one of the most famous ^Abbasid poets in Nafsiyyat Abi Nuwas (“The Psychology of Abu Nuwas,” 1953). Muhammad Ghunaymi Hilal, another prominent Egyptian critic of the 1950’s, introduced comparative literature as an approach to classical Arabic literature, in particular, in comparison with Persian literature. The Egyptian intellectual and chief ideologue of the Muslim Brotherhood, alSayyid Qutb, in his 30-volume exegesis of the Qur^an (Fi zilal al-Qur#an, “In the Shade of the Qur^an” [1966, numerous reprints]), offered sophisticated literary insights in the context of a traditional genre of Islamic scholarship. After World War II, Western scholarship changed in two major ways. First, a significant number of European scholars immigrated to the United States, where Middle Eastern studies began to flourish. Second, interpretive studies of specific aspects of Arabic literature began to replace general, descriptive surveys. Examples include Charles Pellat’s seminal study of the 9th-century essayist al-Jahiz, Le milieu basrien et la formation de Yâhiz,1953; and, a bit later, Andras Hamori’s formalist study, On the Art of Medieval Arabic Literature, 1974; and generic surveys, such as Lois Giffen, Theory of Profane Love Among the Arabs, 1971; and Gregor Schoeler, Arabische Naturdichtung, 1974. The literature of al-Andalus, often considered derivative by Arab critics, received much attention from Western Arabists, who were especially interested in possible Arab-Islamic influence on medieval European conceptions of ‘courtly love’ and the troubadour tradition (Angel González Palencia, Historia de la literatura arábigo-española, 1945; Alois R. Nykl, Hispano-Arabic Poetry and its Relations with the Old Provençal Troubadors, 1946). The publication of the Palestinian-American academic Edward Said’s unabashedly polemical and provocative Orientalism (1978) proved to be an-
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other pivotal moment in the development of Arabic studies in the 20th century. The thesis of Orientalism is that European scholarly, literary, and artistic representations of the ‘orient’ (the Arab world especially) came to constitute a hegemonic discourse that both legitimized and participated in European imperialist projects in the Middle East. It should be noted that Orientalism touches only tangentially on studies of Arabic literature, but as a general indictment of Western scholarship on the Middle East, it prompted much soul-searching and questioning of assumptions. Now considered a foundational text of post-colonialist criticism, Orientalism still inspires bitter controversy (see Maxime Rodinson, La fascination de l’Islam, 1980, a critical review of orientalist scholarship from a Marxist perspective; and a recent, caustic critique of Said: Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing, 2006). E. Recent Trends The influence of Orientalism has been felt in several ways in Arabic studies. Not only has it forced scholars in a variety of fields, including Arabic literature, to re-evaluate the history of European scholarship on the Middle East and Islam, but it has also raised the question of intellectual agency: how can Western scholars free themselves from the established Orientalist discourse and its Eurocentric premises? One response to this question has been to create a shared scholarly space in an attempt to integrate more Arab scholars into Western academic institutions. Taha Husayn and many of his contemporaries were also ‘cross-over’ scholars in a sense, forming bridges between European and Arabic intellectual communities, but the bulk of their publications were in Arabic, composed for an Arab readership. Now, in Western Europe and especially in the United States, Arabic literature is increasingly interpreted and taught by Arab scholars who publish in both Arabic and European languages. It could be argued that this solution does not fully address the problem of Eurocentrism, in that Arab scholars are still required to relate to the West on its own terms. Be that as it may, ‘cross-over’ scholars have played a key role in facilitating dialogue. With the influx of Arab scholars in the West, Arabic literary studies have experienced a shift in emphasis from the medieval heritage to modern literature. More often than not, early 20th-century literary histories treated Arabic literature as a fixed medieval corpus. The widespread study of modern Arabic literature has led to a breakdown in the perceived barrier between medieval and modern traditions. Many scholars work in both fields. One recent and innovative survey, Roger Allen’s The Arabic Literary Heritage (1998), begins with a polemical challenge to traditional periodization, and is organ-
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ized according to a generic scheme that explores continuities between medieval and modern Arabic literature. Similarly, the new Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature (ed. Julie Meisami and Paul Starkey, 1998) includes entries on both medieval and modern Arabic literature. The latest volume of The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature (Arabic Literature in the Post-Classical Period, ed. Roger Allen, 2006) examines literary production during ^Asr al-inhiittat, the supposed ‘Dark Age’ that has, in the past, been understudied. Arabic Studies in the West have been slow to incorporate contemporary literary theory. Philological, historical-biographical, and belletrist studies still abound, but since the 1980’s, formalist approaches have prevailed. The profound influence of structuralism, especially, is evident in the frequency of such terms as ‘poetics’ and ‘structural analysis’ in the titles of modern studies. In many cases, structuralist (and post-structuralist) analyses have contributed new perspectives on old topics and debates (prominent examples include Ferial Ghazoul, The Arabian Nights: A Structural Analysis, 1980 [later revised and expanded as Nocturnal Poetics: The Arabian Nights in Comparative Context, 1996]; Fedwa Malti-Douglas, Structures of Avarice: The Bukhala’ in Medieval Arabic Literature, 1985; Abdelfattah Kilito, L’auteur et ses doubles: essai sur la culture arabe classique, 1985; and Stefan Sperl, Mannerism in Arabic Poetry, 1989). Western literary theory has had significant impact on scholarship in the Arab world, predominantly through the influence of Western-educated Arab scholars, but it is also from the Arab world that some radical revisions and re-interpretations of Western theory have emerged. In this respect, the avant-garde Syrian poet and critic Adunis (also: Adonis, the pen-name of ^Ali Ahmad Sa^id) has proven to be one of the most original and challenging modern critics of the Arabic poetic tradition (works include Al-Thabit wa-al-mutahawwil [“The Static and the Dynamic”], 3 vols., 1974; and Muqaddima li-al-shi^r al-^arabi, 1986 [translated as An Introduction to Arab Poetics, trans. by Catherine Cobham, 1990]). Medieval literary criticism and rhetorical theory have long been of interest to Arab scholars (e.g. Muhammad Mandur, al-Naqd al-manhaji ^ind alArab [“Systematic Criticism among the Arabs, 1948]; Ihsan ^Abbas, Tarikh alnaqd al-adabi ^ind al-^Arab [“The History of Literary Criticism among the Arabs,” 1971]; and Kamal Abu Deeb, Al-Jurjani’s Theory of Poetic Imagery, 1976). Although Vincente Cantarino’s Arabic Poetics in the Golden Age, 1975, and Wolfhart Heinrich’s “Literary Theory: The Problem of Its Efficiency” (in Arabic Poetry: Theory and Development, ed. G.E. von Grunebaum, 1973, 19–69) represent two fairly early European studies, Western interest in medieval poetics largely coincided with the rising theoretical awareness of the 1980’s and 1990s (e.g., G. J. H. van Gelder, Beyond the Line: Classical Arabic
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Literary Critics on the Coherence and Unity of the Poem, 1982; Suzanne P. Stetkevych, Abu Tammam and the Poetics of the ^Abbasid Age, 1991; and Margaret Larkin, The Theology of Meaning: ‘Abd al-Qahir al-Jurjani’s Theory of Discourse, 1995). Select Bibliography Among the most important developments in the study of medieval Arabic literature is a new disruption of traditional assumptions regarding canon. Classical prose, traditionally overshadowed by poetry, has received more notice (see Stefan Leder and Hilary Kilpatrick, “Classical Arabic Prose Literature: a Researchers’ Sketch Map,” Journal of Arabic Literature 23 [1992]: 2–26), as have formerly taboo subjects, such as homoerotic literature (Homoeroticism in Classical Arabic Literature, ed. Jerry W. Wright and Everett K. Rowson, 1997). Contemporary scholars have begun to explore areas almost wholly ignored by medieval critics and anthologists, such as popular drama and theater (Shmuel Moreh, Live Theatre and Dramatic Literature in the Medieval Arabic World, 1992) and folk-epics (see Dwight Reynolds’s study of the modern epic tradition, Heroic Poets, Poetic Heroes: The Ethnography of Performance in an Arabic Oral Epic Tradition, 1995; and M. C. Lyons, The Arabian Epic, 3 vols., 1995). Alf layla wa-layla, the object of so much European fascination, now enjoys serious study from Arab scholars as well (in addition to works mentioned above: Muhsin MAHDI’s critical edition, The Thousand and One Nights (Alf layla wa-layla) from the Earliest Known Sources, 2 vols., 1984; and Muhsin Jasim MUSAWI, Mujtama^ Alf layla wa-layla [“The Society of the Thousand and One Nights”], 2000). Compositions in colloquial dialects have also received more attention, especially the zajal, a form of popular strophic poetry that developed in al-Andalus that has become the center of a modern debate over Arabic and European cultural influences in Muslim Spain (see Samuel Stern, Hispano-Arabic Strophic Poetry, 1974; Federico Corriente, El Cancionero hispanoárabe, 1984; and James T. Monroe, “Which Came First, the Zajal or the Muwa ˇs ˇsaha?” Oral Tradition 4 [1989]: 38–64).
Mark Pettigrew
Archeology and History of Art in Pre-Islamic Iran and Central Asia A. Historical Introduction During late antiquity, the vast area corresponding to Iran and Central Asia was very different from its present composition not only from the political point of view but also ethnically and culturally. In fact, before the coming of Islam, the territory from Mesopotamia to the border with China was inhabited by Iranian-speaking peoples who professed local forms of a religion commonly known as Zoroastrianism (or Mazdeism) and whose holy scripts
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are collected in the Avesta. In modern political terms, that area covered the territories of Iran (or Persia), Afghanistan, the ex-Soviet republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kirgizistan and southern Kazakhstan and also some parts of the Uighur Autonomous Province of Xinjiang (China) corresponding to the Tarim Basin (the “Western Regions” of Chinese authors). The Tarim Basin was inhabited by Iranians in Khotan and Tumshuk, and also by Tokharians (a population related to Indo-European peoples): they all adopted Buddhism and left important artistic and literary traces before the coming of the Uighur Turks and islamization. The Amu Darja (or Oxus for the Greeks) always constituted a natural border between the area traditionally controlled by Persia and Transoxiana, that is to say, the land beyond the Oxus or, for the Arab authors, Ma Wara al-Nahr (“what is beyond the river”). Persia constituted certainly the main state entity ruled by the powerful Sasanian Dynasty (226–642) that was continuously at war with the RomanByzantine Empire on the western border and the nomads along its oriental fringes (Touraj Daryaee, “Sasanian Persia (ca. 224–651 C.E.),” Iranian Studies 31, 3–4 (1998): 431–61; Touraj Daryaee, Sasanian Iran (224–651 CE): Portrait of a Late Antique Empire, 2008; Touraj Daryaee, Sasanian Persia: The Rise and Fall of an Empire, 2009; Richard Nelson Frye, “The Political History of Iran under the Sasanians,” The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 3 (1): The Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian Periods, ed. Eshan Yarshater, 1986, 116–80; Michael Moroni, “Sasanians,” The Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. IX, ed. Clifford Edmund Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W. P. Heinrichs, and G. Lecomte, 1997, 70–83; Klaus Schippmann, Grundzüge der Geschichte des Sasanidischen Reiches, 1990; Joseph Wiesenhöfer, La Persia antica, 2003; Beate Dignas and Engelbert Winter, Rome and Persia in Late Antiquity: Neighbours and Rivals, 2007). The Central Asian regions mentioned above represent historico-geographical terms rather than political ones and, in fact, they have never been unified as it happened for Persia. For some time the Sasanians controlled part of Central Asian such as Margiana (in modern Turkmenistan), Bactriana-Tokharestan (between southern Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and northern Afghanistan) and Sogdiana (between southern Uzbekistan and western Tajikistan), but, apparently, not Chorasmia (corresponding to the Autonomous Region of Karakalapkistan, in northern Uzbekistan) although they were continuously open to the invasions of the nomads coming from the steppe. Archeological investigations in the first two regions have revealed a strong presence of Buddhism, too, while Chorasmia and Sogdiana mainly followed the local form of Zoroastrianism (exactly like in Persia). The invasions of the mysterious Kidarites and Hephtalites from the steppes from the 4th to the 6th
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centuries caused great loss to the Sasanian Empire which managed to re-conquer those oriental territories only during the reign of Khosrow I Anoshirwan (531–579) (Frantz Grenet, “Regional Interaction in Central Asia and Northwest India in the Kidarite and Hephtalite Periods,” Indo-Iranian Languages and People, ed. Nicholas Sims-Williams, 2002, 203–24). This Sasanian sovereign was Justinian’s main antagonist and also the initiator of a sort of “Persian Renaissance.” He not only started a series of fiscal and monetary reforms in order to give stability to the kingdom but also secured the frontiers by continuously fighting the Sasanians’ main enemies along the western and the eastern borders (Andrea Gariboldi, Il regno di Xusraw dall’anima immortale: Riforme economiche e rivolte sociali nell’Iran sasanide del VI secolo, 2006). His apogee was reached with the victory over the Hepthalites, achieved together with his new allies, the Western Turks, who soon turned into yet another menace for Persia. The Turks controlled most of Central Asia and, in the end, conquered also Bactriana-Tokharestan. The hegemony over Sogdiana allowed the Turks to control the so-called “Silk Road” since the Sogdian merchants were the main traders active on the caravan routes between Persia and China (Étienne De La Vaissière, Histoire des merchands sogdiens, 2002). During the war with Byzantium for the control of the caravan and maritime trade routes, Khosrow I even extended a Sasanian protectorate over Yemen (Janos Harmatta, “The Struggle for the ‘Silk Route’ Between Iran, Byzantium and the Türk Empire from 560 to 630 A.D,” Kontakte zwischen Iran, Byzanz und der Steppe im 6.–7. Jahrhundert, ed. Csanád Bálint, 2000, 249–52; Paul Yule, Himyar: Late Antique Yemen, 2007, 45–55) while most of the eastern Arabian Peninsula was already under his jurisdiction (Derek Kennet, “The Decline of Eastern Arabia in the Sasanian Period,” Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy, 18.1 [2007]: 86–122). With the coming of the Tang Dynasty (618–906), the whole of the Turkish domain soon fell into Chinese hands while Khosrow II Parvez (590–628) could extend the Sasanian Empire at the maximum of its length invading Byzantine and Turkish territories on both western and eastern fronts. Initially his relationships with the Byzantines were good since Emperor Maurice (582–602) had helped him against the rebel general Bahram Chobin between 590–91. After the assassination of Maurice and his family by the rebel Phocas (602–610), Khosrow II invaded the Byzantine Empire with two armies led by the Sasanian generals Shahvaraz and Shahin who directed themselves towards Egypt and Anatolia respectively, although the sources are very enigmatic on this point (Matteo Compareti, “Presenza sasanide in Africa,” Intorno all’iranica fenice/samand: un progetto di sintesi per il volo del Pegaso iranico tra Ponto, Alessandretta e Insulindia, ed. Gianroberto Scarcia and Matteo
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Compareti, 2003, 39–51, for an electronic version in English see http:// www.transoxiana.com.ar/0104/sasanians.html). He also sought to annex to Persia the Lakhmid kingdom (southern Iraq), after the imprisonment and execution of its last king: al-Numan III (Daniel T. Potts, The Arabian Gulf in Antiquity, vol. II, 1990, 252–53). In the meantime, the Sasanian general of Armenian origins Sambat defeated the enemies of Persia in the east incorporating into the Sasanian Empire the regions which had once belonged to the Hephtalites and Turks (called in Armenian sources indistinctively Kushans). The enthronement of Heraclius (610–641) at Byzantium produced some changes in the conduction of the war against the Sasanians and, in fact, peace was declared after the assassination of Khosrow II by one of his sons in 628. In that period, the borderline between the two empires was established more or less as it was before the long war which had exhausted both antagonists. After the death of Khosrow II no other Sasanian Emperor could rule on a unified territory until the enthronement of Yazdigard III (632–651) who, however, was defeated by the Arabs and forced to abandon Persia. The last representatives of the Sasanians lived exiled at the Tang court where they were received friendly by the Chinese Emperor (Matteo Compareti, “The Last Sasanians in China,” Eurasian Studies, II/2 [2003]: 197–213). The relatively quick invasion of the Arabs in Persia and Transoxiana between the 7th and 8th centuries radically changed the cultures of those regions which slowly started to be converted to Islam and became almost completely turcized (Parvaneh Pourshariati, Decline and Fall of the Sasanian Empire: The Sasanian-Parthian Confederacy and the Arab Conquest of Iran, 2007). Such historical facts are now well-known especially regarding Sogdiana (Yuri Karev, Samarcande et le Sughd au début de l’Islam (VIIe–IXe siècle): histoire politique et transformations sociales, forthcoming). With the islamization of Iranian lands local authors also started to write about their ancient history which could be reconstructed mainly through external sources, the archeological investigation and the study of numismatics (Carlo G. Cereti, “Primary Sources for the History of Inner and Outer Iran in the Sasanian Period,” Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi 9 [1995–1997]: 17–71). B. Art History and Archeological Investigation Despite the scarcity of direct written sources, the artistic production of Iran under the Sasanians and pre-Islamic Central Asia is quite well-known for different reasons. The history of research has been magisterially presented by L. Vanden Berghe, regarding Sasanian monuments, and by S. Gorshenina and C. Rapin for Central Asia (Luis Vanden Berghe, “Historique de la découverte et de la recherche,” Catalogue Bruxelles, 1993, 13–18; Svetlana
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Gorshenina and Claude Rapin, De Kaboul à Samarcande: Les arquélogues en Asie centrale, 2001). Monumental rock reliefs and architectural remains particularly concentrated in the region of Fars (south-western Iran) constitute undeniable evidence of the grandeur of Iran under the Sasanians (Remy Boucharlat, “L’architecture sassanide,” Catalogue Paris, 2006, 47–50; Luis Vanden Berghe, “La sculpture,” Catalogue Bruxelles, 1993, 71–88; E. Haerinck, “Les reliefs rupestres,” Catalogue Paris, 2006, 35–8; Dietrich Huff, “Architecture sassanide,” Catalogue Bruxelles, 1993, 45–61). Unfortunately, most of the relics newly found in Iran come from fortuitous recoveries or from the antiquary market and not from scientific excavations which have come to a stop after the Revolution of 1979 and have only very recently started to be reconsidered by local archeologists. On the other hand, the remarkable pieces of information about Central Asia in Late Antiquity are mostly due to archeological activity which continued practically uninterrupted from the Soviet period to present days. An enormous amount of publications on such topics has already been presented and this is not the place to reconsider them in detail. Here, all we can do is mention some important titles. Furthermore, two great European exhibitions in 1993 (Catalogue Bruxelles, 1993: Splendeur des Sassanides. L’empire perse entre Rome at la Chine [224–642], curator Bruno Overlaet) and 2006 (Catalogue Paris, 2006: Les Perses sassanides. Fastes d’un empire oublié [224–642], curator Françoise Demange) have been entirely dedicated to the Sasanians and, especially, to their artistic production. The bibliography given in those two catalogues should be integrated with excellent entries published in the Encyclopaedia Iranica by Dietrich Huff (“Archaeology. iv. Sasanian,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. II, 1987, 302–8; Dietrich Huff, “Architecture. iii. Sasanian,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. II, 1987, 329–34) and Prudence Oliver Harper (“Art in Iran. v. Sasanian,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. II, 1987, 585–94), although something more can now be added both from the point of view of monumental and minor arts. In fact, a new Sasanian rock relief attributed to Shapur I (241–72), has recently been discovered at Rag-e Bibi, in western Afghanistan (Frantz Grenet, “Nouvelles découvertes sur la période sassanide en Afghanistan,” L’art d’Afghanistan de la préhistoire à nos jours. Nouvelles donnais, 2007 85–94) and also some new pieces of Sasanian stone statues and figurative capitals have been found in Iran (Matteo Compareti, “Iconographical Notes on Some Recent Studies on Sasanian Religious Art (with an Additional Note on an Ilkhanid Monument by Rudy Favaro),” Annali di Ca’ Foscari, XLV, 3 (2006) 163–200; Matteo Compareti, “Fragmentary Sasanian Sculptures Recently Found in Iran,” Papers in Honour of Professor Biancamaria Amoretti Scarcia’s 65th Birthday, ed. Daniela Bredi and Leonardo Capezzone, 2008, 9–19).
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Monumental art of the Sasanian period received particular attention by Iranian scholars who published remarkable studies, such as the book on ancient Iranian bridges (also those traditionally attributed to Roman prisoners) by Muhammad-Ali Mokhlessi, written in Persian (Pol-ha-ye Qadimi-e Iran [Ancient Bridges of Iran], 1998). Massoud Azarnoush managed to publish the results of several studies which had been initiated before the Revolution in Iran. Two of the most interesting publications are dedicated to the excavations of Hajiabad (The Sasanian Manor House at Hajiabad, Iran, 1994) and the monumental temple of Kangavar (Massoud Azarnoush, “Kangavar: Un temple séleucide d’Anahita deviant un monument sassanide,” Dossiers d’archéologie. Empires perses: d’Alexandre aux Sassanides, 243 (1999), 52–53). An important volume which comprises a list of the caravanserais in Iran, in some cases, also dated to the Sasanian period, has been compiled by Muhammad Y. Kyani and Wolfgang Kleiss (Iranian Caravanserais, 1994). A Polish archeological team led by Barbara Kaim recovered a sacral building which could be attributed to the Sasanian period at Mele Hayram, in the southern part of today’s Turkmenistan (“Un temple du feu sassanide découvert à Mele Hairam (Turkménistan Méridional),” Studia Iranica, 31, II, 2002, 215–30). These temples belong to the “fire temple” typology which is not yet very well-known from the archeological point of view, even though numerous hints can be found in Classical literature on Persia. Strangely enough, wallpaintings did not receive the deserved consideration in the above-mentioned catalogues although – at least according to some Classical authors – they should have had a relevant role in Sasanian art. Probably, this attitude was due to the extremely fragmentary state of all those paintings which could be attributed to the Sasanian period. The recent discovery of Sasanian wall paintings at Gor (Fars) and their first analysis by the well-known archeologist D. Huff will probably change such an attitude after their publication (Dietrich Huff, “Formation and Ideology of the Sasanian State in the Context of Archaeological Evidence,” The Sasanian Era: The Idea of Iran, vol. 3, ed. Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis and Sarah Stewart, 2008, 48–49). In any case, an excellent article by A. de Waele now provides all information on this aspect of Persian art already considered by experts like Boris Marshak (Boris I. Marshak, “Pre-Islamic Painting of the Iranian Peoples and Its Sources in Sculpture and the Decorative Arts,” Peerless Images: Persian Painting and Its Sources, ed. Eleanor Sims, with Boris I. Marshak and Ernst J. Grube, 2002, 7–19; An de Waele, “The Figurative Wall-Painting of the Sasanian Period from Iran, Iraq and Syria,” Iranica Antiqua XXXIX [2004]: 339–81). Information about Sasanian mosaics (displaying strong Hellenistic elements) can also be found in the two catalogues already mentioned. Beautiful figu-
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rative stucco panels – possibly dating from the 5th century – have been found during agricultural works in Bandyan (northern Khorasan). Despite their fragmentary state, the panels are among the most interesting Sasanian stucco ever recovered: the scenes represented there have been identified as hunts and battles against the Hephtalites (Medi Rahbar, “Découvert d’un monument d’époque sassanide à Bandian, Dargaz (Nord Khorassan). Fouilles 1994 et 1995,” Studia Iranica 27.2 [1998]: 213–50). The excavations at Bandyan have recently shown more interesting results since a fire altar and graffiti were discovered there. A field which yielded very interesting results is represented by inscribed seals and sealings (or bullae) belonging to relevant people of Sasanian upper classes although, once more, only few of them were recovered in Iran in controlled excavations around Shiraz. The best introduction to Sasanian seals was published by R. Gyselen in the two catalogues mentioned above. Recently, the same author has presented a collection of seals and sealings embellished with armored cavalrymen very similar to the one in the great grotto at Taq-e Bostan. The study of their inscriptions revealed that their owners were important military chieftains who served the Sasanian sovereigns. Written sources of the Islamic period reported about the division of the Persian Empire into four quadrants and the seals are even more important since they are contemporary to the Sasanians (R. Gyselen, The Four Generals of the Sasanian Empire: Some Sigillographic Evidence, 2001). Another aspect of Sasanian production which can partly compensate for the lack of direct sources is represented by numismatics. The investigations by R. Göbl are still valid although the project of publication of a systematic catalogue will soon give a more detailed idea of Sasanian coinage. Up to now, the catalogue focuses on the first sovereigns. M. Alram has offered a view of the situation on early Sasanians numismatics introducing also a new type of coin which shows Shapur I receiving the homage of the defeated Roman Emperor as it can be observed in his rock reliefs (Michael Alram, Maryse Blet-Lemarquand, and Prods O. Skjærvø, “Shapur, King of Iranians and Non-Iranians,” Des Indo-Grecs aux Sassanides: Données pour l’histoire et la géographie historique. Res Orientales, XVII, 2007, 11–40; M. Alram, “Early Sasanian Coinage,” The Sasanian Era: The Idea of Iran, vol. 3, ed. Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis and Sarah Stewart, 2008, 17–30). Several monuments mentioned above represent the periphery of the Sasanian Empire while, as it is now clear, the court exerted a monopoly on the production of some luxury items, exactly as it was the case in Byzantium. Metalwork always constituted an important good among ancient Iranians who used it for diplomatic exchanges, as their recovery together with the rich outfits of those peoples in contact with the Sasanians, Bactrians and Sogdians, seems to suggest. Once
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more, archeological excavations can rarely give an idea of the Sasanian central production. The main collections of Sasanian metalwork and also the list of those few plates recovered during archeological excavations are collected now in a richly-illustrated article by Prudence Oliver Harper, certainly the main scholar in the field of ancient Persian toreutic (“Sasanian Silver Vessels: The Formation and Study of Early Museum Collection,” Mesopotamia and Iran in the Parthian and Sasanian Periods: Rejection and Revival c. 238 BC-AD 642: Proceedings of a Seminar in Memory of V. G. Lukonin, ed. John Curtis, 2000, 46–56). Most likely, textile manufactures were also directly controlled by the court but we do not yet have a clear idea about Sasanian taste since all the previous studies were based on the observation of the repertoire at Taq-e Bostan which, unfortunately, cannot be considered a typical Sasanian monument (Karel Otavsky, “Zur kunsthistorische Einordnung der Stoffe,” Entlang der Seidenstraße: Frühmittelalterliche Kunst zwischen Persien und China in der Abegg Stiftung, ed. Karel Otavsky, 1998, 119–214). From the iconographical point of view just one linen and wool fragment kept in the Benaki Museum (Athens) could be considered Sasanian, although, once more, it is a textile coming from the antiquary market (Matteo Compareti, “A Possible asanian Textile Fragment in the Benaki Museum (Athens),” Scritti in Onore di Giovanni M. D’Erme, ed. Michele Bernardini and Natalia Tornesello, 2005 289–302; Matteo Compareti, “Sasanian Textile Art: An Iconographic Approach,” Studies on Persianate Societies 3 [2005]: 143–63. See also: David H. Bivar, “Sasanian Iconography on Textiles and Seals,” Central Asian Textiles and Their Contexts in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Regula Schorta, 2006, 9–21). Unfortunately, the few data about Sasanian potteries which had to rely on Japanese excavations at Daylaman (Northern Iran, see: Namio Egami, Shinji Fukai, and Seiichi Masuda, Dailaman, vol. II, 1966; Toshihiko Sono and Shinji Fukai, Dailaman, vol. III, 1968), French ones at Susa (Miriam Rosen-Ayalon, La poterie islamique, 1974) and Italian ones at Ctesiphon (in Iraq, not far from Baghdad, see: Roberta Venco Ricciardi, “Pottery from Choche,” Mesopotamia 2 (1967): 93–104; Roberta Venco Ricciardi, “Sasanian Pottery from Tell Mahuz (North Mesopotamia),” Mesopotamia 5/6 [1970–1971]: 427–82) did not help much and their analysis still only shows partial results (Robert Wenke, “Imperial Investments and Agricultural Developments in Parthian and Sasanian Khuzestan: 150 BC to AD 640,” Mesopotamia 10/11 [1975/1976]: 31–221; John Alden, “Excavations at Tal-i Malyan. Part I. A Sasanian Kiln,” Iran 16 [1978]: 79–86; Maurer Trinkaus, “Pottery from the Damghan Plain, Iran: Chronology and Variability from the Parthian to the Early Islamic Periods,” Studia Iranica 15.1 [1986]: 23–88).
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In conclusion, in accordance with what P. Harper and G. Scarcia have recently said about Sasanian art, there was never a rupture between the past and the artistic production of Late Antiquity Iran (Prudence Oliver Harper, In Search of a Cultural Identity: Monuments and Artifacts of the Sasanian Near East, 3rd to 7th Century AD, 2006; Prudence Oliver Harper, “Image and Identity: Art of the Early Sasanian Dynasty,” The Sasanian Era. The Idea of Iran, vol. 3, ed. Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis and Sarah Stewart, 2008, 71–87; Gianroberto Scarcia, “La Persia dagli Achemenidi ai Sasanidi 550 a.C.–650 d.C.,” Gianroberto Scarcia and Giovanni Curatola, Iran: L’arte persiana, 2004, 9–125). On the contrary, monumental art and also minor arts continued and renewed ancient Iranian traditions already known by the Parthians (and rooted in the much more ancient culture of Mesopotamia) with the clear borrowings of Roman-Byzantine elements, especially in the last part of the Sasanian period. This has been observed by some scholars some of which have come to very curious conclusions: Philip Lozinsky, for example, even claimed that Sasanian art did not exist at all (“The Phoenix Mosaic from Antioch: a New Interpretation,” Fifth International Colloquium on Ancient Mosaics, 1995, 135–42). As it is now well-known, Sasanian culture exerted a deep influence on the whole artistic production of the Islamic world and had an echo also in Byzantium, “barbaric” Europe and the Caucasus (Klaus Schippmann, “L’influence de la culture sassanide,” Catalogue Bruxelles, 1993, 131–41). Among the typical Sasanian elements which received great attention abroad, one should mention the so-called Senmurv or “winged dog with peacock tail.” According to most recent investigations such a composite monster would instead represent the royal glory of the Sasanians bestowed by Ahura Mazda (Matteo Compareti, “The So-Called Senmurv in Iranian Art: A Reconsideration of an Old Theory,” Loquentes linguis: Linguistic and Oriental Studies in Honour of Fabrizio A. Pennacchietti, ed. Pier Giorgio Borbone, Alessandro Mengozzi, and Mauro Tosco, 2006, 185–200). In fact, as an expression of a divine concept, it was later largely adopted by Muslims and Byzantines, too. Another typical Sasanian decorative element mainly used as a pedestal supporting human busts or other subjects is the beribboned spread wings. Scholars have concentrated especially on its origins and on the fact that, most likely, it is a borrowing or a development of something which pre-dates the Sasanians. On the crowns of Sasanians sovereigns and in some other places (like on the textile of the Benaki Museum), spread wings are used to support astronomical elements: this is particularly clear in the coins (Andrea Gariboldi, “Astral Symbology on Iranian Coinage,” East and West 54.1–4 (2004): 31–53. Among the Christians of the Sasanian Empire, especially concentrated in the Caucasus, beribboned spread wings very often
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support the cross. This suggests that, most likely, the astronomical elements on Sasanian crowns could be associated with the Zoroastrian religion followed at court (M. Compareti, “Tra il Palatino e Limburgo: considerazioni su alcune stele armene di età pre-islamica,” Acculturazione e Disadattamento, ed. Daniele Guizzo, forthcoming 2009). Regarding the situation in Central Asia at the dawn of the Arab invasion, the archeological data mostly relate to Sogdiana while Margiana, BactriaTokharistan, Chorasmia and the Tarim Basin are better known during earlier periods. Cooperation of local archeological teams with Russian, French, Italian, German, Japanese and Australian colleagues will certainly (and hopefully) result in interesting findings which, at least at the moment, mainly focus on the period between the end of the Parthian and the beginning of Sasanian dominion. In any case, the best publication still remains a collective study (in Russian) by several scholars who have worked on the field since the 1950s (Srednjaja Azija i Dal’nij Vostok v epohu Srednevekovyja: Srednjaja Azija v rannem srednevekov’e, 1999). This volume should be consulted together with related entries in the Encyclopaedia Iranica (Guitty Azarpay, “Art in Iran. vi. Pre-Islamic Eastern Iran and Central Asia,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. II, 1987, 595–603; Victor M. Masson, “Archaeology. v. Pre-Islamic Central Asia,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. II, 1987, 308–17; Galina A. Pugachenkova, “Architecture. iv. Central Asia,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. II, 1987, 334–39) and with Boris A. Litvinskij’s most recent book in French (La civilisation de l’Asie Centrale antique, 1998). The results of French excavations mainly in Uzbekistan together with papers by Russian authors are now collected in a great volume (Les arts de l’Asie centrale, gen. ed. Pierre Chuvin, 1999). More curious readers can find a great selection of Central Asian sites and topics organized as entries in an excellent Italian publication edited by Ciro Lo Muzio, the Enciclopedia dell’arte antica classica ed orientale. Secondo supplemento 1971–1994. Central Asian paintings have also been carefully studied in a more recent Italian volume with special focus on the Sogdian production (Chiara Silvi Antonini, La pittura dell’Asia Centrale da Alessandro Magno all’Islam, 2003). Bamyan was certainly one of the main Buddhist centers of today’s Afghanistan, and Sasanian elements can be observed especially in paintings which were, unfortunately, lost in great number (Deborah Klimburg-Salter, The Kingdom of Bamyan, 1989). In the area where the great Buddhas once stood, very promising archeological excavations have started under the coordination of Z. Tarzi, Afghanistan’s main archeologist whose expertise also comprises the study of Chinese sources on Bamyan (Zemaryalai Tarzi, “Les résultats des fouilles du ‘monastère oriental’ à la fin de la IIIe campagne en 2004,” L’art d’Afghanistan de la préhistoire à nos jours: Nouvelles
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donnais, 2007, 98–124). A complete catalogue of items from the National Museum of Kabul is now available (Francine Tissot, Catalogue of the National Museum of Afghanistan 1931–1985, 2006). Many old pictures constitute an invaluable help to observe even those objects now irreparably destroyed during the terrible last years in the history of that tormented country. Sogdiana main sites dating from the 7th and 8th centuries are Penjikent (Western Tajikistan), Afrasyab (ancient Samarkand), Varakhsha and Paykand (not far from Bukhara). Unfortunately, the recent passing away of the two leaders of the archeological mission at Penjikent and Paykand and distinguished scholars, B. I. Marshak and G. L. Semenov, caused not only a loss for the whole scholarly community, but also a stop in the field work, which, as it has recently been announced, will be continued by another team of archeologists. Penjikent has received the name of “Pompei of Central Asia,” especially for the numerous wall paintings discovered there whose main scenes represent Rostam legendary adventures, religious scenes and also tales from Esopos’s repertoire and the Panchatantra (Boris I. Marshak, Legends, Tales, and Fables in the Art of Sogdiana, 2002). The site of Paykand, in the western part of historical Sogdiana, has been studied especially from the urban and architectural point of view although some paintings belonging to different periods have been recovered (Gregori L. Semenov, “Dwelling Houses of Bukhara in the Early Middle Ages,” Eran ud Aneran. Studies presented to Boris I. Marshak on the Occasion of His 70th Birthday, ed. Matteo Compareti, Paola Raffetta, and Gianroberto Scarcia, 2006, 555–69, for the electronic version see http://www.transoxiana.org/EranArticles/semenov.html). Not far from Bukhara there is the big site of Varakhsha, possibly a fortified mansion of the Bukhar Khudat (“Lord of Bukhara”) during the pre-Islamic period. There, archeological investigations have not been carried out for a long period of time which is a pity, bearing in mind the remarkable findings of the last century. Very recently, A. Naymark wrote a stimulating paper on the site and suggested a new interpretation of its wall paintings (Aleksandr Naymark, “Returning to Varakhsha,” The Silk Road Newsletter, 1/2 (2003): 9–22, for the electronic version see http://silkroadfoundation.org/newsletter/december/ varakhsha. htm). Among the sites of that region, Afrasyab has probably received the greatest attention by scholars of Sogdian art in the last years since new studies reopened the problem of the interpretation of the scenes represented on the walls of the so-called “Hall of the Ambassadors.” As it is now almost universally accepted, the four walls represent important festivities connected with calendrical matters of the Sogdians, Chinese, Indians and, possibly, Turks. The artists who realized those paintings, probably around 660 AD, must clearly have had in mind concepts about calendrical calcu-
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lation and the culture of neighboring kingdoms in contact with Sogdiana just before the coming of the Arabs, when the whole of Transoxiana was (mainly nominally) under Tang protectorate. Several papers on Afrasyab “Hall of the Ambassadors” are now collected in the proceedings of a conference focusing on those paintings (Royal Nauruz in Samarkand: Proceedings of the Conference Held in Venice on the Pre-Islamic Paintings at Afrasiab, Suppl. 1 to Rivista degli Studi Orientali LXXVIII, ed. Matteo Compareti and É de La Vaissière, 2006). It is not improbable that the Uzbek-French archeological team working on the site of Afrasyab will increase our knowledge about the site in the near future (Paul Bernard, Frantz Grenet, and Massud Isammidinov, Fouilles de Samarkand et de Sogdiane, vol. I: Travaux de la Mission Archéologique Franco-Ouzbèke à Afrasiab. 1989–2007, 2009. Other Sogdian sites are at present investigated thanks to the cooperation of local authorities and experts with foreign expeditions. A German team under the supervision of M. Mode and S. Stark is currently investigating another promising site in Ustrushana (northern Tajikistan), an historical region of Sogdian language and culture. The main focus of the mission is to come to a better understanding of the passage from the pre-Islamic to the Islamic period with great attention to Chinese sources (Markus Mode, “Archaeological Glympses of Ustrushana,” electronic version at: http://www.orientarch.uni-halle.de /sfbs86/c5/ustru/ indexe.htm). Also, an Italian mission supervised by M. Tosi is collaborating with the Uzbeks at the castle of Kafir Kala where numerous Sogdian bullae, seals and coins have been discovered in the last years. Kafir Kala is a very promising site since it might have been the residence of the king of Samarkand known in Islamic sources as Revdad. Among the numerous findings, the sealings of Kafir Kala represent a unique corpus within Central Asian archeology but, unfortunately, a complete publication is not yet available (Sara Cazzoli and Carlo G. Cereti, “The Sealings of Kafir Kala: Preliminary Report,” Ancient Civilizations from Schytia to Siberia 11.1–2 (2005): 133–64). A presentation of the project and its goals can be found on the following website: http://www3.unibo.it/archeologia/ricerca/scavi/caauzbekistan/ uzbe.htm. Seals, together with coins, always represent an important source of direct information. Unfortunately, their study is not as well coordinated as it is the case for Sasanian numismatics and seals. Among the few sealings one could mention Kanka, that is to say, the area of ancient Tashkent (G. I. Bogomolov and J. I. Burjakov, “Sealings from Kanka,” In the Land of the Gryphons: Papers on Central Asian Archaeology in Antiquity, ed. Antonio Invernizzi, 1995, 217–37). Studies on Central Asian coins are numerous and mainly in Russian, although some interesting papers have recently appeared in English (Joe Cribb, “Money as a Maker of Cultural Continuity and
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Change in Central Asia,” After Alexander: Central Asia before Islam, ed. Joe Cribb and Georgina Hermann, 2007, 333–75). Much attention has been devoted to Central Asian textiles mainly from private collections and antiquary markets. Many specimens are considered to be Sogdian products since very similar decorations appear on the robes worn by Sogdian people on mural paintings from Penjikent. Few fragments have been found during the excavations in Sogdiana itself while other textiles considered to be the product of Sogdian weavers who lived abroad have been found in great quantity in the Tarim Basin, in what is now Xinjiang Autonomous Province (China). The Abegg-Stiftung Textil Museum at Riggisberg (Switzerland) has on display one of the main collections of Central Asian textiles and has already published most of its material on two occasions (Entlang der Seidenstraße: Frühmittelalterliche Kunst zwischen Persien und China in der Abegg Stiftung, ed. Karel Otavsky, 1998; Central Asian Textiles and Their Contexts in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Regula Schorta, 2006). The region of the Tarim Basin has always been a matter of Chinese archeology although in the last years there have been some initiatives by European and Japanese teams. Among the most interesting results there are the excavations by a Swiss team supervised by Christopher Baumer which led to the discovery of previously unknown 7th-century Buddhist wall paintings at Dandan Oylyk, in the area of ancient Khotan. Those paintings are particularly interesting for the mix of local, Indian, and Iranian (most likely Sogdian) iconographical elements used in the depiction of some problematic divinities (Christopher Baumer, Southern Silk Road: In the Footsteps of Sir Aurel Stein and Sven Hedin, 2000). Even though the artifacts in the huge area corresponding to Central Asia mainly come from scientific excavations, there is still a big gap in the comprehension of that region as a whole unity. Future investigations might facilitate a different approach to the study of one of the most important regions of the Eurasian continent for its role as a crossroad of cultures and civilizations during the very problematic period of late antiquity. In the last years some publications devoted to Tarim Basin archeological investigations have appeared, but the presentation of the material is almost entirely in Chinese (A Grand View of Xinjiang’s Cultural Relics and Historical Sites, 1999). Among the most interesting archeological discoveries of the last years one must not forget to mention the 6th-century funerary monuments that belonged to important Sogdians which have been found in the area around Xi’an (China). Although they reflect in all probability the production of Chinese artists for rich Sogdian immigrants, their decorative elements include many Zoroastrian themes extremely useful for the understanding of similar images found in Central Asia. Further, they present in many cases inscrip-
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tions in Chinese and the respective languages of the deceased ones revealing more interesting information (Les Sogdiens en Chine, ed. Éric Trombert and É. de La Vaissière, 2005; Boris I. Marshak, “La thématique sogdienne dans l’art de la Chine de la seconde moitié du VIe siècle,” Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 1 (2001): 227–64; Judith A. Lerner, Aspects of Assimilation: The Funerary Practices and Furnishings of Central Asians in China, 2005). The site where they were found used to be, most likely, a cemetery for foreigners: more than forty graves have been localized, and future investigations will surely offer fresh material for the study of ancient Central Asian civilizations in contact with China in late antiquity. Select Bibliography Guitty Azarpay, Sogdian Painting: The Pictorial Epic in Oriental Art (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1981); History of Civilizations of Central Asia, vol. II: The Development of Sedentary and Nomadic Civilizations: 700 BC to AD 250, ed. János Harmatta (Paris: Unesco, 1994); History of Civilizations of Central Asia, vol. III: The Crossroads of Civilizations: AD 250 to 750, ed. Boris Litvinsky (Paris: Unesco, 1996); Les Perses sassanides: Fastes d’un empire oublié (224–642), Françoise Demange (curator) (Paris: Paris Musée: Suilly-la-Tour and Findakly, 2006); Splendeur des Sassanides: L’Empire perse entre Rome at la Chine [224–642], Bruno Overlaet (curator) (Brussels: Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, 1993); Srednjaja Azija i Dal’nij Vostok v epohu Srednevekovyja: Srednjaja Azija v rannem srednevekov’e (Moscow: Nauka, 1999); Les arts de l’Asie centrale, gen. ed. Pierre Chuvin (Paris: Citadelles et Mazenod, 1999); Emires Perses d’Alexandre aux Sassanides, Dossiers d’Archéologie, 243, may 1999.
Matteo Compareti
Classical Persian Literature A. General Introduction Classical Persian literature only developed as a written medium in the 10th century C.E. Pahlavi or Middle Persian had been the written language of the Sasanian Empire. However, when the Arabs conquered its territories in the 7th century C.E., written Pahlavi was only maintained by the Zoroastrian clergy and by clerks and scribes employed by the Arabs to maintain the state records. For more than two hundred years, the Persian literary tradition ceased, as Persian writers wrote in Arabic. During this two hundred year hiatus, numerous Persian works from different genres were translated into Arabic.
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A slow process of Arabization and Islamization took place after the Arab conquest of Persia. Arabic vocabulary made its way into spoken Persian and gradually the Arabic script was adopted and adapted to accommodate all the sounds of Persian. Although this “New Persian” (Dari) emerged as a new medium of communication, it was not accepted as a serious alternative to Arabic, which was the lingua franca of the Islamic Empire. Arabic retained its preeminence as the major written medium. Paradoxically, the Arab conquests had played a major role in promoting this New Persian, which in the Arab East or Greater Khurasan (eastern Persia, Khurasan and Transoxiana) became the preferred language, overshadowing Sogdian and Khwarazmian. This linguistic phenomenon was initially confined to the east and it only gained currency at a much later date in western Iran. Written Persian only began to be commonly used in the second half of the 9th century in Greater Khurasan. Persian prose was deemed suitable only for propaganda and amusing stories. However, poetry was promoted and patronized at court. B. Persian Poetry The mechanics of Persian poetry strictly conformed to the rules of Arabic prosody. It can be divided into two forms: narrative and lyrical. Narrative poetry manifested itself in the form of the mathnavi (rhyming couplet), a form that was known to the Arabs but little used by them, due to their love of the monorhyme. The Persians developed this form for a number of purposes and themes, but utilized it especially for epics, romances and later, for didactic mystical works. Although mathnavis were first written in the 10th century, the most memorable mathnavis were not written until the 11th century during the Ghaznavid dynasty. Firdawsi’s Shahnama, the national epic poem of Persia, recounts the tales of the kings of Iran from the earliest times. It was completed in 1010 A.D. This was followed by Asadi Tusi’s Garshasp-Nama and other epics. The mathnavi popularized many romances such as Warqa va Gulshah, Wis va Ramin and the famous romances popularized by Niãami (1140–1209), such as Layli va Majnun, Khusraw va Shirin and Haft Paykar. Sana’i (d. 1130) was the first to use the mathnavi as a means of mystical teaching. The use of the mathnavi by the great sufi masters became standard practice as demonstrated by Farid al-Din ’Attar’s (1140–1230) The Conference of the Birds, Jalal al-Din Rumi’s (1207–1273) famous Mathnavi, and Jami’s (d. 1492) Haft Awrang and a multitude of others. Lyric poetry began by imitating the formal ode or the qaæida of the Arabs. The qaæida was often a panegyric to a patron but was also used for eulogies, elegies, satires, and religious instruction. One of the earliest masters of the
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qa#ida was Rudaki (d. 941). The 11th century is considered the period for the perfection of the Persian qa#ida, by the master poets Manuchirhi (d. 1040), Farrukhi (d. 1038) and ’Unsuri (d. 1050). The Sufi masters Sana’i, ’Attar and Rumi also used them later for their mystical poetry. The lyric ghazal replaced the qa#ida in popularity in the 13th century. The ghazal was a monorhymed shorter ode of between 5 and 15 lines. Its theme was primarily on earthly or divine love. Sa’di (d. 1292) and Hafiz (d. 1390) both from Shiraz are considered the masters of this form. The quatrain or ruba’i (ruba’iyyat pl.) with the rhyme pattern of AABA is the only true purely Persian poetic form. It is epigrammatic and lends itself well to political satire. This form was popularized by Fitzgerald’s translations of the ruba’iyyat of ’Umar Khayyam. A much larger variety of poetic forms exist in Persian poetry but the main forms are the mathnavi, qa#ida, ghazal and ruba’i. Classical Persian poetry before the modern era produced three distinctive styles (sabk) in its development: Khurasani, ’Iraqi and Hindi. The earliest Khurasani style is distinct for it use of simple and pure language almost devoid of Arabic loan words. Cultural and linguistic borders diffused with the advent of the ’Iraqi style. Poetry acquired a new technical dexterity and artifice that utilized a greatly expanded vocabulary with many Arabic loan words. By the 15th century, the Hindi style had evolved into a very aestheticized and highly stylized form. C. Persian Prose During the Samanid period (875–999) in Greater Khurasan Persian was adopted as the official language of government. By the mid-10th century, a number of Persian translations of Arabic works were commissioned. The Ghaznavids (977–1186) succeeded the Samanids in the early 11th century. In the court of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna (998–1030), Persian poetry flourished but Arabic prose dominated. A number of Persian histories were written during this period, such as the anonymous History of Sistan and the histories of Bayhaqi and Gardizi. Also for the first time a sufi manual, the Kashf-i Mahjub was written in Persian by Hujviri. While new Persian was adequate to tell narrative stories and to relate history, most scholars and the educated elite still found Persian inadequate to clearly and precisely articulate their ideas. Arabic remained supreme. However, early efforts were made to write scientific and philosophical works in Persian, but one of the major obstacles to this was the lack of a standardized vocabulary. The great physician and polymath Ibn Sina [Avicenna] (d. 1037) wrote the majority of his works in Arabic but he helped further the development of Persian scientific prose by writing a number of works in Persian.
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Under the Saljuq Turks (1038–1194) the Persians of the Iranian plateau, Khurasan and Transoxiana were reunited for the first time in centuries and enclaves were established in Anatolia, where Persian culture and poetry flourished at court. This political union facilitated the standardization of classical Persian in western Iran at the expense of local dialects. It also coincided with the beginnings of a period that fused Khurasani and Iraqi cultures. Persian prose borrowed anything that it could from Arabic and became very ornate and full of repetitive rhyming. With the passing of the 12th century, Persian emerged fully developed, having adopted the stratagem of allowing one hundred percent of the Arabic language to be used in prose writings. As stated earlier, in the 8th century a large number of Middle Persian works were translated into Arabic. These stories were fictional frame stories, written for the elite and were very popular at court. These stories now re-entered the body of Persian literature, slightly altered and skewed to Islamic values written in a new Persian. The most notable of this genre are the animal tales of Kalila va Dimna that were originally taken from the Sanskrit Panchatantra. Later a number of romances and heroic tales such as the Sindbad-Nama and Bakhtiyar-Nama emerged, as did collections of anecdotes such as Muhammad ’Awfi’s Jawami’ al-Hikayat. Additionally popular stories traditionally told by storytellers orally were preserved in prose and often translated into other languages such as Turkish. This article has limited itself to the classical Persian literary tradition, primarily in Persia and Central Asia. However, Persian flourished in the early period of the Ottoman Empire before the emergence of Ottoman Turkish. In the 16th century, the Mughals established themselves in India, where Persian was the court language. A very large literary tradition continued on for centuries and produced many famous poets, litterateurs and historians. British India maintained Persian as the administrative language. D. History of Research Western Scholars Critical modern scientific methodologies for the study of classical Persian literature first emerged in Europe. Unfortunately space restrictions allow only a handful of contributors to be mentioned here. Sir William Jones (1746–1794). Sir William was a brilliant philologist who studied law and then moved to British India, where he was appointed to the Supreme Court of Bengal. He is credited with being one of the first influential pioneers in comparative linguistics and Indo-European Studies. Based in Calcutta, Jones was instrumental in founding the Asiatic Society of
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Bengal in 1784. The Society exists to this day and has published thousands of articles and monographs on virtually every subject. The Society’s journal and publications provided a forum for discussion and a place to publish. The press in Calcutta published a large number of Persian works even before presses became prevalent in Persia. While Jones translated a number of Persian works into English, his major contribution to the study of Persian was the establishment of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. Edward G. Browne (1862–1926) became the first professor of Persian at Cambridge University. Prior to his appointment, he traveled to Persia to buy books and manuscripts for the university. Subsequently, he wrote the four volume Literary History of Persia (1902, 1906, 1920 and 1924), which was the first modern work of its kind. Browne’s work has remained the definitive work; however, other surveys such as those published by Jan Rypka, Allesandro Bausani and Zabih Allah. Safa have supplemented it and included new information. His study was the most comprehensive, but Browne was very subjective in some of his judgments of Persian literature. For example, later poetry was judged as being too ornate and/or florid for Western tastes. Reynold A. Nicholson (1868–1945) was a colleague of Browne at Cambridge and was noted for his interests in Islamic Studies. He specialized in Sufism. While he wrote equally on Arabic literature, including a Literary History of the Arabs (1907), in the field of Persian literature his studies of the works of Jalal al-Din Rumi are considered to be a major contribution to the field. He produced the first critical edition of the Mathnavi (1925–1940) and his eight-volume translation and commentary were the first of their kind in English. Gilbert Lazard (1920–) was a professor of Iranian languages at the Sorbonne and then the Director of Iranian Studies. He has made many major contributions to the study of Iranian languages. He has emerged as one of the world authorities on the “New Persian Renaissance.” His works on the first Persian poets of the 9th and 10th centuries were groundbreaking and his collaborations with major scholars such as Zabih Allah Safa, Henri Massé and Roger Lescot to create an anthology of Persian poetry from the 11th to the 20th centuries has been of major importance. Additionally he has translated many Persian works and revised major translations such as J. Mohl’s Shahnama (1846–1848). Iranian Scholars Four Iranian scholars pioneered modern scientific methods and began to produce critical textual editions for the first time. They were Muhammad Qazvini, Muhammad ’Ali Furughi, Sayyid Hasan Taqizada and ’Ali
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Akbar Dihkhuda. The combined scholarly contributions of these four men were enormous and built a firm foundation for scholarship. However, Qazvini was one of the prime movers. Muhammad Qazvini (1877–1949) was a ground breaker in methods of textual editing and criticism and had a major influence on these distinguished scholars: Malik al-Shu’ara’ Bahar, Badi’a al-Zaman Furuzanfar, Muhammad Taqi Mudarris Razavi, Muhammad Parvin Gunabadi and Mahmud Farrukh. In 1904, he was invited by his brother to England to see the great museums and manuscript collections. He stayed in Europe for 36 years. He edited a number of important Persian works that expanded scholars understanding of Persian poetics and the early classical literary movement. His collected articles comprised more than ten volumes. ’Abbas Iqbal (1896–1955). He was sent to Paris at the age of 28 where he studied at the Sorbonne and met Qazvini. When he returned to Iran he taught at the University of Tehran. He authored more that 200 articles and 45 books on literature, history and geography. He was instrumental in establishing Yad-i gar (1944–1949) as a serious research journal. Ibrahim Pur Daud (1886–1968) translated the Avesta (1964) in 9 volumes and researched and taught ancient Iranian customs, languages and history at the University of Tehran. A large number of outstanding scholars studied under him. Muhammad Taqi Bahar (Malik al-Shu’ara Bahar) (1886–1951) sought to research unknown areas in Persian history and literature. He was one of the best poets of 20th-century Iran but also became the most outstanding scholar of Persian literary historiography. His seminal three-volume work Stylistics (Sabk shinasi [1942]) meticulously traced the development of Persian prose writing from the earliest times up until the 20th century. Bahar’s study essentially documents the evolution of the written language from one that was purely Persian through a process of Arabization. He breaks this development down into four historical periods and into six distinct prose styles. Besides this work and his own poetry, his critical edition of the anonymous History of Sistan (Tarikh-i Sistan [1935]) was one of the first of a multitude of critical editions of important literary works to be published in Iran. Parviz Natal Khanlarli (1913–1990): He wrote numerous works on Persian literature and language such as Sh’ir va hunar (1967), Tarikh-i Zaban-i Farsi (1970) and Dastur-i Zaban-i Farsi (1972). He was a poet in his own right. He served as the Director of the Shahnama Foundation and the Iranian Cultural Foundation and was instrumental in establishing the Iranian Academy of Arts and Literature of Iran.
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Zabih Allah Safa (1911–1999) was an influential professor at Tehran University and will be remembered for his famous and monumental eightvolume literary history of Iran (Tarikh-i adabiyat dar Iran [1956–1991]). Muhammad Reza Shafi’i Kadkani (1939–) remains one of the most outstanding Iranian literary critics, and expert on Sufism whose in-depth studies in poetics, genres, and imagery continue to inspire aspiring scholars. A few of his works are Suvar-i khayal dar sh’ir-i Farsi (1971), Guzidah-yi ghazaliyat-i Shams (1974), Avaz-i bad va baran (1998) and Chashidan-i ta’m-i vaqt (2006). E. Past Trends in Scholarship In Iran the manuscript tradition had thrived. Large numbers of scribes were employed to copy texts. Because of the large numbers of people engaged in this activity and their varied degrees of education and expertise, the quality of the subsequent copies varied greatly. Similarly, because manuscripts were largely commissioned, they did not necessarily include a text or work in its entirety. Additionally, there was nothing that compelled a scribe to remain totally faithful to the text. For example, a line of poetry might be omitted or replaced because it was considered too sexually explicit. Textual changes often occurred for sectarian reasons and differences between Sunni and Shi’i Muslims. This practice led to adding curses after the names of certain individuals, who were often reviled by extreme Shi’ites. Specialized texts presented major difficulties for those unfamiliar with the subject matter and /or the vocabulary. It has only been one hundred years since critical textual editing of classical texts began. This movement was at odds with existing publishing practices that often took inexcusable liberties with the texts. The list of scholars and medievalists who have made lasting contributions to Persian literature is truly too long to list. In the past two centuries, the prevailing views of both Europeans and Iranians have been that the rise of Persian literature had its roots in the nationalistic desires of the Persian peoples to throw off the yoke of their Arab oppressors. This fit well with the 19th-century European understanding of nationalism. In the early 20th century, the Iranians experienced the Constitution period, where nationalism, independence and democratic government were major concerns. Iranians studied abroad before the establishment of modern universities in Iran and learned scientific research methods while at the same time studying their ancient languages and literatures in foreign universities. In the 1930’s after the establishment of Tehran University, the Faculty of Literature graduated scores of excellent scholars. Muhammad Reza Shah, the last Shah of Iran
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worked diligently to instill a sense of nationalism in the population. Huge sums of money were invested in projects, which promoted Persian culture and literature. As a result of this legacy, the predominant view of the development of Persian has been one focusing on nationalism and things deemed Persian. F. Current Trends The Iranian revolution in late 1979 has influenced the study of classical Persian literature. A reaction against the former Shah’s policy of secularization and a reemphasis of Islam, Arabic, and specifically Shi’i Islam has changed the direction of government funding. While Persian literature remains important, projects focusing on religious themes receive more funding. Iran’s political isolation has adversely affected scholarly intellectual exchanges. Travel and study opportunities have decreased. Because of these situations, scholarly studies published in Iran are less available than in the past and some important research has gone unnoticed. However, the political isolation of Iran has had a positive effect on other aspects of the study of classical Persian literature. It has sparked an increase in the study of the Persian literature of Mughal India and also in Central Asia. Currently, the study of modern Persian literature is the fastest growing area. This includes Iranian writers along with an ever-growing body of authors belonging to the Iranian diaspora. As mentioned earlier, the study of classical Persian literature has and has had too many outstanding scholars to list separately. Scholarship has concentrated on firmly defining the characteristics of both poetry and prose during the various historical periods and analyzing the linguistic development of the literature. A number of surveys of Persian literature have been published since Browne’s Literary History. They have tried to update omissions, mistakes and discoveries made since Browne’s time but have little to offer by way of interpretation or analysis. Studies on particular poets, litterateurs or genres have been published, as have many definitive critical editions with insightful analysis. Scholars and bibliographers such as Iraj Afshar have worked unceasingly to describe and produce catalogues of newly catalogued manuscripts. Many lesser known periods and poets have come to light in detailed studies in specialized areas, such as in Isma’ili Studies. There is a need to produce more studies that are interdisciplinary and interpretive but this appears to be the growing trend. Additionally, there is a great need for better translations of the classic poets. In this area Dick Davis’s translations of the Shahnama and other works serve as an inspiration to others.
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Select Bibliography Arthur J. Arberry, Classical Persian Literature (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1958); Malik al-Shu’ara, Muhammad Taqi Bahar, Sabk-Shinasi, ya Tarikh-i Tatavvur-i Nashr-i Farsi baray-i Tadris dar Danishkadah-i va Dawrah-i Duktur-i Adabiyat, 3 vols. (Tehran: Chapkhanah-i Khudkar, 1958); Edward G. Browne, A Literary History of Persia, 4 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1902, 1906, 1920, and 1924); Gilbert Lazard, Les premiers poètes persans (IXe-Xe siècles): Fragments rassemblés, édités et traduits, 2 vols. (Tehran: Institut franco-iranien; Paris: Librairie d’Amérique et d’Orient, 1964); Gilbert Lazard, Roger Lescot, and Zabih Allah Safa, Anthologie de la poésie persane XIe-XXe siècle (Paris: Gallimard, 1964); Julie Meisami, Structure and Meaning in Medieval Arabic and Persian Poetry: Orient Pearls (London and New York: Routledge Curzon, 2003); Reynold A. Nicholson, The Mathnawi of Jalalu’ddin Rumi, 8 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1925); Antonio Pagliaro and Allesandro Bausani, Storia della letteratura persiana (Milan: Nuova Accademia Editrice, 1960); Jan Rypka, Iranische Literaturgeschichte (Leipzig: Otto Harassowitz, 1959); Zabih Allah Safa, Tarikh-i Adabiyat dar Iran, 5 vols. (Tehran: Kitabfurush-i Ibn Sina, 1954–1984).
Mark David Luce
Islamic Philosophy A. Introduction Muslim philosophy has a history that precedes of ten odd centuries the interest devoted to it from Western academic practices. If its very name testifies the alien origin of the notion, it is nonetheless true that Muslims partially relinked it to indigenous sources. As a matter of fact, Muslim philosophy, while sharing a great deal of features with its Greek ancestor, has developed along specific lines, so that it is easy for Muslim thinkers to watch at their philosophical tradition as no less than an influential branch of Islamic religio-intellectual building. As pointed out by Henry Corbin (Histoire de la philosophie islamique, 1964), the source of Muslim philosophical meditation is two-fold: Greek and Quranic. On the one hand, theoretical questions were raised at the beginning of Islam, when early Muslims and companions used to address the Prophet asking for explanations on religious and practical matters. On the other hand, early conquests brought Muslims into contact with alien civilizations, bearers of different forms of knowledge, of whom ruling classes promptly became admirers, giving birth to a wide translation movement that represented one of the most remarkable cultural phenomena of the 9th and
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10th centuries (Dimitri Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early ^Abbasid Society, 1988). This encounter exerted an inestimable influence on the developement of Islamic philosophy, in all its aspects. If the first philosophers of the Muslim world (albeit not all confessionally Muslim) were basically Neoplatonicists, endorsing a particular Platonic spiritualism nurtured in Aristotelian logic (although some thinkers were not devoid of influences arising from Greek scepticism), the contribution of meditation on the fact of divine Revelation added their methodology a specific gist. Throughout Islamic history, the terms used to define philosophy and their meaning varied from one period to another, and also depending on the environment in which the debates occurred. The most common terms, used with a slight semantic difference, had always been hikma (literally meaning “wisdom”), and falsafa, a calque from the original Greek. Not strictly relegated in philosophical practice, methodology of philosophy entered other intellectual areas, such as dialectic theology (kalam), jurisprudence (fiqh), grammar, historiography and Sufism. Meanwhile, as the term falsafa has always been quite limited in use, in that it is referred to the practice of dialectical reasoning, hikma is often related to many kinds of wisdom, be it that of the Sufis, theologians, or philosophers, etc. Following Seyyed Hossein Nasr’s classification (The Meaning and Concept of Philosophy in Islam, 2001), the definitions of Greek origin most common among Islamic philosophers are: 1) The knowledge of all existing things qua existents (ashya’ al-mawjuda bi-ma hiya mawjuda); 2) The knowledge of divine and human matters; 3) Taking refuge in death, thus love of death; 4) The arts of arts and science of sciences; 5) Love for wisdom. But beside these definitions, one should not forget the religious nature of Muslim philosophy; the neat distinction between philosophy and theology originated in the West on the grounds of a “secularization” that is largely unknown to the world of Islam. Thus, searching for a determinate boundary separating mystical speculation, spiritual experience, and prophetic philosophy, would inevitably result in a frustrating and pointless enterprise. Classical Western handbooks on Islamic philosophy had long referred to the matter in terms of Arabic philosophy. Heir to medieval scholastic tradition, this wording must be definitly rejected, and no serious Islamicist, nor
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informed historian of philosophy, uses it any longer. As a matter of fact, not only early Muslim philosophers were not homogeneously Arabs, but a number of leading medieval thinkers composed their works completely in Persian. If one observes that even major philosophers such as Ibn Sina (Avicenna for the Latin Middle Age) composed many remarkable works in the language of Iran, the above mentioned inconsistency becomes even more evident. Several subdivision patterns have been proposed for Islamic philosophy that emphasize local priorities, confessional elements, or typological considerations. But all of these tend to focus on particular aspects and, lacking a whole encompassing view, underplay or don’t consider at all characters and themes whose importance and centrality cannot be ignored. Subdivisions of macro-periods seem to be more effective in providing a reliable picture. The first period extends from the origins to the death of Averroes (Ibn Rushd, d. 1198). It is, after all, the most studied and best known period of Muslim philosophy. The death of Averroes seals the era of the classical philosophy in Islam, marking the decline of philosophical theorization in the Western lands of Islam, and the subsequent eclipse of the Latin Avicennism in Europe. Meanwhile, hailing from the Easten lands of the Arab world, having Syrian cities as main centers, a renaissance of mystical Avicennism was radiating in the direction of non-Arab East. It is the period of the “metaphysics of Sufism,” i. e., the attempt (that actually represented a great success and a momentous epistemological turn in the history of Islamic thinking) to express in a systematic fashion the details of the mystical path toward God, and the knowledge of self as knowledge of God. It is, this second period, the time of the diffusion of Akbarian metaphysics in Persia and, therefrom, in the Indian Subcontinent, by the Persian pupils of its originator, Muhyi al-Din Ibn ‘Arabi (d. 1240). The third and the fourth perisods overlap, if not in nature of the discourse, at least in time. The former coincides with the Safavid philosophical renaissance. In 1501, a chiliastic military-religious order moving from Azerbaijan entered Iran and, after conquering the major cities, declared Twelver Shi’ism to be the official religion of the newly-instituted Safavid reign, named after Safi al-din Ardabili (d. 1334), the founder of the order. The new rule attracted scholars and theologians that animated schools and theological seminaries, that eventually became major centers of propagation and discussion of the post-Akbarian mystical philosophy. It is the period of the great summa of Mulla Sadra Shirazi (d. 1641), whose influence spread to the Qajar era and up to the last decades of the 20th century.
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The last period is that of the modern philosophy, resumed as an intellectual weapon in all the Muslim world against the influence of the West. After the decolonization and in the midst of the globalization era, Muslim thinkers partially abandoned third-worldist and nativist rhetoric and began introducing in their discourse the key-elements of democracy, secularism, postmodernism, human rights. B. History Given the particular position of Muslim philosophy in transmitting Greek philosophical knowledge to the Latin Middle Ages, modern academic interest in it bears some similarities – and up to quite recent times, even a number of its flaws – with that of the European first translators and commentators. In the contest of medieval transmission of Islamic thought, several stages can be observed. The interest began during the 12th century, as a taste for Islamic matters was rather common in Europe. It is the time of the translations of Gerard of Cremona and his colleagues at the cathedral of Toledo. This wave testifies a marked interest in Neoplatonic cosmology and psychology, with the translations of works by Al-Farabi, the Brethern of Purity (Ikhwan al-safa’), and other important Muslim Neoplatonicists. Later, Western scholastics desired to understand Aristotle in the translation by Ibn Rushd. Translations carried out during the Renaissance, when a fresh interest in Arabic emerged anew, represent the link between medieval scholastic translations and the rise of a modern academic scholarship. The first European chair in Arabic was established in Paris in 1535, and was assumed by Guillaume Postel, while in 1584 an Arabic press was set up in Rome and a second chair in Arabic appeared at the beginning of the 17th century in Leiden. By and large, the most important personality in the field of Islamic philosophy was the English Arabist Edward Pocock (1604–1691), who collected original manuscripts and published, among other noteworthy works (about which see Hans Daiber, “The Reception of Islamic Philosophy at Oxford in the 17th Century,” 1994), Ibn Tufayl’s philosophical novel Hayy ibn Yaqzan (1671). Pocock’s editions remained standards until the 19th century. The rise of Islamic philosophy as a modern topic of inquiry and teaching in Western universities at the end of the 18th century also marked the end of a period in which Muslim thinkers were regarded as central as the Greeks in the culture of humanity. As a matter of fact, while the Western areas of the Muslim world were facing the lower point of their decline and, in confronting with colonial enterprises were developing the first embryo of modernist and reformist religious thinking, contemporary Persian Neoplatonicism was prospering almost ignored by European acedeme.
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While editorial activity grew in quantity and quality, a certain number of scholars began being known as experts in European, Jewish, and Islamic medieval philosophy, but by far the most important character was Ernest Renan (1823–1892), whose ideas about the relative conceptual independence of Muslim thinking, although often driven by prejudice, represented a fresh look. It is also the age of the Orientalist erudition, with the systematic recording of material for research carried out by, among others, German Orientalists such as Gustav Flügel and Ferdinand Wüstenfeld. Illuministic tendencies, with all the implications in terms of ethnocentrism and historical evolutionism, came to a more moderate approach by the end of the 19th century, while the amount of primary sources made available through critical editions and translations allowed fairly good introductory texts being written, published, and achieving wide circulation, as in the case of Ignaz Goldziher’s compendium Die islamische und die jüdische Philosophie (1909). From this time on, academic knowledge of Islamic philosophy has found a remarkable expansion, both in terms of edition of fundamental texts and of publication of original interpretive and introductory studies. In Daiber’s phrasing, “European and Arab-Islamic secondary literature […] has now become too extensive to keep track of” (Bibliography of Islamic Philosophy, 1999, XXV). Most major universities around the world, both in Europe and in the Americas, has established chairs in History of Islamic or Muslim Philosophy, and the second half of the 20th century witnessed an impressive increase of excellent works, by then dissociated from the antiquated idea of the end of philosophy in the Muslim world coinciding with the death of Averroes. C. Research As already stated, Muslim philosophy scholarship didn’t begin in a proper fashion before the 19th century. The first important work in the field is Amable Jourdain’s Recherches critiques sur l’âge et l’origine des traductions d’Aristote et sur les documents grecs ou arabes employés par les docteures scholastique (1819). However, scholars usually mention Ernest Rénan’s classic Averroês et l’averroïsme (1852) as the most influent text in the field, at least until Goldziher’s seminal study, Beitrag zur Geschichte der muhammedanischen Theologie (1884), which represented – as the rest of his publications – a very competent and insightful research, for that period quite an advanced work. Coeval of Goldziher, another standard compendium of Islamic philosophy is Tjitze J. de Boer’s Geschichte der Philosophie in Islam (1901), translated into English two years later.
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About two decades later, an ambitious study written by the German Orientalist Max Horten was published in Munich: Die Philosophie des Islam in ihren Beziehungen zu den philosophischen Weltanschauungen des westlichen Orients (1924). Unfortunately, this study is even more dated than its predecessors, in that Horten’s attempt to render Islamic philosophical notions and categories with the ideas of late-medieval scholasticism and contemporary philosophy, results in a distorted picture of its object. The influence of the late 19th century, expecially of Nietzsche, and of the phenomenalism of Edmund Husserl, is too evident to prevent Horten’s study from ending up in obscuring original texts. However, the overall state of the field was by far more healthy than one might argue by the dated work of Horten. In fact, the number and quality of general introductions and learned monographs was flourishing. But it was not before end of the Second World War that major contributions were published and knew wide circulation. Miguel Cruz Hernandez’s Historia de la filosofia española: Filosofia hispano-musulmana appeared in 1957, and though concerned first of all with Islamic philosophy in Spain, it is nonetheless informative in other areas. Another classic and still influential work is W. Montgomery Watt’s Islamic Philosophy and Theology (1962), but a major turning point, both in methodology and in scope, was Henry Corbin’s History of Islamic Philosophy. Written in collaboration with Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Osman Yahya and published in 1964 by Franch major publisher Gallimard, it has been translated into a number of languages (including Arabic and Persian). The project was completed by Corbin alone in a somewhat abridged version that gives account of the later Eastern tradition of Islamic philosophy. The approach is quintessentially phenomenological and reflects the particular taste for Twelver Shi’ism of the author. Though very popular, this major work is not void of flaws, specially in the overemphasis of the mystical attitude of Shi’ism. It is anyhow true that the project of the French philosopher was not limited to the narrow universe of Islamologists: his aim was to put again in a fruitful “operational” communication the two worlds of living Islamic Neoplatonicism and Western philosophy. One other unappreciable result of Corbin’s effort with Muslim philosophy, carried on also by the series Bibliotheque Iranien, published in Tehran and Paris by the French Research Institute of Tehran, is that it caused a rebirth of research and academic study of philosophy in Iran itself, accompained by a flourishing of insightful and high quality publications. Meanwhile, general introductions continued to be published (a full list is provided in Daiber’s 1999 bibliographical study; see below); among them, possibly the most often cited and used in university classes is Majid
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Fakhri’s A History of Islamic Philosophy (1970), also translated into various languages and republished in a 1983 revised and updated version. By the 1980s, Islamic philosophy was already an important subject of inquiry, whose momentum is testified by chapters devoted to Islamic philosophers in works on medieval thought and in encyclopedias. In spite of this, as recognized by most scholars, there is still a great deal of work to be done, especially in editing unpublished works and bringing to light manuscripts still buried in libraries and private collections, notably those of the Subcontinent. In recent years, following the development of the discipline, important contributions have been added to the specialist literature. Among them, a voluminous bibliographical study that is bound to become standard tool for resaerch in the field is Hans Daiber’s Bibliography of Islamic Philosophy (1999). Its two volumes provide an impressive list of publications (articles, monographs, translations, critical editions, etc.) both in alphabetical and thematic order, accompained by insightful remarks. Another general work that must be mentioned and explained in some detail is History of Islamic Philosophy, ed. Seyyed Hosseyn Nasr and Oliver Leaman (1996). It encompasses general introductory essays on the origins, influences, concepts, and schools of the early Islam, followed by a section on individual philosophers of the East and the West of Muslim world. The list is as follows: (Eastern) Al-Kindi, Al-Farabi, al-Razi, al-^Amiri, the Ikwan al-Safa’, Ibn Sina (plus an article by Nasr in his “Oriental philosophy”), Ibn Mishkawayh, al-Ghazzali; (Western) Ibn Masarrah, Ibn Bajjah (the Latin Avempace), Ibn Tufayl, Ibn Rushd, Ibn Sab^in, and Ibn Khaldun. The fourth section is devoted to the mystical tradition and the reciprocal interplay between Sufism and philosophy. The section devoted to the later Islamic philosophy presents contributions on the major philosophers that were ignored in the early academic literature: Nasir al-din al-Tusi, the “school of Esfahan” (Mir Damad and Mulla Sadra), and Shah Waliullah of Delhi. The work includes an important and groundbreaking section on Jewish philosophy, added as a pivotal interlocutor to medieval Islam. The second part of the work (pp. 783–1180) enumerates the articulations of Muslim philosophy (metaphysics, logic, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, etc.), and attempts to present some later interpretations. A geographical criterion is also adopted in the chapters (pp. 1037–1142) devoted to Islamic philosophy in the modern Islamic world and to some interpretations in the West.
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D. Conclusion To draw a satisfactory picture of the state of the art in the study of Islamic philosophy is a difficult, if not simply impossible, task; the variety of approaches, the multiplicity of schools, methodologies, and interpretations, and the fluid state of research – all this give an uncomfortable sense of fuzziness to those who whish to keep track of the lines of the progress. Nevertheless, some sort of description may be attempted by looking at the past tendencies and the paths of continuity and change. During the Middle Ages, Islam in general was referred to as the archenemy of Christianity, but the attitude of medieval Europe toward it was ambivalent. This ambivalence was fostered by the centrality of “the Arabs” in the transmission of ancient knowledge. As demonstrated by Italian historian Franco Cardini in his The Invention of the Enemy (L’invenzione del nemico, 2006), the relation was one of attraction/repulsion: during the 12th century, in some respects, taste for Arabism was even somewhat fashionable, and the “Saracens” were considered as good-hearted fellows deceived by a false and evil religion. It is difficult to deny that these obscuring and partial views had influenced most Western modern scholars until recently. Despite this, the same urgency to understand Muslim thought, along with the humanist cry ad fontes!, later merged with the Neo-Thomist approach, fostered the efforts by some excellent scholars, like Louis Massignon (Opera minora, 1969), Etienne Gilson (Le philosophe et la théologie, 1960), Louis Gardet (L’islam, religion et communauté, 1967; with Georges Anawati, Introduction à la theologie musulmane, 1948), Giulio Basetti Sani, (Per un dialogo cristiano-musulmano, 1969) and others. Spain, dominated for seven centuries by Muslim rulers, had one more reason to be concerned with Islam, and in fact the same Catholic inspiration, corroborated by a sense of “Spanish identity,” is evident in the work of such Spanish scholars as Miguel Asin Palacios (La escatologia musulmana en la ‘Divina Comedia’, 1919; El Islam cristianizado: Estudio del sufismo a través de las obras de Abenárabi de Murcia, 1931) Missionary concerns (today milded by a genuine urgency for religious dialogue) animate on the other hand the Jesuites revolving around the Pontificia Università Gregoriana and the PISAI (Pontificial Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies). This shows that a Catholic academic school is still active, even though not as influential as in the past. The other relevant and somehow long standing influence, albeit not referable to as a “school” by its own right, is that played by outstanding scholars of Jewish origin (Ignaz Goldziher, Saul Horovitz, Georges Vajda, Paul Kraus, Richard Walzer, and others), as such working indipendently from mainstream Christian school. The whole of these influences is noticeable along
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all academic production on Islamic philosophy, even if not explicitly recognized. As remarked by Oliver Leaman (“Orientalism and Islamic Philosophy,” History of Islamic Philosophy, ed. Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Oliver Leaman, 1996, 1143–48), one major turning point was the publication of Edward Said’s seminal study Orientalism (1978). Even if a central stream of scholars in Islamic philosophy (notably the traditionalists influenced by René Guénon and the French school of Corbinian phenomenologists, who sought to study Islam from within, many also becoming Muslims), had already rejected Orientalist views and approaches as biased and incoherent, Said’s argument projected the problematization of the Western discourse about the Other in a wider arena, working out a critical appoach that exposed to criticism the whole history of modern Western rationality. By the end of the 1980s, new epistemologies in approaching Islamic philosophy were not limited to the somehow elitist (even if quite influential) environment of traditionalists. A few words must be said in some detail about the influence of Henry Corbin’s in the field of Islamic philosophy. It has already been observed how the editorial and scholarly effort he carried out in Iran contributed to the reawakening of the study of traditional philosophy in that country. The activities of the Imperial Academy of Philosophy (suppressed after the 1979 Revolution and reopened under the name of Institute of Hikma and Philosophy – Anjoman-e hekmat wa falsafe), lead by Corbin’s associate Sayyed Hossein Nasr – a Muslim philosopher himself – succeded in giving the theories of the philosophia perennis of the other Nasr’s mentor Fritjhof Schuon a sound academic standing, thus providing traditionalist epistemology (for many reasons opposed by Corbin) a more solid ground. But the originality of Corbin’s approach to Islamic philosophy is not limited to the role he played in connecting different universes. As pinpointed by the chapter devoted to him by Pierre Lory in Nasr and Leaman’s edited work (“Henry Corbin: His Work and Influence,” 1996, 1149–55), besides having instituted a new scholarly paradigm in interpreting Muslim philosophical texts, he proposed original reflections on themes scarcely focused on by scholars both in Muslim world and in the West. Hermeneutical emphasis on such themes as angeology and “imaginal” dimension of existence, prophetology, the “suffering God,” and the paradox of religious monotheism, figures among his achievements and provides useful material for further discussion. Although his influence must not be overemphasized, and the core of his personal project (providing Western philosophers with modern philosophy to reflect on and giving Islamic modern Neoplatonism a protagonist role in the scene of
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world philosophy) may be considered partially failed, it is nevertheless true to say that, through his work, Muslim philosophy has not remained unknown to many contemporary famed philosophers, notably, for example, Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben. A late rediscovery of Islamic philosophy occurred also among political philosophers, as is the case with Leo Strauss’s and his school’s somewhat biased use of Al-Farabi thought (see his essay “Farabi’s Plato,” Louis Ginzberg Jubilee Volume: On the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday, ed. Saul Lieberman et al., 1945, 357–93, and Muhsin Mahdi’s Alfarabi and the Foundation of Islamic Political Philosophy, 2001). An idea of the variety of approaches and the range of academic study of Islamic philosophy might be obtained by looking at Nasr and Leaman’s edited work: it is easy to notice how this field has grown from the time of the first general introductions, both quantitatively and qualitatively. Scholars from all over the world, employing different methodologies and drawing from various experiences, participate in the discourse, and scholars from different Muslim countries are represented quite well. To end with, it is not useless to hint at new media and the coming of the “fast age.” As all fields of knowledge, Islamic philosophy and its study are not exempted from the possiblities and the risks implied by the fast growth of the internet and the increasing availability of specialized literature in the web. Even though the time when a serious and rigorous research can be carried out by simply relying on electronic resources is still to come, and web-based knowledge suffers a dramatic lack of authoritativeness, it is undeniable that the web is already an indispensable tool of work for most scholars, and not only of the new generation. Websites containing high-quality information (like www.muslimphilosophy.com), permanent seminaries or annual conferences (as www.mullasadra.org), personal pages and blogs of scholars (www.mullasadra. blogspot.com; www.uga.edu/islam/philosophy/html) and electronic libraries providing direct access to major works of Muslim philosophers, both in the original languages and in translations, are quickly and steadily growing. The importance of these is bound to encounter a rapid and progressive growth in the next years. Select Bibliography Roger Arnaldez, Averroes: A Rationalist Islam (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2000); David B. Burrel, Knowing the Unknowable God: Ibn Sina, Maimonides, Aquinas (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986); Arabic Philosophy and the West: Continuity and Interaction, ed. Therese-Anne Druart (Washington, DC: Georgetown University, 1988); Majid Fakhry, A History of Islamic Philosophy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983); Dimitri Gutas, Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition (Leiden: Brill, 1988); Oliver Leaman, An Introduction to Medieval Islamic Philos-
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ophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); Oliver Leaman, An Introduction to Classical Islamic Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); Jules L. Janssens, An Annotated Bibliogrphy in Ibn Sina (1970–1989) Including Arabic and Persian Publications and Turkish and Russian References (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1991); Parviz Morewedge, Neoplatonism and Islamic Thought (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1992); Seyyed Hosseyn Nasr, An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1993); William Montgomery Watt, Islamic Philosophy and Theology. An extended Survey (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1985); Harry A. Wolfson, The Philosophy of the Kalam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976).
Alessandro Cancian
Islamic Theology A. General Definition Islamic theology, which is one of the branches of Islamic religious sciences, is mostly referred to as ^ilm al-kalam (the science of kalam), and in short kalam. Kalam is usually translated as “theology,” although this rendering does not express well its scholastic methods. The term “speculative theology” conveys in a better way the nature of the theological discussions of the mutakallimun (doctors of Kalam), who used logical argumentation in order to prove some of the principles of religion (Georges C. Anawati, “kalam,” The Encyclopedia of Religion, XIII [1987], 231–42). Kalam is only one of the two major trends in Islamic theology. The other trend is that of traditionalist theology (^ilm al-usul, the science of theological principles). Since the scholastic methods of kalam had a tremendous impact on medieval thinkers within the circles of traditionalist Islam, and also on Jewish and Christian thinkers (Harry Austryn Wolfson, Repercussions of the Kalam in Jewish Philosophy, 1979) this survey dedicates its lion’s share to kalam. Nevertheless, the difference between kalam and Islamic traditionalist theology is also addressed here, since the boundaries between these two trends were never definite, especially after the emergence of the Ash^ari school in the first half of the 10th century. The terms kalam and traditionalist Islam refer to Sunni Islam, which is the main body of opinion in Islamic thought. Unless otherwise stated, the schools of kalam and the main thinkers mentioned in this survey are Sunnis (Louis Gardet, “^ilm al-kalam,” EI, 2nd ed., vol. III [1971], 1141–50). The use of discursive arguments is Kalam’s salient feature, which is mostly reflected in the discussions on the existence of God and the creation of
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the world. In these questions the kalam uses the proof from accidents, which is based on the doctrine of atoms (the major works on these questions are Shlomo Pines, Beiträge zur islamischen Atomenlehre, 1936; id., trans. Michael Schwarz, Studies in Islamic Atomism, 1997; Herbert A. Davidson, Proofs for Eternity, Creation and the Existence of God in Medieval Islamic and Jewish Philosophy, 1987). Kalam has also a lot to do with apologetics. Influenced by Hellenistic philosophical and theological thought, it uses various rationalistic tools in order to defend Islamic doctrines and uproot what it perceives as heretical concepts, infiltrated Islamic thought (D. D. de Lacy O’Leary, Arabic Thought and Its Place in History, 1939). Thus, it is tightly connected to the term ^aqida (pl. ^aqa#id), which stands for belief, creed or article of faith (William Montgomery Watt, Islamic Creeds, 1994). The goals of kalam, as the mutakallimun themselves define it in a report given by the Ash^ari theologian Al-Ghazali (d. 1111), are “to grasp the unity of God, and study the essence of God and His attributes” (Ihya# ^Ulum al-Din [The Revival of Religious Sciences], I [n.d.], 25). The theologian al-Jurjani (d. 1413) expands kalam’s definition to dealing with divine justice and eschatology (Kitab al-Ta^rifat, [The Book of Definitions], ed. Gustav Flügel, 1969 [photocopy of the Leipzig 1845 ed.], 194). Thus, kalam aims to back up various articles of faith, whose origins are to be found in the Qur#an and hadith (i.e. prophetic traditions), by using analytical methods. B. The Origins of Kala¯ m The common use in the Arabic language of the word kalam is word, words, or speech. How this term came to indicate Islamic speculative theology is an issue not fully revealed or discovered. There is an almost general agreement within the ranks of modern scholarship, that the dialectical technique of kalam was borrowed from early Christian theology (Carl Heinrich Becker, “Christliche Polemik und islamische Dogmenbildung,” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und verwandte Gebiete 27 [1912]: 175–95; rpt. in: id., Islamstudien, 1924–1932, 432–49, trans. Mark Muelhaeusler, “Christian Polemic and the Formation of Islamic Dogma,” Muslims and Others in Early Islamic Society, ed. Robert Hoyland, 2004, 241–58; Josef van Ess, Anfänge muslimischer Theologie: zwei antiqadaritische Traktate aus dem ersten Jahrundert der Hipra, 1977; id., “The Beginnings of Islamic Theology,” The Cultural Context of Medieval Learning, ed. J. E. Murdoch and E. D. Sylla, 1975), while pointing out Greek (Josef van Ess, “The Logical Structure of Islamic Theology,” Logic in Classical Islamic Culture, ed. Gustav E. von Grunebaum, 1970; Ibrahim Madkour, “La Logique d’Aristote chez les mutakallimun,” Islamic Philosophical Theology, ed. Parviz Morewedge, 1979, 58–70) and Syriac (Michael A.
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Cook, “The Origins of Kalam,” BSOAS 43 [1980]: 32–43) texts as possible sources of inspiration (Francis Edward Peters, “The Origins of Islamic Platonism: the School Tradition,” Islamic Philosophical Theology, ed. Parviz Morewedge, 1979, 14–45; Louis Gardet, “Aux débuts de la réflexion théologique de l’Islam,” ibid., 46–59). In the same vein, it has been suggested that kalam was used to translate into Arabic the different meanings of the Greek terms logos or dialexis (Harry Austryn Wolfson, The Philosophy of the Kalam, 1976) or the Syriac memra (Frithiof Rundgren, “Über den griechischen Einfluß auf die arabische Nationalgrammatik,” AUU 2.5 [1976]: 119–44). C. The Exponents of Kala¯ m The exponent of kalam was called mutakallim (lit. speaker, pl. mutakallimun). The mutakallimun are described by both Latin and Hebrew medieval thinkers. The Hebrew designation ha-medabberim and the Latin loquentes were derived from the literal meaning of mutakallim (Lawrence V. Berman, “kalam,” EJ, 1st ed. X [1971]: 701–03). The mutakallimun were engaged not only in articulating the fundamentals of Islam in an analytic language, but also in polemics of both political and religious nature (Shlomo Pines, “A Note on an Early Meaning of the Term Mutakallim” IOS 1 [1971]: 224-40; rpt. in: id., Studies in the History of Arabic Philosophy, 1996). The first mutakallimun did not belong to a specific school. Their teachings, if they had ever been written, did not survive, and only fragments of their views have been preserved, mostly in the rich Arabic heresiographical literature written from the 9th century onward. The early mutakallimun were very cautious in not revealing the foreign sources of their doctrines. Later mutakallimun, when citing the views of their predecessors, did not actually know the foreign roots of their doctrines (Richard M. Frank, “Remarks on the Early Development of the Kalam,” Atti del terzo congresso di studi arabi e Islamici, Ravello 1–6 settembre 1966 [1967], 315–29). D. The Schools of Kala¯ m In the end of the 7th century emerged a group of mutakallimun, who were adherents of the principle of free will, as opposed to the strict predestinarian view, which was held by traditionalist theologians. This group, the Qadariyya (Carlo Alfonso Nallino, “Sul nome dei Qadariti,” RSO 7 [1918]: 461–66), was the forerunner of the Mu^tazila, which is the most known kalam school (Joseph van Ess, “Kadariyya,” EI, 2nd ed., IV [1974]: 368–72; Henri Laoust, Les Schismes dans l’Islam, 1965). The Mu^tazila (Carlo Alfonso Nallino, “Sull’origine del nome dei Mu^taziliti,” RSO 7 [1918]: 429–54) flourished as two separate schools in
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Basra and Baghdad from the first half of the 8th century until the middle of the 11th century (Louis Gardet and M. M. Anawati, Introduction à la théologie musulmane, 1948). The Mu’tazili theses survived in Zaydi-Shi^i Islam until the present day, but not in Sunni Islam (Wilferd Madelung, Der Imâm al-Qâsim ibn Ibrâhim und die Glaubenslehre der Zaiditen, 1965). The rival school of the Mu^tazila is the Ash^ariyya, founded in Basra in the first half of the 10th century. The eponym of the Ash^ariyya, Abu al-Hasan alAsh^ari (d. 935) was a former Mu’tazili, who used the rationalistic tools of the Mu^tazila in order to defend the doctrines of traditional Islam and to defeat the Mu^tazila (Ahmad AmIn, Duha al-Islam [The Forenoon of Islam], I–III, 1952; id., Fajr al-Islam [The Dawn of Islam], 1978; William Montgomery Watt, The Formative Period of Islamic Thought, 1973). Another important theological school is the Maturidiyya-Hanafiyya, established as a definite school in central Asia in the 11th century. Its eponym is Abu Mansur al-Maturidi (d. 944) from Samarqand (Wilferd Madelung, “al-Maturidi,” EI, 2nd ed., VI [1991]: 846–47). The heresiographic literature, written from the 11th century mainly by Ash^ari theologians, mentions a great number of other kalam schools, whose existence is questionable (Michael Schwarz, “Can We Rely on Later Authorities for the Views of Earlier Thinkers?” IOS 1 [1971]: 241–48). E. Kala¯ m and Traditional Theology Most of the activity of the mutakallimun was in the inner circles of Islam, mainly against Sunni traditionalist theologians. Kalam’s dialectical discourse, which gives precedence to human reason in the process of perceiving God and the world, is supposedly antithetical to Islamic traditional theology, which declares to draw its authority solely from Divine revelation, prophetic traditions and the teachings of the ancestors of the Muslim community. These epistemological questions were discussed by both the mutakallimun and the traditionalist theologians. Further points of dispute between the two trends were the question of God’s unity, the nature of Divine attributes, anthropomorphism, predestination and free will (William Montgomery Watt, Predestination and Free Will in Early Islam, 1948; Daniel Gimaret, Théories de l’acte humain en théologie musulmane, 1980), theodicy (Eric L. Ormsby, Theodicy in Islamic Thought, 1984), eschatology, the status of prophecy and the essence of the Qur#an as God’s uncreated speech (Jan R. T. M. Peters, God’s Created Speech, 1976). The division between mutakallimun and traditionalist theologians never was clear-cut, since kalam’s methods had a huge impact upon traditionalist theologians. Consequently, the latter embraced rationalistic argumen-
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tations in their works and public debates (Binyamin Abrahamov, Islamic Theology- Traditionalism and Rationalism, 1998). Among traditionalist theologians, the group called Hanabila after their eponym Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 855) is the most conspicuous (Henri Laoust, “Ahmad ibn Hanbal,” EI, 2nd ed., I [1960]: 272–7; id., “Hanabila,” EI, 2nd ed., III [1971], 158–62). F. Theology and the Qur#a¯n The Qur#anic text inspired the molding and refining of theological notions and formulae elaborated not only in theological treatises and kalam manuals but also in Qur#an exegeses (tafsir pl. tafasir), written by prominent theologians such as Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (d. 1210) and Ibn al-^Arabi (d. 1240). The Qur#an exegete Ibn Kathir (d. 1372) based his tafsir on the theological and jurisprudential teachings of Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328). The main theological themes in the Qur#an are surveyed and discussed in research on Qur#anic studies (Fazlur Rahman, Major Themes of the Quran, 1980; Tilman Nagel, “Theology and the Qur#an,” EQ V [2006]: 256–75; Binyamin Abrahamov, “Theology,” The Blackwell Companion to the Qur’an, ed. Andrew Rippin, 2006, 420–33). Among the theological concepts refined from the Qur#anic text are predestination and free will (Toshihiko Izutsu, God and Man in the KoranSemantics of the Koranic Weltanschauung, 1964), human responsibility (Andrew Rippin, “Desiring the Face of God,” Literary Structures of Religious Meaning in the Qur#an, ed. Issa Boullata, 2000), creation (Husam Muhi Eldin alAlousi, The Problem of Creation in Islamic Thought – Qur#an, Hadith, Commentaries and Kalam, 1968), anthropomorphism (Binyamin Abrahamov, Anthropomorphism and Interpretation of the Qur#an in the Theology of al-Qasim ibn Ibrahim, Kitab al-Mustashrid, 1996), and ethics (Daud Rahbar, God of Justice: a Study in the Ethical Doctrine of the Qur#an, 1960). G. Theology and H. adı¯ th Hadith literature, which is the narrative of the Prophet Muhammad’s life and practices, contains numerous statements of Muhammad and some of his Companions (sahaba), serving as a starting point for theological debates. While traditionalist theologians used hadith literature as a locus of their religious thought (Livnat Holtzman, “Human Choice, Divine Guidance and the Fitra Tradition – The Use of Hadith in Theological Treatises by Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya,” Ibn Taymiyya and His Times, ed. Yossef Rapoport and Shahab Ahmed (2010), the credibility of this literature was questioned by rationally inclined theologians who tended to discredit this literature (Roger Arnaldez, Grammaire et théologie chez Ibn Hazm de Cordoue, 1956). Hadith literature covers almost every topic in theological thought,
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such as God’s transcendence and anthropomorphic depictions of God (Daniel Gimaret, Dieu à l’image de l’homme: les anthropomorphismes de la sunna et leur interprétation par les théologiens, 1997), predestination and free will (Joseph van Ess, Zwischen Hadi© und Theologie: Studien zum Entstehen prädestinatianischer Überlieferung, 1975; Louis Gardet, Dieu et la destinée de l’homme, 1967; Geneviève Gobillot, La Fitra – La Conception originelle – ses interprétations et fonctions chez les penseurs musulmans, 2000; Helmer Ringgren, Studies in Arabian Fatalism, 1955), ethics (Majid Fakhry, Ethical Theories in Islam, 1991), creation (Ernst Behler, Die Ewigkeit der Welt – Problemgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zu den Kontroversen um Weltanfang und Weltunendlichkeit im Mittelalter, 1965; Iysa Bello, The Medieval Islamic Controversy Between Philosophy and Orthodoxy, 1989), eschatology (David Cook, Studies in Muslim Apochalyptic, 2002) and the nature of the Qur#an (Wilfred Madelung, “The Origins of the Controversy Concerning the Creation of the Koran,” Orientalia Hispanica 1 [1974]: 504–25). H. Kala¯ m and Philosophy Kalam is not based on philosophical speculation per se, in spite of the resemblance of kalam’s set of conceptions and areas of interest to that of Muslim philosophy (falsafa). It has been claimed, however, that kalam should not be disregarded as an apologetic discipline, since it shares areas of interest with Islamic philosophy (Richard M. Frank, “Kalam and Philosophy: A Perspective from One Problem,” Islamic Philosophical Theology, ed. Parviz Morewedge, 1979, 71–95). Kalam accepts the Islamic dogma. Thus, the mutakallimun challenged the philosophers, among other groups within Islam, and labeled them as heretics. The most famous attempt to attack philosophy is the Ash^ari theologian al-Ghazali’s (Algazel, d. 1111) Tahafut al-Falasifa (The Incoherence of the Philosophers, ed., trans. and annot. Michael Marmura, 2000). A rebuttal of al-Ghazali’s argumentation is Ibn Rushd’s (Averroes, d. 1198) Tahafut al-Tahafut (The Incoherence of the Incoherence, ed., trans. and annot. Simon van den Bergh, 1978). I. History of Research The history of research in the field of Islamic theology is in many senses similar to the history of Islamic studies in general. The study of kalam is a sub-discipline of the studies of Islamic history and philology. The interest of European scholars in Islamic theology dates as early as the establishing of the University of Leiden in 1575. The earliest scholarly efforts at studying Islam were characterized by comparing and judging Islamic doctrines in the light of Christian doctrines (Robert Caspar, A Historical Introduction to Islamic Theology, 1998). In other words, the study of Islam was not perceived as a scholarly
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field in its own right. The change occurred in the early 19th century along with the scholarly efforts taken by European and Muslim scholars in cataloguing, classifying, and publishing Arabic manuscripts in critical and uncritical editions. As the publication of manuscripts of heresiographical works and theological treatises advanced, kalam was dealt not only in general surveys on Islam (Ignaz Goldziher, Vorlesungen über den Islam, rev. 2nd ed. 1925, trans. Andras and Ruth Hamori, Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law, 1981; Alfred von Kremer, Geschichte der herrschenden Ideen des Islams, 1868), but also in the frame of monographs, thus shaping the study of Islamic theology as an independent discipline. Research on Islamic theology in the late 19th century and the early th 20 century is characterized by a reliance on heresiographic literature, whose nature (see “sources”) dictates a descriptive historical approach. The European researchers, trained for the most part in philology and history and not in philosophy and theology as such, tended to deal more with the history of theological trends and less with the teachings of Islamic theologians. The historical approach is well reflected, for example, in the works of Julius Wellhausen (Das arabische Reich und sein Sturz, 1902, trans. Margraet Graham Weir, The Arab Kingdom and its Fall, 1927; Die religiös-politischen Oppositionsparteien im alten Islam, 1901, trans. R. C. Ostle and S. M. Walzer, The Religio-Political Factions in Early Islam, 1975). All the relevant entries of the first edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam, published between 1913–1936, reflect the historical approach, which dominated Western research in the field of Islamic theology (Duncan Black Macdonald, “Kadariya”; id., “kalam”; id, “al-Maturidi”; Arent Jan Wensinck, “al-Ash^ari”; Ignaz Goldizher, “Ahmad ibn Hanbal”; Henrik Samuel Nyberg, “Mu^tazila” – all available in the convenient version: Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam, ed. H. A. R. Gibb and J. H. Kramers, 1995). The relevance of these early studies is defied time and again, although their importance as introductory works to the study of the history of Islamic theology still exists. Research approaches still relevant today are those focusing on a methodological close reading of theological texts. A representative example is Harry Austryn Wolfson’s comprehensive work on the origins of kalam (Harry Austryn Wolfson, The Philosophy of the Kalam, 1976). Wolfson’s method of conjecture and verification, which he called “a hypotheticodeductive method,” paved the way to researches concentrating on the theological texts, in which references to political developments, if they exist at all, are provided merely as an aid of understanding the developments in theology. The definitive study of the early phase of the formation of Islamic theology is Josef van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert
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Hidschra: Eine Geschichte des religiösen Denkens im frühen Islam, 1991–1995 (6 vols.). All the relevant entries of the second edition of EI, published between 1960–2004 (also as an online electronic version), reflect a close reading of a wider variety of published manuscripts than was available to the contributors of the first version. It has been claimed that the lion’s share of studies of Islamic theology from the second half of the 20th century was dedicated to the earliest period of kalam, while fewer studies were dedicated to theologians of the 11th century onward, with the one exception of the thought of the Ash^ari theologian Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (Algazel, d. 1111), whose works have been studied by Western scholarship for more than a century (Daniel Gimaret, “Pour un Rééquilibrage des études de la théologie musulmane,” Arabica 38 [1991]: 11–18). Nevertheless, from the 1980s, the tendency in research is to focus on the thought of theologians of the 11th century onward. The work of researchers of Islamic theology, although not specifically subjected to the harsh criticism pointed to Orientalists in general (Edward E. Said, Orientalism, 1978), should be understood and evaluated within the frame of European Orientalism with its faults and virtues (Jean Jacques Waardenburg, “Mustashrikun,” EI, 2nd ed., VII [1993]: 783–93). J. Sources The study of Islamic theology, as other branches of the Islamic religious sciences, depends upon the publication of original manuscripts in critical and uncritical editions. The two fundamental works in this area (Carl Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Literatur, 1902–1942; Fuat Sezgin, Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums, 1967) list manuscripts of Islamic Arabic works, theological works included, while providing essential biographical details on the authors of these works. Even today the task of publishing manuscripts of theological works is a major feature of research. Every newly published theological work often incites the interest of scholars to pursue the investigation in the direction which that work offers, while it sheds light on unknown aspects, trends, and ideas in Islamic theology. For example, in 1962 William Montgomery Watt wrote: “the earliest extant works of Sunnite theology in the strict sense are those of al-Ash^ari (d. 935)” (Islamic Philosophy and Theology, xii). Two years later, in 1964, Morris Seale published the first translation of Ahmad b. Hanbal’s (d. 855) al-Radd ^ala al-Jahmiyya wa-’l-zanadiqa (Responsa to two heretic sects), a theological work which precedes the works of al-Ash^ari in a century, thus contradicting Watt’s categorical statement quoted above (Morris S. Seale, Muslim Theology, 1964). This example demonstrates that the field of Islamic theology is far from being exhausted.
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Until the discovery of several original Mu^tazili works, heresiographic works dated as early as the 10th century were the main source for researchers in the 19th and 20th centuries to study the earlier trends of kalam and traditional theology. The major overviews on Islamic theology and particularly Mu^tazili theology written in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century were based solely on heresiographic literature (for example, Israel Friedlaender, “The Heterodoxies of the Shi^ites in the presentation of Ibn Hazm,” JAOS 28 [1907]: 1–80; 29 [1909]: 1–183). The heresiographers, mostly Mu^tazili and Ash^ari mutakallimun, organized their works so that they were compatible with a tradition attributed to the Prophet Muhammad, in which he prophesied that the Muslim community would be divided into seventy-three sects, seventy-two of them inheriting Hell, and the surviving group going to Heaven. The heresiographers strove in finding seventy-three Islamic sects, thus counting as separate sects groups of people whose views differed only slightly from one another (Hellmut Ritter, “Philologika III: Muhammedanische Häresiographen,” Der Islam 18 [1929]: 34–59). A recognition of the mishaps of heresiography, a literature which provides only a partial picture of the teachings of theological trends as well as of their historical development, led to a pioneering attempt to study the molding of traditionalist theology based on the first Sunni ^aqa#id (creeds, articles of faith), dated from the 8th century (Arent Jan Wensinck, The Muslim Creed, 1932, re-ed. 1965). Nevertheless, only the discovery of original theological works or the reconstruction of such works based on later sources, enabled Western research to validate the biased descriptions of trends and thinkers as they appear in heresiographical literature (See the above-mentioned works of M. Cook and J. van Ess; Richard M. Frank, “The Neoplatonism of Pahm b. Safwân,” Museon 78 [1965]: 395–424) While numerous extant texts of the two major kalam trends in Islam, the Mu^tazila and the Ash^ariyya, enable scholars to depict Islamic scholastic tradition during the period of the Abbasid caliphate (750–1258 C.E.), the beginnings of that tradition during the Umayyad age (661–750 C.E.) are much harder to establish. The authenticity of a few epistolary texts and fragments belonging to the reign of Caliph ^Abd al-Malik (685–705 C.E.) (Joseph van Ess, “The Beginnings of Islamic Theology,” J. E. Murdoch and E. D. Sylla, eds. The Cultural Context of Medieval Learning, [1975], 87–111), has been challenged. It has been argued that these writings were pseudepigrapha from the late Umayyad times, some fifty years after the reign of ^Abd al-Malik (Michael Cook, Early Muslim Dogma, 1981).
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K. Mu^tazila Many researchers were drawn to deal with the Mu^tazila from the second half of the 19th century, and it is by all means the most studied theological school in Western research. The attraction to the Mu^tazila can be explained by the fact that several European scholars favored some of the views of this school. In 1865, Heinrich Steiner spoke of them as “the free-thinkers of Islam” (Heinrich Steiner, Die Mu^taziliten oder die Freidenker im Islam, 1865). This concept, enhanced by the views of prominent scholars like Ignaz Goldziher, and duplicated in dozens of works (for example, Henri Galland, Essai sur les Mo^tazélites: Les rationalistes de l’Islam, 1906; George Fadlo Hourani, Islamic Rationalism: the Ethics of ^Abd al-Jabbar, 1971), has dominated Western scholarship for decades. The image of Mu^tazilis as free-thinkers was mainly based on heresiographic literature. Nevertheless, in the late 1920s Henrik Samuel Nyberg, who discovered and edited Kitab al-Intisar (The Book of Triumph) by the Mu^tazili al-Khayyat (d. 912) a genuine Mu^tazili work, which remained the solely-known Mu^tazili work for decades, challenged this concept (Henrik Samuel Nyberg, “Zum Kampf zwischen Islam und Manichaismus,” Orientalistische Literaturzeitung 32 [1929]: 425–41). Henceforth, Mu^tazilis were portrayed as theologians and not as philosophers. Furthermore, the discovery of a large quantity of Mu^tazili sources in the 1960s, contributed to a considerable progress in studies relating the Mu^tazila. Nevertheless, studies written before that time and previously considered as corner-stones in the field, are now considered as outdated (for example, Albert N. Nader, Le système philosophique des Mu^tazila, 1956). The entry in The Encyclopaedia of Islam indeed provides an excellent overview of the updated approaches in research (Daniel Gimaret, “Mu^tazila,” EI, 2nd ed.,VII [1993]: 783–93) L. Ash^ariyya Although the Ash^ariyya (or Asha^ira) is the most important orthodox theological school, its history and origins have been little studied. This lacuna in research is opposed to the numerous published writings of Ash^ari theologians and the Ash^ari rich heresiographical literature. Researches based on Ash^ari material, mainly focus on themes and doctrines rather than on the history of the school. An indication to the little known on the history of the Ash^ari school is the very short entry in the Encyclopaedia of Islam (William Montgomery Watt, “Ash^ariyya,” EI, 2nd ed., I [1960]: 696). In this entry Watt summarizes the dominating view in Western research, according to which the Ash^ariyya was the dominant, if not the official, theological school in the 8th–14th centuries. This view appeared in a number of studies (Duncan
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Black Macdonald, Development of Muslim Theology, Jurisprudence and Constitutional Theory, 1903; Arthur Stanley Tritton, Muslim Theology, 1947; Louis Gardet and M. M. Anawati, Introduction à la théologie musulmane, 1948; W. Montgomery Watt, The Formative Period of Islamic Thought, 1973), and was contested in the works of George Makdisi (“Muslim Institutions of Learning in Eleventh-Century Baghdad,” BSOAS 24 [1961]: 1–56; id., “Ash^arî and the Ash^arites in Islamic Religious History,” SI 17 [1962]: 37–80; 18 [1963]: 19–39; The Rise of Colleges, 1981). M. Ma¯turı¯ diyya- H. anafiyya Not much was known on the Maturidiyya-Hanafiyya before the discovery of Abu Mansur al-Maturidi’s Kitab al-Tawhid (The Book of Unity) (by Joseph Schacht, “New Sources for the History of Muhammadan Theology,” SI 1 [1953]: 23–42; the manuscript was published by Fathallah Kholeif in 1970, and the authenticity of the manuscript was challenged by Daniel Gimaret, Théories de l’acte humain en théologie musulmane, 1980 and discussed by M. Sait Özrevali, “The Authenticity of the Manuscript of Maturidi’s Kitab al-Tawhid,” Turkish Journal of Islamic Studies 1 [1997]: 19–29). Western research perceived this school as parallel to the Ash^ariyya (Ignaz Goldziher, Vorlesungen über den Islam, 1925; Arthur Stanley Tritton, Muslim Theology, 1947; Louis Gardet and M. M. Anawati, Introduction à la théologie musulmane, 1948), however without sufficient collaborating textual evidences. Different aspects in al-Maturidi’s thought are discussed in several researches (J. Meric Pessagno, “Intellect and Religious Assent: the view of Abu Mansur al-Maturidi,” MW 69 [1979]: 18–27; id., “Irada, Ikhtiyar, Qudra, Kasb – The View of Abu Mansur al-Maturidi,” JAOS 104,1 [1984]: 177–91; id., “The Uses of Evil in Maturidian Thought,” SI 60 [1984]: 59–82). N. H. ana¯bila The traditionalist Hanbali school has been neglected for years by western research, although the life and personality of its eponym, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, were discussed in length for more than a century (Walter Melvil Patton, Ahmad ibn Hanbal and the Mihna, 1897; Michael Cooperson, Classical Arabic biography. The Heirs of the Prophets in the Age of al-Ma#mun, 2000; Nimrod Hurvitz, The Formation of Hanbalism: Piety into Power, 2002; Chistopher Melchert, “The Adversaries of Ahmad ibn Hanbal,” Arabica 44 [1997]: 234–53). The Hanabila who, according to their own avowal in numerous writings, had given precedence to the Quranic text and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, and rejected the excessive use of rationalistic methods, were perceived by Western scholarship as ultra-conservative or worse, as a
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mob (Goldziher, op. cit.; Macdonald, op. cit.; Henri Lammens, L’islam: croyances et institutions, 1926; trans. E. Denison Ross, Islam: Beliefs and Institutions, 1968). An insufficient treatment of Hanbali manuscripts and an exclusive reliance on Ash^ari heresiography contributed to that unjustified image. The pioneering work of Henri Laoust (Essai sur les doctrines sociales et politiques de Taki-d-Din Ahmad b.Taimiya, 1939) has paved the way for researches on the Hanabila, revealing a theological system combining logical kalam argumentations with the traditional sources (George Makdisi, “Hanbalite Islam,” Merlin L. Swartz ed., Studies on Islam, 216–274, Daniel Gimaret, “Theories de l’acte humain dans l’école Hanbalite,” Bulletin d’Etudes Orientales 29 [1977]: 157–78; Binyamin Abrahamov, “Ibn Taymiyya on the Agreement of Reason with Tradition,” MW 82.3–4 [1992]: 256–73; Wesley Williams, “Aspects of the Creed of Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal: A Study of Anthropomorphism in Early Islamic Discourse,” IJMES 34 [2002]: 441–63; Jon Hoover, Ibn Taymiyya’s Theodicy of Perpetual Optimism, 2007). O. The Thought of Prominent Thinkers The most conspicuous developments in the field of Islamic theology are in reevaluation and reassessment of the thought of prominent theologians. It is far beyond the scope of this entry to introduce the entire research done on dozens of medieval Islamic theologians, and we shall have to do with three examples demonstrating the progress made in research with regard to the thought of prominent thinkers. Research on the Ash^ari theologian Abu al-Ma^ali al-Juwayni (d. 1085), known primarily as the teacher of Abu Hamid al-GhazalI (d. 1111), has progressed immensely with the publication of critical editions of his works (Abu al-Ma^ali al-JuwaynI, al-Irshad, trans. Jean-Dominique Luciani, 1938), translations (Léon Bercher, trans., Les Fondements du Fiqh, 1995; Paul Walker [trans.], A Guide to Conclusive Proofs for the Principles of Belief, 2000) and researches (Helmut Klopfer, Das Dogma des Imâm al-Haramain al-Djuwainî und sein Werk al-Aqîda al-nizâmîya, 1958; Tilman Nagel, Die Festung des Glaubens, 1988; Mohammed Moslem Adel Saflo, Al-Juwayni’s Thought and Methodology, 2000). These and other works established al-Juwayni’s unique contribution to the field of rational argumentations. In the case of Abu Hasan al-Ash^ari (d. 935), the eponym of the Ash^ari school of theology, whose works have been studied for more than a century (Wilhelm Spitta, Zur Geschichte Abu’l Hasan al-A ˇs^ari’s, 1876; Duncan Black Macdonald, Development of Muslim Theology, Jurisprudence and Constitutional Theory, 1903; Arthur Stanley Tritton, Muslim Theology, 1947; Louis Gardet and M. M. Anawati, Introduction à la théologie musulmane, 1948),
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the whole scope of his thought and its repercussions is far from being fully revealed (Binyamin Abrahamov, “A Re-examination of al-Ash^ari’s Theory of Kasb according to Kitab al-Luma^,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 1–2 [1989]: 210–21; Daniel Gimaret, La doctrine d’al-Ash^ari, 1990; Richard M. Frank, “Bodies and Atoms: the Ash^arite Analysis,” Islamic Theology and Philosophy, ed. Michael E. Marmura, 1984, 39–53, 287–293, just to mention a few. Al-Hasan al-Basri (d. 728), an ascetic whose views on free will were investigated at length (Hans Heinrich Schäder, “Hasan al-Basri- Studien zur Frühgeschichte des Islam,” Der Islam 14 [1925]: 1–75; Hellmut Ritter, “Studien zur Geschichte der islamischen Frömmigkeit: I. Hasan el-Basri,” Der Islam 21 [1933]: 1–83; Julian Obermann, “Political Theology in Early Islam: Hasan al-Basri’s Treatise on Qadar,” JAOS 55 [1935]: 138–62; Michael Schwarz, “The Letter of al-Hasan al-Basri,” Oriens 22 [1967]: 15–30), is considered to be a mile stone in Islamic theology, although the authenticity of teachings attributed to him has been questioned recently (Suleiman Ali Mourad, Early Islam between Myth and History: al-Hasan al-Basri and the Formation of his Legacy in Classical Islamic Scholarship, 2006). Select Bibliography Binyamin Abrahamov, Islamic Theology: Traditionalism and Rationalism (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998); Robert Caspar, Traité de théologie musulmane (Rome: PISAI, 1987), trans. Penelope Johnstone, A Historical Introduction to Islamic Theology (Rome: PISAI, 1998); Josef van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra: Eine Geschichte des religiösen Denkens im frühen Islam (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1991–1995); Livnat Holtzman, “kalam,” EJ, ed. Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik, 2nd ed., XI (2006), 729–31; Tilman Nagel, The History of Islamic Theology: From Muhammad to the Present [Geschichte der islamischen Theologie von Mohammed bis zur Gegenwart], trans. from German by Thomas Thornton, (Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2000 [Munich: C. H. Beck, 1994]); Gustav Pfannmüller, Handbuch der Islam-Literatur (Berlin and Leipzig: Walter de Gruyter, 1923); William Montgomery Watt, The Formative Period of Islamic Thought (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1973); Id., Islamic Philosophy and Theology (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1962); Harry Austryn Wolfson, The Philosophy of the Kalam (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976).
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Natural Sciences in the Islamic Context
Natural Sciences in the Islamic Context A. Introduction and Terminology Islamic civilization provides a rich field for the historian of science. History of Islamic science is a relatively young field, having developed only since World War II, with new discoveries being made regularly. Discussions of science in Islam in the past, and still to a certain extent within the generalist literature, have suffered from the shortcomings of the Orientalist paradigm, which holds as axiomatic the following: Islam is an inferior religion and culture to that of the Judaeo-Christian, and now secular West; and Islamic civilization was merely an intermediary between the classical Greeks and the Renaissance, then Enlightenment West. The consequences of this paradigm for scholarship are exemplified by the following untenable assertion that still appears, in one form or another, in the literature: science in Islam declined beginning in the 11th century and eventually died out, either due to the forces of religious conservatism, or to Mongol invasions, or both. The present historical outline, which re-addresses these and other conclusions, owes much to George Saliba (Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance, 2007), the most recent overall re-assessment of the subject. How to designate the science of Islamic civilization in English is a problem. The Arabic word for “science” ‘ilm means an intellectual discipline generally, much like German Wissenschaft. Several terms have been employed by scholars to designate the scientific tradition of Islamic civilization, among them: “Arabic science” and “Islamic science.” The former has the advantage of referring to the linguistic tradition, but which ignores important works written in Persian; the latter, preferred by the present author, emphasizes the dominant culture and civilization within which these scientific activities took place. B. Historical Outline An Islamic scientific tradition began during the period of the 7th-century conquests, as Muslims came into closer contact with Byzantium and Iran. The translation of the administrative apparatus from Greek and Persian into Arabic and the displacement of the former bureaucratic class, which began during the reign of caliph ‘Abd al-Malik (r. 685–705), precipitated social factors that drove the pursuit of science for centuries, and led to the epochal Graeco-Arabic translation movement of the early Abbasid period (Dimitri Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture, 1998; George Saliba, Islamic Science, 2007).
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The early Abbasid period (mid-8th to 10th c.) presented increased opportunities for scientists to be useful to the needs of society. The presence of three astrologers assisting in the founding of Baghdad (762 C.E.) attests to the existence of an established astronomical tradition by that time, as astrology required advanced technical ability in applied mathematical astronomy. Progress in the sciences was motivated by competition for positions at court. A climate of scrutiny was fostered, which encouraged scientists to be as precise as possible, and even affected translations into Arabic. For example, the translation of Ptolemy’s Almagest involved a critical reading and correction of the text, updating it to then current observations and methods, such as the substitution of the newly invented trigonometric functions for Ptolemy’s chord tables. The concentration of wealth in Baghdad and the motivation of the regime to possess the fruits of science and technology ensured the presence of the best scientists at the capital. Among them were the Banu Musa, three brothers (“Sons of Musa”), who used their positions and fortunes to advance the sciences, both through patronizing translations from accomplished translators such as Hunayn ibn Ishaq (d. 873), who commanded large fees, and through original research. By the mid-9th-century, Islamic scientists had attained a level of competence that enabled them to devise wholly new disciplines and sub-disciplines. Astronomers distanced themselves from the astrological aspects of their field, redefining the discipline as a purely descriptive science (‘ilm al-hay’a “the science of the configuration [of the heavenly bodies]”). Focusing on physical structure alone made the physical inconsistencies of the Ptolemaic system obvious, the solution of which became a major concern of Islamic astronomers for several centuries, described below. In mathematics, Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi (d. ca. 850) devised the science of algebra, which was advanced much farther by Ghiyath al-Din Jamshid ibn Mas’ud al-Kashi (d. 1429) and Omar Khayyam (d. 1131). The practical needs of navigation and religion, in determining prayer times and the direction of Mecca, led to the invention of spherical trigonometry. Astronomical instruments, such as the astrolabe, were developed. A portable analog computer containing a model of the heavens, the astrolabe was used for a variety of calculations, including timekeeping, astrological horoscopes, and the sighting of stars. Following a long period of critique, Islamic astronomy began to reach maturity in the late 13th century at the Maragha observatory in northwestern Iran. Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (d. 1274), Mu’ayyad al-Din al-‘Urdi (d.1266) and several other scientists revised planetary models in the course of their observations. The tradition of reform continued down well past the 15th century,
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and some of the mathematical models developed in this tradition by Ibn alShatir (d. 1375) and others found their way into the work of Nicholas Copernicus (d. 1543). Islamic physicians, though based in Greek medicine, made original contributions to medical thought, and exerted a formative influence on the European medical tradition. Greek humoral pathology in the Hippocratic and Galenic traditions became dominant, reaching its fullest expression in the Canon of Ibn Sina (Avicenna) (d. 1037). The Canon was attractive both to Islamic and Western medical scholars, because it presented essentially Galenic medicine in an easier to use format than that of the ancient Master. Although originating in Christendom, under Islam the hospital became a more sophisticated institution, a place of treatment of the sick and wounded, an asylum for the mentally ill, a hospice for the dying, and a facility for medical instruction. One of the most enduring examples was the Mansuri hospital of Cairo, established in 1284 and which functioned through the 19th century. The translations from Arabic to Latin were especially important for the creation of a medical curriculum in late medieval and Renaissance Europe. The major translation centers were in Salerno and Toledo. The Canon eventually became central to medical instruction in the Italian universities. Nancy Siraisi has shown that the Canon continued to be used in the Italian universities well after Greek medical texts had become available, and after the new medical discoveries as part of the scientific revolution (Avicenna in Renaissance Italy: The Canon and Medical Teaching in Italian Universities After 1500, 1987). In the earlier period of the Arabo-Latin translations (11th–12th c.), the Latin West benefited not only from Arabic versions of ancient Greek scientists and philosophers, but also directly from the translated contributions of scientists such as Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) (d. 1039) and Ibn Sina (d. 1037) and philosophers such as al-Ghazali (Algazel) (d. 1111) and Ibn Rushd (Averroës) (d. 1198). C. History of the Discipline The discipline of history was important to Muslim scholars from the early period of Islam, since they understood their civilization to be the heir to the empires of the ancient world and to their intellectual legacies, especially that of the Greeks. They further understood the Christian Greeks to be special rivals of Islam, since the still powerful Byzantine Empire was the greatest political and ideological obstacle for Islam. Therefore, the appropriation of Greek science was seen as a kind of victory for Islam, in particular since the Byzan-
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tines – then wracked by theological controversy and economic upheaval – had little interest in it (Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture, 1998). Although credit for the invention of history of science as a discipline is given to the modern West, scholars within Islam from early times recognized the epochal significance of their science, and attempted to account for it historically. The Islamic tradition of scholarship about its own science is rich and sophisticated, but has remained largely unknown to non-specialists. Beginning toward the end of the Graeco-Arabic translation period, when a scientific culture was already flourishing in Islam, works of intellectual biographies of prominent scientists and thinkers began to appear in Arabic. The development of this genre is related to that of the biographies used by the Traditionist scholars to verify reports about the Prophet for the use of jurists in applying Islamic Law. The Fihrist of Ibn al-Nadim (d. 995) toward the end of the translation era, and the ‘Uyun al-anba’ fi tabaqat al-atibba’ of Ibn Abi ‘Usaybi’a (d. 1269), well into the supposed era of decline, for example, were biographical encyclopedias of the intellectuals active in their eras, which provide modern scholars with rich insight into the development of scientific activity in Islam. The number of lives and works recorded shows that during the lifetimes of these authors there was already a critical mass of practicing scientists and physicians that they could write about. This fact is strong evidence in favor of the existence of a true scientific culture in Islamic civilization. An example of a mature Islamic historical self-consciousness is found in the works of Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406). In the introduction to his History, he outlines a sociological and economic approach to historical analysis (The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, trans. Franz Rosenthal, 1958). The work contains lengthy discussions of the sciences and their place within Islamic civilization, a fact that reflects the importance he placed on these activities, which he characterized as the epitome of the activities of civilized man, whom God has created and endowed with the gift of rational thought. The pseudo-sciences of astrology and alchemy he refutes, primarily because they are not open to public scrutiny. He understood that science can exist only in sedentary cultures, and that it is disrupted when urban centers have been disturbed by war or famine. Regarding the decline of science in the Islamic world, Ibn Khaldun observed that science had declined in some regions such as Baghdad, which he attributed to its destruction by the Mongols (1258). However, he left open the possibility that decline might occur at different times and for different reasons, suggesting that there was no uniform decline of science in Islamic civilization.
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D. Criticisms of Greek Science Scientific research in Islam was driven by a sophisticated historical consciousness, the product of a well-developed scientific tradition. This began as a critique of the Greek sciences and ultimately led to advances in the sciences far beyond the Greek legacy. The competitive climate of Baghdad encouraged this critical stance, as each scientist sought to outdo his rivals. In time, the critique became more clarified and precise, resulting in many new discoveries. In connection with the critique, there arose a genre called shukuk “doubts” (cf. dubitationes), that first appeared in the treatise Doubts about Galen, by Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi (Rhazes) (d. 925), in which he attacked Galen’s medical doctrines. The shukuk genre was a register of doubts and difficulties with scientific works of the past, which provided practicing scientists with a place to begin fresh approaches to old problems, without repeating the mistakes of their predecessors. This genre implies the existence of a continuous high-level scientific culture and tradition. In the astronomical tradition, about a century later, Abu ‘Ali al-Hasan ibn al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) (d. 1039) wrote his Doubts about Ptolemy, in which he catalogued all the elements of Ptolemaic astronomy that were physically inconsistent or impossible, among other aspects of Ptolemaic science. Ibn al-Haytham’s work led directly to the greatest reform of Ptolemaic astronomy, in the Maragha tradition, mentioned earlier. The tradition of criticism of Greek medicine has been less studied than astronomy, perhaps because it provides less clear-cut examples than the exact sciences. Nevertheless, there are scattered examples of observations by Islamic physicians that disagree with Galen’s doctrines. For example, ‘Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi (d. 1231), observing many human skeletons during a famine in 1200, failed to find the features of the lower jaw and sacrum bones that Galen had described. The Syrian physician Ibn al-Nafis (d. 1288) working in Cairo, failed to find the porosity of the cardiac septum described by Galen, through which the blood was supposed to pass from the venous to the arterial systems. He proposed instead the “pulmonary transit” whereby blood passes between systems via the lungs. It is too much to conclude, as some modern scholars have done, that this discovery is a direct precursor to William Harvey’s discovery of the circulation (1628) or to Michael Servetus’s earlier theological musings (1553) (Nancy Siraisi, Medieval & Early Renaissance Medicine: An Introduction to Knowledge and Practice, 1990, covers both Islamic and medieval European medical traditions. Peter E. Pormann and Emilie Savage-Smith, Medieval Islamic Medicine, 2007, is the most recent discussion of the Islamic medical tradition).
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E. Modern Scholarship Although Western scholars have been interested in Arabic scientific writings as part of their own research agendas, from the 11th century down through the Renaissance, a systematic effort to study the history of science in Islam per se did not begin until the 20th century. The pioneer researcher in the history of this subject was George Sarton (d. 1956), who was also the founder of the history of science in general as a modern academic discipline. Sarton made the scholarly world aware of the work of Arabic scientists, and he provided an initial rough chronology of the subject. Although Sarton’s monumental Introduction to the History of Science (1927–1948; 3 vols.) is, on the whole, an outdated survey, it facilitated many subsequent discoveries. History of Islamic science became a respected field in the post-WWII era through the researches of Edward S. Kennedy (Studies in the Islamic Exact Sciences, 1983), Abdelhamid I. Sabra (see below), David A. King (see below), Willy Hartner (Oriens-Occidens: Ausgewählte Schriften zur Wissenschafts- und Kulturgeschichte, 2 vols., 1968–1984), George Saliba, and others. For a broadranging survey of the various sub-fields of Islamic science, see Roshdi Rashed (Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science, 1996). The discipline began with a surprise: Edward S. Kennedy’s accidental discovery in the 1950’s of the debt of Copernicus to Islamic predecessors, as well as subsequent research by Hartner and others, awakened scholars to a wealth of new material in the period of the supposed “decline” of Islamic science, although their announcement was greeted in the West by some with hostility. The very idea that Copernicus might have derived a crucial idea from Islamic thinkers is rejected by many without giving the evidence a hearing. It is very likely that Byzantine émigré scholars in Italy who contributed to the Western Renaissance brought key ideas of Islamic science with them, including knowledge of Ibn al-Shatir’s work in astronomy, on which Copernicus’s astronomy is partly based. These Byzantine scholars, products of the Palaeologan Renaissance that was partly inspired by contacts with the Islamic world, most likely derived their knowledge of Islamic astronomy from men such as Gregory Chioniades (d. 1302), who traveled into Muslim lands to study astronomy, then returned and established an astronomical research center at Trebizond. David Pingree, Maria Mavroudi, and others have begun to investigate Islamic-Byzantine connections. (David Pingree, The Astronomical Works of Gregory Chioniades, 2 vols., 1985, 1986; Maria Mavroudi, A Byzantine Book on Dream Interpretation: The Oneirocriticon of Achmet and Its Arabic Sources, 2002). There are multiple facets to the history of Islamic science, and many of the founding scholars of the discipline are still living. Those active in the
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study of scientific instruments are mainly David A. King and his students, including François Charette and Benno van Dalen (François Charette, Mathematical Instrumentation in Fourteenth-Century Egypt and Syria: The Illustrated Treatise of Najm al-Din al-Misri, 2003; From China to Paris: 2000 Years Transmission of Mathematical Ideas, ed. Benno van Dalen, 2002). David King’s monumental two volume survey of Islamic scientific instruments has recently appeared (In Synchrony with the Heavens: Studies in Astronomical Timekeeping and Instrumentation in Medieval Islamic Civilization, 2005). Abdelhamid I. Sabra has written extensively about Islamic optics, as well as about science in Islam generally (The Optics of Ibn Al-Haytham: Books i-iii: On Direct Vision. 2 vols., trans. Abdelhamid I. Sabra, 1989). One of his students, F. Jamil Ragep, published an edition and study of the important Tadhkira of al-Tusi (Nasir al-Din al-Tusi’s Memoir on Astronomy (al-tadhkira fi ^ilm al-hay’a), 2 vols., 1993). Another, Elaheh Kheirandish, has published on the tradition of optics in Islam (The Arabic Version of Euclid’s Optics (Kitab Uqlidis fi Ikhtilaf al-Manazir), 2 vols., 1999). David Pingree made groundbreaking contributions to the study of Islamic astrology, and has shown important interconnections between Greek, Sasanian, Indian, Byzantine, and Arabic sources (“Indian Reception of Muslim Versions of Ptolemaic Astronomy,” in Ragep, ed., Tradition, Transmission, Transformation, 1996, 471–85). One of the pioneer historians of Islamic astronomy was Aydin Sayili, whose The Observatory in Islam: And Its Place in the General History of the Observatory (1960, rpt. 1981) is a classic in this field. George Saliba has devoted his career to the study of planetary theories in Islam, and the transmission of Islamic science to Europe (A History of Arabic Astronomy: Planetary Theories During the Golden Age of Islam, 1994). His students Ahmad Dallal and Robert G. Morrison have written about Islamic planetary theory, and the latter has also written about the connection between astronomy and religion (Ahmad S. Dallal An Islamic Response to Greek Astronomy, 1995; Robert G. Morrison, Islam and Science: The Intellectual Career of Nizam al-Din al-Nisaburi, 2007). Another student of Saliba’s (and of D. Gutas’s also), the author of the present article, is a Graeco-Arabist active in the study of the transmission of medicine and astronomy between the Greek and Arabic traditions (Glen M. Cooper, Galen’s Critical Days in the Graeco-Arabic Tradition, Ashgate, forthcoming). George Saliba’s major contribution has been to present a fresh scenario about the beginnings of science in Islam and its later transmission to the West, which can explain more than predecessor theories (Saliba, Islamic Science, 2007). One of George Saliba’s key insights is the role of the nonArabic-speaking diwan administrators, displaced after ‘Abd al-Malik’s re-
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forms, mentioned earlier, who sought to restore their lost positions by using their knowledge of the sciences along with their native fluencies in the older languages (Syriac and Persian) to acquire even greater competence in these sciences in order to make themselves indispensable to the government. Thus he has shown that scientific expertise became a means to powerful court positions, such as personal physician or astrologer to the caliph himself. Roshdi Rashed, J. Lennart Berggren, and Jan P. Hogendijk have published extensively and made important discoveries about Islamic mathematics. Sonja Brentjes has written about Euclid’s Elements in Islam (J. Lennart Berggren, Episodes in the Mathematics of Medieval Islam, 1986; Roshdi Rashed, Les mathématiques infinitésimales du IXe au XIe siècle, vol. V: Ibn al-Haytham: Astronomie, géométrie sphérique et trigonométri, 2006; Jan P. Hogendijk, Ibn al-Haytham’s Completion of the Conics, 1985. Sonja Brentjes, “An Exciting New Arabic Version of Euclid’s Elements: MS Mumbai, R.I.6,” Revue d’histoire des mathématiques 12, fascicule 2 (2006): 169–97). In Islamic medicine, there are several recent important studies. Nancy Siraisi has written about the influence of Islamic medicine in Europe in the late medieval and early Renaissance period (Nancy Siraisi, Medieval & Early Renaissance Medicine: An Introduction to Knowledge and Practice, 1990). A selection of this scholarship includes: Manfred Ullmann, Die Medizin im Islam, 1970; Gotthard Strohmaier, Von Demokrit bis Dante: Die Bewahrung antiken Erbes in der arabischen Kultur, 1996; Emilie Savage-Smith, “The Practice of Surgery in Islamic Lands: Myth and Reality,” The Year 1000: Medical Practice at the End of the First Millennium, ed. Peregrine Horden and Emilie Savage-Smith, 2000, 308–21; Michael Dols, Majnun: The Madman in Medieval Islamic Society, Oxford 1992; Françoise Micheau and Danielle Jacquart, La médecine arabe et l’Occident médiéval, 1990. Bernard R. Goldstein and Y. Tzvi Langermann have written about Islamic science in the Hebrew and Judaeo-Arabic tradition. Charles Burnett’s subjects deal with subjects that include astrology and the transmission of Islamic science into Latin. Juan Vernet, Julio Samsó, Merce Comes, and others have researched science in Islamic Spain. Donald R. Hill wrote a fundamental text on Islamic technology and engineering. S. Nomanul Haq has studied the alchemical tradition in Islam, especially the figure of Jabir ibn Hayyan (Geber). (Bernard R. Goldstein, The Astronomy of Levi ben Gerson (1288–1344), 1985; Y. Tzvi Langermann, The Jews and the Sciences in the Middle Ages, 1999; Charles Burnett, Scientific Weather Forecasting in the Middle Ages: The Writings of Al-Kindi (with Gerrit Bos), 2000; Juan Vernet, Historia de la ciencia española, 1975; Julio Samsó, Islamic Astronomy and Medieval Spain, 1994; Donald R. Hill, Islamic Science and Engineering, 1994;
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S. Nomanul Haq, Names, Natures, and Things: The Alchemist Jâbir ibn Hayyân and His Kitâb al-Ahjâr (Book of Stones), 1994). The Graeco-Arabic translations are being studied as an historical phenomenon (Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture, 1998), and in lexical detail (Gerhard Endress and Dimitri Gutas, A Greek and Arabic Lexicon (GALex): Materials for a Dictionary of the Mediaeval Translations from Greek into Arabic, 1992–present). One of Dimitri Gutas’s insights in these publications is a reassessment of the translation movement. His careful attention to the sources ruled out the special role that Western scholarship has often attributed to the caliph al-Ma’mun (r. 813–833 AD) such as single-handedly beginning the Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement and sponsoring science in response to a dream about Aristotle, or as part of his rationalist theological pet project, Mu‘tazilism. Furthermore, there are journals and a newsletter that publish research. For example, Michio Yano publishes a journal, SCIAMVS: Sources and Commentaries in Exact Sciences, that includes articles about the exact sciences. SUHAYL: Journal for the History of the Exact and Natural Sciences in Islamic Civilization is published by the University of Barcelona. F. Jamil and Sally Ragep maintain a bulletin (http://islamsci.mcgill.ca/) for the Commission on History of Science & Technology in Islamic Societies, part of the International Union of the History and Philosophy of Science, which provides a great service to the field, keeping scholars informed of conferences and research. Scholars publish in the following journals, among others: Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, Early Science and Medicine, Journal for the History of Arabic Science, and Journal for the History of Astronomy. F. Current Issues and Future Trends, Challenges Once the obstacle of the outmoded paradigm about the rise and decline of Islamic science has been superseded, the major challenge to scholarship in this subject is the inaccessibility of source texts. Primary sources were written in languages, such as Arabic, Persian, and Turkish, which, most still in manuscript form, are scattered in libraries and private collections all over Europe and the Muslim world. Finding aids, such as Fuat Sezgin (Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums, 1967–1984, 9 vols.), are a great help in locating extant manuscripts, but occasionally new manuscripts come to light and mistakes in existing catalogues are discovered, and there does not yet exist an effective way to share this information between scholars. Furthermore, the most useful of these, Sezgin’s, is rendered less useful in that it does not extend past 430 AH (1038–1039 C.E.). The decision to end there was perhaps influenced at the outset by the former paradigm of decline of Islamic science,
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which seems odd, for even Sarton much earlier was aware of significant scientific activity in the Islamic world during the period after this cutoff date, described above. However, by the time volume 6 appeared (1978), Sezgin had become aware of the creative science in the later period, of Maragha and the new planetary models. A new paradigm has appeared, arguing that scholars ought to view the sciences not by isolated language or culture, but in an entire region of sibling cultures, as part of an “Islamo-Christian” civilization (Richard W. Bulliet, The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization, 2004). The increasingly obsolete designation “Judaeo-Christian civilization,” although acknowledging the debt to Jewish civilization, inaccurately excludes Islam from the historical scenario. Bulliet’s useful paradigm enables one to understand the varied transformations of science in the greater Mediterranean region as part of a long intercultural tradition, with various collateral descendants – language, cultural, religious, and political differences notwithstanding. Earlier scholars, eager to find connections on the basis of superficial evidence, were hindered by what is now referred to as the “Myth of Gondeshapur” (Arabic: Jundaysabur). The narrative is as follows: Gondeshapur in southwest Iran had become an outpost of Hellenism, a haven for intellectual and religious refugees from the persecutions of Emperor Justinian (d. 565) and other Christian Roman emperors. There these intellectuals – so the narrative proceeds – established an academy of translation, hospitals, libraries, etc. The Abbasid caliph al-Ma’mun (d. 833) then engaged the services of one of the Syrian Bakhtishu^ family of physicians, who brought all of this knowledge and tradition to Baghdad, where the Hellenistic tradition then continued. This Western scholarly reconstruction was an attempt to account for the transmission, by providing a ready resource for the Graeco-Arabic translations. The problem with this account is that it is based on one late source; there is no other evidence except supposition. Another tendentious antiChristian account, by the philosopher al-Farabi (d. 950), tries to show how the sciences, persecuted by Christian empire, found a home and intellectual freedom only under Islam. The reality is somewhat more complex, and infinitely more interesting (Saliba, Islamic Science, 2007). G. Science and Religion Islamic civilization provides a rich source for the study of the relationship between science and religion in society. The usual Western view is that science and religion necessarily are in conflict, for which the notorious “Galileo affair” is cited as an example. Islamic civilization, on the other hand, offers many examples of non-antagonistic, even constructive relationships
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between scientists and the religious establishment. The old Western paradigm of Islamic science suggested that science had lost the battle against the religious forces, and eventually died out in Islam. While it is true that religion forced some Greek-derived disciplines such as astronomy to redefine themselves, more often scientists served religion, as for example religious scholars – many of the scientists were also legal scholars or theologians, or time-keepers of the mosque, a famous example being Ibn al-Shatir (d. 1375), of Damascus. And it is also clear that science never completely died out as claimed, and that there was a continuous, though perhaps uneven, tradition down well into Ottoman times. There have been a few recent studies of the connection between knowledge and religion in Islam, such as Morrison (Islam and Science: The Intellectual Career of Nizam al-Din al-Nisaburi, 2007). H. The End of the Sciences in Islam? A major question that has been asked by some scholars since the study of Islam began in earnest in the 19th century, and one that continues to be of interest to the public is this: If there were so many leading scientists in Islamic civilization during the “golden age” of Islamic civilization, and then science vanished – how and why did it disappear? The early Western orientalists proposed reasons for the failure of the Islamic world to sustain its lead in the sciences: Ernest Renan (1823–1892), Max Weber (1864–1920), Gustave E. von Grunebaum (1909–1972) advanced essentializing, reductive, or simply racist reasons for the ultimate failure of Islam to maintain its lead in science. More sophisticated (but still essentializing and reductive) scenarios have been advanced since, including: 1) the conflict between science and the religious establishment; 2) the negative influence of al-Ghazali’s (d. 1111) devastating attack on Greek thought; 3) the inherent inferiority of the Islamic religion; and, 4) the dominance of the non-rational aspects of Islam, etc. In the West, the trend has been (and still is to some degree) to apply methods and paradigms derived from the issues and particulars of Western society and its history to Islam (Michael Mitterauer, Warum Europa? Mittelalterliche Grundlagen eines Sonderwegs, 2003). The results have often been distortions, if not caricatures of their subject, for example, in the application of Weber’s theories to Islam. The Orientalist-inspired paradigm of decline has implications beyond the Western academy as well: some contemporary scholars from the Muslim world, having been educated in the West and having been imbued with the earlier distorting paradigms about science, have written about their native scientific traditions in the terms bequeathed them
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from the West. Careful attention to the scholarship of George Saliba (Islamic Science, 2007) and his colleagues can help to reverse this trend. There were, in fact, major changes in the Islamic world in the several centuries since the beginning of the supposed decline in the 11th century, and the period of these Orientalists in the 19th century. It has become increasingly known, beginning in the 1950’s through the pioneering work of Kennedy (Studies in the Islamic Exact Sciences) and others, that original science continued to be produced well into the 16th century, and probably beyond. Furthermore, many pre-colonial era Western scholars knew this to have been the case, since, due to the research of Saliba, it is now understood that several European thinkers were reading the works of Arabic scientists and philosophers well into the Renaissance and beyond, searching for useful material for their own research. They or their agents scoured the Middle East in search of scientific texts in which they expected to find material to assist them in their own scientific projects, not unlike the manner in which 9th-century Arabic translators sought out Greek texts (Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture, 1998). No less a figure than John Locke studied the works of Ibn Tufayl (d. 1185), and early aspects of his own epochal philosophy was formatively influenced thereby (Gül A. Russell, “The Impact of the Philosophus Autodidactus: Pocockes, John Locke and the Society of Friends,” The ‘Arabick’ Interest of the Natural Philosophers in Seventeenth-Century England, ed. G. A. Russell, 1994, 224–65. See also Gül A. Russell, The Mind as a ‘tabula rasa’: John Locke and the Arabic Philosophus Autodidactus, forthcoming). Furthermore, it is now better understood how the economics of a society are interconnected with the extent of scientific practice that a given society can support. Some reasons for the decline in Islamic science must be sought outside of that civilization, in the significant economic changes that have occurred in the West after the Renaissance – changes that dramatically altered the balance of technology, trade and intellectual exchanges between these societies. Two of the most important of these events – discussed by Saliba – were, first, the discovery of the New World and, next, the discovery of a direct water route to the actual Indies. The former produced, through the exploitation of human and natural resources, tremendous wealth in Europe that was used to drive a scientific and technological revolution. The latter adversely affected the economy of the Middle East, which had long benefited from overland trade along the Silk Route, and was now mostly cropped out of the picture. The history of science in Islam is an exciting young field, attracting talented scholars. There are formidable challenges as is the case with all new disciplines, but the field is wide and ripe for the scholarly harvest, provided
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one is equipped with the proper tools. This field forces scholars to jettison old and cherished stereotypes of European cultural (or racial) superiority or uniqueness. It forces all scholars to confront their own intellectual heritage in fresh ways that reveal the inter-cultural nature of the great scientific movements and discoveries of the past. Select Bibliography Dimitri Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early ‘Abbasid Society (2nd–4th/8th–10th Centuries) (London and New York: Routledge, 1998); Jan P. Hogendijk and Abdelhamid I. Sabra, ed., The Enterprise of Science in Islam: New Perspectives (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003); Tradition, Transmission, Transformation: Proceedings of Two Conferences on Pre-Modern Science Held at the University of Oklahoma, ed. F. Jamil Ragep, Sally P. Ragep, and Steven Livesey (Leiden: Brill, 1996); Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science, ed. Roshdi Rashed, 3 vols. (London and New York: Routledge, 1996); George Saliba, Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance (Cambridge, MA, and London: The MIT Press, 2007); Fuat Sezgin, Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums, 9 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1967–1984); Manfred Ullmann, Die Medizin im Islam, ed. B. Spuler, Handbuch der Orientalistik (Leiden and Cologne: E. J. Brill, 1970).
Glen M. Cooper
Qur’anic Studies A. Introduction Qur’anic Studies refers to the post-Enlightenment historical-critical study of the Qur’an qua text as well as, beginning in the mid-20th century, critical reflection upon the text’s relationship, meaning and possible significance to broader issues concerning Islamic history, historiography, the development of intellectual and religious traditions (especially law) in Islam’s formative period (7th through 9th centuries) and, with the contemporary postmodern turn in the humanities, its relevance for larger questions concerning the interpretation of issues related to what might properly be described as sociocultural history. After a brief terminological definition, this entry covers, in a necessarily broad manner, the history, development and major trends in this field from its inception in mid-19th-century Germany to the middle of the first decade of the 21st century, the latter of which has witnessed the publication of a work of major significance for Qur’anic Studies, the Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an
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(ed. Jane Dammen McAuliffe, 6 vols., 2001–2006; hereafter EQ). Given both its broad topical range and bibliographical thoroughness, it is with the EQ that any inquiry into the history of research in Qur’anic Studies should begin. As such, this entry assumes that it would be superfluous to reference other sources concerning the development of the field beyond the relevant entries in the EQ. B. The Qur’an The Qur’an, literally ‘recitation’, refers to the fixed, orally preserved, and written text understood by Muslims to be the ipsissima verba of God revealed piecemeal to the historical founder of Islam, Muhammad ibn ‘Abdullah (570–632), in and around the cities of Mecca and Medina (Yathrib) in the northwestern littoral of the Arabian peninsula from around 610 until shortly before his death in 632. Unarguably the preeminent unifying force among Muslims across time and space, both historically and phenomenologically speaking, the Qur’an has stood at the center of Islam as a religious system and, followed by the Hadith and various institutional, textual, and learned traditions associated with the activities of the corporate body of Muslim religious scholars, has served as the basic source and reference for matters of law and theology, of state and polity, of ritual, social, and cultural life in uniquely far-reaching and historically significant ways. Beyond the well-attested practice of memorization and oral transmission among Muhammad and his companions, although the Islamic sources admit traditions concerning the written transcription of portions of the Qur’anic text via dictation during his lifetime as well as the compilation of privately circulated codices shortly following his death, generally the Muslim tradition has maintained that the consonantal text of the Qur’an as known today was codified about two decades following the death of Muhammad during the latter half of the reign of the Caliph ‘Uthman (r. 644–56). Compiled in order to quell disputes over variant readings of the text which had broken out between various troop contingents stationed outside of the Arabian peninsula, along with the official promulgation of this new codex (copies of which were sent to the newly established Iraqi garrisons of Kufa and Basra as well as to Damascus with one copy being kept in Medina) the Caliph ordered all competing codices destroyed. While descriptions of competing redactions are preserved in classical Muslim Qur’anic scholarship, by both fact of history and force of convention any reference to the “Qur’an” is necessarily a reference to the ‘Uthmanic text, the textus receptus, ne varietur. Roughly about the length of the Greek New Testament, the Qur’an is organized into 114 sections or chapters (Ar. sura), each of which is further
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subdivided into a varying number of verses (Ar. aya), with the exception of the opening chapter the suras being arranged in more-or-less decreasing order of length. Cast in an elevated, rhymed Arabic prose, the Qur’an is not marked by a straightforward thematic or narrative arrangement, but rather weaves together eschatological monitions, theological pronouncements, terse narratives concerning previous prophets, words of consolation to Muhammad and his community, admonitions and polemics directed against their enemies and prescripts concerning moral, cultic and civil matters. Its substantive content mirrors themes found in the normative Biblical tradition and the apocryphal and midrashic writings of Judaism and Christianity as well as topics associated with the non-scriptural tribal religion(s) of preIslamic Arabia. Written in a considerably defective orthography, by the first half of the 10th century a standard number (seven, ten, or fourteen) of variant systems of reading came to be applied to the basic consonantal skeleton of the ‘Uthmanic text, one of which in particular, that of the Kufan scholar ‘Asim (d. ca. 744) as transmitted by his student Hafs (d. ca. 805–06), came to enjoy particular prestige (see further, Frederik Leehmuis, “Readings of the Qur’an,” EQ 4 [2004], 353–63). It is this reading which served as the basis for the so-called Egyptian Standard edition, or Royal Egyptian edition, of the Qur’an printed under the patronage of King Fuad I in 1923–1924, the edition which not only quickly became the standard for the overwhelming majority of printed Qur’ans in the modern Muslim world (a second, slightly amended edition appeared in 1952) but also, a few exceptions aside, within western scholarship where it came to supplant the edition prepared earlier by the German Arabist Gustav Flügel (Corani textus arabicus, 1834; rev. in 1841 and 1858). While discussed prior to the outbreak of the Second World War (on which see, Frederik Leehmuis, “Codices of the Qur’an,” EQ 1 [2001], 350) a critically edited text of the Qur’an has yet to be prepared, although scholarly resources exist to do so and steps have recently been taken to realize such a project (on which see, Andrew Rippen, “Tools for the Scholarly Study of the Qur’an,” EQ 5 [2005], 294–95). At present, nothing even remotely approaching a textus criticus of the likes of the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia or the Nestle-Alands’ Novum Testamentum Graece has been attempted for the Qur’an.
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C. Qur’anic Studies The origins of Qur’anic Studies as a distinct area of scholarship in Islamic studies (in which it has always played a significant role) is directly traceable to the researches of 19th-century continental Semitic philologists. Although emerging from the same milieu, however, in comparison to its sister field of Biblical criticism the disciple of Qur’anic Studies has developed at a considerably slower pace, being comparatively so tardigrade that even a brief account of developments in the field must take into account scholarship of a vintage normally baulked at in others. Although there are antecedents connected with the rise and development of Arabic studies in the major European universities during the 17th and 18th centuries (on which see Jane Dammen McAuliffe, “Preface,” EQ 1 [2001], vi–viii; and, Hartmut Bobzin, “Pre-1800 Preoccupations of Qur’anic Studies,” ibid. 4 [2004], 245–51), in large part both the methodological framework and much of the topical agenda of modern Qur’anic Studies were determined by the work of German scholars such as Abraham Geiger (Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthum aufgenommen, 1833; English trans. as Judaism and Islam, 1898), Gustav Weil (Historisch-kritische Einleitung in den Koran, 1844; id., Mohammed der Prophet, 1843) and, much more significantly, by the Semiticist Theodor Nöldeke in his still oft-referenced Geschichte des Qorans (1860), normally cited in its much belated 2nd edition rewritten and expanded by Freidrich Schwally in two volumes (1909, 1919), the second of which dealing mainly with questions concerning the collection of the Qur’an, to which was eventually added a third by Gotthelf Bergsträsser and Otto Pretzl (1938) which, among other things, takes up issues related to known variant readings of the Qur’anic text (rpt. 3 vols. in 1, 1961; hereafter GQ). It is in this body of work where many of the major topics of subsequent scholarship in Qur’anic Studies make their first systematic appearance, three areas receiving particular attention. First, questions regarding the structure and arrangement of the text in relation to its Sitz im Leben, meaning attempts to assign a probable chronology to the individual suras of the Qur’an based, in broad outline at least, on the biography of the Prophet as found in the classical Muslim sources. Second, a largely source-critical concern with the substantive content of the text in terms of its relation to larger religious patterns, trends, and traditions associated with the eastern Mediterranean oikumene on the eve of Islam and, more importantly, its position vis-à-vis the religious milieu of the Arabian peninsula in the late 6th and early 7th centuries. That is to say, an attempt to identify, uncover, or determine the probable sources, especially Jewish and Christian, for the Qur’an’s substantive content as well as the relationship of such content to the specifically Arabian
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milieu from which it emerged. Third, although less so than among future generations of scholars, there was a concern with questions pertaining to the redaction history of the text itself, something which was necessarily connected with a wider body of questions of interest to Comparative Semitics. In a sense, all of these concerns were firmly grounded in the methodological and interpretive strategies associated with higher criticism as applied to the Hebrew Bible. Although not always directly building upon the work of Abraham Geiger (d. 1874), Gustav Weil (d. 1889), or Theodor Nöldeke (d. 1930), a major concern in scholarship on the Qur’an in the latter 19th century concerned the vexed question of the chronology of individual suras. Among a range of solutions proposed, those of William Muir (The Life of Mahomet, 1858–1861; id., The Coran, its Composition and Teaching, 1878), Hubert Grimme (Mohammed, 1895) and Hartwig Hirschfeld (New Researches into the Composition and Exegesis of the Qoran, 1902) figured most prominently. Whereas Nöldeke, following Weil and in agreement with the traditional Muslim understanding of recognizing suras as either Meccan (610–622) or Medinan (622–632), had differentiated between three Meccan periods and one Medinan based primarily on style and content, Muir proposed a six-period solution, five Meccan and one Medinan, Grimme two Meccan and one Medinan based almost solely on doctrinal characteristics, and Hirschfeld a sequence based on the differences, in individual passages rather than suras, between what he identified as the six major rhetorical modes of Qur’anic discourse. Shortly following the initial publication of GQ, the English churchman J. M. Rodwell published a translation of the text in which he rearranged the suras largely according to the scheme of Nöldeke, while also speculating on the possibility of analyzing single passages chronologically over and against entire suras as the Qur’an’s basic chronological unit (The Koran, 1861; 2nd rev. ed., 1876). In most cases, such chronological reconstructions were based almost solely on stylistic and linguistic features while virtually ignoring the vast tradition of Muslim Qur’anic scholarship, something undoubtedly a result of both a simple lack of access to texts and the perceived irrelevance of such literature for establishing a fixed chronological order for the suras in any case. Although issues of chronology and textual integrity continued to be discussed, Qur’anic Studies in the first few decades of the 20th century was marked by a shift in focus to the interrelationship between linguistic and substantive aspects of the Qur’anic text. Here, questions concerning the specificities of Qur’anic vocabulary or the original language of the ‘Uthmanic codex were especially prominent. Although still very much rooted in
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the atomizing procedures of continental philology, the pioneering study of Charles C. Torrey on the Qur’anic use of commercial terminology and its relationship to the mercantile milieu of early 7th-century Mecca (The Commercial-Theological Terms in the Koran, 1892) and that of Arthur Jeffery on the non-Arabic vocabulary of the Qur’an and the significance of likely routes of transmission for understanding the text’s original Sitz im Leben (The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur’an, 1938; on which in general see, Andrew Rippen, “Foreign Vocabulary,” EQ 2 [2001], 226–37) are representative of this trend. As evinced by Martin R. Zammit’s recent work on lexical interrelationships between Qur’anic vocabulary and a number of geo-historically proximate Semitic languages (A Comparative Lexical Study of Qur’anic Arabic, 2002), however, many of the conclusions of scholars working at this time do not stand up to contemporary standards of linguistic theory. Much the same can be said regarding research on the language of the Qur’an. From the confessional perspective of classical Muslim exegetes, the Arabic of the Qur’an was understood to have been that of Muhammad himself, meaning the regional dialect of the Hejaz, or more specifically the tribal dialect of the Quraysh. This description has been challenged by western Arabists in a rather vigorous debate initiated by Karl Vollers in his seminal Volkssprache und Schriftsprache im alten Arabien (1906) in which he argued that the Qur’an was initially promulgated, orally, in a non-inflected colloquial Arabic, whereas the ‘Uthmanic text was the product of the efforts of later Muslim philologists to make it conform to the language used by the ancient Arab poets which, quite unlike the common language, was a poetic koinè distinguished from the vernacular by its use of a full system of grammatical inflection (Ar. i‘rab). Few exceptions aside, recent research has seemed to settle upon the idea that the original language of the Qur’an as preserved in the ‘Uthmanic recension is indeed reflective of an intra-tribal poetic koinè, although bearing traces of the dialect associated with Mecca, but Vollers’s model of a diaglossic linguistic situation in pre-Islamic Arabia has largely been replaced with a polyglossic model based, in part at least, on both the ever increasing availability of data in Arabic studies as well as substantial theoretical advances made in the field of sociolinguistics in general (see further, Claude Gilliot and Pierre Larcher, “Language and Style of the Qur’an,” EQ 3 [2003], 109–35). Alongside this linguistic turn, Qur’anic Studies at this time witnessed what Marco Schöller rightly characterized as “the true novelty of early twentieth-century scholarship on the Qur’an … research into the supposed Jewish or Christian roots of early Islam” (“Post-Enlightenment Academic Study of the Qur’an,” EQ 4 [2004], 194). Following the lead of earlier works
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such as those of Abraham Geiger or Hartwig Hirschfeld (esp. the latter’s Jüdische Elemente im Korân, 1878) of tracing Biblical, Talmudic, and Midrashic parallels in the Qur’an, scholars such as Wilhelm Rudolph (Die Abhängigkeit des Korans von Judentum und Christentum, 1922), the aforementioned Charles C. Torrey (The Jewish Foundation of Islam, 1933), Heinrich Speyer (Die biblischen Erzählungen im Qoran, 1931), and Richard Bell (The Origins of Islam in Its Christian Environment, 1926) framed a field of inquiry which, in its attempt to trace and situate a larger range of Jewish and Christian elements in the Qur’anic text, has continued, with different foci, unabated from the post-war era of the 1950s – in the case of, for example, the work of Denise Masson (Le Coran et la révélation judéo-chrétienne: études comparées, 2 vols., 1958; 2nd rev. ed. as Monothéisme coranique et monothéisme biblique: Doctrines comparées, 1975) – up to present such as in the recent collective volume Bible and Qur’an: Essays in Scriptural Intertextuality (ed. John Reeves, 2004). While certainly informed by both theoretical and interpretive shifts characteristic of the post-war western academic study of religion in general, in large part the difference between pre- and post-war scholarship in this area of Qur’anic Studies is the general recognition of the historical complexity of the range of borrowings and intersections between Jewish, Christian and other socio-religious or sectarian trends and currents converging in, on, or around the immediate historical context of the Arabian peninsula in the late 6th and early 7th century. The essays in the aforementioned Bible and Qur’an are particularly instructive in this regard. At the same time, issues of chronology continued to be treated during the first part of the 20th century as well, especially in the case of what turned out to be the most elaborate effort to date in reconstructing the Qur’anic text on the basis of its chronology, that of the Scottish Arabist Richard Bell in his The Qur’an, Translated with a Critical Rearrangement of the Surahs (2 vols., 1937, 1939). Based on an elaborate hypothesis which posited that the text was the result of a complex, and by no means transparent, process of redaction in which individual suras were collated with one another in such a manner that the individual leaves or sheets on which they were actually written, in some cases both recto and verso, came to be confused and intermixed in such a way that parts of one sura were mistakenly inserted into another, Bell “critically rearranged” individual suras into short passages, verse groupings, or single pericopes. Based on an elaborate three-phase hypothesis of the development of the Qur’an from simple homiletic elocutions to a book proper, the main novelty was its positing that the final ‘Uthmanic textus receptus was redacted solely from written documents. Further notes and explanations on Bell’s work have recently been made available in the posthumously published
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A Commentary on the Qur’an culled from materials left in his estate (ed. C. Edmund Bosworth and M.E.J. Richardson, 2 vols., 1991), although the publication of these notes have garnered little notice because of the generally dismissive view taken of Bell’s hyper-atomistic theories (on this, see Andrew Rippen, “Reading the Qur’an with Richard Bell,” JAOS 112.4 [1992]: 639–47). It should be noted that Bell went far beyond the mere chronological rearrangement of his predecessors in that his aim was ultimately that of textual emendation, something which the American Arabist James Bellamy dealt with beginning in the 1970s in a series of seminal studies which propose emendations to difficult passages in either the ‘Uthmanic text or to its pointing based on the identification of likely scribal errors (see id., “Textual Criticism,” EQ 5 [2005], 237–52). Qur’anic Studies in the latter half of the 20th century was marked by a number of significant developments which, while never wholly displacing the basic concerns of the foundational scholarship of the 19th century, witnessed the emergence of new methodologies and areas of inquiry which would set a much expanded agenda for the discipline over the rest of the century. First, it should be noted that the post-war period witnessed a certain type of stocktaking in the form of the publication of a number of monographic attempts to synthesize the state of the western academic study of the Qur’an, in particular Arthur Jeffery’s The Qur’an as Scripture (1952), Richard Bell’s Introduction to the Qur’an (1953; rev. William Montgomery Watt, 1970), and, of greater significance, the substantial introduction of Régis Blachère to his French translation of the Qur’an (Le Coran, 3 vols., 1947–1949), later published separately in a slightly updated 2nd edition (Introduction au Coran, 1959). In addition to these works, a synthesis, and vast contribution to previous scholarship is also to be found in Rudi Paret’s pioneering German translation of the Qur’an (Der Koran, 1962–1966) which, when coupled with his extremely valuable addenda parenthetically inserted into the translation, along with his Kommentar und Konkordanz (1971; 2nd rev. ed., 1982) is commonly acknowledged to be a major monument of 20th-century Western scholarship on the Qur’an. Despite their individual shortcomings, each of these works has typically been considered (alongside Nöldeke’s revised and expanded GQ) essential for those working in the field, and no serious student of the Qur’an is without them. It remains to be seen, however, how the publication of the EQ might effect scholarly perception and use of these materials, especially on account of the sheer scope of its collective bibliographical apparatus. Second, the post-war period witnessed a flurry of activity related to issues and concerns that, either directly or indirectly, resonated with larger
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methodological and interpretive trends associated with the burgeoning discipline of Religionswissenschaft (History of Religions / Comparative Religion). As a discrete, yet topically diffuse, Euro-American scholarly enterprise which looked kindly upon the generation of comparative data, it was in such a context where the mid-20th century interest in the theological and ethical content of the Qur’anic text is best situated, especially as preserved in the works of scholars such as Thomas O’Shaughnessy (The Koranic Concept of the Word of God, 1948), M. A. Draz (La Morale du Koran, 1951), or Daud Rahbar (God of Justice, 1960). At the same time, this period also witnessed the publication of the pioneering researches of the Japanese polymath, and scholar of Comparative Religion, Toshihiko Izutsu on the semantic world of the Qur’anic text, namely his The Structure of Ethical Terms in the Koran (1959; later rewritten as Ethico-Religious Concepts in the Qur’an, 1966) and God and Man in the Koran (1964). In treating the Qur’anic text semantically rather than through the largely non-contextual assumptions framing the traditional historicocritical philological approach, Izutsu’s work inaugurated a new chapter in the field, and has influenced the research of no small number of scholars of Qur’anic Studies in the latter part of the 20th century. Such influence can be seen, for example, in the equally pioneering work of Angelika Neuwirth (Studien zur Komposition der mekkanischen Suren, 1981; résumé in ead., “Form and Structure of the Qur’an,” EQ 2 [2002], 245–66) whose careful microstructural analysis of relations between elemental verse groups of the Meccan suras (following the chronology proposed in GQ) finds the text to be originally liturgical or oral in nature, or, with a shift in emphasis, in that of Daniel Madigan (The Qur’an’s Self-Image: Writing and Authority in Islam’s Scripture, 2001) wherein Qur’anic notions of the significance of the “book,” or lack thereof, and the idea of revelation are explored through a painstaking semantic analysis which in the end argues for a much less significant role given to writing in the Qur’an than previously thought, something which challenges the idea of the Qur’an as a text which initially identified itself as a scripture in the sense of the Torah or the Gospels. Third, in contradistinction to the penchant of 19th- and early 20th-century scholarship in Qur’anic Studies to ignore the vast body of traditional Muslim exegetical literature, in the early 1970s a number of scholars began to re-evaluate the relationship between the critical study of the text and the critical study of its confessional exegesis. In many ways, this linking parallels scholarship done in Islamic studies concerning the development of Islamic jurisprudence wherein both text and the dynamics of communal constitution are seen to exist in an historically complex interrelationship which inevitably calls into question received notions regarding the historical devel-
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opment of basic Islamic institutions during its first two centuries, something expressed nowadays in the lively debate on “Islamic origins” (on which, see Method and Theory in the Study of Islamic Origins, ed. Herbert Berg, 2002). As applied to Qur’anic Studies, two works, both published in 1977 (as was the classic work in the “Islamic origins” debate, Patricia Crone and Michael Cook’s controversial Hagarism), stand out as seminal: John Wansbrough’s Quranic Studies: Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation and John Burton’s The Collection of the Qur’an, especially since they reach diametrically opposing conclusions. Both, however, do so through questioning the historicity of traditional accounts largely accepted as accurate since the time of Nöldeke concerning the origin(s) of the ‘Uthmanic text. Employing a methodology which in Biblical criticism would be called form-criticism (Formgeschichte), for Wansbrough the Qur’anic canon emerged very late (i.e., at the end of the 8th and into the 9th century) simply because the need for it also emerged late. In essence, he saw the text as the organic result of a juridical and polemical need for an authoritative scripture which, in a highly charged sectarian context, was addressed by the production of a text collected out of a mass of previously independent Near Eastern prophetic logia and other materials which had been circulating among various proto-Muslim communities for some time later blended together, as was the “salvation history” (Heilsgeschichte) of the traditional biography (sira) of the Prophet, in the context of sectarian monotheistic polemic in Iraq so as to legitimate Arab political domination throughout the region (résumé in Charles Adams, “Reflections on the Work of John Wansbrough,” MTSR 9.1 [1997]: 75–89). It should be noted that in his work, Wansbrough was careful to state that his reconstructions were little more than working hypotheses, and that he saw many of the same processes at play in the genesis of both Christianity and rabbinic Judaism. For his part, Burton argued for the existence of a fixed canon at a much earlier date: at the time of Muhammad’s death, interpreting traditions concerning the production of an ‘Uthmanic recension as a device invented by later Muslim jurists to ground their own positions, often in variance with the apparent rulings contained in the ‘Uthmanic text, in the authority of the Qur’an through anachronistically projecting support for the critical juridical doctrine of abrogation (Ar. naskh; in this case the doctrine of naskh al-tilawa duna ’l-hukm, “deletion of a [Qur’anic] verse without the abrogation of its legal status” as related to both the circulation of varying codices and the prophetic sanction of variant readings) back into an invented past when, in fact, the Qur’an had already been codified by the Prophet himself, something which would, of course, militate against the acceptability of the doctrine of abrogation in the first
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place (résumé in John Burton, “The Collection of the Qur’an,” EQ 1 [2001], 351–61). D. Recent Developments In addition to the stimulating effect which the revisionist theories of Wansbrough and Burton have had on the continued development of Qur’anic Studies from the late 1970s to the present, new questions have also established themselves as significant research trajectories in the field at the beginning of the 21st century. Although much of this work has focused on issues related to the significance of the Qur’an in Muslim life and thought in modern and contemporary contexts, such as ethnographical studies on the cultural and religious significance of socially regulated systems of Qur’anic recitation in modern Muslim societies (e.g., Kristina Nelson, The Art of Reciting the Qur’an, 1st ed.,1985, 2nd rev. ed., 2002; or, Anna Gade, Perfection Makes Practice: Learning, Emotion, and the Recited Qur’an in Indonesia, 2004), within the ambient of medieval studies a similar shift to what would be called in the context of Biblical studies reader-response criticism (Rezeptionsästhetik) has emerged as a promising area of research. The work of the American scholar of Islam William Graham (Beyond the Written Word: Oral Aspects of Scripture in the History of Religion, 1987) and, more forthrightly, that of the Iranian-German scholar Navid Kermani (Gott ist schön: Das ästhetische Erleben des Koran, 1999) are excellent examples of what is clearly a reaction against the traditional historical-philological approach dominant in much previous scholarship. Working from the perspective of reception history, Kermani’s research in particular demonstrates that, historically speaking, the significance of the Qur’an has been primarily rooted in its status as a pre-eminently oral/aural phenomenon, its historical import laying not in the midst of its reputed origins, but rather in the ways in which its origins have been imagined in the context of the collective Muslim “cultural memory” (das kulturelle Gedächtnis). He argues that this should be the primary object of scholarly inquiry on the Qur’an and not, as the late Canadian scholar of Islam Wilfred Cantwell Smith himself argued nearly twenty years earlier, the scripture’s origins in the positivistic sense (“The True Meaning of Scripture: An Empirical Historian’s Nonreductionist Interpretation of the Qur’an,” IJMES 11.4 [July, 1980]: 487–505). In many ways, this new direction in Qur’anic Studies has been inspired by a wider postmodern dismissal of the monologic search for meaning or coherence as a meaningless endeavor in and of itself. It should be noted, however, that at the same time concerns of earlier generations of scholars over basic source-critical issues do still make an ap-
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pearance in the field, although in no small number of cases such work seems to be irretrievably situated in an overtly polemical context tied to larger geopolitical dynamics characteristic of the late 20th century. The recent study of a comparative Semiticist writing under the name of Christoph Luxenberg (Die syro-aramäische Lesart des Koran: Ein Beitrag zur Entschlüsselung der Koransprache, 2000) is perhaps the best example. While the issue of Syriac borrowings have long been discussed in literature, Luxenberg, following in the spirit of the earlier polemical work of the German Protestant theologian Günter Lüling (Über den Ur-Qur’an: Ansätze zur Rekonstruktion vorislamischer christlicher Strophenlieder im Qur’an, 1974; English trans. A Challenge to Islam for Reformation, 2003) attempts to emend difficult passages in the ‘Uthmanic text by positing an original Syro-Aramaic-Arabic “Urtext” which he hypothesizes emerged in the linguistic and religious context of an originally Aramaized Christian settlement (Mecca) whose Syro-Aramaic liturgical book (later the ‘Qur’an’ proper) was at some point recast into a particular form of the Arabic language so as to be comprehensible to the Arabs who, for reasons unclear, became heirs to a developing tradition which would eventually configure itself into Islam proper. Among scholars working in the field, Luxenberg’s work has met with a mixed reception, from cautious support of his overall methodology (e.g., Claude Gillot and Pierre Larcher, op. cit., 130–32) to charges of outright dilettantism (e.g., François de Blois, “Review of Die syro-aramäische Lesart des Koran,” JQS 5.1 [2003]: 92–97; cf. Marco Schöller, op. cit., 201–02). As the field looks into the future, there is little doubt that the publication of the EQ, described by its general editor as the result of both “the desire to take stock of the field of Qur’anic Studies at the turn of the century and an interest in seeing this field flourish in the new millennium” (Jane Dammen McAuliffe, op. cit., ix), will serve as a major impetus for continued developments. In addition, the establishment in 1999 of the first journal dedicated solely to Qur’anic Studies, the Journal of Qur’anic Studies (JQS) will undoubtedly contribute to this task as well. With its editorial office housed at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and under the general editorship of the Cambridge trained Egyptian scholar of the Qur’an M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, JQS not only simultaneously publishes academic research on the Qur’an in English and Arabic by both non-Muslim and Muslim scholars, but has also been associated with sponsoring a number of international academic conferences devoted to furthering the field. Taken together, both the EQ and JQS well capture the emerging dynamics of Qur’anic Studies as it begins to define, or perhaps redefine, itself at the beginning of the 21st century.
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Select Bibliography The bibliographical reach of individual entries of the EQ as a whole both encompasses and supersedes all previous summaries of the history and development of Qur’anic Studies. Although the relevant entries have been cited above, special attention should be given to Marco Schöller, “Post-Enlightenment Academic Study of the Qur’an,” EQ 4 (2004), 188–208.
Erik S. Ohlander
Shi ism A. Definition Shi ^ism represents the numerically most relevant minority of Islam, generally distinct from Sunni Islam for its stress on the legitimacy of the succession of the members of the family (ahl al-bayt) of the Prophet Muhammad at the head of the Muslim state after his death. Presently no precise statistics are available, but according to most reliable sources Shi^a Muslims should range from 10 to 15 % of the whole world Muslim population. While a detailed definition of Shi ^ism through history is above the scope of the present article, some important points need to be stressed on. The name is the ellyptical form of shi ^a ^Ali, that is the group of supporters of ^Ali b. Abi Talib (d. 662), whose claims to the right of being the only legitimate Caliph after Prophet Muhammad were staunchly opposed by the Meccan traditional ruling elite. As pointed out by Jafri (Origins and Early Development of Shi ^ism, 1979), Muhammad was linked to the most prominent sacerdotal family of Mecca, the clan of the Hashimites, or Banu Hashim, and according to the pre-Islamic custom in fact of political authority, the leadership had to remain in that line. As head of the Hashimites was generally recognized ‘Ali, on the grounds of his kinship with the Prophet, his marriage to Fatima and his undisputed religious knowledge and ascetic spirituality. Nonetheless, a (later disputed) election established Abu Bakr (d. 634) as leader of the newborn community, and the close associates of ‘Ali followed him in refusing to pledge allegiance to the first Caliph. ‘Ali was not the only member of the Hashimite family to be given preference, but his standing as the closest associate of Muhammad was supported by a number of testimonies and eventually led to a wider recognition during the first years of Umayyad rule.
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Soon the majority of the legitimist opposition to the rule of the Banu Umayya, whose centers were Medina and even more the new city of Kufa, shifted its stress from the Hashimites to the ‘Alid line of the family, through Hasan b. ‘Ali and his brother Husyan. The latter, slaughtered along with some eighty supporters in the plan of Karbala by a vanguard of the army of Yazid b. Mu‘#awiy ya, second Umayyad ruler then based in Damascus, on 680 a.D. had to become the main charachter in the tragedy that soon turned into one of the most powerful foundative metaphor of the Shi ^ite ethos. Messianic and chiliaistic doctrines that had always accompanied ‘Ali’s feelings passed through the decades on the religious line of the lineage of Husayn, up to his 9th successor in the time of the early ‘Abbasid rule, Hasan al-‘Askari, later recognized as the 11th Imam, who gave birth to the 12th and last Imam recognized by the principal branch of the Shi ^as, later to become the so called “twelver Shi ^is”. According to their doctrine, the 12th Imam known as the mahdi (“right guided”) never died and entered a state of occultation in the year 940, to come back only at the end of times to deliver universal justice to the whole world. Around the theme of the absence of the Imam, twelver Shi ^as had developed along centuries a rich philosophy, a subtle theology and a complex, yet not univoque, system of political thought. While the first culminated in the 17th century with the influential summa of the Persian philosopher Sadr al-Din Shirazi (d. 1640), which synthesized the ishraqi philosopy of Suhrawardi and the visionary neoplatonism of Ibn Sina (Avicenna), and the second was a substantial re-arrangement of Mu ^tazilite rationalist kalam in Imami terms, the latter – after some four centuries of travail – brought to the endorsement of the theory of the Islamic State, worked out in practice by Imam Khomeini’s principle of the government of the Islamic jurisprudence scholar (Wilayat al-Faqih). The elementary articles of faith based upon the belief in five “pillars” (arkan al-din) – that is oneness of God (tawhid), Justice of god (^adala), prophecy (nubuwwa), imamate (imama), and judgment (qiyama) –, though not incorrect in principle, must be considered a later development, stressed on as a consequence of confrontation with the Sunni’s “five pillars.” This codification in any case does not date back to the time of the Imams. Shi ^ism itself is divided into branches, following the recognition of the authority of one or another of the Imam of ^Ali’s lineage, the most importants of which nowadays are Ismailis, Zaydis, and Alawites (the latters being recently absorbed, at least as to what concerns official juridic recognition, into the mainstream of Imami twelver Shi ^ism), who maintain the bulk of their followers respectively in the Indian subcontinent, Yemen, and the costal areas between Syria and Turkey. Detailed account of history and doctrines of
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the sects mentioned and of the others either numerically esigue or disappeared along centuries, falls beyond the scope of this introductory outlook, but the interested reader may begin looking the the relevant entries in EI2, EIr, and the works mentioned above. Needless to say, Shi ^ites did not escape the broadening of geographical landscape that interested, at the end of 20th century, all the traditional religious and cultural groups, this being a major epistemological turn in the definition of the object of Islamic studies, that today must relocate their focus both on Muslim countries and diasporic cultures. B. History of Research The history of the study of Shi ^ism suffered the fate of being approached as a matter merely tangential to that of mainstream Sunni Islam. The scarce accessibility of primary sources that affeced research up to the second half of the 20th century has certainly contributed to the backwardness of academic awareness on history and doctrine of Shi ^ism; nevertheless, Sunni prejudice – vehiculated by eresiographers such as al-Baghdadi, Ibn Hazm, and alShahrastani – by the means of wich most scholars of Islamic studies approached the theme, had been central to their understanding of that important branch of Islam, and must not be downplayed. Accordingly, many early scholarly overviews have been made either taking into account biased sectarian perspectives or considering Shi ^ism as a minor chapter in the history of Islam, also given the difficulties faced by scholars wishing to obtain Shi ^i manuscripts in Sunni countries. Thus the picture of Shi ^ism that has emerged is one of a political and economic-based movement degenerated into a religious millenaristic heresy. In the Middle Ages, scanty information on Shi ^ism, particularly gathered in encounters with Fatimid Ismailis, were provided by Crusader writers such as William of Tyre and Jaques de Vitry (see Etan Kohlberg, “Western Studies of Shi#a Islam,” Shi#ism, Resistance and Revolution, ed. Martin Kramer, 1987, 31–44,), but were marred by prejudice and distortion. After the Crusades, Shi ^ism remained largely unknown in Western academic circles. Even after the establishment of the Safavid empire, in the 17th century, those European Islamicists who engaged in the study of Arabic as an extension of the study of Hebrew and theology, paid no or little attention to the accounts of diplomats, missionaries and merchants based in Imamite Persia. An exception can be found in the well-informed and somehow pre-postmodern writings of the eclectic diplomat Joseph Arthur comte de Gobineau, whose Trois ans en Asie (1859), Religions et philosophies de l’Asie centrale
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(1865), and Histoire des Perses (1896) proved to be rather impartial accounts about Iranian Shi ^ism, quite an oddity for his times. Pioneering academic undertakings and publications devoted to Shi ^ism, such as Garcin de Tassy’s edition and translation of a “Shi ^i” chapter of the Qur#an (1842), Ignaz Goldziher’s Beiträge zur Literaturgeschichte der Shi#a und der sunnitischen Polemik (1874), G. Browne’s relevant chapters in A Literary History of Persia (published in 1969), and Dwight M. Donaldson’s The Shi#te Religion (1933), must be evaluated considering their over-dependence on polemical works (whose echoes continue affecting scholarship even in later literature). The only works comparable to that of Goldziher for the brand of robust scholarship are those authored by the German scholar Rudolph Strothmann, among whose writings, the book Die Zwölfer-Schi#a (1926), and several entries for the first edition of the Encyclopédie de l’Islam, provide excellent samples of early scholarship on Imamism, Zaydism and Ismailism. One major turning point in the availability of primary sources, both for Western and native academics of Shi ^ism, has been the publication between 1934 and 1978 of the most comprehensive list of writings by Imami religious scholars, collected in 25 colossal volumes by Aqa Buzurg Tihrani (Al-dhari ^a ila tasanif al-shi ^a, 1353–1398). Anyhow, an even superficial overview of the first volume of Parson’s Index Islamicus, the main bibliographical index for Islamic studies, covering the years 1906–1955, can give an idea of the paucity of works dedicated to the matter. The key character in the passage from the first Orientalist and Sunnioriented scholarship on Shi ^ism to a more aware and informed research has been the French scholar Louis Massignon. Serving as military officer in Iraq and thereby providing an unusual and pioneering critique of the then dominating Orientalist discourse, Massignon contributed to the development of the study of Shi ^ism by first outlining important aspects of the mystical-oriented ethos of Shi ^ism (see Opera Minora, vol. 1, articles: “Die Ursprünge und die Bedeutung des Gnostizismus im Islam;” “Der gnostische Kult der Fatima im Shiitischen Islam;” “La Mubahala de Médine et l’hyperdulie de Fatima;” “La notion du voeu et la dévotion musulmane à Fatima,” 1963), and – not less relevant – by tutoring Corbin’s first steps in the world of ithna ^ashariyya (“Twelver”) mysticism. A pupil of Etienne Gilson and Jean Baruzi, Heideggerian philosopher Henry Corbin, once having been in touch with Iranian Shi ^ism at the Sorbonne as a young phenomenologist, then with first-hand sources in Istanbul while working at the local French Institute, and finally in Tehran as the director of the French Institute of Iranian Studies and founder of the series Bibliothèque iranienne, never abandoned
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his spiritual and scholarly attachment to Iran and Shi ^ism, devotedly collecting, editing, and translating some of the most important works of Shi ^ite theology, philosopy, and gnsosis (^irfan). By the time Henry Corbin was completing his monumental magnum opus about Iranian Islam, devoting volumes I and II of En Islam iranien: Aspects spirituels et philosophiques (1971–1972) respectively to twelver Shi ^ism and to the Esfahan’s and Shaykhi’s schools of thought, social protest against the despotic rule of the Shah Reza Pahlavi, led by the clergy of Qom, was erupting in the streets of Tehran, and eventually ended in the last revolution of the 20th century. The religious nature of the new political order drew international attention to Shi ^ism, and prompted an unprecedented impetus for examination of the phenomenon by Western scholars, whose interest in political science, sociology and anthropology of Iranian Shi ^ism was paralleled by a corresponding resurgence in religious studies. C. Articulation and Main Issues The history of the study of Shi ^ism might be functionally divided in the two broad categories of religion and social sciences. The first is referred to the scholarly tradition that may be considered heir to the lineage of classical Oriental studies, yet taking into account a great deal of internal differentiation and the introduction of the critique of orientalist discourse, which is commonplace after the publication of Edward W. Said’s momentous Orientalism in 1978. The second, different in scope, methodologies, and foci, encompasses those works whose concern have more to do with contemporary problems enacted in social and cultural practices than with hair-splitting philological and textual matters. The two approaches are getting more and more overlapping and interrelated, so that it is not unusual for authors to shift from one to the other with ease. Therefore, this diadic conceptual structure has to be considered functional and fuzzy. The above-mentioned 1874 study of Ignaz Goldziher was not followed by a corresponding flow of studies on Shi ^ism, and up to the publication of En islam iranien, research about Shi ^ism was desultory and intermittent both diachronically and synchronically. Nonetheless, a number of landmark works were produced in different research centers around the world, are worth being mentioned. Italian historians Sabino Moscati (“Per una storia dell’antica Shi#a,” 1955, 251–67) and Laura Veccia Vaglieri (“Sul ‘Nahj al-balagha’ e il suo compilatore ash-Sharif ar-Radi,” 1958, 1–46) provided informed contributions on various aspects of early Shi ^ism. Most studies on Shi ^ism were, however, carried out by mainstream islamologists working on the history of early Islam, such as in the case of the articles of
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W. Montgomery Watt (among which “Shi ^ism under the Umayyads,” 1960, 158–62; “The Rafidites: A Preliminary Study,” 1970, 110–21), and worldacclaimed historian Marshall G. S. Hodgson (“How Did the Early Shi ^a Become Sectarian?,” 1955, 1–13); one exception may perhaps be found in the seminal works of one of the pupils of the renowned Islamicist Alessandro Bausani, Gianroberto Scarcia (“A proposito del problema della sovranità presso gli Imamiti,” 1957, 95–126; “Intorno alla controversia tra Akhbari e Usuli presso gli Imamiti di Persia,” 211–250 1958; “L’eresia musulmana nella problematica storico-religiosa,” 1962, 63–97). Different is the case of the Soviet islamologist W. Ivanow who, beginning from the 3rd decade of the 20th century, had devoted his whole scientific endeavor to the study of the Ismaili religious phenomena, editing and studying an impressive amount of first-hand works (Studies in Early Persian Ismailism, 1948). Meanwhile, Corbin was training a generation of scholars that would eventually vivify international debate on Shi ^ism both in Iran and in Western academia, and his contribution to the development of studies on Shi ^ism, though not void of methodological oddities (at least for standard Islamic studies; after all he was a phenomenologist philosopher by training), can hardly be overestimated. His intellectual circle, linked to the broader and prestigious milieu of European phenomenologists meeting on a regular basis at the Eranos sessions in Ascona, haunted by, among others, Mircea Eliade, Carl Gustav Jung, and Gershom Scholem. Famed Iranian intellectual Seyyed Hossein Nasr, a prolific traditionalist scholar still active and presently based in North America, besides writing a number of best selling general surveys about Shi ^ism and Sufism, authored significant contributions to the knowledge of Imami philosophy (“Le shi#isme et le soufisme: leur relations principelles et historiques,” 1970, 215–33; Sadr al-Din and His Transcendent Theosophy, 1978; Shi#ism: Doctrines, Thought, and Spirituality, 1988), but his major achivement was the foundation of the Imperial Academy of Philosophy in Tehran (after the Revolution renamed Anjuman-i hikmat wa falsafa, Institute for [the study] of Hikma and Philosophy), that eventually became, besides the French Institute of Iranian Studies directed by Henry Corbin, the second research center of attraction for those academics, Iranian and foreigners alike, interested in the study of Imami Shi ^ism. Outside of Iran, two major centers were involved in Corbin’s effort to vivify traditional Iranian philosopy. The first was of course the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes at the Sorbonne, where Corbin used to teach dense courses related to his pioneering research in Iran (Itineraire d’un enseignement, 1993); the second was McGill’s University Institute of Islamic
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Studies, founded in 1954 by Wilfred Cantwell Smith and whose Professor of Islamic Thought was, from 1964, Corbin’s close associate Hermann Landolt. Other important public intellectuals and researchers that shared a common path with Corbin’s pupils play a pivoltal role in Iranian internal debate today, and their names are well-known: Dariush Shayegan, based in Paris and Tehran, where he teaches courses on comparative religions, and author of widely acclaimed and best-selling essays on Iranian religious culture; Reza Davari Ardakani, a conservative philosopher, famous for his controversy with the leading progressive intellectual ^Abdolkarim Sorush; Nasrollah Pourjavady (Kings of Love, 1978, with Peter Lamborn Wilson), whose books and articles on Imami Sufism are widely read both in Iran and abroad. More than tangential to the main characters of this environment were the contributions of revered Imami clerics, most notably the late ^Allama Tabataba#i, author of the renowned introductory essay Shi ^a dar Islam (1962, English trans. by Seyyed Hosseyn Nasr, Shi#ite Islam, 1972), and whose importance is testified by his conversations and correspondences with Henry Corbin (Shi ^a, 1960). The situation changed for the better at the end of the 1960s, when one major event occured in marking the passage of the study of Shi ‘ism from a small circle of practitioners to a broader audience of specialists and readers, that is the 1968 Colloque de Strasbourg, a round table about Shi ^ism attended by the then leading specialists of Imamism plus a representation of the old generation of Islamicists that had done research on this topic. Worth noting is the participation of Henry Corbin, G. Vajda, Seyyed Hosseyn Nasr, Francesco Gabrieli, Wilfred Madelung, and the leading Lebanese cleric Musa Sadr, whose paper never reached the editors and is thus missing from the proceedings. Starting from the end of the 1970s, a number of excellent monographs have appeared, marking the new course of interest that experienced a determinant acceleration due to the imminent revolution. Among these, Seyyed Husayn M. Jafri’s The Origins and Early Development of Shi#a Islam (1979), provides an interesting account of the ideological substratum preparing the ground for the formation of Imami doctrines; Mojan Momen’s An Introduction to Shi ^i Islam (1985), provides a general and well-informed overview, and Heinz Halm’s Die Schia (1988) gives a well-grounded solid sample of scholarship on Imamism. Furthermore, Farhad Daftary’s writings on Ismailism (especially The Isma#ilis: Their History and Doctrine, 1992), represents an indispensable reference for those interested in this branch of Shi ^a Islam.
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D. After the Revolution in Iran and the Rise of Social Sciences Applied to Shi ism Besides those academics investigating Shi ^ism on the religious and historical level, the revolution fueled another quite fruitful research line, which isthat of the social sciences, notably anthropology, political science and sociology. Earlier enterprises, like the fieldwork conducted by Bryan Spooner in Iran during the 1960s (“The Function of Religion in Persian Society,” 1963, 83–95) proved to be isolated undertakings. It was carried out on the grounds of a solid training in anthropology but without a deep awareness of the textual tradition of Shi ^ism. Following the political concerns that arose in the West due to the revolution, research centers began to produce a generation of specialists with solid training in Islamic Studies but at the same time more and more interested in contemporary matters. Modern and contemporary history (Nikki Keddie, Religion and Politics in Iran: Shi ^ism from Quietism and Revolution, 1983), at times viewed from a rigorous religious historical perspective (Hamid Algar, Religion and State in Iran 1785–1906: The Role of the Ulama in the Qajar Period, 1969), sociology (Said Amir Arjomand, Farhad Khosrokhavar), anthropology (Micheal J. Fischer, Mehdi Abedi, Oliver Beaman), social history (Roy P. Mottahedeh), came to be well represented as academic disciplines encompassing several sides of the Shi ^ite religious phenomenon. On the other hand, interest in Iran happened to awake an innovative stream of scholarship in contemporary Shi ^ism in other geographical settings, namely Iraq, Syria, and the Sub-continent. In addition to this, debate around themes critical to the understanding of Shi ^ism as an autonomous spiritual reality, as sketched out by Corbin and his associates, continued providing the academe with exceptional scholars, such as Wilfred Madelung, Ethan Kohlberg, Andrew J. Newman, Todd Lawson, Juan Cole, Norman Calder, Robert Gleave and others, while a brilliant generation of native academics based in outstanding Western research centers, like Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, Hossein Modarresi Tabatabai, Abdulaziz Sachedina, succeeded in animating the landscape by introducing a significant deal of fresh ideas and expertises. They represent at present the backbone of the academic study of Shi ^ism around the world, and their capacity to share their knowledge through a transnational network makes the perspectives for further development of the field decidedly stimulating and multifaceted in approaches, methodologies and views. In the last years, renewed academic interest of Shi#ites in their own religion gave birth to the publication of basic research tools like specialistic encyclopedias. Those who read Arabic or Persian use regularly these often well-written and peer reviewed (even if not void of bias) works as start up
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tools for their research. One such work is the Persian Da#irat al-ma^arif-i tashayyu^ (2001). E. State of Reaserch and Perspectives Scholars hailing from the two above mentioned offsprings (i.e., those heirs to Corbin’s experience in Iran and those continuing the “classical” orientalist positivist approach), together with the well represented new generation of native scholars endowed with either religious or academic background, enhanced significantly the quantity and quality of research on Shi ^ism during the nineties and up to the first decade of the 21st century. As for Twelver Shi ^ism, research has achieved relevant goals in better assessing the crucial terms of the phenomenon as an independent chapter of the spiritual history of Islam, ponting out the esoterical peculiarities of ‘Alid religion as emerging from a detailed analysis of the early sources. This is in particular the case with the work of one of the most influential scholars of Shi ^ism, Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, who inherited the phenomenological gist of Corbin, merged with a more rigorous brand for methodological accuracy. His Le guide divin dans le shi ^isme originel (1992) no doubt represents a milestone in determining the exact nature of the first historical manifestations of Imamism, presented as a religion grounded on the initiation into divine secrets and essentially depicted as a mystical doctrine. As Amir-Moezzi puts it, critical to the understanding of Shi ^ism is the evolution from a non-rational esoterical doctrine to a rationalist and politically engaged movement, centered on the expansion of the prerogatives of the ulemas during the absence of the Imam. Complementary to Amir-Moezzi’s work, are the studies of Etan Kohlberg on the historical process that led to the definition of the Twelver orthodoxy (see Belief and Law in Imami Shi ^ism, 1991). Crucial to all these discourses is in fact the very theme of the a ^lamiyya (the quality of the “most learned,” a ^lam) and of its social and political implications, once relegated to the Imams and their designed representatives, and shifted along history to an organized class of religious professionals, a theme of momentous importance for the modern Shi ^ite political thought. Thus, the so called “Imamology,” – so deeply investigated by Amir-Moezzi in a series of articles, published separately in various specialistic journals between 1992 and 2005 and recently collected in one volume (La religion discrète: Croyances et pratiques spirituelles dans l’Islam shi#ite: Aspects de l’imamologie duodécimaine, 2006) – devoid of the figure of the legitimate Imam, becomes the justification for the institution of the rationalist imitation (taqlid) of the “most learned” and the management of political power by its ultimate theorization, the marja ^al-taqlid (lit. “source of the imitation”), discussed in depth in The Most Learned of the Shi ^a: The Institution of the
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Marja ^Taqlid, ed. Linda S. Walbridge, 2001. Another well represented area of scholarship is that of the Esfahan school of philosophy, be it or not connected to jurisprudence theories of any relevance to political actuality (for an example of both, see respectively A. J. Newman’s “Towards a Reconsideration” (1986, 165–99), and Christian Jambet, Se rendre immortale, 2001), subject of a scholarly renaissance even in Iran as a consequence of Corbin’s rediscovery, and its mystical implications. International symposia on Mulla Sadra and his school are held on a regular basis in Iran. Needless to say, the revolutionary elite’s interest in, and appreciation of, the subject matter is not unrelated to the success of Mulla Sadra and his school of thought in his motherland after the revolution. Whatever the political implications of the study of Mulla Sadra in Iran, outstanding works on him and his school were recently published (one example is Sajjad Rizvi, Mulla Sadra Shirazi: His Life, Works and Sources for Safavid Philosophy, 2007). Closely intertwined with the issue of the authority of the marja ^, one of the main object of scholarly analysis, is that of the internal intellectual and juristic debate among Shi ^ite religious scholars. In this sense, the conflict between the akhbaris (traditionalists) and the usulis (rationalist “fundamentalists”) represents one of main lines of research, object of close scrutiny by a number of scholars (see for instance Andrew J. Newman, “The Nature of the Akhbari/Usuli Dispute in late Safawid Iran,” 1992, 21–51, and 250–61). Obviously Islamic Republic of Iran, being nominally a Shi ^i theocracy, lies on the backgronund of most areas of the scholarly discourse on Shi ^ism, and provides live material (such as the problem of Islam and democracy, Muslim reformism, relations between religion and politics, and so on) to the specialists, even those who are not directly involved in modern political history. In recent years, some high-quality introductions to Shi ^ism have been written andpublished, such as Juan Cole’s Sacred Space and Holy War (2002), Amir-Moezzi and Christian Jambet Qu’est-ce que le shi#isme (2004), and Marco Salati e Leonardo Capezzone, L’islam sciita: storia di una minoranza (2006). Khomeini’s theory of the “guardianship of the jurist” (wilayat-i faqih) is also a much debated matter and does not cease to be at the center of scholarly production, having among Muslim scholars few overt supporters (as Hamid Algar, author of The Roots of Islamic Revolution, 1983 and Christian Bonaud, author of L’Imam Khomeini, un gnostique méconnu du XXe siècle. Métaphisique et théologie dans les œuvres philosophiques et spirituelles de l’Imam Khomeyni, 1997) and many detractors. The abrupt rush of the theme on the international scene had as a consequence a retroactive inspection of the history of the notion, and recently the vibrant debate on the legitimacy of the theory culminated in West-
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ern academia reporting the most outstanding and controversial voices and themes of the dispute, as in Ziba Mir-Hosseini and Richard Tapper, Islam and Democracy in Iran. Eshkevari and the Quest for Reform, 2006. To grasp an idea of the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of today’s Shi ‘ite studies, it is useful to refer to Colin Turner and Paul Luft’s Shi ‘ism (2007) which provides a collection of studies on Shi ‘ism written over the last 50 years. Indicative of the lively status of the subject at large is the proliferation of initiatives, research groups, conferences and scholarly publications (one in particular, the Journal of Shi ^i Islamic Studies, is entirely devoted to the study of Shi#ism in its full complexity). At present, even though Iran and Twelver Shi ^ism remain to a great extent the most crowded topics in academic enquiry on Shi ^ism, the state of research on either lesser religious sects or ethnic realities is significatively active, if one notices that one of the most prestigious and qualified institution of the study of Shi ^ism is the London based Institute for Ismaili Studies, which is vocated for (even if not only) the academic study of Ismailism, and gives voices to the views of ethnic minorities. Another quite promising research subject is the rising theme of the articulate structure of relations and conflict between tradition/religion, in this case Shi ^ism, and democacy, a debate that engages at a high degree many high-rank religious intellectuals in Iran and abroad. Projects, conferences, and centers focusing on Shi ^is in general or on specific aspects of Shi ^ism are proliferating particularly in the UK. One telling example is the British Academy-funded project on the “Authority in Shi ^ism” (www.thehawzaproject.net), which aims to create a broad network of scholars working on the theme and improve the status of research on Shi ^ism. The rise of the internet as a research tool has introduced in the arena of the academic study of Shi ^ism a wave of novelty. Even if authoritative validation criteria are not yet commonplace in the use of electronic public resources, most present-day scholars non only use the internet as a quick basic search tool, but also have implemented personal or instuitional web pages – like the resource list of the University of Georgia (USA), http://www.uga.edu/ islam/shiism.html – (even excellent up-to-date weblogs) that constitutes valuable databases for students and scholars. One such example is the Institute of Ismaili Studies website (www.iis.ac.uk), whose Academic Publications sections provides a useful list of high-quality academic writings. Another relevant example is the personal page of University of Michigan’s Professor Juan R. I. Cole (http://www-personal.umich.edu/ jrcole/), also providing a quite good selection of his academic papers dealing with Shi#ism. A major epistemological shift has occurred in Religious Studies (and thus in the Study of Islam and Shi ^ism), with the rise of the internet: old
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encyclopedias, even scholarly and specialistic, usually failed in giving voice to their “object of inquiry” and resulted in rather monophonic approaches. Today every student has the possibility to have a glance at a plethora of resources directly written and published in the net (often in a great variety of languages) by religious foundations, charities, research institutes and the like. This kind of resources (such as the good Twelver Shi ^a-run www.al-islam.org, providing an impressive number of primary sources, links, scholarly and non-scholarly articles and e-books) offers a stimulating challenge for traditional academic approaches to Shi#ism, overcoming the risk of one-way academic interpretations. Select Bibliography Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, La guide divin dans le shi ^isme originel: au sources de l’ésotérisme en Islam (Paris: Veridier, 1992); Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi and Christian Jambet, Qu#est-ce que le shi#isme? (Paris: Fayard, 2004); Henry Corbin, En islam iranien: Aspects spirituels et philosophiques, 4 vols. (Paris: Gallimard, 1971–1972); Michael M. J. Fischer, Iran: From Religious Dispute to Revolution (Cambridge Ms. & London: Cambridge University Press, 1980); Syed M. Jafri, Origins and Early Development of Shi#ism (London: Longman, 1978); Farhad Khosrokhavar, Anthropologie de la révolution iranienne. Le rêve impossible (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1997); Ethan Kohlberg, The Formation of Classical Islamic World: Shi ^ism (Burlington: Ashgate, 2003); Heinz Halm, Die Schia (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1988); Le Shi#isme imamite. Colloque de Strasbourg (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1970); Yitzakh Nakash, The Shi ^is of Iraq (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994); Mojan Momen, An Introduction to Shi ^I Islam: The History and Doctrines of Twelver Shi ^ism (Oxford: Geroge Ronald, 1985); Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Hamid Dabashi, and Seyyed Reza Vali Nasr, Shi#ism: Doctrines, Thought, and Spirituality (New York, SUNY Press, 1988); Abdulaziz Sachedina, The Just Ruler in Shi ^ite Islam: The Comprehensive Authority of the Jusrist in Imamite Jurisprudence (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988); ^Allama Tabataba#i, Shi ^a dar Islam (Tehran: Nashr-e Sherkat-e Enteshar, 1348); Liyakatali Takim, The Heirs of the Prophet: Charisma and Religious Authority in Shi ^ite Islam (Albany: State University of New York, 2006).
Alessandro Cancian
Archaeology in Medieval Studies A. Definition Medieval archaeology is the study of the material culture of the Middle Ages in all its forms, but especially as evidenced through the systematic processes of survey, excavation and interpretation common to the wider archaeologi-
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cal discipline. The study of this archaeological evidence allows researchers to uncover aspects of medieval culture and history which our written sources are unable to reveal. Consequently, medieval archaeology can contribute significantly to our knowledge and understanding of the Middle Ages and should hold an important place within the interdisciplinary field of Medieval Studies. It should be stated at the outset, however, that ‘medieval archaeology’ as such is something of a false appellation. From a methodological point of view, there is nothing that separates the study of the archaeology of the Middle Ages from the study of the archaeology of any other period for which there survives written as well as material evidence. Medieval archaeology must therefore be considered to constitute one part of ‘historical archaeology’ in general (Anders Andrén, Between Artifacts and Texts: Historical Archaeology in Global Perspective, 1998). The degree to which archaeological research is united with other avenues of enquiry into the Middle Ages is, however, largely dependent on the historical development of the discipline within individual countries and regions and its position within modern university faculties or departments. Medieval archaeology is, for example, closely connected with classical studies in Italy, with art-history and architecture in France and with prehistory in Scandinavia, while in North America archaeology in general is considered a sub-discipline of anthropology, within which field the archaeology of the Middle Ages receives limited attention. Furthermore, the periodization and chronological terminology of the ‘Middle Ages’ differ from country to country, and often between the historical and archaeological disciplines within countries (for a run-down of some of the different chronologies used throughout Europe see The Archaeology of Medieval Europe, vol. 1, ed. James Graham-Campbell, 2007, 17–18). Such regional differences in approaches to and conceptions of archaeology often affect the degree of contact and discussion between medieval archaeologists and those scholars who study the Middle Ages from other perspectives. Despite this variation in development and focus, however, medieval archaeology has nevertheless developed in recent years into a cohesive, independent branch of the historical sciences, and many universities in Europe now offer both graduate and undergraduate-level programmes of study in medieval archaeology (The Study of Medieval Archaeology, ed. Hans Andersson and Jes Wienberg, 1993). At the same time, the recent rise of Medieval Studies as an interdisciplinary field of inquiry has resulted in an increased dialogue between medieval archaeologists and other scholars concerned with the Middle Ages.
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B. Development of the Discipline The roots of medieval archaeology can be found in the antiquarian interests of the early modern period and the Middle Ages themselves. Although cases like the reputed discovery of King Arthur’s tomb at Glastonbury Abbey in 1191 or the frequent exhumations of saints and their relics throughout the Middle Ages could be interpreted as some of the earliest archaeological activity directed at medieval material culture (Christopher Gerrard, Medieval Archaeology: Understanding Traditions and Contemporary Approaches, 2003), it was in the centuries associated with the European Renaissance that scholars with a humanistic rather than ecclesiastical bent began to collect books, record inscriptions and make sketches of ancient art and architecture (A History of Archaeological Thought, 1989, 2nd ed. 2006, by Bruce Trigger gives a thorough account of the development of archaeology in relation to underlying intellectual currents). The work of such figures as Ciriaco de’ Pizzicolli (1391–1452) and Flavio Biondo (1392–1463), whose subjects included some medieval monuments, are early examples of this new interest in the material culture of the past. This enthusiasm was, however, for the most part directed at classical antiquity, and the term ‘media aeva’ itself, first coined in this period, is indicative of the somewhat dismissive attitude that existed towards the period ‘in between’ classical civilization and modernity. Nevertheless, this apparent shift in historical consciousness opened the way for the study of the Middle Ages from both documentary and material perspectives. A focus on classical culture was especially strong in the south of Europe, where a strong sense of cultural continuity with ancient Greece and Rome was felt and actively promoted through a reverence for and imitation of ancient art and architecture. This fascination with the classical past spread throughout Europe, but, in the countries of northern Europe, antiquarians also turned their attention to more local historical traditions, including those of the prehistoric and medieval periods. In these countries, as in Italy, interest in the material past was closely aligned with issues of local, national and religious corporate identity. Antiquarians like John Aubrey (1626–97) made detailed descriptions of prehistoric monuments described by medieval chronicles, including Avebury and Stonehenge, which are both included in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain (Christopher Gerrard, Medieval Archaeology, 2003, 10–15; Bruce Trigger, A History of Archaeological Thought, 1989; 2nd ed. 2006, 45–48). The Scandinavian countries, meanwhile, quickly extended an enthusiasm for the medieval records and folklore of their countries to an interest in their physical monuments, including the Viking age tombs at Uppsala, Sweden, which were excavated in the 17th century by Olof Rudbeck (1630–1702) using what were at the time relatively
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novel archaeological methods. Rudbeck carried out the excavations by cutting trenches into the tombs and making drawings of the vertical sections. In this manner he was able to arrive at a relative chronology for the burials within each tomb, even hypothesizing roughly how much time had passed since the act of burial based on the relative thickness of the sod on top (Ole Klint-Jensen, A History of Scandinavian Archaeology, 1975). Most early excavations were, however, little more than treasure-hunting expeditions, with enthusiasts removing artefacts from the earth with little in the way of documentation or regard to their context. Artefacts were valued as objets d’art or, in some cases, simply for their material value. Many significant artefacts from this early stage of archaeology, such as the grave-goods of the Frankish King Childeric, whose grave was first excavated in Tournai, Belgium, in 1633, have since been stolen and we know about them only from fortuitously surviving sketches and written descriptions (Stéphane Lebecq, Les Origines franques, 1990). In the 18th and 19th centuries, breakthroughs in the natural sciences led to a newfound awareness of the antiquity of both the earth and humanity, and to a conviction that these issues could and should be studied scientifically. At the same time, driven by a pervading atmosphere of Romantic nationalism, many archaeologists employed these new approaches in their efforts to anchor burgeoning national identities in past ages (see Nationalism and Archaeology in Europe, ed. Margarita Díaz-Andreu and Timothy Champion, 1996; The Myth of Nations, by Patrick Geary, 2003; and Bruce Trigger, A History of Archaeological Thought, 1989; 2nd ed. 2006). Throughout the 19th and the first half of the 20th century, high profile discoveries such as the Gokstad and Oseberg ship burials in Norway (excavated in 1880 and 1904 respectively) and the Sutton Hoo ship burial in England (excavated in 1939) fuelled this Romantic enthusiasm for archaeological exploration by tracing apparent links with early medieval literature (in the case of Sutton Hoo, apparent similarities with the Old English poem Beowulf). Archaeology came to be viewed as a solution to the dearth of written evidence for Europe’s ‘Dark Ages’ and the dim origins of the modern nation-states. This nationally oriented archaeology was given scientific justification through figures such as Gustaf Kossinna (1858–1931), a philologist turned prehistorian for whom prehistory (whether investigated through archaeology or literature) was an “eminently national discipline” (Díaz-Andreu and Champion, 173). It was Kossinna who pioneered the culture-historic school of archaeology which asserted that styles of artefacts (e. g., pottery types or jewellery designs) could be tied to specific ethnic groups. This approach heavily influenced archaeologists studying the ‘barbarian migrations’ of late antiquity and the
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early Middle Ages, and some archaeologists continue to uncomplicatedly conflate material culture with categories such as ethnicity or language. It has been in the years since WWII, however, that medieval archaeology has truly come into its own as a discipline. Excavations of large-scale settlements, most notably Novgorod in Russia and Bergen in Norway, demonstrated the research potential of carefully planned, thoroughly documented investigations (Michael Welman Thompson, Novgorod the Great, 1967; and Helen Clarke, “Asbjørn Herteig: Archaeologist and Pioneer,” Archaeology and the Urban Economy, ed. S. Myrvoll and A.E. Herteig, 1989, 23–27). Developments in technology, various kinds of cultural heritage legislation, a greater attention to theory and methodology and an increasing public interest all contributed to the rise of medieval archaeology as an independent discipline in the second half of the 20th century. C. Archaeology and Science Scientific and technological innovations have changed the way that all archaeological research is conducted. Absolute (as opposed to relative) dating techniques such as radiocarbon dating and dendrochronology (i. e., tree-ring dating) now allow researchers to date organic materials and associated nonorganic artefacts and features with relative certainty. Geophysical methods of subsurface detection allow archaeologists to build maps of subsurface anomalies such as walls or ditches over large geographical areas. The development of the ‘Harris Matrix’ method of excavating and recording distinct archaeological layers has vastly increased the potential for post-excavation interpretation as well as the ability to carefully dig complexly layered urban sites (Edward Harris, Principles of Archaeological Stratigraphy, 1979; 2nd ed. 1989). Since the 1980s, computers have had an increasingly essential role to play in the cataloguing and analysis of data, and are now being used for mapping and reconstructing archaeological sites. Satellite imaging and GPS systems are increasingly being used and are eliminating the need for costly aerial survey. Ancillary disciplines such as archaeozoology, archaeobotany, and biomolecular archaeology are now seen as integral parts of archaeological research. Just a few recent examples of the application of new scientific methods of analysis to medieval archaeology include: the detailed reconstruction of local medieval diets in Viking age Scotland based on stableisotope analysis of human bone; the detection of the rise of hop-gardens in Denmark through archaeobotanical analysis; and the detection of gendervariegated degenerative joint disease in Germany based on bone analysis (James Barrett et al., “Diet and Ethnicity During the Viking Colonization of Northern Scotland: Evidence from Fish Bones and Stable Carbon Iso-
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topes,” Antiquity 75 [2001]: 145–54; Karl-Ernst Behre, “The History of Beer Additives in Europe: A Review,” Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 8 [1999]: 35–48; Wolf-R. Teegen and Michael Schultz, Geschlechtsabhängige Arbeitsverteilung in slawischen Gräberfelden nach Aussage der Gelenkerkrankungen, 2005). The Journal of Scientific Archaeology (1974 onwards) focuses on the scientific aspects of archaeological research. D. Theory and Archaeology Against the backdrop of scientific and technological innovation within the field, a new theoretically oriented approach to archaeology emerged throughout the 1950s and 60s. The American archaeologist Lewis Binford became the leading figure of ‘processual archaeology’, publishing a series of papers advocating a more scientific approach to the study of the material past (Lewis Binford, An Archaeological Perspective, 1972). Essentially, Binford felt that archaeology was capable of more than simply classifying and cataloguing pot shards: that it could have explanatory power with regards to social and cultural phenomena. The ‘New Archaeology’ as it came to be called, advocated the development of ‘Middle Range Theory’ “a distinct body of ideas to bridge the gap between raw archaeological evidence and the general observations and conclusions to be derived from it” (Brian Fagan, Archaeology: Theories, Methods, and Practice, 2004, 13–16). Processual archaeology exerted its strongest influence in North America and in the field of prehistoric archaeology, however, and had little impact on medieval archaeology. For archaeologists of the Middle Ages, the written record continued to provide a more fruitful interpretive paradigm than the more generalist theories of the processual school. Throughout the 1980s and 90s, however, there was a strong reaction to the processual school, and this movement had a definite impact on medieval archaeology. The main proponent of this ‘post-processual’ movement was Ian Hodder, a British prehistorian whose views are summarized in his Reading the Past (1986; 3rd ed. 2003; for a summary of the theoretical debates within different European countries see also Archaeological Theory in Europe: The Last Three Decades, ed. Ian Hodder, 1991). Inspired by post-modernism, Hodder and other post-processualists criticized what they perceived as processualism’s positivist approach and advocated a more relativistic and varied understanding of the archaeological record. Fundamentally, post-processualists argued that material culture should be ‘read’ as a text, acknowledging the role of the researcher’s own biases and interpretations in every step of the archaeological process. The debate has since cooled, but has left an im-
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pression on all areas of archaeological research, including medieval archaeology. From the Baltic to the Black Sea: Studies in Medieval Archaeology, ed. David Austin and Leslie Alcock (1990) was a collection of archaeological research on various subjects that grappled with many of post-processualism’s concerns about identity and structures of power. Perhaps the greatest influence of post-processualism on medieval archaeology has had to do with the proper relationship between archaeological and written evidence. In 1935, the famous British archaeologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler asserted that “the historian and the archaeologist of the Dark Ages are very like two men clutching each other in mid-air to prevent themselves from falling” (London and the Saxons, 1935). Recently, however, a number of archaeologists have made strenuous arguments in favour of detaching archaeological research from “the tyranny of the historical record,” as Timothy Champion has put it, in order that archaeologists might act with more agency in setting a research agenda specifically suited to the archaeological discipline’s own methods and types of evidence (Timothy Champion, “Archaeology and the Tyranny of the Historical Record,” From the Baltic to the Black Sea, 1990; John Moreland, Archaeology and Text, 2001). John Moreland specifically argues that archaeology’s relegation to matters of economy and subsistence is the result of the privileging of the written word over the physical object. Others, however, have argued for a rapprochement between archaeology and history (Martin Carver, “Marriages of True Minds: Archaeology with Texts,” Archaeology: The Widening Debate, ed. Barry Cunliffe, 2002, 465–96). Regardless, the written record will continue to play an essential role in informing archaeological research, while medieval historians are making increasing use of the growing body of archaeological evidence for life in the Middle Ages. E. Current Trends Medieval archaeology has benefited over the past several decades from its increasing coherence as a scholarly discipline, its employment of new scientific techniques, and the widening of its geographical focus to include regions beyond the countries of the traditional medieval Latin West. A number of recent major works dealing with the Middle Ages have raised the profile of archaeological evidence, including Michael McCormick’s Origins of the European Economy (2001), Bryan Ward-Perkins’ The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization (2005), Chris Wickham’s Framing the Early Middle Ages (2005) and the series of books published under the aegis of The European Science Foundation’s project, The Transformation of the Roman World. These works and others like them are typical of the medieval archaeology of recent
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years, tackling old problems from new perspectives and combining archaeological data and interpretive methods with written evidence, all resulting in more comprehensive and nuanced understandings of the medieval world. One of the leading figures of recent medieval archaeology has been Richard Hodges, whose research has focussed primarily on trade and towns in the early medieval period. Some of Hodges’ important works include: Dark Age Economics (1982, and revised 1989); Mohammed, Charlemagne and the Origins of Europe (1983 with David Whitehouse); The Anglo-Saxon Achievement (1989); Towns and Trade in the Age of Charlemagne (2000); and the essay collection, Goodbye to the Vikings? (2006). Hodges has also worked on the earliest large-scale monastic complex in western Europe at San Vincenzo al Volturno in southern Italy (Light in the Dark Ages, 1997). Hodges’s work has been fundamental in both advocating for the consideration of archaeological evidence within the field of medieval studies and in setting the research agenda of medieval archaeologists, especially for the early Middle Ages (see, however, Grenville Astill’s critique of Hodges’ early work, “Archaeology, Economics and Early Medieval Europe,” Oxford Journal of Archaeology 4.2 [1985]: 215–31). Commerce and Travel: One of the areas which has benefited most from the recent surge in archaeological investigation has been that of trade and commerce. The traditional historical interpretation of the end of the Roman economy was set out by the famous Belgian Historian Henri Pirenne in his book Mahomet et Charlemagne (1937). The so-called ‘Pirenne Thesis’ proposed that the essential structure of the Roman imperial economy survived the collapse of Roman administration and only disappeared in the face of the Arab conquest, which choked shipping lanes and cut off trade between east and west. New archaeological evidence and analysis has, however, drastically changed this picture, giving a far more nuanced impression of late antique trade in the Mediterranean. Evidence from the distribution of coins (Arab as well as Byzantine), African Red Slipware (a distinctive ceramic often used in long distance trade) and ship-wrecks illustrate an economic world already beginning to stagger in the 5th century and, after a brief recovery, crumbling entirely by the late 6th. Archaeological evidence has forced scholars to view the Arab conquest as “the consequence rather than the cause of the catastrophe” (Richard Hodges and David Whitehouse, Mohammed, Charlemagne and the Origins of Europe, 1983; also see Hodges’ other works as well as McCormick’s Origins of the European Economy, 2005). Continuing research, meanwhile, is pushing outwards our evidence of long-distance trade networks and the Arab role in the medieval economy. New evidence suggests
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that by the 11th century, cane sugar may have been making its way from New Guinea to Cyprus, Sicily, and beyond (Marie Louise Wartburg, “Production du sucre de canne à Cypre: un chapitre de technologie médiévale,” Coloniser au moyen âge, 1995, 126–130). In northern Europe, meanwhile, large-scale excavations carried out over the last several decades have uncovered trading ports around the North Sea and Baltic on a scale which had not been previously considered. Regularly laid out and equipped with numerous docks and jetties, these ‘emporia’ made up a sophisticated northern European trade-network (See Hodges’ Dark Age Economics and most of his other works as well as McCormick’s Origins of the European Economy, 2005; Søren Sindbæk makes use of cooperative research between physics and archaeology in “Networks and Nodal Points: the Emergence of Towns in Early Viking Age Scandinavia,” Antiquity 81, [2007]: 119–32; Søren Sindbæk, “The Small World of the Vikings: Networks in Early Medieval Communication and Exchange,” Norwegian Archaeological Review 40 [2007]: 59–74). Merchants based out of Dorestad and Quentovic in the Frankish kingdoms, Hamwic in England, and Birka, Hedeby and Kaupang in the Scandinavian countries – to name a few examples – traded in stone, metals, wine and other commodities from northwest Europe, as well as luxury goods from the Arab and Byzantine worlds and slaves from eastern Europe. Archaeology has revealed a complex northern economy on a hitherto unthought-of scale These early towns served not only as trading centres, but also as central places in which religious and royal influence could be concentrated (Franz Theuws, “Exchange, Religion, Identity and Central Places in the Early Middle Ages,” Archaeological Dialogues 10.2 [2004]: 121–38). Settlements, Rural and Urban: There has been a wealth of archaeological research conducted on settlements, both urban and rural. Helena Hamerow’s recent book, Early Medieval Settlements (2002), provides an overview of the subject for the early medieval period, while Chapelot and Fossier’s Le village et la maison au Moyen Âge (1980), although 30 years old and written before a huge surge in rural archaeology, provides an overview for the whole of the Middle Ages. As discussed above in the section on trade and commerce, the discovery of the North Sea emporia has forced a rethinking of urban development in northern Europe (Richard Hodges and Brian Hobley, ed., The Rebirth of Towns in the West, AD 700–1050, 1988 andWics: The Early Medieval Trading Centres of Northern Europe, ed. David Hill and Robert Cowie, 2001). Improved methods of stratigraphic excavation have made possible the effective investi-
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gation of complexly layered urban sites such as those uncovered in Dublin and York (Patrick F. Wallace, The Viking Age Buildings of Dublin, 1992, and Richard Hall, Viking Age York, 1994). No urban centers within Western Europe, however, rivaled the cities of Muslim Spain and recent urban excavations have confirmed their size and complexity; Cordoba is thought to have had a population of over 100,000 in the 10th century (John Schofield, “Urban Settlement, Part 1: Western Europe,” The Archaeology of Medieval Europe, vol. 1, 2007, 111–29). Overall, recent research has focussed on variegated modes of town development and the role that urban centres played as ‘central places’, becoming hubs for economic, religious, royal and other social functions. See also David Nicholas, The Growth of the Medieval City: From Late Antiquity to the Fourteenth Century (1997) and Urban Europe, 1100–1700 (2003). Despite the growing importance of towns in the Middle Ages, however, the vast majority of the population continued to live in rural, agricultural environments. Rural archaeology has, nevertheless, been slow to develop and there are few comprehensive overviews of the topic. The abovementioned studies by Hamerow and by Chapelot and Fossier offer considerations of the topic, while results of the Ruralia Association’s biennial conferences are published as Ruralia (1996 onwards). Much of this recent research has focussed on the long-term development of settlements and building traditions, as well as interactions with the surrounding environment. Ancillary archaeological disciplines, including archaeozoology and archaeobotony, play important roles in the analysis of ecofacts such as seeds, bones and other naturally occurring substances that might yield information about human activity (Archäologische und naturwissenschaftliche Untersuchungen an ländlichen und frühstädischen Siedlungen im deutschen Küstengebiet vom 5. Jahrhundert v. Chr. bis zum II. Jahrhundert n. Chr., ed. Georg Kossack, Karl-Ernst Behre, and Peter Schmid, 1984). The discovery and excavation of many deserted medieval villages from the later Middle Ages have produced an abundance of evidence concerning architectural traditions, standards of living and changing patterns of land use (Maurice Beresford and John Hurst, Deserted Medieval Villages, 1971, and Wharram Percy: Deserted Medieval Village, 1990). Buildings: Buildings archaeology concerns the study of in situ structures using archaeological methods (Richard Morris, The Archaeology of Buildings, 2000). The construction and development of medieval buildings is of foremost importance within this archaeological subfield, but also the role they fulfilled within social contexts (Jane Grenville, Medieval Housing, 1997; Richard Morris, Churches in the Landscape, 1989; 2nd ed. 1998). Churches and castles, the largest and most conspicuous buildings surviving from the
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Middle Ages, have long been studied and their various architectural developments are well-documented (Charles McClendon, The Origins of Medieval Architecture, 2005; John Thompson, The Decline of the Castle, 1987, and id., The Rise of the Castle, 1991). Modern excavations have, however, uncovered some surprises, such as the huge monastic complex at San Vincenzo al Volturno, Italy. The site is roughly contemporary with the 9th century plan of St. Gall, an architectural blueprint of the ideal Carolingian monastery which was formerly thought to be absurdly precocious. The excavation of San Vincenzo has forced a reassessment of the standards of material culture and the scope of architectural ability in the early medieval period (Richard Hodges, Light in the Dark Ages, 1997; for the plan of St. Gall, see Walter Horn and Ernest Born, The Plan of St. Gall, 3 vols., 1979; and Studien zum St. Galler Klosterplan, ed. Peter Ochsenbein and Karl Schmucki, 2002). The ideological meaning of architecture has become an important topic in recent years as scholars have begun to focus more and more on the role that buildings played in legitimizing political and religious authority (Jerrilynn D. Dodds, Architecture and Ideology in Early Medieval Spain, 1990; Dale Kinney, “Roman Architectural spolia,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 145 [2001]: 138–50). The archaeology of buildings from before the year 1000 is, however, extremely limited compared to our knowledge of castles, cathedrals and churches from the later Middle Ages, a time when large-scale stone architecture flourished. Research on domestic architecture has concentrated on architectural continuity or lack thereof with the Roman heritage, growing social differentiation and division of space and the influence of religious and secular institutions on housing design and construction throughout the medieval period (The Rural House from Migration Period to the Oldest Still Standing Buildings, ed. Jan Kláp st ˇ e, ˇ 2002; Geoff Egan, The Medieval Household: Daily Living c.1150–c.1450, 1998; Gwyn Meirion-Jones and Michael Jones, Manorial Domestic Buildings in England and Northern France, 1993). Burials: Burials, as cemeteries or individual graves, constitute a vitally important yet problematic source of archaeological evidence. The excavation and study of human remains can sometimes offer hints at the population, the demography and the lives and deaths of medieval people. New techniques in palaeo-demography and palaeo-pathology are helping medieval archaeologists investigate questions about population, life-span and disease more accurately than in the past (Reconstructing Past Population Trends in Mediterranean Europe, ed. John Bintliff and Kostas Sbonias, 1999; Jesper L. Boldsen, “Analysis of Dental Attrition and Mortality in the Medieval Village of Tirup, Denmark,” American Journal of Physical Anthropology 126 [2005]:
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169–76). Grave goods and burial customs, meanwhile, can offer some kind of clue as to group and/or individual identity. Throughout antiquity and the early medieval period, individuals were normally buried with some of their personal belongings. Such belongings are often indicators of status, gender, occupation or religion, though their interpretation can be problematic (see Guy Halsall’s criticisms of using grave-goods to infer ethnicity in Early Medieval Cemeteries: An Introduction to Burial Archaeology in the Post-Roman West, 1995 and his review article “Movers and Shakers: The Barbarians and the Fall of Rome,” Early Medieval Europe, 8.1 [1999]: 131–45). In the later Middle Ages, these grave-goods were generally replaced by more generic symbolic items such as crosses or vessels (Thomas Meier, “Inschrifttafeln aus mittelalterlichen Gräbern: Einige Thesen zu ihrer Aussagekraft,” Papers of the ‘Medieval Europe Brugge 1997’ Conference 2: Death and Burial in Medieval Europe, ed. Guy de Boe and Frans Verhaeghe, 1997, 43–53). The careful investigation of cemeteries as unified archaeological sites can meanwhile yield valuable information about social differentiation in the treatment of the dead within and across time periods. The re-excavation of the English royal cemetery site of Sutton Hoo in the 1980s and early 90s by Martin Carver, for example, located a special section for the burial of executed individuals (Martin Carver, Sutton Hoo: Burial Ground of Kings?, 1998), while infant burials are commonly separated from the rest of the dead at cemeteries throughout medieval Europe. Climate and Environment: The interaction between humans and their environment has always been a subject of archaeological investigation. The growing importance of environmental archaeology as a bona fide sub-discipline as well as the rise of ‘environmental history’ has, however, caused a new emphasis to be placed on situating the material culture of the Middle Ages within the context of its natural environment (Glynis Jones, Environmental Archaeology, 2002). Archaeobotany and archaeozoology have made significant contributions to our understanding of daily human interaction with the medieval environment. Human adaptation to and effects on the natural world are currently studied from ecological, economic and socio-political perspectives (Lech Leciejewicz, La nuova forma del mondo: La nascita della civilità europa medievale, 2004). The effects of climate and the environment on food production, disease and demographics have always been acknowledged, as in the medieval period’s ‘little ice age’. The recent drilling of glacial cores by palaeoclimatologists have allowed scholars to speculate about the effects of climate even on the minutiae of socio-political events (Michael McCormick, Paul Edward Dutton and Paul A. Mayewski, “Volcanoes and the
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Climate Forcing of Carolingian Europe, A.D. 750–950,” Speculum 82 [2007]: 865–95). Further collaborations between archaeologists, historians and scientists will surely yield new and exciting results in the arena of human interaction with the medieval environment. Scholars who study the Middle Ages can no longer afford to ignore the evidence provided by archaeological research. Archaeology’s successes over the last decades in both corroborating and debunking the historical record have proven its value, while new kinds of evidence gleaned through archaeozoology, archaeobotany, and meticulous excavation are opening windows on aspects of medieval life that would otherwise have remained obscure: The cooperation of historians, archaeologists and scientists will surely yield even greater returns in the future, while increased international cooperation will help address questions on a far broader scale than the nationally-focussed research agendas of the past (The Cross Goes North: Processes of Conversion in Northern Europe, AD 300–1300, ed. Martin Carver, for example, offers a collection of interdisciplinary essays concerning the question of conversion in the North across Celtic, Germanic and Slavic areas by authors from across northern Europe). The fruits of the archaeological research, which has concentrated far more on the early Middle Ages, will hopefully be more generally applied to the later medieval period. F. Resources The main journals in the field are: Medieval Archaeology (1957 onwards), Archéologie Médiévale (1971 onwards), Zeitschrift für Archäologie des Mittelalters (1973 onwards), and Archeologia medievale (1974 onwards). Antiquity (1927 onwards), a general archaeological journal with a wide-ranging and mainly prehistoric focus, often carries research which is related to the medieval period as well as methodological debates which are of significant interest. The huge number of volumes published under the aegis of British Archaeological Resources (or BAR) covers an incredible span of time periods, regions and topics, including many publications on various aspects of the archaeology of medieval Europe. Select Bibliography Medieval Archaeology: An Encyclopedia, ed. Pam J. Crabtree (New York: Routledge, 2001); The Archaeology of Medieval Europe, ed. James Graham-Campbell, vol. 1 (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2007; the second volume of which on the later Middle Ages is expected shortly). Some more recent region-specific studies can be found in: Neil Christie, From Constantine to Charlemagne: An Archaeology of Italy, AD 300–800 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006); Lloyd Laing, The Archaeology of Celtic Britain and Ireland 400–1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Günter P. Fehring, The Archaeology of Medieval Germany (London and New York: Routledge, 1991). Christopher Gerrard,
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Medieval Archaeology: Understanding Traditions and Contemporary Approaches (London and New York: Routledge, 2003; this volume serves as an excellent introduction to the archaeological study of the later Middle Ages in Britain). Works of more general archaeological interest include: Colin Renfrew, Archaeology: Theories, Methods, and Practice (London: Thames and Hudson, 2004); Colin Renfrew and Paul Bahn, Archaeology: A Brief Introduction (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1999); and The Oxford Companion to Archaeology, ed. Brian Fagan (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).
Christopher Landon
Art History A. General Definition Art history is the scholarly study of visual culture, the intellectual pursuit of knowledge pertaining to works of art, their creation, their meanings, and their reception. Historians of medieval art generally focus on western European, Byzantine or Islamic art; their expertise may lie anywhere between the third and the fifteenth centuries. The first comprehensive work on medieval art appeared in 1823: Jean Baptiste Louis Georges Seroux d’Agincourt’s six-volume study entitled Histoire de l’art par les monumens, depuis sa décadence au IVe siècle jusqu’à son renouvellement au XIVe (see Daniela mondini, Mittelalter im Bild: Seroux d’Agincourt und die Kunsthistoriographie um 1800, 2005). Two important things should be noted about d’Agincourt’s work: the title, which, in the tradition of Johann Joachim Winckelmann’s 1764 Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums, takes as a given that the quality of art declined in the Middle Ages; and the structure of the study itself, completed in the tradition of the Roman school of Christian archaeology (W. Eugene Kleinbauer, “Introduction,” Medieval Scholarship: Biographical Studies on the Formation of a Discipline, ed. Helen Damico, 2000, vol. 3, 215–29, at 216). In Austria, Rudolf von Eitelberger von Edelberg founded the Vienna School of Art History, which ushered in the reign of positivism in the history of medieval art; the eighteen-volume publication Quellenschriften für Kunstgeschichte und Kunsttechnik des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit, which von Edelberg co-edited with Albert Ilg, gathered between its covers a selection of various medieval texts relevant for the study of medieval and Renaissance art (Kleinbauer, “Introduction,” 2000, 217). It was from this Viennese school that Franz Wickhoff and Alois Riegl emerged (for an essay on Riegl’s scholarship as well as for a comprehensive bibliography of his work,
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see Margaret Olin, “Alois Riegl (1858–1905),” Medieval Scholarship, 231–44). Wickhoff’s main contribution lay in his passionate defense of the study of periods other than the Renaissance; he argued for the continuity between Roman and (incorrectly dated to the second and third centuries) Christian painting (see Roman Art: Some of Its Principles and Their Application to Early Christian Painting, 1900, translation of Wickhoff’s introduction to his commentary written for Die Wiener Genesis, 1895).The importance of riegl’s Die spätrömische Kunstindustrie, the work that established the term Kunstwollen (“artistic volition”), lies in the fact that, in dealing both with fine and applied arts, it traces the development – not the decline – of fine arts from late antiquity to the eighth century (1901). In Germany, two late nineteenth-century art historians – Wilhelm Vöge and Adolph Goldschmidt – completed work that was highly influential in developing various methods of inquiry into medieval art (Kathryn Brush, The Shaping of Art History: Wilhelm Vöge, Adolph Goldschmidt and the Study of Medieval Art, 1996). Goldschmidt in particular is to be credited for his contributions to the development of objective formal analysis and his scrupulous methods of classification of works of art (Kathryn Brush, “Adolph Goldschmidt (1863–1944),” Medieval Scholarship, 245–58, at 253); his focus on illuminated manuscripts and ivories yielded the four volumes of Die Elfenbeinskulpturen (1914–1926) and the two-volume Die deutsche Buchmalerei (1928) on Carolingian and Ottonian book illumination. In France, scholars formulated the positivist methodology called archaéologie médiévale, which approached medieval churches as written documents that stood witness to stages of construction and were used to attribute a given building to a particular “school” from a particular region (Kleinbauer, “Introduction,” 2000, 221). Arcisse de Caumont proposed seven such regional schools (further on de Caumont, see Arcisse de Caumont (1801–1873): érudit normand et fondateur de l’archéologie française, ed. Vincent Juhel, 2004). On the other hand, de Caumont’s contemporary, Adolphe Napoléon Didron, and his intellectual successor Émile Mâle, focused on an iconographic approach to medieval art. Still classic, Mâle’s three volumes (L’art religieux du XIIIe siècle en France: étude sur l’iconographie du Moyen Age et sur ses sources d’inspiration, 1898 [corrected edition 1902]; L’art religieux de la fin du Moyen Âge en France: étude sur l’iconographie du Moyen Âge et sur ses sources d’inspiration, 1908; and L’art religieux du XIIe siècle en France; étude sur les origines de l’iconographie du moyen âge, 1922) explore the meaning of medieval objects through the lens of literary texts. It is important to note that this approach was influential in the study of Byzantine as well as of western art, seen especially in the work of André Grabar (on Grabar’s work see, most recently,
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Drevnerusskoe iskusstvo: Vizantiia i Drevniaia Rus: k 100-letiiu Andreia Nikolaevicha Grabara [1896–1990], ed. A.L. Batalov et al., 1999). If Goldschmidt wrote about Carolingian and Ottonian art, the prolific Henri Focillon limited his definition of medieval architecture to Romanesque and Gothic buildings. Unlike Mâle, Focillon was a formalist, but his focus lay in the study of monumental edifices and architectural sculpture: this is evident in Art d’Occident (1938), which has been called “the most comprehensive statement of Focillon’s views on the art of the Middle Ages” (Walter Cahn, “Henri Focillon [1881–1943],” Medieval Scholarship, 259–71, at 261). Focillon’s student, Louis Grodecki, continued the study of Gothic architecture, and made a particular contribution to the examination of stained glass; a number of his studies appeared in the Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi series, among them the monumental Les vitraux de Saint-Denis: étude sur le vitrail au XIIe siècle, 1976. American scholarship is immensely indebted to the work of German ex-patriots, Richard Krautheimer and Erwin Panofsky among them. Krautheimer, an authority on early Christian and Byzantine art, who worked in the iconographic tradition, stressed the importance of considering socio-historical contexts in the study of medieval buildings, and inquiring into the roles of patrons who were directly associated with these buildings (“Introduction to an ‘Iconography of Medieval Architecture,’” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Studies 1942, discussed in Kleinbauer, “Introduction,” 2000, 223). Panofsky, who wrote on medieval, Renaissance and Baroque art, drew a sharp distinction between medieval and Renaissance sensibilities. A brilliant iconographer, he continues to inspire contemporary scholarship; among his key works on medieval art are Renaissance and Renascenses in Western Art (2nd ed. 1965), Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St.-Denis and Its Art Treasures (1946), and Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism (1951). Panofsky is also to be credited with the formulation of the iconological approach, which, much like later work that would involve reception theory, emphatically separates intent from content: Panofsky urged art historians to engage with symbolic values of a work of art, which “may even emphatically differ from what [the artist] consciously intended to express” (Studies in Iconology, 1939, 8). Two American-born scholars, Charles Rufus Morey and Arthur Kingsley Porter, contributed greatly to the enrichment of the discipline. Morey, the founder of the Index of Christian Art, was a specialist in early Christian art who was particularly interested in the plasticity of ancient themes continued and transformed into early Christian motifs (see Early Christian Art: an Outline of the Evolution of Style and Iconography in Sculpture
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and Painting from Antiquity to the Eighth Century, 1942). Porter specialized primarily in Romanesque art: his ten-volume study Romanesque Sculpture of the Pilgrimage Roads (1923) and the four-volume Lombard Architecture (1915–1917) are still among the classics of the discipline; he is said to have “singlehandedly launched the study of medieval architecture and sculpture in the United States as a serious discipline” (Linda Seidel, “Arthur Kingsley Porter [1883–1933],” Medieval Scholarship, 2000, 273–86, at 283). Although formal and iconographic analyses continue to form important bases for the discipline of art history, and object catalogues (such as those compiled by Goldschmidt) continue to provide extremely useful information, a number of other methods of inquiry emerged in the study of medieval art. For instance, the Lithuanian-born Meyer Schapiro (1904–1996), a Marxist, ventured to define socio-political contexts for medieval objects and to explore the interaction between the religious and the secular; in the preface to the third volume of his selected papers entitled Late Antique, Early Christian and Medieval Art, Schapiro writes: “I have assumed that religious art, like religious cult, is not just an expressive representation of sacred texts and a symbolizing of religious concepts (largely mâle’s thesis – E.G.); it also projects ideas, attitudes and fantasies shaped in secular life and given concrete form by imaginative, I may say, poetic minds” (1980, XV). In shifting the focus from text to image, Schapiro paved the way for scholars like Michael Camille who, in his The Gothic Idol: Ideology and Image-Making in Medieval Art (1989), argued that images themselves constructed various ideologies and generated meaning. Close scrutiny of images as generators of meaning, of course, is impossible without the study of political, social, literary and religious histories. Hence, semiotics, along with theories of narrative and reception, form the basis for recent approaches to medieval art: in addition to Camille’s work, see the writings of Suzanne Lewis (such as Reading Images: Narrative Discourse and Reception in the Thirteenth-Century Illuminated Apocalypse, 1995) or Kathryn A. Smith’s Art, Identity and Devotion in Fourteenth-Century England: Three Women and their Books of Hours (2003). Smith’s book not only highlights the importance art historians afford to studying patronage as an integral part of a work’s creation, but also points to the recent interest in a feminist approach to the history of medieval art and in a visual history of medieval women: among the important work published in this field are Jeffrey Hamburger’s The Visual and the Visionary: Art and Female Spirituality in Late Medieval Germany (1998), as well as Madeline Caviness’s Visualizing Women in the Middle Ages: Sight, Spectacle and Scopic Economy (2001). That Caviness’s book engages with Lacanian theory points to the fact that psychoanalysis played an important role in the development of art his-
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torical scholarship. From early works, such as Ernst Kris’ “A Psychotic Artist of the Middle Ages” (in Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art, 1952, 118–27), grew the interest in the history and psychology of perception as well as in the nature of representation (see, e. g., Ernst Gombrich, “Meditations on a Hobby Horse or the Roots of Artistic Form,” Aspects of Form, a Symposium on Form in Nature and Art, ed. Lancelot Law White, 1951, 209–24). The recentlypublished Visuality Before and Beyond the Renaissance: Seeing as Others Saw (ed. Robert Nelson, 2000) examines the idea of visual perception, of the act of seeing and of its importance to the study of artistic production; especially useful for the student of medieval art are the contributions by Nelson (“To Say and to See: Ekphrasis and Vision in Byzantium”), Cynthia Hahn (“Visio Dei: Changes in Medieval Visuality”), and Michael Camille (“Before the Gaze: the Internal Senses and Late Medieval Visuality”). The connection between the visual and the cognitive within the contexts of visionary and contemplative discourses has been recently explored in Mary Carruthers’s The Book of Memory: a Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (1990) and The Craft of Thought: Meditation, Rhetoric and the Making of Images, 400–1200 (1999). In addition to studying the style, the content, and the cultural context of a work of art, and in addition to scrutinizing the creator of the work and its patron, art historians are interested in the beholder of the work as well. So, in “Reception of Images by Medieval Viewers,” Caviness writes about the need to “contextualize the medieval experience of a work of art by constructing […] a group [of viewers] that might have had a shared experience of the work” (A Companion to Medieval Art: Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe, ed. Conrad Rudolph, 2006, 1–43). Such analyses, especially when they concern visual imagery accompanied by words, often explore the visual and the textual literacy of the viewer (see Camille, “Seeing and Reading: Some Implications of Medieval Literacy and Illiteracy,” Art History 8 [1985]: 26–49). Recently, the definition of “performative reading,” in which “the mise en images shaped the reader’s reception and visualization of the […] text,” and “the images were conceived to facilitate a specific kind of reading of the text, either by individuals or in small groups,” was put forth by Pamela Sheingorn and Robert Clark (“Performative Reading: The Illustrated Manuscripts of Arnoul Gréban’s Mystère de la Passion,” European Medieval Drama 6 [2002]: 129–54, esp. 129–30). “Performative reading,” which considers play manuscripts, signals scholarly interest in exploring the relationship between medieval performance and visual representation (see Richard K. Emmerson, “Visualizing Performance: The Miniatures of Besancon MS 579 (Jour de Jugement),” Exemplaria 11 [1990]: 245–72, on manuscript illumination, and Elina Gertsman, “Pleyinge and Peyntinge: Performing the
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Dance of Death,” Studies in Iconography 27 [2006]: 1–43, on murals and largescale panels). The study of the history of medieval art is multifaceted: it is engaged with the study of forms and symbols, codes and signs, words and images; it inquires into the history of ideas; it examines social, political and religious contexts; it comprises gender and cultural studies, feminist and Marxist theories; informed by the work in psychoanalysis, reaching out to the field of performance studies, it moves beyond the study of the object to inquire into the histories of patronage and reception, and beyond the confines of the field in quest of interdisciplinarity. B. History of Research The discipline of art history as we understand it now is fairly young, and historiographic studies of medieval art have only recently come to the fore. One of the key historiographic sources is Eugene Kleinbauer’s introduction to Part III of Medieval Scholarship (2000, 215–229); although his essay centers on the six art historians to be discussed in the edited volume, Kleinbauer also provides a thorough context for the emergence of those scholars. The choice of the scholars – Alois Riegl (1858–1950), Adolph Goldschmidt (1863–1944), Henri Focillon (1881–1943), Arthur Kingsley porter (1883–1933), Louis Grodecki (1910–1982) (discussed by Caviness) and Sirarpie Der Nersessian (1896–1989) (a scholar of Armenian Byzantine art discussed by Nina G. Garsoian) – was dictated by the fact that their work, in Kleinbauer’s own words, “typif[ies] a number of truly major developments in the discipline of medieval art history as it has emerged over the past one hundred and ten years” (227). These developments receive a clear, brief, and sophisticated treatment in his introduction, while a fuller narrative that embraces art history as a discipline in general, but includes generous material on the Middle Ages in particular, is fleshed out in Kleinbauer’s introduction to the edited volume entitled Modern Perspectives in Western Art History (1989; 1971, 1–105); in addition, see Wayne Dynes’ “Tradition and Innovation in Medieval Art,” published in James M. Powell’s Medieval Studies: An Introduction (1976; 313–2); Paul Frankl’s The Gothic: Literary Sources and Interpretations through Eight Centuries (1960); Panofsky’s Renaissance and Renascences in Western Art (1960); Harry Bober’s introduction to Mâle’s Religious Art in France: The Twelfth Century, A Study of the Origins of Medieval Iconography (1978); and Tina Waldeier Bizzarro’s Romanesque Architectural Criticism: A Prehistory (1992). These and other sources are cited in the latest essay to date that provides an in-depth historiographic overview of the field: Conrad Rudolph’s intro-
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duction to his edited volume, A Companion to Medieval Art: Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe (2006), which collects thirty essays that address the history and theory of medieval art. Rudolph’s essay is a sweeping account of developments in the study of medieval historiography. He begins his account with what he terms the “pre-history” of the study of medieval art, and locates it in “the formation and continuation of the authority of Classical art” (2). He briefly considers the role of Giorgio Vasari’s Le vite de più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori (1550, revised in 1568) in the formation of the discipline, noting Vasari’s “naturalistic and biographical paradigms and cyclical model of stylistic development” (5) and therefore his perception of the Middle Ages as an epoch of decline. The section entitled “Reformation and its Aftermath” inquires into the work of John Leland (1506–1552) and other English antiquarians such as William Camden (1551–1623) and Robert Bruce Cotton (1571–1631), and discusses the development of the art market on the Continent and the advent of collecting; it is followed by the discussion of Enlightenment views on Gothic architecture in England, Germany, and France, and the introduction to Winckelmann’s work. In exploring nineteenth-century developments, Rudolph considers Romantic reactions to medieval art as well as the then new scholarly focus on “periodization, dating, regionalism, and the use of exegesis in interpretation” (21). For the rest of his introduction, Rudolph zeroes in on the work of scholars who are considered to be instrumental in the development of the study of medieval art (from Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc [1814–1879] to Schapiro [1904–1996]) and describes the establishment of seminal organizations, journals and indices, encyclopedias, catalogues and corpora. He concludes with a discussion of the “new art history,” and the “adoption of interdisciplinary theories and methodologies that have transformed other areas of the humanities and social sciences” (36), from literary criticism to social art history. Rudolph’s volume contains a number of valuable contributions to the historiography of medieval art (for a thorough evaluation of the book see Smith’s review on the College Art Association Web site [http://www.caareviews.org/reviews/1188; last accessed on Feb. 21, 2009]). A different approach is taken by Herbert Kessler, who, in his essay “On the State of Medieval Art History” (Art Bulletin 70, 2 [1988]: 166–87), provides a survey of the main concerns and themes in medieval art; current – along with long-established – research on these themes is cited in the footnotes. The essay, which eventually gave rise to Kessler’s Seeing Medieval Art (2004), therefore provides less of a historiography of medieval art study per se than a review of various developments in the art of the Middle Ages, accompanied
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by extensive bibliography (subsections of Kessler’s essay are telling: “Periodization,” “The Medieval Art Object,” “Production,” “The Place of Art” etc); for a critique of this approach by Lucy Freeman Sandler (who points out that Kessler’s essay does not specifically address current research in the field, and characterizes it instead as “a historical survey of the period from late antiquity to the beginning of the Renaissance” [506]) as well as Kessler’s rebuttal, see “An Exchange on ‘the State of Medieval Art History’” (The Art Bulletin 71.3 [1989]: 506–07). In addition, a number of historiographic studies that focus on specific media or particular approaches to and topics in medieval art, have appeared in the past two decades; two essays in the JEGP (2006) are particularly useful: Eric Palazzo’s “Art and Liturgy in the Middle Ages: Survey of Research (1980–2003) and Some Reflections on Method” (170–84), and Richard K. Emmerson’s extremely useful overview of recent research on interdisciplinary approaches to illuminated manuscripts in “Middle English Literature and Illustrated Manuscripts: New Approaches to the Disciplinary and the Interdisciplinary” (118–36). For a discussion of the application of the iconographic method of inquiry to medieval architecture, see Paul Crossley, “Medieval Architecture and Meaning: The Limits of Iconography” (The Burlington Magazine 130, no. 1019, Special Issue on Gothic Art [1988]: 116–21); for an essay that reviews literature on Romanesque studies, see Ilene H. Forsyth, “The Monumental Arts of the Romanesque Period: Recent Research” (The Cloisters: Studies in Honor of the Fiftieth Anniversary, ed. Elizabeth C. Parker with Mary B. Shephard, 1992, 3–25). Finally, “Medievalisms Old and New: The Rediscovery of Alterity in North American Medieval Studies” by Paul Freedman and Gabrielle M. Spiegel (AHR 103.3 [1998]: 677–704) must be noted: the essay probes into a peculiarly twentieth-century American concept of the Middle Ages – specifically, what authors see as “the recent revival of interest in strange and extreme forms of belief and behavior now perceived as characteristic of medieval civilization” (677). Two review studies, which appeared in 1996 and 1997, focus on approaches to medieval art that isolate early medieval and Byzantine art from the rest of the medieval “canon.” Lawrence Nees’s introduction to the special issue of Speculum (72. 4 [1997]: 959–69), entitled “Approaches to Early-Medieval Art,” addresses the state of early medieval art history, and discusses “romanticized historiographical emphasis on the ‘wandering peoples’ in the discussion of early-medieval culture in general and art in particular” (964). One of the effects of such an approach, Nees concludes, which implies ethnically-based divisions in the early medieval visual culture, is the emphatic separation of Byzantine art from the general developments in medieval art
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at large (Nees finds particular fault with art history survey texts, such as Gardner’s Art through the Ages, which was at the time edited by Fred S. Kleiner and Richard G. Tansey, 1996). Robert S. Nelson’s “Living on the Byzantine Borders of Western Art” (Gesta 35,1 [1996]: 3–11) surveys texts written between the mid-nineteenth and the end of the twentieth century and concludes that “the alterity of Byzantine art and the denial of its coevalness with Western medieval art have been features of general histories of art for 150 years” (8). An effective historiographic survey of Byzantine art, Charles Barber’s “Art History” (ed. Jonathan Harris, 2005, 147–56), canvasses a variety of developments in and provides a variety of references for the study of the art of Byzantium. Barber cites both printed and online resources for research (such as the Byzantinische Zeitschrift, the Reallexikon zur byzantinischen Kunst, the catalogue of the Dumbarton Oaks Library and the Index of Christian Art), and outlines the crucial survey texts available to the student of Byzantine culture, from Nikodim Kondakov’s Histoire de l’art byzantin considéré principalement dans les miniatures (2 vol., 1886–1891) to Robin Cormack’s Byzantine Art (2000). He proceeds to point out the importance of primary text collections (such as Cyril Mango’s The Art of the Byzantine Empire, 312–1453: Sources and Documents, 1972), as well as exhibitions and museum and exhibition catalogues (such as Byzantium: Faith and Power [1261–1557], edited by Helen C. Evans or Nezih Firatli’s La sculpture Byzantine figurée au Musée Archéologique d’Istanbul, 1990) for the study of Byzantine art. Barber subsequently considers monographs on church architecture and its decoration (e. g., Robert Ousterhout, The Architecture of the Kariye Camii in Istanbul, 1987; The Kariye Djami, 4 vol., ed. Paul Underwood, 1966–1975; Otto Demus, The Mosaics of San Marco in Venice, 1984), literature on illuminated manuscripts in general (from the aforementioned study by Kondakov to Kurt Weitzmann’s Illustrations in Roll and Codex: A Study of the Origin and Method of Text Illustration, 1947 and John Lowden’s The Octateuchs: A Study in Byzantine Manuscript Illustration, 1992, which questions Weitzmann’s approach) and select manuscripts in particular (Suzy Dufrenne and Paul Canart, Die Bibel des Patricius Leo: Codex Reginensis Graecus I B, 1988); on icons (e. g., Leonid Ouspensky and Vladimir Lossky, The Meaning of Icons, 1952, 2nd ed., 1982); and on sculpture (André Grabar, Sculptures byzantines de Constantinople [IVe-Xe siècle], 1963 and Sculptures byzantines du Moyen Age [XIe–XIVe siècle], 1976). Finally, Barber points out that while extensive work has been done on early and especially middle Byzantine periods, the late Byzantine period has not yet generated enough scholarship. Because of the constraints of space, this entry provides, per force, a limited introduction to the historiography of medieval art. Nonetheless, it is
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perhaps prudent to note the obvious: that the concerns, methods, theories, problems and issues that occupy historians of medieval art are not necessarily unique to their particular field of study. For an excellent series of essays that engage topics relevant to medievalists and others, see Critical Terms in Art History (ed. Robert S. Nelson and Richard Shiff, 1996, 2nd ed., 2003) and the anthology of critical texts in the history of art from Vasari to Oguibe entitled Art History and Its Methods: a Critical Anthology, ed. Eric Fernie, 1995). Finally, for a discussion of whether “the academic discipline of art history no longer disposes of a compelling model of historical treatment,” see Hans Belting, The End of the History of Art? (1987) translated from the second edition of Das Ende der Kunstgeschichte? (1984). Select Bibliography Charles Barber, “Art History,” Palgrave Advances in Byzantine History, ed. Jonathan Harris (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 147–156; Medieval Scholarship: Biographical Studies on the Formation of a Discipline, vol. 3, ed. Helen Damico (New York: Garland Publishing, 2000); Modern Perspectives in Western Art History: An Anthology of 20th-Century Writings on the Visual Arts, ed. W. Eugene Kleinbauer (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971, rpt. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989); A Companion to Medieval Art: Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe, ed. Conrad Rudolph (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006).
Elina Gertsman
Astronomical Instruments A. Introduction Over 150 astronomical instruments have survived from the European Middle Ages (In this article we are dealing with the period from ca. 950 to ca. 1500). The European tradition is closely related to that of the Islamic Middle Ages (see David King, In Synchrony with the Heavens, vol. 2, 2005), and, in many cases, instrument-types and even individual instruments are directly or indirectly inspired by these. For both European and Islamic instrumentation, the associated textual traditions are important, not least for instrument-types of which no examples survive. By far the most common medieval instrument is the astrolabe – a two-dimensional model of the three-dimensional heavens that one can hold in one’s hand. The celestial part or rete – for the sun and the stars – can rotate over a terrestrial part, a set of plates for different latitudes –
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with markings for the meridian, the horizon, and altitude circles up to the zenith. The astrolabe was used primarily for timekeeping, and this holds for the other principal instruments, the horary quadrant and sundial. For computing the positions of the sun, moon and planets, either astronomical tables or an instrument known as the equatorium could be used. Other less common instruments intended for observational purposes include the armillary sphere and the torquetum. B. Instruments No comprehensive overview of medieval European instruments exists; indeed, there are no published descriptions of the majority of such instruments. Numerous instruments of different kinds preserved in Oxford have been surveyed by Robert Gunther (Early Science in Oxford, 5 vol., vol. 2, Astronomy, 1923), and later the same scholar published close to 40 medieval astrolabes (The Astrolabes of the World, 2 vol., dealing respectively with Eastern and European pieces [1932, rpt. 1976]). Most of the instruments discussed by Gunther have not been investigated again since his time, and not because his descriptions were exhaustive or without fault. Brief but useful introductions to medieval instrumentation are by Francis Maddison (“Early Astronomical and Mathematical instruments: A Brief Survey of Sources and Modern Studies,” History of Sciences 2 [1963]: 17–50) and Emmanuel Poulle (“Les instruments astronomiques de l’Occident latin aux XIe et XIIe siècles,” 15 [1972]: 27–40). A more thorough overview of instrument-types with a survey of makers and their works from Germany and the Netherlands was presented by Ernst Zinner (Deutsche und niederländische astronomische Instrumente des 11.–18. Jahrhunderts, 1956, rpt. 1972), although the descriptions of individual instruments are restricted to a few lines. The same author published a survey of European fixed sundials (Alte Sonnenuhren an europäischen Gebäuden (1964), of which only very few are medieval. Zinner’s works are still unsurpassed. On transmission from the Islamic world to medieval Europe see Astronomical Instruments in Medieval Spain: Their Influence in Europe, ed. Juan Vernet and Julio Samsó (1985); David King, “Islamic Astronomical Instruments and some Newly-Discovered Example of Transmission to Europe,” Mediterranean: Splendour of the Medieval Mediterranean: 13th–15th Centuries, ed. Elisenda Guedea, 2004, 400–23 and 606–07); also various studies on the elusive Jeber (Jâbir ibn Aflah) by Richard Lorch (Arabic Mathematical Sciences: Instruments, Texts, Transmission [1995]). Certain medieval instrument types have recently been shown to be Islamic in origin, although no Islamic examples survive, and we must rely on the textual tradition. Thus, for example, the
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popular quadrans vetus, a universal horary quadrant with movable cursor is an early Islamic invention (King, “A Vetustissimus Arabic Treatise on the Quadrans Vetus,” Journal for the History of Astronomy 33 [2002]: 1–19, also King, In Synchrony, 2005, pt. XIa). No such conclusive evidence is available for the elusive medieval English navicula de Venetiis, a universal device for timekeeping by the sun, although we have a 9th-century Arabic text on a more complicated universal device for timekeeping by the stars (King, “14th-Century England or 9th-Century Baghdad? New Insights on the Origins of the Elusive Astronomical Instrument Called the Navicula de Venetiis,” Centaurus 45 [2003]: 204–26, also King, In Synchrony, 2005, pt. XIb). C. Texts on Instruments The texts on different unusual kinds of instruments by a single individual, in this case, the early 14th-century English scholar Richard of Wallingford, have been published in an exemplary study by John North (Richard of Wallingford: An Edition of His Writings with Introductions, English Translation and Commentary, 1976). Likewise exemplary is a detailed account of all medieval equatoria and related texts by Emmanuel Poulle (Les instruments de la théorie des planètes selon Ptolemée: Équatoires et horlogerie planétaire du XIIIe au XVIe siècle, 2 vols., 1980). A new edition of Chaucer’s treatise on the astrolabe is now available in A Variorum Edition of the Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, vol VI, The Prose Treatises, pt.1, A Treatise on the Astrolabe, ed. Sigmund Eisner (2002). Yet no survey of all medieval English astrolabes in the Chaucerian tradition exists because scholars prefer texts to instruments and think that the former are more important than the latter. Because of certain features – such as the widespread quatrefoil decoration on astrolabe retes and the lack of place-names on astrolabe plates for different latitudes – it is often difficult to attribute a particular instrument to a specific geographical location; there are, for example, pieces that could be Spanish or French or Italian. Various centres of instrumentation arose in which the attribution is not problematic; the school of Jean Fusoris in Paris (ca. 1400) has been studied by Emmanuel Poulle (Un constructeur d’instruments astronomiques au 15e siècle: Jean Fusoris, 1963) and some 45 instruments surviving from the school of 15th-century Vienna have been listed by David King (Astrolabes and Angels, Epigrams and Enigmas: From Regiomontanus’ Acrostic for Cardinal Bessarion to Piero della Francesca’s Flagellation of Christ, 2007, 234–58). Reliable catalogues of the major collections with detailed descriptions of individual instruments are few in number and serve Greenwich (Koenraad van Cleempoel et al., Astrolabes at Greenwich: A Catalogue of the Astrolabes in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, 2005); London British Museum (F. A. B. Ward, A Catalogue of Scientific Instruments in the …
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British Museum, 1981; based on information previously recorded by Derek J. de Solla Price); Munich (Burkhardt Stautz, Die Astrolabiensammlungen des Deutschen Museums und des Bayerischen Nationalmuseums, 1999); and Nuremberg (David A. King, “Die Astrolabiensammlung des Germanischen Nationalmuseums,” Focus Behaim-Globus, ed. Gerhard Bott, 2 vols., 1992, I, 101–14, and II, 568–602). Often only astrolabes are catalogued and other related instruments, particularly quadrants and pocket sundials, are overlooked. Numerous other catalogues could be mentioned in which Islamic or Renaissance European instruments predominate, there being so few surviving medieval European examples. Thus, for example, of the two dozen astrolabes discussed in careful detail by Salvador García Franco (Catálogo crítico de los astrolabios in España, 1945), not a single one can be classified as medieval; the only surviving Catalonian and Spanish instruments just happen to be preserved in collections outside Spain. The potential of astronomical instruments as historical sources has been stressed by David King (“Astronomical Instruments between East and West,” Kommunikation zwischen Orient und Okzident, ed. Harry Kühnel, 1994, 143–98; and id., In Synchrony, Pt. XIIIa; the latter dealing with astrolabes). Some individual instruments of particular historical interest have now been studied in exhaustive detail. Thus, for example, we have lengthy descriptions of the earliest European astrolabe from late-10th-century Catalonia (collected articles in The Oldest Latin Astrolabe, ed. Wesley Stevens, Guy Beaujouan and Anthony J. Turner, Physis: Rivista di storia della scienza, N. S. 32:2–3,1995, 189–450; with several contributions of doubtful value); an astrolabe from Catalonia datable ca. 1300 (David A. King and Kurt Maier, “The Medieval Catalan Astrolabe of the Society of Antiquaries, London,” From Baghdad to Barcelona: Studies in the Islamic Exact Sciences in Honour of Prof. Juan Vernet, ed. Josep Casulleras and Julio Samsó, 2 vol., 1996, II, 673–718); a non-functional 14th-century Italian astrolabe copied from a highly sophisticated Islamic prototype (King, In Synchrony, 2005, pt. XIIId); a 14th-century Spanish astrolabe with inscriptions in Hebrew, Latin and Arabic (King, In Synchrony, 2005, pt. XV); an astrolabe, probably made in Erfurt, commissioned by the treasurer of the Stiftskirche in Einbeck (King, “An Astrolabe from Einbeck datable ca. 1330,” to appear in a Festschrift for Menso Folkerts, ed. Andreas Kühne, Paul Kunitzsch, and Richard P. Lorch); a 14th-century Picard astrolabe with numbers written in monastic ciphers (King, The Ciphers of the Monks: A Forgotten Number-Notation of the Middle Ages, 2001, 131–51 and 391–419); an early-14th-century astrolabic quadrant (Elly Dekker, “An Unrecorded Medieval Astrolabe Quadrant from ca. 1300,” Annals of Science 52 [1995]: 1–47); and the remarkable astro-
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labe presented by the astronomer Regiomontanus to his patron Cardinal Bessarion in 1462 with a complex acrostic in its dedication (King, Astrolabes and Angels, Epigrams and Enigmas, 31–46 and 259–74). A catalogue of the entire corpus of surviving medieval instruments, still mainly unpublished, and a survey of the related literature, also mainly unpublished, is a desideratum for the future. Since this would be such a monumental international project (previous ventures by Derek Price and David King did not achieve a publishable handlist or a catalogue, respectively), regional overviews (say, detailed descriptions of all medieval English instruments, or all Fusoris astrolabes, or all 15th-century Vienna instruments) or surveys of all examples of a specific instrument-genre (say, all naviculas, or all torqueta) would be more feasible undertakings. In all cases, the associated textual tradition should not be overlooked. Select Bibliography Robert T. Gunther, The Astrolabes of the World, 2 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1932; rpt in 1 vol., London: The Holland Press, 1976; long out of date but still the major work on medieval European astrolabes); David A. King, “Astronomical Instruments between East and West,” Kommunikation zwischen Orient und Okzident, ed. Harry Kühnel (Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1994), 143–98; David A. King, In Synchrony with the Heavens: Studies in Astronomical Timekeeping and Instrumentation in Medieval Islamic Civilization, 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 2004–05; although mainly dealing with Islamic instruments, this work contains substantial new material on the medieval European tradition); John North, Richard of Wallingford: An Edition of His Writings with Introductions, English Translation and Commentary, 3 vols. (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1976); Ernst Zinner, Deutsche und Niederländische astronomische Instrumente des 11.–18. Jahrhunderts (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1956, rpt. 1972).
David A. King
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B Bakhtinian Discourse Theory, Heteroglossia A. Introduction Љ Miha“loviљ Љ BAHTiЉ N) (born NoMikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin (Mihail vember 17, 1895; died March 7, 1975) was not a medievalist per se. However, the theories of discourse and the novel that he composed in the 1930s and 40s have found significant reception among medievalists since the early 1980s with appearance of Michael Holquist’s and Caryl Emerson’s translation The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M. M. Bakhtin (1981) and the subsequent wider reception of Hélène Iswolsky’s translation of Rabelais and His World (1968). Dialogic Imagination is based on a collection of Bakhtin’s essays written during the 1930s and 40s, which appeared together for the first time in Russian as Questions of Literature and Aesthetics (Vopros« literatur« i Њste tiki) in 1975; thus placing the full emergence of Bakhtinian studies in the early 1980s is not unique to the English speaking world. Dialogic Imagination contains the four essays, “Discourse in the Novel” (“Slovo v romane,” 1934–1935), “Forms of Time and of the Chronotope in the Novel” (“Form« vremeni i hronotopa v romane,” 1937–1938), “From the Pre-History of Novelistic Discourse” (“Iz pred«storii romannogo slova,” 1940), and “Epic and Novel” (“Ѓpos i roman,” 1941). These essays, along with Rabelais and His World (Tvorљestvo Fransua Rable i narodnaѕ kulцtura sredneve kovцѕ i Renessansa, 1965), contain the five key concepts of Bakhtinian discourse theory most relevant to medieval studies: dialogism, heteroglossia, the chronotope, the carnivalesque, and the grotesque. It is important to note, however, that Bakhtin had limited access to medieval texts and only really glances the medieval period as he explores the development of the novel, which culminates, in Bakhtin’s theoretical oeuvre, with the work of Dostoyevsky. B. Theory of the Novel Bakhtin seeks “the authentic spirit of the novel” in texts that “anticipate the more essential historical aspects in the development of the novel in modern times” (“Epic and Novel,” 22). He identifies two lines of stylistic development in the move from monologic to a fully dialogic novelistic discourse,
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that of the First and Second Line novel (“Discourse in the Novel,” 366–76). Bakhtin locates the courtly romance as the site of transition between these two stylistic lines and his theory has, therefore, become a focus of medieval studies. He asserts that the novel emerged out of a gradual development from single-voiced (monologic) to double-voiced (dialogic) literary discourse in Western literature (“Discourse in the Novel,” 259–422). Monologic discourse is the language of First Line novels and dialogic discourse is the language of Second Line novels. Bakhtin’s theory holds that only one cultural code or one voice operates within the monologic text. The novel, on the other hand, is double-voiced or dialogic. Bakhtin locates the beginnings of the First Line of novelistic development in the novellas, satires, biographies and autobiographies of late antiquity. He explicates Lucius Apuleius’s The Golden Ass (ca. 160 C.E.) as an example of the First Line of the development of novelistic discourse. He also places the medieval vitae and some courtly epics in this category, the works of Chrétien de Troyes, Hartmann von Aue, and Gottfried von Straßburg, for instance. Bakhtin employs the term heteroglossia to characterize the multiple voices and various cultural codes interacting with one another in the novel. Some courtly romances contain heteroglossic and dialogic discourse and are regarded as novels. First Line novels have dialogic or heteroglossic elements like word plays or parodies but more advanced forms of heteroglossic discourse, like the inclusion of non-literary discourses, such as the language of medical science or animal husbandry, remain outside of the narrative. Bakhtin then concludes that the dialogical discourse functions in the background of First Line novels, where the idealizing language of the narrative and the everyday language of the world in which the narrative emerges conflict (“Discourse in the Novel,” 376). According to his theory, the Second Line of novelistic development produces the full-fledged dialogic and heteroglossic novel. Bakhtin describes heteroglossia as “another’s speech in another’s language, serving to express authorial intentions but in a refracted way” (“Discourse in the Novel,” 324). Heteroglossia denotes language alien to a given context, which is employed to express intentions that conflict with what might be generally understood by the communication. The language of this discourse is double-voiced. It serves two speakers at once and expresses their conflicting intentions. In the same word or expression, the literal meaning articulated by the fictional characters in the work collides with the covert intentions of the author. The dialogic utterance expresses two voices, two meanings and two perspectives simultaneously. These voices charge the dialogic expression and react to one another within that expression (“Discourse in the Novel,” 324–25). Hetero-
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glossia and dialogic discourse differ therein that the double-voiced word or dialogic expression provides a space in which conflicting discourses collide to produce one word or expression with two possible meanings. Heteroglossia simply denotes the concurrence of conflicting discourses not their interaction. The arrangement of heteroglossic and dialogic elements expresses authorial intention. Bakhtin’s author intentionally subverts her/his own intentions. That is, Bakhtin’s author consciously activates dialogic discourse and crafts a language whose meaning strays intentionally beyond his/ her control. The author provides the reader with an “interruptive,” a word or expression which points to the plurality of its meaning. The resulting instability of meaning in the text remains, to a certain degree, under the control of the author and his text cannot be conceived as something totally subject to the whims of the reader. Bakhtin notes that the literary consciousness of the authors and audience of the courtly romances formed during a period of extensive cultural exchange. Individual European cultures began assimilating elements of foreign languages and cultures into their own. The exchange between the French and the Germans exemplifies this process. Bakhtin asserts that this cultural assimilation impacted on the literary production of the period and produced a new literary consciousness: “Translation, reworking, re-conceptualizing, re-accenting – manifold degrees of mutual orientation with alien discourse, alien intentions – these were the activities shaping the literary consciousness that created the chivalric romance” (“Discourse in the Novel,” 377). Bakhtin regards Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival as the first truly dialogic novel and one of the earliest examples of a Second Line “real” novel. According to Bakhtin, Wolfram’s particular brand of heteroglossia, a language that revels in the mixing of high and low discourses, inaugurated the predilection for this type of discourse in the German literary tradition (“Discourse in the Novel,” 324–25). C. The Chronotope Bakhtin’s notion of the chronotope represents the third equally important contribution to literary theory discussed here. He uses the term chronotope to describe the phenomenon of the organization and interaction of time and space in a given text (“Forms of Time and of the Chronotope in the Novel: Notes toward a Historical Poetics,” 84–85). Arthur Groos (“Dialogic Transpositions: The Grail Hero Wins a Wife,” Chrétien de Troyes and the German Middle Ages, 1993, 257–76.) describes the chronotope as “the differentiation of discourse through the articulation of time and space” (“Dialogic Transpositions,” 262). The degree of chronotopic complexity, as with the notion of
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single and double-voiced discourse, depends on the genre and line of development. Single-voiced or monologic forms have very simple and distinctly separate chronotopic levels. Bakhtin identifies the adventure as the most common chronotope. During an adventure the rules of time and space change. The site of the adventure is enchanted and unfamiliar. The events that occur in this space are of an indeterminate duration. Pure chance usually governs the switch from the “realistic” stable chronotopes of the narrative (the court) to the adventure chronotope (the wilderness) (“Forms of Time and of the Chronotope in the Novel,” 87–92). D. The Carnivalesque In his essay “Epic and the Novel” Bakhtin distinguishes the novel further by ascribing an intrinsically subversive element to it. The novel differentiates itself from epic, in that epic relies on the notion of past and tradition as sacred, where as the novel continually functions to destabilize such notions (“Epic and Novel,” 15). Continuing in this vein, Bakhtin develops the notion of the carnivalesque, “In the world of the carnival the awareness of the people’s immortality is combined with the realization that established authority and truth are relative” (Rabelais and his World, 10). Like the novel, for Bakhtin the “Carnival was the true feast of time, the feast of becoming, change and renewal. It was hostile to all that was immortalized and complete” (Rabelais and his World, 109). The carnivalesque unfolds as class struggle with lower elements of society, discourse, and the body itself. The latter aspect being central to Bakhtin’s notion of the grotesque, also developed in his work on Rabelais, in which the body itself, particularly the body in a state of openness, expulsion or transformation such as during eating, drinking, copulating, defecating, urinating, menstruating, birthing and dying and all of the fluids associated with these activities become expressions of class struggle and social anxiety. Bakhtin characterizes the literary mode which describes these activities as grotesque realism, and ascribes to it an essentially socially transgressive quality. E. Critical Reception Thomas J. Farrell observes that “Bahktin hovers around medieval topics, he usually stops at the threshold” (Bakhtin and Medieval Voices, 1995). As useful as Bahktinian theory is for exploring medieval literature, there are many gaps to fill and pitfalls to avoid when applying it. Bakhtin constructs the history of the novel from back to front. He begins with narrative strategies specific to Dostoyevsky and then searches for traces of these characteristics elsewhere. Bakhtin mainly looks for a mixing of genres. Heteroglossia is
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the language produced by this pastiche. Heteroglossic language is inherently dialogic, that is, double voiced. Readers of Bakhtin often overlook the fact that discourse does not need to be heteroglossic in order to be dialogized. Moreover, neither of these elements, the heteroglossic nor the dialogic, account for the distinctive evolution of narrative practice that remains far more important for the development of the novel and must play a role in any consideration or definition of novelistic discourse. In “What Bakhtin Left Unsaid” (Romance: Generic Transformation from Chrétien de Troyes to Cervantes, 1985), Cesare Serge points out that “experimental and heteroglot texts constitute, outside the novel’s development but also within it, a discontinuous, frequently interrupted series,” while the romance as narrative form “develops by means of its very transformations, uninterruptedly and coherently to the present day” (26). The fetishization of polyphonic discourse as rigidly defined by modern reception of Bakhtin obscures the larger role that medieval romances play in the development of the novel. Bakhtin’s theory of heteroglossia presumes that the competing discourses arise from the mixing of discursive genres organized according to social stations. The language of the court competes with scientific narrative or the language of peasants, creating multiple perspectives that serve to destabilize one another. This theory, steeped in Marxist ideology, makes too much of the social milieu. The changing perspectives in any text, regardless of the idiolect employed, can generate this heteroglossia, or a web of competing meanings. Moreover, in many “chivalric novels” the generation of dialogic discourse does not result from heteroglossia but rather from the introduction of metonymical symbolic import, which relies on the introduction of time and internal progression in the text. Bakhtin posits his theory of time in the novel, the chronotope, independently of his theory of heteroglossia. Although his theory explores the interrelationship of the generation of multiple meanings and the portrayal of time, too often, critics employing his theories treat these aspects separately. The varying discourses must be inserted into a progression over time in order to activate the social import and context that distinguishes them from one another; simple heterogeneity of discourse does not produce multiple meanings. The formulation of novelistic discourse based on socially or stylistically distinguishable genres of language does not engage the competing medieval literary conceptual models behind the emergence of heteroglossia. Bakhtin fails to consider fully the role of allegory or medieval historiography in the development of the novelistic discourse in the “chivalric novels.” In fact, this omission accounts for the problematic position of chivalric verse narrative in his theory, because these were the very narrative forces informing the ro-
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mances. Recent scholarship has shown that the gradual separation of historical and imaginative literatures in the 12th and 13th centuries was the pivotal moment in creation of both the novel and modern historiography (see for example, Gabrielle M.Spiegel, “Social Change and Literary Language: The Texualization of the Past in Thirteenth-Century Old French Historiography,” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 17 [1987]: 149–74.) Moreover, in many medieval texts, the role of time in the generation of a “double voiced” discourse depends on the development of religious and spiritual conceptions. Since Bakhtin’s theory does not account for these impulses, nor even address the Bible as literary text within the framework of his theory, it hardly provides an accurate description of discourse in the romances. Moreover, already in many presumed First Line “novels” the dissolution of the chronotopic boundaries between the various adventure spaces thwart the linear progressive model that Bakhtin applies to them. The most widely applied of Bakhtin’s theories, the carnivalesque, is also the most widely assailed. The assertion of the carnival as social transgressive represents perhaps the weakest aspect of the concept. As Terry Eagleton has pointed out in Walter Benjamin: Towards a Revolutionary Criticism (1981), “Carnival, after all, is a licensed affair in every sense, a permissible rupture of hegemony, a contained popular blow-off as disturbing and relatively ineffectual as a revolutionary work of art. As Shakespeare’s Olivia remarks, there is no slander in an allowed fool” (148). In their work The Politics and Poetics of Transgression (1986), Peter Stallybrass and Allon White, then, seek the transgressive elements of carnivalesque in the grotesque. For medievalists however, the notion of the grotesque has a history that precedes Bakhtin and conflicts with his theory. As John Ganim notes, “Bakhtin’s grotesque, and his Middle Ages, intervene in [a] long history of spurious associations […] his own definition of the medieval was not meant to be historically accurate; instead, it was meant to be itself carnivalesque and dialogic, responding to and parodying definitions which had attempted to repress the anarchic energies he admired” (“Medieval Literature as Monster: The Grotesque Before and After Bakhtin,” Exemplaria 7.1 [1995]: 27–40). Despite these well-considered theoretical objections, the usefulness of Bakhtinian concepts for the analysis of medieval literature continues to be manifest in practice. Select Bibliography Terry Eagleton, Walter Benjamin: Towards a Revolutionary Criticism (London: New Left Books, 1981); John Ganim, “Medieval Literature as Monster: The Grotesque Before and After Bakhtin,” Exemplaria 7.1 (1995): 27–40; Arthur Groos, “Dialogic Transpositions: The Grail Hero Wins a Wife,” Chrétien de Troyes and the German Middle Ages, ed. Martin H. Jones and Roy Wisbey (London: Institute of Germanic Studies, 1993),
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257–76; The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M. M. Bakhtin, ed. Michael Holquist and Caryl Emerson (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981); Cesare Segre, “What Bakhtin Left Unsaid,” trans. Elise Morse, Romance: Generic Transformation from Chrétien de Troyes to Cervantes, ed. Kevin Brownlee and Marina Scordilis Brownlee (Hanover and London: University Press of New England, 1985), 23–46; Peter Stallybrass and Allon White, The Politics and Poetics of Transgression (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986).
Stephen M. Carey
Biblical Exegesis A. Historical Background Medieval Biblical exegesis is greatly indebted to the Patristic period. Some scholars identify two distinct exegetical traditions in ancient Christianity, the Alexandrine tradition, more prone to allegoresis, mainly represented by the Church father Origen (d. 254), and the Antiochene tradition, one more literal, mainly represented by Theodore of Mospuestia (d. 428) (Frances Young, “Alexandrian and Antiochene Exegesis,” A History of Biblical Interpretation, vol. 1, The Ancient Period, ed. Alan J. Hauser and Duane F. Watson, 2003, 334–54). But this distinction is more descriptive of early Christianity in the East than Western (Latin) Christendom. The Western church fathers, such as Jerome (d. 420), Augustine (d. 430), and Gregory the Great (d. 604), all of whose commentaries became foundational for the medieval understanding of Scripture, believed that the spiritual meaning of Scripture was its hidden, but true meaning, only perceptible to those who were initiated into the mysteries of faith. Jerome, in addition to producing the Latin Bible translation that would become basis of the standard Vulgate Bible translation of the Middle Ages, wrote commentaries on almost all books of the Old Testament that would be the source of many medieval commentaries. In the early Middle Ages, scholars like Isidore of Seville (d. 636) built upon the patristic tradition, while providing a great number of allegorical interpretations of Biblical passages that would become standard fare throughout the Middle Ages. Commentaries and Bible glosses of a more “Antiochene” character were produced in monastic foundations by Irish and Anglo-Saxon monks, such as Saint Gall, Werden, and Reichenau (M. L. W. Laistner, “Antiochene Exegesis in Western Europe During the Middle Ages,” Harvard
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Theological Review 40 [1947]: 19–31). Many of these commentaries bear the traces of the scholarly activity of archbishop Theodore (d. 690) and his companion Hadrian, whose arrival in Canterbury in the 7th century marked the beginning of a rich tradition of learning in the British isles (Bernhard Bischoff and Michael Lapidge, Biblical Commentaries from the Canterbury School of Theodore and Hadrian, 1994), which eventually would culminate in the work of the Venerable Bede (d. 735) (Famulus Christi: Essays in Commemoration of the Thirteenth Centenary of the Birth of the Venerable Bede, ed. Gerald Bonner, 1976). On the Continent, the Carolingian period witnessed a proliferation of Biblical commentaries, many of them associated with monastic learning in monastic centers such as Fulda, Auxerre, and Saint Gall (John J. Contreni, “Carolingian Biblical Studies,” Carolingian Essays: Andrew W. Mellon Lectures in Early Christian Studies, ed. Uta-Renate Blumenthal, 1983, 71–98). The aim of the Carolingian commentators was primarily educational: to make the patristic heritage accessible to clergy and monks, by inventorizing and classifying the diverse patristic commentaries, sermons, homilies, treatises, histories, and handbooks, and transforming them into consistent, running commentaries on almost the entire Bible (Bernice M. Kaczinsky, “Edition, Translation, and Exegesis: The Carolingians and the Bible,” The Gentle Voices of Teachers: Aspects of Learning in the Carolingian Age, ed. Richard E. Sullivan, 1995, 171–85). Among these exegetes, Haimo of Auxerre (d. 855), Johannes Scottus Eriugena (d. 877), Paschasius Radbertus (d. 865), and Hrabanus Maurus (d. 856) stand out. For instance, Hrabanus composed commentaries on almost the entire Bible by collecting exegetical opinions of the Church fathers, and he often listed their original authors (PL, 107–112). This way, he created a new genre of Bible commentary, which would have enormous influence on the formation of the 12th-century Glossa ordinaria (E. Ann Matter, “The Church Fathers and the Glossa Ordinaria,” The Reception of the Church Fathers in the West from the Carolingians to the Maurists, ed. Irena Backus, 1997, 83–111). In the High Middle Ages, monasteries continued to be important sites for the composition and collection of Biblical commentaries. The large number of commentaries, and especially sermon series, on the Song of Songs by Bernard of Clairvaux (d. 1135), Gilbert of Hoyland (d. 1172), and William of Saint Thierry (d. 1149) attest to this. But in the 12th century, the main focus of medieval learning shifted to the cathedral schools. It was here, and in the other schools of the pre-university era, that the main exegetical works were composed. The greatest exegetical accomplishment of the 12th-century cathedral schools was the compilation of patristic and Carolingian exegesis into a standard gloss on almost all books of the Bible, the Glossa ordinaria.
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This gloss was unique in that it combined the two prevalent formats of Biblical commentary: a marginal commentary that surrounding the central Biblical text, and interlinear glosses featuring short explications. Until the mid-20th century, scholars assumed that the origin of the Glossa ordinaria was Carolingian. But its authorship is more correctly associated with Anselm of Laon (d. 1117) and his brother Ralph of Laon (d. 1133). They were probably the authors of the gloss on Song of Songs, the Gospels, and Romans, while Gilbert of Auxerre (also nicknamed “the Universal”, d. 1134) was the likely author of the gloss on Lamentations, the Twelve Prophets, and possibly Samuel and Kings (Giuseppe Mazzanti, “Anselmo di Laon, Gilberto L’Universale e la ‘Glossa ordinaria’ alla Bibbia,” Bullettino dell’Istituto storico italiano per il medio evo e Archivio Muratoriano 102 [1999]: 1–19). The composition of the gloss was not a planned and uniform process by one author; for example, the Gloss on Psalms went through no less than three successive redactions, by Anselm of Laon, Gilbert of Poitiers (d. 1154), and Peter Lombard (d. 1160) respectively (Mark A. Zier, “Peter Lombard and the ‘Glossa Ordinaria’ on the Bible,” A Distinct Voice: Medieval Studies in Honor of Leonard E. Boyle O.P., ed. Jacqueline Brown and William P. Stoneman, 1997, 629–41). In the 1130s through 1150s, Paris (possibly the collegiate abbey of Saint Victor) became a major center for the production of glossed Bibles (Christopher F. R. De Hamel, Glossed Books of the Bible and the Origins of the Paris Booktrade, 1984; Patricia Stirnemann, “Oú ont été fabriqués les livres de la glose ordinaire dans la première moitié du XIIe siècle?,” Le XIIe siècle: Mutations et renouveau en France dans la première moitié du XIIe siècle, ed. F. Gasparri, 1994, 257–301). The Church fathers already had distinguished between a literal and a spiritual sense of Scripture, while often dividing the latter into a tropological (that is, moral), an allegorical (referring to the life of Christ or the Church), and an anagogical sense (referring to matters pertaining to the future life). Medieval exegetes generally adopted this fourfold scheme (or threefold, since allegory and anagogy were often seen as two different aspects of the same sense). It was not until the late 13th century that the famous mnemotechnic verse was formulated: Littera gesta docet, quid credas allegoria moralia quid agas, quid speres anagogia. (The letter teaches historical facts; allegory what to believe. The moral sense how to act; what to hope for, anagogy.) (Augustinus de Dacia, “Rotulus Pugillaris,” ed. A. Waltz, Angelicum 6 [1929]: 256)
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Ironically, in this period, the strict division between the different senses was fading (if, indeed, it ever existed), and authors started to emphasize the importance and primacy of literal exegesis over allegory. This emphasis on the primacy of the literal sense was developed by Hugh of Saint Victor, in his foundational reformulation of Augustinian hermeneutics in his Didascalicon, basing himself on the theory of signification offered in Augustine’s De doctrina christiana and De magistro (Hugo de Sancto Victore, Didascalicon De Studio Legendi: A Critical Text, ed. Charles Henry Buttimer, 1939). Hugh’s methodology gave the study of literal interpretation, and with it, the study of Hebrew and of Jewish exegesis, a new impetus. We can see his influence not only in Richard (d. 1173) and Andrew of Saint Victor (d. 1175) (Rainer Berndt, André de Saint-Victor[†1175]: Exégète et théologien, 1992; Bibel und Exegese in der Abtei Sankt Viktor zu Paris, ed. Rainer Berndt, 2006), but also in exegetes who had ties to the abbey of Saint Victor, such as Herbert of Bosham (d. after 1189), one of the most accomplished Hebraists of his time (Deborah L. Goodwin, “Take Hold of the Robe of a Jew”: Herbert of Bosham’s Christian Hebraism, 2006), and Peter Comestor (d. 1179), the author of the influential medieval exegetical handbook, the Historia Scholastica (PL, 198). Another contributing factor to the emphasis on the literal sense was the demand for the practical and pastoral training for clerics by the end of the 12th century. The Gregorian Reform had stressed the pastoral responsibilities of the clergy, and schools were offering more practical training as a result. Preaching and confession were seen as the two main purposes for the study of the Bible in the schools, and as a result, Biblical exegesis now emphasized the doctrinal and moral implications of Scripture over the more meditative spiritual exegesis. We can see this development represented in the works of schoolmen like Peter the Chanter (d. 1197) and Alexander Neckham (d. 1217). At the same time, the 12th century brought about a renewed interest in the philological dimension of Scriptural exegesis. Cistercian scholars such as Nicholas de Maniacoria (12th c.) and Stephan Harding (d. 1134) had started the process of correcting the Biblical text against the original Greek and Hebrew (Vittorio Peri, “‘Correctores immo corruptores,’ un saggio di critica testuale nella Roma del XII secolo,” Italia Medievale e Umanistica 20 [1977]: 19–125; and Matthieu Cauwe, “Le Bible d’Étienne Harding,” Revue Bénédictine 103 [1993]: 414–44). This work would be continued in the 13th century in the so-called correctories of Franciscans and Dominicans such as Guillelmus Brito, William de la Mare, and Hugh of Saint Cher (Franz Ehrle, “Die Handschriften der Bibel-Correctorien des 13. Jahrhunderts,” Archiv für Literatur- und Kirchengeschichte des Mittelalters, ed. Heinrich Denifle and Franz Ehrle, 1888, 263–311). The mid-13th century also saw an explosion
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in the commercial production of Bibles of a small format, the so-called Paris Bible. It was innovative in its format, and it offered a portable and accessible Bible for used by the emergent Mendicant orders (Christopher F. R. De Hamel, The Book: A History of the Bible, 2001, 114–39). The Bible was one of the main school texts in the mendicant studia, which prepared students for study at the universities. This was attested by the great number of didactic works meant to facilitate the study and preaching of Scripture: glossaries, such as Marchesinus of Reggio’s Mammotrectus (ca. 1280) and John Balbo’s Catholicon; didactic versifications (such as Petrus Riga’s Aurora); concordances; topical indexes; and Biblical Distinctiones (Louis-Jacques Bataillon, “Intermédiaires entre les traités de morale pratique et les sermons: Les ‘Distinctiones’ bibliques alphabétiques,” Les genres littéraires dans les sources théologiques et philosophiques médiévales, 1982, 213–26). The scholastic practice of reading the Bible cursorie through the first years of theology study also generated a large number of commentaries referred to as Postillae. These Postillae were commentaries on the entire Biblical text that combined textual analysis with moral and doctrinal application (Mariken Teeuwen, The Vocubulary of Intellectual Life in the Middle Ages, 2003, 307–08). They generally abandoned the sharp distinction between literal and spiritual exegesis that had characterized the monastic commentaries. They established the literal sense as the basic and most important interpretation of Scripture, but this literal sense often incorporated the idea that much of the Biblical texts should be regarded as metaphor. The “literal” sense was thus broadened to include a Christological interpretation of most Old Testament passages. These Postillae probably reflected much of the scholastic practice of the medieval universities, with their Aristotelian emphasis on text division as a method of interpretation, and with their incorporation of thematic quaestiones among the more verse-by-verse commentaries. Some of the most important postillators were the Dominicans Nicholas de Gorran (d. 1295) and Hugh of Saint Cher (d. 1263); the latter’s massive commentary was undoubtedly undertaken not by one person, but by a whole team of Dominican exegetes at the friary of Saint Jacques in Paris under the direction of Hugh. The most important Franciscan postillators were Alexander of Hales (d. 1245), William of Meliton (d. 1257), John of Peter Olivi (d. 1298), and especially Nicholas of Lyra (d. 1349), whose Postilla literalis, known for its high standard of Hebrew scholarship, was often printed together with the Glossa ordinaria to provide a standard Bible commentary in the 16th century. The later Middle Ages saw a steady increase in the quantity and volume of Biblical commentaries and sermons, partly as a result of the growth of universities and studia, where these were the staple of academic output. Ironi-
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cally, little scholarly attention has been given to exegesis in this period; scholars have even characterized it as a period of “decline”, partly because it has often been viewed teleologically through the lens of the subsequent Reformation. This false teleology has, for instance, characterized much of the scholarship on John Wycliffe (d. 1384) (Gustav Adolf Benrath, Wyclif ’s Bibelkommentar, 1966). As the work of scholars like Henri of Langenstein (d. 1397), Alonso Tostado (d. 1455), Francis Michele of Padua (d. 1472), and Johannes de Zymansionibus (15th c.) shows, late medieval exegesis was a lively field of scholarship, with more continuities between the late medieval period and the Reformation than has often been assumed (William J. Courtenay, “The Bible in the Fourteenth Century: Some Observations,” Church History 54 [1985], 176–87; Christopher Ocker, Biblical Poetics Before Humanism and Reformation, 2002). Christians were not the only Biblical scholars in medieval Europe. Jewish exegesis in the early Middle Ages produced substantial homiletic commentaries (the Midrashim), which mainly expanded on the narrative to provide moral edification and legal and ritual guidance. In the 11th and 12th centuries, Jewish exegesis in Northern France took a distinctive turn away from this more associative exegesis (Derash), and under Rabbi Solomon b. Isaac of Troyes (Rashi, d. 1105) started to emphasize the “simple”, that is, more literal and direct, meaning of scripture, the Peshat (Menahem Banitt, Rashi: Interpreter of the Biblical Letter, 1985). Rashi’s example was followed by a number of Northern French exegetes, such as his son-in-law R. Solomon b. Meir (Rashbam, d. 1174), Joseph Kara (d. 1170), Eliezer of Beaugency (12th c.), and Rabbi David Kimhi (Radak, d. 1235). Possibly the rise of Hebrew philology, exemplified by the Spanish/Southern French commentator Abraham Ibn Ezra (d. 1164), influenced this Peshat exegesis. It had considerable influence on the Christian exegetes of its time, such as Andrew of Saint Victor, Herbert of Bosham, and Nicholas of Lyra (Gilbert Dahan, Les Intellectuels Chrétiens et les Juifs du Moyen Âge, 1990). At the same time, a reaction against rationalist Aristotelianism and the rise of the mystical movement of Kabbalah produced a completely different kind of commentary; kabbalistic commentaries are best exemplified in the works of Ezra of Gerona (d. 1238) and Moses of Leon (d. 1305) (Geshom Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah, 1987; Moshe Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives, 1988). B. Research History The outline given by Ceslas Spicq is still considered a classic overview of medieval exegesis. Good general introductions to medieval Biblical exegesis are given in the Cambridge History of the Bible: The West, soon due for a complete
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revision; its French counterpart La Bible au Moyen Âge; and the Italian La Bibbia nel Medioevo. An indispensable reference work on the sources of medieval exegesis is Friedrich Stegmüller’s Repertorium Biblicum (1950–1980), which gives an alphabetical list of medieval exegetes and their works, with a handlist of printed editions and manuscripts. For the Patristic and early medieval period (up to Bede, d. 735), however, the updated version of the Clavis Patrum Latinorum (ed. Eligius Dekkers and Aemilius Gaar, 1995) should also be consulted. Many exegetical texts have recently been edited (such as Andrew of Saint Victor, CCCM, 53–53G, Petrus Comestor, CCCM, 191, and Petrus Cantor, Glossae super Genesim, ed. Agneta Sylwan, 1992). Because the edition of Glossa ordinaria in the Patrologia latina (PL, 113) left much to be desired, Margaret T. Gibson and Karlfried Froehlich oversaw the reprint of the 1480 edition of the Glossa ordinaria (Biblia Latina Cum Glossa Ordinaria. Anastatical Reproduction of the First Printed Edition: Strassburg, c. 1480 [Adolph Rusch?], 1992). The critical edition of the entire Gloss is a massive undertaking, which has been taken up only recently (Glossa ordinaria in Canticum Canticorum, CCCM, 177; Glossa Ordinaria in Lamentationes, ed. A. Andrée, 2005). Good overviews of the textual history of the Vulgate are offered by Samuel Berger (Histoire de la Vulgate pendent les premiers siècles du Moyen Âge, 1893) and P. M. Bogaert (“La Bible latine des origines au moyen âge. Aperçu historique, état des questions,” Revue théologique de Louvain, 19 [1988]: 137–59, 276–314). Two scholars whose work was seminal for the field of Biblical exegesis were Beryl Smalley (The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages, 1952; see also The Bible in the Medieval World: Essays in Honour of Beryl Smalley, ed. Katherine Walsh and Diana Wood, 1985) and Henri de Lubac (Exégèse Médiévale: Les quatre sens de l’Écriture, Paris, 1959–1964). De Lubac saw the greatness of medieval exegesis in the monastic, spiritual exegesis, while Smalley’s research emphasized the more “literal” and philological strain of medieval exegesis as a scholastic activity. This same emphasis characterizes the work of Gilbert Dahan (L’Exégèse chrétienne de la Bible en Occident médiéval, XIIe–XIVe siècle, 1999). Most scholarly work of the last decades has been published in conference volumes and anthologies. Some of these emphasize the 12th and 13th centuries (La Bibbia nel Medioevo, ed. Giuseppe Cremascoli and Claudio Leonardi, 1996; La Bibbia nel XIII secolo, ed. Giuseppe Cremascoli and Francesco Santi, 2004); others sum up recent trends in scholarship (Neue Richtungen in der hoch- und spätmittelalterlichen Bibelexegese, ed. Robert E. Lerner and Elisabeth Müller-Luckner, 1996); and yet others emphasize exegesis across religious cultures of Christianity and Judaism (Hebrew Bible / Old Testament, ed. Magne Sæbø, Chris Brekelmans, and Menahem Haran, 2000), or even Islam (With Reverence for the Word, ed. Jane Dammen
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McAuliffe, Barry D. Walfish, and Joseph W. Goering, 2003; Scripture and Pluralism, ed. Thomas. J. Heffernan and Thomas E. Burman, 2005). It was Bernhard Bischoff who first emphasized the importance of Insular exegesis (“Wendepunkte in der Geschichte der lateinischen Exegese im Mittelalter,” Sacris Erudiri 6 [1954]: 189–281), even though his thesis is still very much debated (Michael M. Gorman, “A Critique of Bischoff’s Theory of Irish Exegesis: The Commentary on Genesis in Munich Clm 6302,” Journal of Medieval Latin 7 [1997]: 178–233; Dáibhí O Cróinín, “Bischoff’s Wendepunkte Fifty Years On,” Revue Bénédictine 110 [2000]: 204–37). Bischoff also was the first to “discover” the Biblical glosses from the school of Theodore and Hadrian. These anonymous Bible glosses have now appeared in a comprehensive edition (CCCM, 189A-B). Irish exegesis was the topic of a 1976 conference (Irland und die Christenheit, ed. Próinséas Ní Chatáin and Michael Richter, 1987); much of it focusing on the so-called Bibelwerk, an early medieval collection of various exegetical texts, which appeared in a 2000 edition (CCCM, 173). A recent congress volume edited by Celia Chazelle and Burton Van Name Edwards (The Study of the Bible in the Carolingian Era, 2003) gives a good overview of the current state of studies in Carolingian Biblical exegesis. Various scholastic postillators have been the subject of conferences and anthologies, such as Nicholas of Lyra (Nicholas of Lyra, ed. Philip D. Krey and Lesley Smith, 2000), John of Peter Olivi (Pietro di Giovanni Olivi: Opera edita et inedita, 1999), and Hugh of Saint Cher (Hugues de Saint-Cher, ed. Louis-Jacques Bataillon, Gilbert Dahan, and Pierre-Marie Gy, 2004). Olivi’s exegetical works have appeared in some critical editions (Peter of John Olivi on the Bible, ed. David Flood and Gedeon Gál, 1997; Expositio in Canticum Canticorum, ed. Johannes Schlageter, 1999; Lectura Super Proverbia et Lectura Super Ecclesiasten, ed. Johannes Schlageter, 2003). By contrast, many of the other postillators’ works are still waiting critical editions, such as Nicholas of Lyra (Lyons, 1545), and Hugh of Saint Cher (Cologne, 1621). The classic work on the theory of medieval interpretation and the study of hermeneutics is still that of Hennig Brinkmann (Mittelalterliche Hermeneutik, 1980), but much research has been done to connect medieval hermeneutics with medieval literary theory, often emphasizing the study of the medieval Accessus (Edwin A. Quain, “The Medieval Accessus ad Auctores,” Traditio 3 [1945]: 215–64; Alistair J. Minnis, Medieval Theory of Authorship, 1984). A good introduction to the sources of Rabbinical exegesis is offered by Hermann L. Strack in 1887, but updated many times (Einleitung in Talmud und Midrasch, 1982; Günter Stemberger, Introduction to the Talmud and Mid-
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rash, 1991). Erwin I. Rosenthal offers a fine overview and bibliography of medieval Jewish exegesis (“Medieval Jewish Exegesis: Its Character and Significance,” Journal of Semitic Studies 9 [1964]: 265–81). A recent anthology by Michael Fishbane offers a good impression of the state of scholarship on Rabbinical and early medieval Jewish Midrashic exegesis (The Midrashic Imagination, 1993), while the study of 12th-century peshat exegesis owes much to the work of Sarah Kamin (Jews and Christians Interpret the Bible, 1991; see also The Bible in the Light of its Interpreters: Sarah Kamin Memorial Volume, ed. Sara Japhet, 1994, in Hebrew). Especially the exegete Rashi has been the subject of several studies and anthologies (Esra Shereshevsky, Rashi: The Man and His World, 1982; Albert Van der Heide, “Rashi’s Biblical Exegesis: Recent Research and Developments,” Bibliotheca Orientalis 41 [1984]: 292–318; Rashi 1040–1990, ed. G. Sed-Rayna, 1993). Select Bibliography La Bibbia nel Medioevo, ed. Giuseppe Cremascoli and Claudio Leonardi (Bologna: Edizioni Dehoniane, 1996); Gilbert Dahan, L’Exégèse Chrétienne de la Bible en Occident médiéval, XIIe-XIVe siècle, Patrimoines: Christianisme (Paris: Cerf, 1999); Henri De Lubac, Exégèse Médiévale: Les Quatre Sens de l’Écriture, Théologie (Paris: Aubier, 1959–1964); Le Moyen Âge et la Bible, ed. Pierre Riché and Guy Lobrichon (Paris: Beauchesne, 1984); Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Blackwell, 1952, 3rd ed. 1983); Ceslas Spicq, Esquisse d’une histoire de l’exégèse Latine au Moyen Âge (Paris: Vrin, 1944); Friedrich Stegmüller, Repertorium Biblicum Medii Aevi (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto Francisco Suárez, 1950–1980); The West From the Fathers to the Reformation, ed. G.W.H. Lampe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969).
Frans van Liere
Botany A. The Dark Ages of Medieval Botany Knowledge of plants during the late 15th century, which was closely linked to materia medica and therapeutics, was made obsolete by the reintroduction of classical literature (particularly Greek) principally by Ferrara physician Nicolao Leoniceno (1428–1524). In a booklet published in 1492 (De Plinii et aliorum in medicina erroribus), Leoniceno virulently attacked the transformation of botany from antiquity to his days – mainly the influence of the Arabic world –, arguing that patients’ lives were at risk because of the many
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confusions between plants used for therapeutic purposes. He thus promoted to return to ancient literature, principally Dioscorides (1st c. C.E.) whose treatise (De materia medica) he contributed to get published in a critical edition printed by Aldo Manuzio (July 1499). From then on, medieval botany and therapeutic uses of plants were largely ignored in Western scholarly literature, science, and practice, even more so because, at the same time as Leoniceno, the civil authority in Florence requested a commission of physicians to compile a new codex medicamentarius (the Ricettario fiorentino first published in 1499) aimed to replace any anterior receptory. The movement was further amplified with the herbals of those whom the historian of classical botany and medicine Kurt Sprengel (1766–1833) called the ‘German Fathers of Botany’ (Historia Rei Herbariae, 2 vols., 1807–1808), among others Otto Brunfels (ca. 1489–1534) (Eicones vivae herbarum, 1530) and Leonhart Fuchs (1501–1566) (Historia stirpium, 1542). Shortly after, new botanic gardens were created in Pisa and Padua, and the teaching of botany at such medieval university as Montpellier was transformed with the introduction of a teaching based on Dioscorides, field work (herborisation in which François Rabelais [ca. 1494–ca. 1553] participated), and a botanic garden (Louis Dulieu, La médecine à Montpellier, vol. 2: La Renaissance, 1979, passim). Last but far from least, the introduction of plants and drugs from the New World that were unknown in the Old World led to relativize the notion of local flora, and opened the way to a new concept of the vegetal world. As a result, medieval botany had been definitely made obsolete by mid-16th century and almost disappeared from the history of the discipline. In his Bibliotheca Botanica qua scripta ad rem herbariam facientia a rerum initiis recensentur (2 vols., 1771–1772), the Swiss anatomist, physiologist and natural historian Albrecht von Haller (1708–1777) devotes to the Middle Ages only 40 out of the 1.500 pages in the work (vol. 1, 214–54), while he dedicated 170 pages to antiquity (vol. 1, 1–170) and barely more than 40 to the Arabic world (vol. 1, 171–213). Significantly, the chapter on the Middle Ages is entitled Arabistae (vol. 1, 214), whereas the chapter on the Renaissance is entitled Instauratores (vol. 1, 255), and starts with the following statement: Felicitas est seculi XV. quod eo vertente literae in Europa renasci ceperint. Eo enim aevo Graeci Constantinopoli pulsi in Europam confugerunt, & secum codices veterum M.S. adtulerunt […] Ita sensim barbarities Arabum displicuit […].
Coming almost fifty years after Sprengel’s Historia Rie Herbariae, the monumental Geschichte der Botanik in four volumes (1854–1857) by Ernst H. F. Meyer (1791–1858) opened the doors of the history of botany to the Middle Ages, though in a subtle, oblique, and highly biased form. After the entire
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volume 1 (X + 406 pp.) and half of volume 2 (pp. 1–273 out of X + 440 pp.) on antiquity, he discussed together the East and the West in the book covering the period from Julian the Apostate to Charlemagne (that is, 363–800 C.E.) (vol. 2, 274–423). In volume 3, after a long discussion of Arabic botany (preceded, maybe significantly, by an 88-page section on East-Asian, Indian, Persian, and Nabatean peoples), he turned to the Europeo-Christian world from Charlemagne to Albertus Magnus (corresponding to the years 800 to 1280 C.E.). The pre-Salernitan West is briefly dealt with (391–434) and followed by a long chapter on Monte Cassino and Salerno (435–513). Meyer then turned to the transalpine area, France, England, Germany (mainly Hildegard von Bingen [1098–1179]), and Denmark, concluding the volume with a fourpage section on travels to unknown countries (539–42: “Reisen in unbekannte Länder”). Interestingly, in the section on Germany, Meyer included a list of botanical lexica (521–23) “left unused by [his] predecessors” (521: “[…] die zahlreichen botanischen Glossarien des Mittelalters […] die meine Vorgänger noch unbenutzt liessen […]”). Volume 4 is not less significant: it opens with Albertus Magnus (ca. 1200–1280) under the title “Botany under the renewed influence of Aristotelian natural philosophy” (1: “Die Botanik unter dem erneuerten Einfluss der aristotelischen Naturphilosophie”). In this view, Albertus receives 80+ pages (1–84). Short chapters follow, which are more like a series of unavoidable intermezzos: the encyclopedias (84–106), the “botanical knowledge from the countries opened to Christians thanks to the Crusades” (110–14), the travels of Christians to far, non-European countries (114–38), agronomical theory (138–59), medical dictionaries (159–77), and popular books on medicinal plants (177–206). The Renaissance coming then and covering half of the volume (207–444) is a “return to the observation of nature thanks to the study of classical literature” (207: “Rückkehr durch das Studium der klassischen Literatur zur Naturbeobachtung”). The door opened onto medieval literature in Meyer’s history was quickly closed. In 1875, Julius von Sachs (1832–1897), a professor for Botany at the University of Würzburg, published a history of botany, which was translated into English as early as 1906. Although the title announces 1530 as the starting point (that is, the publication of Brunfels’ herbal), the analysis actually starts with the year 1542 (that is, with the first edition of Fuchs’s herbal). The Middle Ages are simply eliminated with such considerations as (p. 3 of the 1906 English translation): […] the corrupt texts of Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Pliny and Galen had been in many respects improved and illustrated […] [by] the Italian commentators of the 15th and of the early part of the 16th century […] a great advance was made by the first German composers of herbals, who went straight to nature, described the
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wild plants growing around them and had figures of them carefully executed in wood. Thus was made the first beginning of a really scientific examination of plants […]
Further on, Sachs explained better his idea about the pre-1530 state of botany (14–5): […] the botanical literature of the middle ages […] continually grows less and less valuable […] the works of Albertus Magnus, as prolix as they are deficient in ideas […] productions of medieval superstitions […] (15) […] botanical literature had sunk so low, that not only were the figures embellished with fabulous additions, as in the Hortus Sanitatis, and sometimes drawn purely from fancy, but the meager descriptions of quite common plants were not taken from nature, but borrowed from earlier authorities and eked out with superstitious fictions […]
Going on, he identified the cause of this in the fact that (15): […] the powers of independent judgment were oppressed and stunned in the middle ages, till at last the very activity of the senses, resting as it does to a great extent on unconscious operations of the understanding, became weak and sickly; natural objects presented themselves to the eye of those who made them their study in grotesquely distorted forms; every sensuous impression was corrupted and deformed by the influence of a superstitious fancy […]
Concluding, he opposed the newly produced herbal of Bock, though “artless,” as an achievement (15) “[…] in comparison with these perversions […]” of the Middle Ages. The two-volume work Les Plantes dans l’antiquité et au moyen âge (1897–1904) by the French Charles Joret (1839–1914) announced a treatment of the Middle Ages of a new type. In the introduction, he described, indeed, his project as follows (vol. 1, XV–XVI): […] je voudrais essayer de retracer l’histoire agricole, industrielle, poétique, artistique et pharmacologique des espèces végétales connues des différentes nations de l’antiquité classique et du moyen âge. Je ne me dissimule pas les difficultés de l’entreprise; elles sont d’autant plus grandes que personne jusqu’ici n’a abordé ce vaste sujet.
It seems, however, that he could not achieve his vast and ambitious program, as the two published volumes (which were the first part, devoted to what Joret called “L’orient classique”) cover only a short segment of the topic: the ancient Near East (actually Egypt, the Chaldeans, Assyria, Judea, and Phoenicia) (volume 1), and Iran and India (volume 2). It is not sure, however, that Joret would have dealt with the Middle Ages with the same depth as he would have for antiquity. In summarizing the contributions of his predecessors in the introduction, he jumped, indeed, from antiquity to modern times, simply dropping the Middle Ages (vol. 1, XVI):
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Two works written during the same period share a similar omission, although they are very different under many aspects: the Landmarks of Botanical History by the botanist Edward Lee Greene (1843–1915), and the epochmaking Herbals by another botanist, Agnes Arber (1879–1960). Greene’s work, which was completed in 1907 but left unpublished until 1983 (2 vol.), was intentionally conceived as a sort of portrait gallery. According to Green himself, indeed, knowledge of the history of botany is almost impossible, because it requires first to have “mastered that science itself” (vol. 1, 89) and, then, to have a “second lifetime” (ibid.). But even so: […] the presentation of a complete and accurate history of botany would remain impossible. Important data wanting, and hopelessly so […] the same is in a measure true of comparatively recent periods […] (ibid.).
This is why he limited himself to a presentation of landmarks, with “some prominence […] given to biography” (vol. 1, 91). Significantly, however, no medieval author appears in this gallery, even though Green himself, who was then a seasoned scientist, recognizes that the work of the German Fathers should be scrutinized as (vol. 1, 90): […] no annalist of a later age seems to have had time or disposition to ascertain how much of the assumed new and original botany of those German Fathers […] was taken out of old manuscripts which, although they may still be extant, later historians have neither consulted nor troubled themselves to enquire after.
As for Arber’s volume (first published in 1912, with several re-editions, some of which revised and augmented), which was the first essay of a young scholar, it had a very specific object, made clear from its full title: Herbals, their Origin and Evolution: A Chapter in the History of Botany 1470–1670. The introductory chapter (1–12) devoted to the pre-printing period (since herbal printing is the focus of the book) and entitled “The Early History of Botany,” falls short from what it announces, as it focuses on Aristotle, Albertus Magnus, Theophrastus, and Dioscorides, that is, the Aristotelian and the classical tradition, omitting the Middle Ages even in the treatment of medicinal botany. Nevertheless, the next chapter (13–37), on early printed herbals, deals with some medieval works, with a major, if not an exclusive, focus on them as printed objects, rather than as scientific achievement. It was the merit of the German botanist Hermann Fischer (1884–1936) to create the field of the history of medieval botany in his book Mittelalterliche Pflanzenkunde (1929). As he put it in the preface ([V]–VI), there was a growing
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interest in the Middle Ages, not only in Europe but also in America. However, only an interest in, and a love for, medieval culture ([V]: “Nur Interesse und Liebe”) could push anybody to penetrate into the domain of medieval plant “systematic” and “scholastic method.” After this opening remark, in which he seems to consider medieval botany as an arcane science requiring uncommon interests, Fischer defined it as a history of plants, which, when applied practically, contributes to the cultural history of peoples ([V]): die mittelalterliche Botanik hauptsächlich Geschichte der Pflanzen bleibt und die angewandte Botanik einen Teil der Kulturgeschichte der Völker bildet.
To research the history of medieval botany, Fischer used the sheer quantity of material that came to light after the publication of the then last history of medieval botany, Meyer’s Geschichte der Botanik. Such material consisted in manuscripts and early printed books with botanical contents, for the further exploration of which Fischer’s book was to serve as a tool to penetrate the scientific thinking and method of work of medieval authors ([V]-VI). With this book, Fischer not only pulled the medieval botany out of the dark ages in which it had been relegated in the early-Renaissance, but also he sketched a new historiography of medieval botany, identified its sources, proposed an agenda and, on this basis, defined appropriate methods. Nevertheless, the concept of Dark Ages of Botany had a long after-life, as the notso-ancient volume by Alan G. Morton, History of Botanical Science: An Account of the Development of Botany from Ancient Times to the Present Day, 1981 shows (see the chapter 4 [82–114] entitled “The Dark Ages of Botany in Europe (200 to 1483)”). Whereas the history of Western medieval botany underwent this slow transformation, botany of the Arabo-Islamic world was gaining increasing attention as the difference in its treatment from Haller to Meyer indicates. As a further example, the French physician and Arabist Lucien Leclerc (1816–1893) started publishing in 1877 a translation of the treatise of medical botany by the Andalusian scientist ibn al-Baytar (d. 1248 C.E.) considered to be the most achieved work of the Arabic world in the field of botany. The real nature of this interest in Arabo-Islamic should not be overestimated, however, as Leclerc emphasizes much the role of Arab and Arabic speaking scientists as intermediaries in the transmission of the Greek heritage. This was already the case in his history of Arabic medicine published one year before, in which Arabic science is presented as an intermediary between Antiquity and the West. Its title makes it plain: “Histoire de la médecine arabe, […] exposé complet des traductions du Grec, […], leur transmission à l’Occident par les traductions latines […].” Not to mention
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the Orientalism so much criticized by Edward Said (1935–2003). Whatever the case, Arabic botany was the only one to be considered in the scholarly community, as Byzantine botany did not retain much the attention, in spite of sporadic mentions in Meyer’s Geschichte der Botanik. B. Beginnings and Institutionalization However programmatic and promising it was, Fischer’s Mittelalterliche Pflanzenkunde was not immediately followed by specific studies on the history of medieval botany. With some exceptions, research in the field started only after World War II, particularly with the late Jerry Stannard (1926–1988), whose major publications have been reproduced in two volumes of collected studies edited by Katherine E. Stannard, and Richard Kay, both published in 1999: Pristina Medicamenta: Ancient and Medieval Medical Botany, and Herbs and Herbalism in the Middle Age and the Renaissance. Jerry Stannard was followed by John Riddle, who specialized more on the history of pharmacy, however. Several of his many publications have been reproduced in a volume of collected studies: Quid pro quo: Studies in the History of Drugs, 1992. Although both have paved the way for new and innovative research, they have not been followed by other scholars, be it in-house or in another institution, nationally or internationally. In the current state, the only real school for historical studies in the field of botany is the School for Arabic Studies (Escuela de Estudios Arabes) of the National Foundation for Scientific Research of Spain (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas) in Granada, specialized, however, on Andalusian botany and agriculture. Also, a program on the history of botany, particularly in the Eastern Mediterranean, with a special focus on medicinal plants, is currently running in the Botany Department of the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., where the collection Historia plantarum specialized on the history of botany is housed. There are individual scholars, however, who work on some topics in the field, in departments of classics, history, history of medicine, or history of medieval languages and literature. With some exceptions, research is rarely of a transdisciplinary nature, taking into account all the components of the topic, from manuscripts and textual tradition to botany stricto sensu and medicine in the case of therapeutic uses of plants. On the other hand, since medicinal plants are currently the object of a renewed interest in contemporary society, there are plenty of micro-studies of a monographic nature on the uses of determined plants made by ethno-botanists and ethno-pharmacologists that include historical data. The historical part of such studies is not
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necessarily based on a direct access to primary sources in the original language, as accurate as a sound historical investigation would require, or done in collaboration by a team of specialists of the several disciplines involved in the research. Finally, there is no scientific journal specifically devoted to the history of botany, no society or formal group either, no conference or meeting of any type, except occasional articles in such journals as the Journal for the History of Biology, Isis, Taxon, Economic Botany, Journal of Ethnopharmacology or Fitoterapia, for example, and occasional panels in conferences organized by such societies as the History of Science Society (of America, but by far and large the most important worldwide), the Renaissance Society of America, or national societies of history of science. C. Primary Sources, Encyclopedias, Bibliographies In spite of this absence of institutionalization, much work was been done during the 20th century. Some primary sources – actually the Greek, viz. Byzantine manuscripts containing anonymous treatises of botany currently preserved at the Bibliothèque nationale de France – have been inventoried as early as 1933 by Margaret Head Thomson, “Catalogue des manuscrits de Paris contenant des traités anonymes de botanique,” Revue des Etudes Grecques 46 (1993): 334–48. In the absence of any other specific inventory of manuscripts, it is still necessary to consult the catalogue of medical manuscripts by Hermann Diels, given the confusion of medical botany and medicine during the Middle Ages. The catalogue lists not only the Greek (viz. Byzantine) manuscripts of Greek medical treatises, but also those of their Latin, Syriac, Arabic, and Hebrew translations, accordingly (Die Handschriften der antiken Ärzte: Griechische Abteilung, 1906, with a supplement in 1908). Since then, some new documents were brought to the attention, a papyrus (Campbell Bonner, “A Papyrus of Dioscorides in the University of Michigan Collection,” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 53 [1922]: 142–68), as well as a manuscript of Dioscorides with color plant representations (Elpidio Mioni, Un ignoto Dioscoride miniato (Il codice greco 194 del Seminario di Padova), 1959, the first part of which was published in Libri e stampatori in Padova. Miscellanea di Studi storici in onore di Mons. G. Bellini, 1959, 345–76, while the color illustrations were published under the title “Un nuovo erbario greco di Dioscoride,” Rassegna Medica. Convivium Sanitatis 36 [1959]: 169–84). Since collections changed location, manuscripts were destroyed or damaged during 20th-century conflicts of all kind, and some codices previously unknown came to light, a new catalogue of Greek medical manuscripts is current being prepared (Alain Touwaide, “Byzantine Me-
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dical Manuscripts: Toward a New Catalogue,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 101 [2008]: 199–208; ID ., “Byzantine Medical Manuscripts: Towards a New Catalogue, with a Specimen for an Annotated Checklist of Manuscripts Based on an Index of Diels’ Catalogue,” Byzantion 79 [2009]: 453–595). For the Arabic world, there are now the encyclopedic studies published almost simultaneously by Fuat Sezgin and Manfred Ullmann, which, for each author and work, list all the manuscripts known at the time of the publication: Fuat Sezgin, Geschichte der arabischen Schrifttums, vol. 4: Alchimie, Chemie, Botanik, Agrikultur bis ca. 430 H., 1971, and Manfred Ullmann, Die Natur- und Geheimwissenschaften im Islam, 1972. For Latin Pre-Salernitan codices, see the classical inventory by Augusto Beccaria, I codici di medicina del periodo presalernitano (secoli IX, X e XI), 1956. For the late-medieval medical manuscripts in French libraries, see: Ernest Wickersheimer, Les Manuscrits latins de médecine du haut moyen âge dans les bibliothèques de France, 1966. Useful also, the catalogue of incipit of Latin medieval texts by Lynn Thorndike, and Pearl Kibre, A Catalogue of Incipits of Mediaeval Scientific Writings in Latin, 1963 (the work is now available in an expanded and updated digital version identified as eTK, which is accompanied by the so-called eVK, that is, the updated version by Linda Ersham Voigts, and Patricia Deery Kurts, Scientific and Medical Writings in Old and Middle English: An Electronic Reference, CDRom, 2000). In recent times, the range of primary sources for the history of botany has also included remains of plants found in archeological excavations. This archeology of a new genre was developed largely thanks to the late Wilhelmina Feemster Jashemski (1910–2007), who worked on Pompeii (see her 1979 volume The Gardens of Pompeii, Herculanum and the Villas Destroyed by Vesuvius, followed by a more recent synthesis edited in collaboration with Fredrick G. Meyer, The Natural History of Pompeii, 2002). Here are some examples of this new archeology: (Byzantium) Jon G. Hather, Leonor Peña-Chocarro, and Elizabeth J. Sidell, “Turnip Remains from Byzantine Sparta,” Economic Botany 46 (1992): 395–400; (the Arabic world) Natália Alonso Martínez, “Agriculture and Food from the Roman to the Islamic Period in the North-East of the Iberian Peninsula: Archaeobotanical Studies in the City of Lleida (Catalonia, Spain),” Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 14 (2005): 341–61; (the Western Middle Ages) Marta Bandini Mazzanti, Giovanna Bosi, Anna Maria Mercuri, Carla Alberta Accorsi, and Chiara Guarnieri, “Plant Use in a City in Northern Italy during the Late Mediaeval and Renaissance Periods: Results of the Archaeobotanical Investigation of “The Mirror Pit” (14th–15th c. A.D.) in Ferrara,” Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 14 (2005): 442–52. A synthesis on this field is now available: Rowena Gale,
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and David Cutler, Plants in Archeology; Identification Manual of Vegetative Plant Materials Used in Europe and Southern Mediterranean to c. 1500, 2000. History of botany has been included in the several encyclopedias of history of science published during the 20th century (mainly in the form of bio-bibliographical chapters or entries) from George Sarton, Introduction to the History of Science, 3 vols., 1927–1948; and Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science, 8 vols., 1923–1958; to the recent encyclopedia of medieval science Medieval Science, Technology, and Medicine: An Encyclopedia, ed. Thomas Glick, Steven J. Livesey, and Faith Wallis, 2005, including the Neue Pauly, 13 vols. with an index and 5 supplements, 1996–2003, and its English translation Brill’s New Pauly, 16 vols. and 1 supplement (published from 2002) and, most recently, Encyclopedia of Ancient Natural Scientists: The Greek Tradition and its Many Heirs, ed. Paul Keyser, and Georgia Irby-massie, 2008, for all the classical authors and texts that were transmitted to the subsequent periods, Byzantium, the Arabic World and the West. In addition, for Byzantium, there is also Herbert Hunger (1914–2000), Die hochsprachliche profane Literatur der Byzantiner, 1978, vol. 2, 271–76, and the Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, 1991. For the Arabo-Islamic world, in addition to Sezgin and Ullmann above, see the entries in the Encyclopedia of Islam (2nd ed.), the Encyclopaedia Iranica (also available on the Internet in open access), and in the most recent encyclopedia, Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia, ed. Josef W. Meri, 2006, 2 vols. In the field of medical botany, an inventory of the literature on materia medica and formulas was compiled by Jakob Büchi, Die Entwicklung der Rezept- und Arzneibuchliteratur, vol. 1: Altertum und Mittelalter, 1982, recently completed by Freyer H.-P. Michael, Europäische Heilkräuterkunde: Ein Erfahrungsschatz aus Jahrtausenden, 1998. For an analysis of botanical data in latemedieval receptaries, see Jerry Stannard, “Botanical Data and Late Medieval Rezeptliteratur,” Fachprosa-Studien: Beiträge zur mittelalterlichen Wissenschafts- und Geistesgeschichte, ed. Gundolf Keil et al., 1982, 371–95 (reproduced in Stannard, Herbs and Herbalism … [above], no. VI). D. Rupture or Continuity? One of the questions about medieval botany is its continuity with the previous period. This is particularly the case for the Arabic world and the West. Among the works on this problem, we can mention here Alonso Martínez, “Agriculture and Food from the Roman to the Islamic Period […]” (above) for the Western Arabic World (al-Andalus), and, for the West: Jerry Stannard, “Medieval Reception of Classical plant Names,” Actes du XIIe Congrès International d’Histoire des Sciences, Paris août 1968, Colloque no 2: Traduc-
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tions médiévales, Communications du 28 août, 1971, 150–62 (published also in Revue de Synthèse 2e série, nos. 49–52 [1968]); and also Innocenzo Mazzini, “Présence de Pline dans les herbiers de l’Antiquité et du haut Moyen-Age,” Pline l’Ancien temoin de son temps. Conventus Pliniani Internationalis, Namneti 22–26 Oct. 1985 Habiti, ed. Jackie Pigeaud, and José Oroz Reta, 1987, 83–94. Most of the research during the 20th century was about texts: inventory of manuscripts, history of the text (including analysis of the manuscripts, some of which have been reproduced in facsimile [below]), critical editions (sometimes also with a translation), and/or analysis from a botanical viewpoint. E. Byzantium For Byzantium, Vilhelm Lundström (1869–1940) published as early as 1904 the lexicon of the 14th-century Constantinopolitan monk, philosopher and probably physician Neophytos Prodromenos (“Neophytos Prodromenos’ botaniska namnförteckning,” Eranos 5 [1903–1904]: 129–55). From 1930, the Belgian philologist Armand Delatte (1886–1964) published several botanical lexica and texts on plants: “Le lexique de botanique du Parisinus Graecus 2419,” Serta Leodiensia ad celebrandam patriae libertatem iam centesimum annum recuperatam composuerunt philology leodienses, 1930, 59–101, and Anecdota Atheniensia et alia, vol. 2: Textes Grecs relatifs à l’histoire des sciences, 1939, passim. It was not until 1955, however, that new editions came to light, thanks to Margaret H. Thomson already mentioned, who published two volumes (Textes grecs inédits relatifs aux plantes, 1955, and Le Jardin symbolique: Texte grec tiré du Clarkianus XI, 1960). More recently Ernst Heitsch edited the so-called Carmen de viribus herbarum, in his work Die griechischen Dichterfragmente der römischen Kaiserzeit, vol. 2, 1964, 23–38; John Riddle focused on 14th-century commentators on Dioscorides (“Byzantine Commentaries on Dioscorides,” Symposium on Byzantine Medicine, ed. John Scarborough, 1985, 95–102 [reproduced in Riddle, Quid pro quo … [above], no. XIII]); and, to quote but a few, Jean Barbaud who offered a synthesis of the research on the alphabetical manuscripts of Dioscorides, De materia medica (“Les Dioscorides ‘alphabétiques’ (à propos du Codex Vindobonensis Med. Gr. 1),” Revue d’histoire de la pharmacie 41 [1994]: 321–30), while Alain Touwaide focused on Byzantine lexica of plant names, of which he gave a list (“Lexica medico-botanica byzantina. Prolégomènes à une étude,” Tês filiês tade dôra. Miscelánea léxica en memoria de Conchita Serrano, 1999, 211–28). Somewhat different, but not less important, is the tradition of Theophrastus’s botany from antiquity to the Renaissance, which has been the
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object of a systematic examination in the context of the Theophrastus Project. The fragments of the several authors quoting Theophrastus have been collected and discussed in Robert W. Sharples, Theophrastus of Eresus: Sources for his Life, Writings, Thought and Influence. Commentary, vol. 5: Sources on Biology, 1994, 124–207. F. The ArabicWorld During the 20th century research on Arabic botanical texts has been more abundant, although it was largely focused on medical botany and on the major Andalusian botanists, al-Ghafiqi (d. ca. 1165), and ibn al-Baitar (ca. 1204–1248). One of the most active scholars before World War II was Max Meyerhof (1874–1945), author, among others, of the following essays in the history of botany: Über die Pharmakologie und Botanik des Ahmad al-Ghafiqi, 1930; Das Vorwort zur Drogenkunde des Beruni, 1932; Sarh asma’ al-‘uqqar (l’Explication des noms de drogues), un glossaire de matière médicale composé par Maïmonide. Texte publié pour la première fois d’après un manuscrit unique, avec traduction, commentaire et index, 1940 (rpt. in Mûsâ ibn Maymûn/Maimonides (d. 1204). Texts and Studies. Collected and Reprinted, vol. 4, ed. Fuat Sezgin, 1996; English translation: Moses Maimonides’ Glossary of Drug Names. Translated from Max Meyerhof ’s French edition by Fred Rosner, 1979). Several botanico-pharmacological articles by Meyerhof were reproduced recently (for some of them, see below; also: Max Meyerhof, Studies in Medieval Arabic Medicine: Theory and Practice, ed. Penelope Johnstone, 1984). The post-World War II period saw two major achievements: one was the first critical edition of an Arabic translation of Dioscorides, De materia medica. The text was edited by César E. Dubler (1915–1966) and Elias Terés (1915–1983) in the second volume of the monumental work by the former, La “Materia Medica” de Dioscórides, 6 vols., 1953–1957 (the second volume was published in Tetuan in 1952, and in Barcelona in 1957). This edition was made on the basis of three manuscripts (Madrid, El Escorial, and Paris). Several more have been brought to the attention since, something that would require to have a new edition of the text. One of the manuscripts (Leiden, Or. 289) has been studied in detail: Mahmoud M. Sadek, The Arabic Materia Medica of Dioscorides, 1983. The other achievement was an inventory of the folios torn out of manuscript Ayasofia 3703 (dated 1224 C.E.) now preserved at the Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi in Istanbul. The leaves appeared on the antiquarian market in the early 20th century (actually, after the exhibition of Muhammadan art, as it was called, in Munich in 1910), and repeatedly changed owner since then; although some had been gradually located, the list was never complete. It was the merit of Ernst J. Grube to publish an almost com-
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plete inventory: “Materialen zum Dioskurides Arabicus,” Aus der Welt der islamischen Kunst: Festschrift für Ernst Kühnel, 1959, 163–94. Since some folios changed owners after the publication, and since Grube’s list appeared to be incomplete, the research has been taken over by Alain Touwaide, who published also a large portion of the body of the manuscripts and almost all the loose folios: Farmacopea araba medievale: Codice Ayasofia 3703, 4 vols., 1992–1993. In addition to these two achievements, a major contribution was the edition of the preserved fragments in several Oriental languages (actually Syriac, Arabic, and Hebrew), together with the Greek and Latin text, of Aristotle, De plantis, in the version of Nicolas of Damas: Hendrik J. Drossart Lulofs, and E. L. J. Poortman, Nicolaus Damascenus “De plantis”: Five Translations, 1989. The original text is lost, as well as its revision by Nicolaus of Damas. The Greek text currently known is a recent retro-version whose authorship has been discussed; see: Bertrand Hemmerdinger, “Le De plantis de Nicolas de Damas à Planude,” Philologus 111 (1967): 56–65; and more recently: Elizabeth A. Fisher, “Manuel Holobolos, Alfred of Sareshel, and the Greek Translator of Ps.-Aristole’s De Plantis,” Classica et Mediaevalia 57 (2006): 189–211. Among the other publications on Arabic botany, several were devoted to ibn al-Baitar whose works were edited: Ibrahim Ben Mrad, Ibn al-Baytar (m. 646 H./1248 J.C.): Commentaire de la “Materia Medica” de Dioscoride, 1990; Ana María Cabo González, Ibn al-Baytar al-Malaqi (m. 646–1248), Kitab al-Yami li-mufradat al-adwiya wa-l-agdiya, Colección de Medicamentos y Alimentos. Introducción, edición crítica, traducción e índices de las letras sad y dad, 2002. Also, the French translation by Lucien Leclerc published under the title ibn al Beithar, Traité des simples, 3 vols., 1877–1883, was reprinted twice: by the Institute du Monde Arabe in Paris (1992), and by Fuat Sezgin, at the Institut für Geschichte der arabisch-islamischen Wissenschaften of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt am Main (Germany) in 1996. Several studies were also published and included: Rainer Degen, “Al-safarjal: a Marginal Note to Ibn al-Baytar,” Journal for the History of Arabic Science 2 (1978): 143–48; Juan Luís Carrillo, and Maria Paz Torres, Ibn al-Baytar y el arabismo español del XVIII: Edición trilingue del prologo de su “Kitab al-chami,” 1982; S. M. Imamuddin, and S. M. Pervaiz Imam, “Impact of the Spanish Muslim Pharmacologist Ibn al-Baitar,” Hamdard medicus 36 (1993): 116–18; Esin Koahya, “Ibn Baitar and his Influence on the Eastern Medicine,” Actas del XXXIII Congreso Internacional de Historia de la Medicina: Granada-Sevilla, 1–6 septiembre, 1992, ed. Juan Luís Carrillo, and Guillermo Olagüe de Ros, 1994, 401–07.
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Production was not less abundant on al-Ghafiqi: Max Meyerhof, Über die Pharmakologie und Botanik des Ahmad al-Ghafiqi, 1930; Max Meyerhof, and George P. Sobhy, The Abridged Version of “The Book of Simple Drugs” of Ahmad Ibn Muhammad Al-Ghafiqi, by Gregorius Abu-l-Farag (Barhebraeus). Edited from the only known Manuscript with an English Translation, Commentary and Indices, 1932, and Max Meyerhof, The Abridged Version of “The Book of Simple Drugs” of Ahmad Ibn Muhammad Al-Ghafiqi, by Gregorius Abu-l-Farag (Barhebraeus). Edited from the only two known Manuscripts with an English Translation, Commentary and Indices, vol. 2: Letters BA’ and GIM, 1937 (both works have been reprinted as vols. 51 and 57 [1996] of the series Islamic Medicine of the Publications of the Institute for the History of Arabic-Islamic Science, published under the direction of Fuat Sezgin at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University in Frankfurt). Also, three previously published studies on al-Ghafiqi have been reproduced in the same series under the title Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Ghâfiqî (d. c. 1165): Texts and Studies Collected and Reprinted, ed. Fuat Sezgin, 1996: Moritz Steinschneider, “Gafiki’s Verzeichniss einfacher Heilmittel (1873 and 1881)”; Max Meyerhof, “Über die Pharmakologie und Botanik des Ahmad al-Ghâfiqî (1930)”; Max Meyerhof, “Deux Manuscrits illustrés du Livre des Simples d’Ahmad al-Gâfiqî. (1940–41).” Research on other authors included: Hakim Mohammed Said, al-Biruni’s Book on Pharmacy and Materia Medica, 2 vols., 1973 (vol. 1 contains the text edited with an English translation by H. K. Said; and vol. 2 an introduction, commentary, and evaluation by Sami K. Hamarneh); Rana M. H. Ehsan Elahie, “Sources of Kitab al-Saidana of al-Biruni,” Studies in History of Medicine 1 (1977): 118–21; Max Meyerhof, Das Vorwort zur Drogenkunde des Beruni, 1932; Kamal Muhammad Habib , “The Kitab al-Saidana: Structure and Approach,” Studies in History of Medicine 1 (1977): 63–79; Martin Levey, and Noury al-Khaledy, The Medical Formulary of al-Samarqandi: and the Relation of Early Arabic Simples to those Found in the Indigenous Medicine of the Near East and India, 1967; Max Meyerhof, “Sur Un Glossaire de matière médicale composé par Maïmonide,” Bulletin de l’Institut d’Egypte 17 (1935): 223–35 (reproduced in Mûsâ ibn Maymûn / Maimonides (d. 1204): Texts and Studies. Collected and Reprinted, vol. 4, ed. Fuat Sezgin, 1996). Three further works should be mentioned here as they illustrated the trends in the research about Arabic science and botany: the catalogue of an exhibition that displayed many lavishly illustrated manuscripts, including botany, together with original scientific essays that went beyond the commentary on the pieces on display (À l’ombre d’Avicenne: La Médecine au temps des califes. Exposition présentée du 18 novembre 1996 au 2 mars 1997, Institut du Monde Arabe, 1996); a list of manuscripts that contains a significant number of
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copies of scientific texts, particularly of botany (Marie-Geneviève Guesdon, “Manuscrits et histoire de la médecine: le fonds arabe de la Bibliothèque nationale à Paris,” Maladies, médecines et societies: Approches historiques pour le présent, ed. François-Olivier Touati, 2 vols., 1993, vol. 1, 36–40), and a study on the life sciences in the Arabo-Islamic world (Paola Carusi, Lo zafferano e il geco. Le scienze della vita nella società islamica del Medioevo, 2007). A special case is al-Andalus. Botanical work in the area dated back to the early time of the Arabo-Islamic presence in the peninsula, which included the transfer and naturalization of Eastern plants. Also, in the 10th century, local scientists who had an Arabic translation of Dioscorides, De materia medica, made in Baghdad in the 9th century, were in contact with Byzantine scientists (on this, see Juan Vernet, La cultura hispanoárabe en Oriente y Occidente, 1978 [French translation: Ce que la culture doit aux Arabes d’Espagne, 1985], 81–5; more recently, Julio Samsó, Las ciencias de los antiguos en Al-Andalus, 1992, 110–16). The production of al-Andalus has been abundantly researched as early as Max Meyerhof, who published “Esquisse d’Histoire de la Pharmacologie et Botanique chez les Musulmans d’Espagne,” Al-Andalus 3 (1935): 1–41. However, it is mainly thanks to the school in Granada (above) that research made substantial progress. Several essays were published in the following volumes: Ciencias de la naturaleza en Al-Andaluz, Textos y Estudios, 1–3, ed. Expiración García Sanchez, 1990–1994, and 4–6, ed. Camilo Alvarez De Morales, 1996–2001. It is not possible to mention here all these publications, also because they deal mainly with agriculture (for the Arabo-Andalusian sources on agriculture, see Sezgin, Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums. 4 … [above], and, for a synthetic presentation of the Arabic contribution to this field, including Andalusia, see Toufic Fahd, “Botany and Agriculture,” Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science, 3 vols., ed. Roshdi Rashed, and Régis Morelon, 1996, vol. 3, 813–52). Nevertheless, one work needs special mention, because of its originality and innovative method: Julia Ma Carabaza Bravo, Expiración García Sánchez, Esteban Hernández Bermejo, and Alfonzo Jiménez Ramírez, Árboles y arbustos de Al-Andalus, 2004. Although the question is discussed below, it should be mentioned here that, on the identification of the plants mentioned in ancient texts, this work is of a truly interdisciplinary nature. The work on al-Andalus The Legacy of Muslim Spain, ed. Salma KhadraJayyusi, 2 vols., 1994, includes some contributions on, or related to, the history of botany as: Juan Vernet, “Natural and Technical Sciences in al-Andalus” (937–51); Expiración García Sánchez, “Agriculture in Muslim Spain” (987–99); Lucie Bolens, “The Use of Plants for Dyeing and Cloth-
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ing” (1000–15); James Dickie, “The Hispano-Arabic Garden: Notes Towards a Typology” (1016–35). One cannot conclude the review of the work done on Andalusian botany without mentioning the fundamental editions (with translation and commentary) by the late Albert Dietrich (1913–2001), who taught at the University of Göttingen (Germany) and specialized on Arabic botanical lexicology. His three major contributions to this field are (in chronological order of publication): Dioscurides triumphans: Ein anonymer arabischer Kommentar (Ende 12. Jahrh. n. Chr.) zur Materia medica. Arabischer Text nebst kommentierter deutscher Übersetzung, 2 vols., 1988; Die Dioskurides-Erklärung des Ibn al-Baitar: Ein Beitrag zur arabischen Pflanzensynonymik des Mittelalters. Arabischer Text nebst kommentierter deutscher Übersetzung, 1991; Die Ergänzungen Ibn Gulgul’s zur Materia medica des Dioskurides: Arabischer Text nebst kommentierter deutscher Übersetzung, 1993. G. Late Antiquity in the West The area of the Middle Ages that was most studied in our field here is the West. For the sake of clarity, it may be useful to divide its history in three major phases, however artificial and conventional such divisions might be: Late-Antiquity, the Early Middle-Ages, and the Salernitan/Post-Salernitan period. For Late-Antiquity, texts are listed with the references of their editions in Bibliographie des textes médicaux latins: antiquité et haut moyen âge, ed. Guy Sabbah, Pierre-Paul Corsetti, and Klaus-Dietrich Fischer, 1987, with a supplement by Klaus-Dietrich Fischer, Bibliographie des textes médicaux latins: antiquité et haut moyen âge. Premier Supplément 1986–1999, 2000. For the authors of many of such texts (or on the anonymous ones), see the entries to the Neue Pauly/New Pauly, and Keyser and Irby-Massie (above). Botanical texts of this period were mainly the Latin translation(s) of Dioscorides, De materia medica, and its epiphenomena. The “old” Latin translation of Dioscorides identified as Dioscorides Longobardus was edited by Konrad Hofman, and Theodor M. Auracher, “Der langobardische Dioskorides des Marcellus Virgilius,” Romanische Forschungen 1 (1882): 49–105 (Book I); Hermann Stadler, “Dioscorides Longobardus (Cod. Lat. Monacensis 337). Aus T. M. Aurachers Nachlass herausgegeben und ergänzt,” Romanische Forschungen 10 (1897): 181–247 (Book II), and 369–446 (Book III); 11 (1899): 1–93 (Book IV); Hermann Stadler, “Dioscorides Longobardus (Cod. Lat. Monacensis 337),” Romanische Forschungen 13 (1902): 161–243 (Book V); and Stadler, “Dioscorides Longobardus (Cod. Lat. Monacensis 337). Index der Sachnamen und der wichtigeren Wörter,” Romanische
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Forschungen 14 (1903): 601–36. Book I, has been re-edited by Haralambie Mihaescu, Dioscoride Latino, Materia medica, Libro primo, 1938. See also John Riddle, “The Latin Alphabetical Dioscorides,” Actes du XIIIe Congrès International d’Histoire des Sciences, Moscou, 18–24 août 1971, Sections III & IV: Antiquité et Moyen Age, 1971, 204–09 (reproduced in Riddle, Quid pro quo … [above], no. IV), and Arsenio Ferraces Rodríguez, “Notas para la difusión altomedieval de una traducción latina de Dioscórides,” Actas del II Congreso Hispánico de Latín Medieval (León, 11–14 de noviembre de 1997), 1998, vol. 1, 471–81. First among the epiphenomena of Dioscorides, De materia medica, there is the so-called De herbis feminis ascribed to Dioscorides. It was studied as early as Hermann Kästner, “Pseudo-Dioskorides de herbis femininis,” Hermes 31 (1896): 578–636. More recently, see (chronological order of publication): John Riddle, “Pseudo-Dioscorides’ Ex herbis feminis and Early Medieval Medical Botany,” Journal of the History of Biology 14 (1981): 43–81 (reproduced in Riddle, Quid pro quo … [above], no. IX); Arsenio Ferraces Rodríguez, “El Pseudo-Dioscórides De herbis femininis, los Dynamidia e Isidoro de Sevilla, Etym. XVII, 7,9–11,” Tradición e innovación de la medicina latina de la Antigüedad y de la Alta Edad Media, ed. Manuel E. Vázquez Buján, 1994, 183–203; as well as Annalisa Bracciotti, “Un modello greco per l’erba spheritis degli erbari pseudo-dioscoridei latini,” Helikon 38 (1995–98): 419–35; Ead., “Gli erbari pseudo-dioscoridei e la trasmissione del Dioscoride alfabetico nell’Italia meridionale,” Romanobarbarica 16 (1999): 285–315; Arsenio Ferraces Rodríguez, “Le Ex herbis femininis: traduction, réélaboration, problèmes stylistiques,” Les textes médicaux latins comme literature: Actes du VIe colloque international sur les textes médicaux latins du Ier au 3 septembre 1998 à Nantes, ed. Alfrieda and Jackie Pigeaud, 2000, 77–89; Annalisa Bracciotti, “L’esemplare del De herbis femininis usato dal traduttore dell’Erbario antico inglese,” Cassiodorus 6–7 (2001): 249–74; ead., “Osservazioni sulla forma del latino lauer nell’edizione Wellmann di (pseudo)-Dioscoride e nelle edizioni di alcuni erbari latini,” Filologia antica e moderna 26 (2004): 45–55; and Arsenio Ferraces Rodríguez, “Una fuente desconocida del De herbis femininis, la antigua traducción latina del De plantis duodecim signis et septem planetis subiectis atribuido a Tésalo de Tralles,” Latomus 64 (2005): 153–68. Many of the other derivatives from Dioscorides are grouped in the LateAntique corpus that can be qualified as classical and included Antonius Musa, De herba vettonica; the herbal attributed to Apuleius; and Sextus Placitus. It was edited by Ernst Howald, and Henry E. Sigerist, Antonii Musae De herba vettonica liber. Pseudoapulei Herbarius, Anonymi De taxone liber. Sexti Placiti liber Medicinae ex animalibus, 1927. The full text of the corpus as it appears in the codex 296 of the Biblioteca Statale at Lucca has been reproduced and trans-
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lated into Spanish in the volume of commentary that accompanies the recent facsimile reproduction of the manuscript under the title Herbolarium et materia medica (Biblioteca Statale de Lucca, ms. 296), 2007. Since the edition above, the Pseudo-Apuleius was the object of several publications among which: Friedrich W. T. Hunger, The Herbal of PseudoApuleius: from the Ninth-Century Manuscript in the Abbey of Monte Cassino (Codex casinensis 97) together with the First Printed Edition of John Phil. De Lignamine (Editio princeps Romae 1481), 1935; Erminio Caproti, and William T. Stearn (1911–2001), Herbarium Apulei (1481) – Herbolario volgare (1522), 1979 (introduction by E. Caproti with an essay by W.T. Stearn). For the study of the text, see Henry E. Sigerist, “Der Herbarius Apulei,” Janus 29 (1925): 180–82; id., “Zum Herbarius Pseudo-Apulei,” Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin 23 (1930): 197–204; Linda Erhsam Voigts, “The Significance of the Name Apuleius to the Herbarium Apulei,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 52 (1978): 214–27; Maria Franca Buffa Giolito, and Gigliola Maggiulli, L’altro Apuleio. Problemi aperti per una nuova edizione dell’Herbarius, 1996. Among the other texts that have been edited, translated, and/or studied, there was the so-called curae herbarum. The text was edited by Sofia Mattei, “Curae herbarum,” Ph.D. thesis, University of Macerata, 1995, and further studied by Annalisa Bracciotti, “L’apporto della tradizione indiretta per la costituzione di un testo critico delle “Curae herbarum,” Rivista di Cultura Classica e Medioevale 42 (2000): 61–102; Ead., “Nomen herbae selenas: Un passo bilingue delle Curae herbarum,” Il plurilinguismo nella tradizione letteraria latina, ed. Renato Oniga, 2003, 213–53; and Arsenio Ferraces Rodríguez, “Un manuscrito con textos inéditos de las Curae ex animalibus,” Vir bonus docendi peritus: Homenaxe a José Pérez Riesco, 2002, 123–39; and id., “Las Curae herbarum y las interpolaciones dioscorideas en el Herbario del Pseudo-Apuleyo,” Euphrosyne 32 (2004): 223–40. Other texts include the so-called alfabetum Galieni studied by Carmélia Halleux-Opsomer, “Un Herbier médical du haut moyen âge: l’Alfabetum Galieni,” History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 4 (1982): 65–97; and Gargilius Martialis, first analyzed by John Riddle, “Gargilius Martialis as Medical Writer,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 39 (1984): 408–29 (reproduced in Riddle, Quid pro quo … [above], no. X), and recently edited by Brigitte Maire, Gargilius Martialis, Les Remèdes tirés des légumes et des fruits, texte établi, traduit et commenté, 2002; see also the concordance by Brigitte Maire, Concordantiae Gargilianae, 2002. For the inventory of the plants mentioned in these and other texts, see Alexander Tschirch, Handbuch der Pharmakognosie, 4 vols., 1909–1925, vol. 2 (1910), passim, and also Carmélia Opsomer, Index de la pharmacopée de Ier au
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Xe siècle, 2 vols., 1989, with a short description of the research program, and, for each text, a brief characterization, the editions, and, when appropriate, any other relevant literature. Also, for the identification of the plants, see Stirling below. H. The Pre-Salernitan Centuries For the early-medieval or Pre-Salernitan period, the Carolingian world provides much information (see Carmélia Opsomer-Halleux, “The Medieval Garden and Its Role in Medicine,” Medieval Gardens, ed. Elizabeth B. Macdougall, 1986, 93–114, which includes [106–12] a Tentative List of Garden Plants). A significant document is the Capitulare de Villis. Whatever its date (which has been debated), it provides (paragraph 70) a list of 95 herbs supposedly to be cultivated in the villae of the Empire (Opsomer-Halleux, “The Medieval Garden …” [above], 98; edition of the text in Gerhard Schmitz, Die Kapitulariensammlung des Ansegis, 1996). Another important document is the so-called Lorscher Arzneibuch (dating back to ca. 795), which was recently rediscovered (facsimile edition with a volume of commentary under the title Das Lorscher Arzneibuch: Faksimile der Handschrift Msc. Med. 1 der Staatsbibliothek Bamberg, ed. Gundolf Keil, 1989. The volume of commentary contains an introduction and the translation of the text by Ulrich Stoll and Gundolf Keil in collaboration with Albert Ohlmeyer. For a critical edition of the text, with a German translation and a study, see Ulrich Stoll, Das “Lorscher Arzneibuch”: Ein medizinisches Kompendium des 8. Jahrhunderts [Codex Bambergensis medicinalis 1]: Text, Übersetzung und Fachglossar, 1992). This manuscript documents not only the range of plants known in North-West Europe at that time, but also the continuity with previous knowledge and practice, as well as, if not more, the contacts between West and East, that is, between the Carolingian and the Byzantine Worlds. Saint Gall Abbey documents further the botany of the Carolingian period. The so-called Botanicus Sangallensis, which was known since 1928 at least (see Erhard Landgraf, “Ein frühmittelalterlicher Botanicus,” Ph.D. thesis, University of Leipzig, 1928 [reproduced in Kyklos 1 [1928]: 114–46]), was not studied until very recently, however: Monica Niederer, Der St. Galler ‘Botanicus’. Ein frühmittelalterliches Herbar: Kritische Edition, Übersetzung und Kommentar, 2005. The study of the garden is part of the research program conducted at the University of California, Los Angeles, and at the University of Virginia, and consisting, among others, in producing a virtual tri-dimensional reconstructing of the monastery. See Walter Horn, and Ernest Born, The Plan of St Gall: A Study of the Architecture & Economy of, & Life in a Paradigmatic Carolingian Monastery, 3 vols., 1979 (see vol. 2, 175–209 and 300–13 for the garden).
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The next document in a chronological sequence is the Hortulus by Walahfrid Strabo. It was repeatedly studied during the 20th century: Karl Sudhoff, Des Walahfrid von der Reichenau Hortulus: Gedichte über die Kräuter seines Klostergartens vom Jahre 827, Wiedergabe des ersten Wiener Druckes vom Jahre 1510, eingeleitet und medizinisch, botanisch und druckgeschichtlich gewürdigt, 1926; Walahfrid Strabo, Hortulus, translation by Raef Payne; commentary by Wilfrid Blunt, 1966; or, more recently, Hans-Dieter Stoffler, Der hortulus des Walahfrid Strabo: aus d. Kräutergarten d. Klosters Reichenau, 1978. Also, in a volume published on the occasion of the rediscovery of the Lorscher-Arzneibuch (Das Lorscher Arzneibuch: Klostermedizin in der Karolingerzeit. Ausgewählte Texte und Beiträge, 1989), there is (196–98) a list of the plants mentioned in the Hortulus together with their identification. The same volume contains also (199–202) an inventory of the plants in the Würzburg collection, dating back to 840 circa. Of this period are also the many receptaries published by Henry E. Sigerist, Studien und Texte zur frühmittelalterlichen Rezeptliteratur, 1923, and Julius Jörimann, Frühmittelalterliche Rezeptarien, 1925. The many plants they mention are listed in Opsomer, Index de la pharmacopée … (above). I. Salerno and After The translation into Latin of Arabic medical and, particularly, pharmaceutical treatises transformed previous botanical knowledge. Books of medicinal plants circulated in a significantly increased number. Although many texts of this period have already been edited, several are still waiting to be brought to light. This is the aim of the program recently launched on Salerno, aiming to edit as many texts as possible (see the several essays in La Scuola Medica Salernitana: Gli autori e i testi, ed. Danielle Jacquart, and Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, 2007). The texts that have been edited and/or studied include the following: (circa instans) Carmélia Opsomer, Livre des simples medecines. Codex Bruxellensis IV 1024, 2 vols., 1980; and Ead., Book of Simple Medicines, with a preface by William T. Stearn, 2 vols., 1984; Le livre des simples médecines d’après le manuscrit français 12322 de la Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris, 1986, and Le Livre des simples médecines, 2001; Leo J. Vandewiele, Een middelnederlandse versie van de “Circa instans” van Platearius naar de hss Portland, British Museum ms. Loan 29/332, XIVe eeuw, en Universiteitsbiblioteek te Gent Hs. 1457, XVe eeuw. Uitgegeven en gecommentarieerd, [1970]; (Albertus Magnus) Klaus Biewer, Albertus Magnus, De vegetabilibus Buch VI, Traktat 2, lateinisch-deutsch, Übersetzung und Kommentar. Mit einem Geleitwort von Rudolf Schmitz, 1992; and the following three studies by Jerry Stannard, “Identification of the Plants Described by Alber-
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tus Magnus, De vegetabilibus, lib. VI,” Res Publica Litterarum 2 (1979): 281–318; “The Botany of St.Albert the Great,” Albertus Magnus, Doctor Universalis, 1280/1980, ed. Gerbert Meyer, and Albert Zimmerman, 1980, 345–72 (reproduced in Stannard, Pristina medicamenta … [above], no. XIV); and “Albertus Magnus and Medieval Herbalism,” Albertus Magnus and the Sciences. Commemorative Essays 1980, ed. James A. Weisheipl, 1980, 355–77 (reproduced in Stannard, Ibidem, no. XIII); (Arnau de Vilanova) edition of his Latin translation of the Book of Simple Medicines (that is, medicinal plants) by Abu l-Salt Umayya in a volume that contains several texts by different scholars (I reproduce the Latin title from the frontispiece): Arnaldi de Villanova, Traslatio Libri albuzale de medicinis simplicibus. Ediderunt José Martínez Gásquez et Michael R. McVaugh. Abu l-Salt Umayya, Kitab al-adwiya almufrada. Edidit Ana Labarta. Llibre d’Albumesar de simples medecines. Edidit Luis Cifuentes. Praefatione et comentariis instruxerunt Ana Labarta, José Martínez Gásquez , Michael R. McVaugh, Danielle Jacquart et Luis Cifuentes, 2004; (Rufinus) after a first study was published by Lynn J. Thorndike, “Rufinus: A Forgotten Botanist of the Thirteenth Century,” Isis 18 (1932): 63–76, his text was edited by the same, assisted by Francis S. Benjamin, The Herbal of Rufinus, Edited from the Unique Manuscript, 1946; on it, see recently Annalisa Bracciotti, “Osservazioni sull’Erbario di Rufino,” … un tuo serto di fiori in man recando: Scritti in onore di Maria Amalia D’Aronco, ed. Patrizia Lendinara, and Silvana Serafin, 2 vols, 2008, vol. 2, 63–73; (Pierre d’Auvergne) his botanical treatise (in fact, a commentary on Aristotle and Theophrastus) has been recently edited: E. L. J. Poortman, Petrus de Arvernia, Sententia super librum De vegetabilibus et plantis, 2003; (anonymous herbals and receptaries) see for example: Maria Sofia Corradini Bozzi, Ricettari medico-farmaceutici medievali nella Francia meridionale, vol. 1, 1997; Anna Martellotti, I ricettari di Federico II. Dal “Meridionale” al “Liber de coquina,” 2005; Paul Aebischer, and Eugène Olivier, L’herbier de Moudon, un recueil de recettes médicales de la fin du 14e siècle. Notes sur la botanique médicale du moyen-âge, 1938; Stefania Ragazzini, Un erbario del XV secolo. Il ms. 106 della Biblioteca di botanica dell’Università di Firenze, 1983; and the so-called Herbal of Roccabonella, on which, see, for example: Francesco Paganelli, and Elsa M. Cappelletti, “Il codice erbario Roccabonella (sec. XV) e suo contributo alla storia della farmacia,” Atti e memorie della Accademia Italiana di Storia della Farmacia 13 (1996): 111–17. A special case is the transfer of classical botany to England, which has been much studied and discussed (for an overview, see Maria Amalia D’Aronco, “Le traduzioni di testi medico-botanici in inglese antico,” Testo medievale e traduzione, ed. Maria Grazia Cammarota, and Maria Vittoria
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Molinari, 2001, 227–35). At the center of this, there is the manuscript of the British Library, Cotton Vitellius C III, which contains the late-antique corpus above (among others, the Pseudo-Apuleius). It was studied as early as 1864 by Oswald Cockayne, Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England: Being a Collection of Documents, for the Most Part Never Before Printed, Illustrating the History of Science in this Country before the Norman Conquest, 3 vols., 1864–1866. Vol. 1 includes “Herbarium of Apuleius. Continued from Dioskorides … Medicina de quadrupedibus of Sextus Placitus; all from Brit. mus. ms. Cotton. Vitellius C. III …” The Cotton Vitellius manuscript has been recently reproduced in facsimile by Maria Amalia D’Aronco, and Margaret L. Cameron, The Old English Illustrated Pharmacopoeia. British Library Cotton Vitellius C III, 1998, with a study. One should also mention here such other publications as (selection; chronological order of publication): Walter Hofstetter, “Zur lateinischen Quelle des altenglischen Pseudo-Dioskurides,” Anglia 101 (1983): 315–60; Maria Amalia D’Aronco, “L’erbario anglosassone, un’ipotesi sulla data della traduzione,” Romanobarbarica 13 (1994–1995): 325–66; Annalisa Bracciotti, “L’esemplare del De herbis femininis usato dal traduttore dell’Erbario antico inglese,” Cassiodorus 6–7 (2001): 249–74, and Philip Rusche, “Dioscorides’ De materia medica and Late Old English Herbal Glossaries,” From Earth to Art: The Many Aspects of the PlantWorld in Anglo-Saxon England: Proceedings of the First ASPNS Symposium, University of Glasgow, 5–7 April 2000, ed. Carole P. Biggam, 2003, 181–94. Also, Anne Van Arsdall, Medieval Herbal Remedies: The Old English Herbarium and AngloSaxon medicine, 2002, who suggested a new approach to the text, which may be characterized as ethnobotanical. J. Lexica and inventories of plants In the study of primary sources, a first – and major – problem is the lexicon of plant names. Whereas no other modern reference work is available for the Greek Byzantine world than the 19th-century analytical lexicon by Bernhard A. Langkavel (1825–1902), Botanik der spaeteren Griechen vom dritten bis dreizehnten Jahrhunderte, 1866 (rpt.: 1964), there is now a particularly useful instrument recently published by Johannes Stirling, Lexicon nominum herbarum arborum fructuumque lingua latinae, 4 vols., 1995–1998, for the West. Similarly, vernacular names have been systematically collected by Willem F. Daems (1911–1994), Nomina simplicium medicinarum ex synonymariis Medii Aevi collecta: Semantische Untersuchungen zum Fachwortschatz hoch- und spätmittelalterlicher Drogenkunde, 1993. Some studies have been made on such aspects of the medieval botanical lexicon as the continuity of classical names (Jerry Stannard, “Medieval Re-
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ception of Classical Plant Names,” (above), and the contribution of some medieval scholars to this question (Jerry Stannard, “Bartholomaeus Anglicus and Thirteenth Century Botanical Nomenclature,” Actes du XIIe Congrès International d’Histoire des Sciences, Paris, août 1968, 1971, vol. 8, 191–94 [reproduced in Stannard, Pristina Medicamenta … [above], no. XVI]). Linked with the lexicon is the inventory of plant names in the texts. A pioneering work was the research program THEOREMA, which aimed to inventory all the terms of materia medica – including plant names – in the pharmaceutical literature prior to the 10th century (on which, see in chronological order of publication: Carmélia Halleux-Opsomer, and Louis Delatte, “Ancient Medical Recipes and the Computer: the THEOREMA Project,” Pharmacy in History 23 (1981): 87–9; Carmélia Halleux-Opsomer, “Le traitement informatique des recettes médicales du haut moyen âge,” Actes du Congrès International “Informatique et Sciences Humaines,” 1981, 649–67; and Ead., “Une banque informatisée de pharmacopée ancienne: Pour une histoire quantitative du médicament,” Actes du XXVIIIe Congrès International d’Histoire de la Médecine, 1982, vol. 2, 215–19), which led to the publication of an index by Carmélia Opsomer, Index de la pharmacopée … (above). Another program was launched slightly later, which was presented by Sergio Sconocchia, Programma di concordanze e lessici di autori medici latini, Atti del I Seminario di studi sui Lessici tecnici greci e latini (Messina, 8–10 marzo 1990), ed. Paola Radici-Colace, and Maria Caccamo-Caltabiano, 1991, 311–21. As a result of this research program, several lexica of Late-Antique texts were published in the Alpha-Omega series of Olms. They are listed in 1991, along with other publications, by Alain Touwaide, “L’inventaire des matières médicales dans l’Antiquité et au Moyen Age: des compléments,” Revue d’Histoire de la Pharmacie 291 (1991): 393–97. A similar program dealing with classical and Byzantine Greek texts was presented by Alain Touwaide in 1993: “Towards a Thesaurus of Ancient Materia Medica: a Methodological Analysis for the Constitution of a Computerised Database,” Lingue tecniche del greco e del latino: II, Atti del II Seminario internazionale sulla letteratura scientifica e tecnica greca e latina, Trieste, 4–5 ottobre 1993, ed. Sergio Sconocchia, and Lucio Toneatto, 1997, 227–47. The program is now carried out in the Department of Botany of the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, D.C. K. Identification of Plants The identification of the plants according to current taxonomy is of primary importance. It has been the object of much research in the early 20th century, particularly on the basis of Greek illustrated manuscripts of Dioscorides,
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De materia medica. The literature published on this question from Linnaeus to 1998 has been collected in Alain Touwaide, “Bibliographie historique de la botanique: Les Identifications des plantes médicinales citées dans les traités anciens, après l’adoption du système de classification de Linné (1707–1778),” Centre Jean Palerne – Lettre d’Information 30 (1997–1998): 2–22, and 31 (1998): 2–65. Among the several works of this type, one could quote here: Edmond Bonnet (1848–1922), “Essai d’identification des plantes médicinales mentionnées par Dioscoride, d’après les peintures d’un manuscrit de la Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris (Ms. grec No. 2179),” Janus 8 (1903): 169–77, 225–32, 281–85; id., “Etude sur les figures de plantes et d’animaux peintes dans une version arabe, manuscrite, de la Matière Médicale de Dioscoride, Conservée à la Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris,” Janus 14 (1909): 294–303; Emmanuel J. Emmanuel, “Etude comparative sur les plantes dessinées dans le Codex Constantinopolitanus de Dioscoride,” Journal Suisse de Chimie et Pharmacie/Schweizerische Wochenschrift für Chemie und Pharmazie 50 (1912): 45–50, 64–72; Krikor Jacob Basmadjia (Grigor Pasmachean), “L’identification des noms de plantes du Codex Constantinopolitanus de Dioscoride,” Journal Asiatique 230 (1938): 577–621 (rpt. in Texts and Studies on Islamic Medicine, 1, ed. Fuat Sezgin, 1997, 27–71). In the current state of research, the classical reference work on this point is still Jacques André (1910–1994), Lexique des termes de botanique en latin, 1956, with a revised edition published almost 30 years later under a new title: Les noms de plantes dans la Rome antique, 1985. However useful it is, it does not include any methodological statement. Some works have been devoted to this question (in chronological order of publication): Bernhard Herzhoff, “Zur Identifikation antiker Pflanzennamen,” Vorträge des ersten Symposions der Bamberger Arbeitskreises “Antike Naturwissenschaft und ihre Rezeption (AKAN),” 1990, 9–32; Alain Touwaide, “L’identification des plantes du “Traité de matière médicale” de Dioscoride: Un bilan méthodologique,” Antike Naturwissenschaft und ihre Rezeption, vol. 1 and 2, ed. Klaus Döring, and Georg Wöhrle, 1992, 253–74; James L. Reveal, “Identifying Plants in Pre-Linnean Botanical Literature,” Prospecting for Drugs in Ancient and Medieval European Texts: A Scientific Approach, ed. Bart K. Holland, 1996, 57–90; Giovanni Cristofolini, and Umberto Mossetti, “Interpretation of Plant Names in a Late Medieval Medical Treatise,” Taxon 47 (1998): 305–19. A new approach – of a truly interdisciplinary nature – has been proposed for the trees mentioned in Andalusian agronomic literature by Carabaza Bravo et al., Árboles y arbustos … (above), 2004.
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L. Plants Some plants have been studied in monographic publications (books or articles). Being impossible to mention here all such works, I list some (recent or not so recent), representative of this type of research because of the nature of the plant, the method of the research, or any other significant aspect. Works are listed in alphabetic order of English plant names: (beet) John A. C. Greppin, “The Words for ‘Beet’ in three interrelated Systems: GrecoRoman, Armenian and Arabic,” Byzantion 60 (1990): 145–63; (belladonna) Brigitte Schwamm, Atropa Belladonna: eine antike Heilpflanze im modernen Arzneischatz. Historische Betrachtung aus botanischer, chemischer, toxikologischer, pharmakologischer und medizinischer Sicht unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des synthetischen Atropins, 1988; (betony) Valérie Bonet, “La bétoine et ses noms,” Le Latin médical: La constitution d’un langage scientifique: Réalités et langage de la médecine dans le monde romain. Actes du IIIe Colloque internationale “Textes médicaux latins,” Saint-Etienne, 11–13 septembre 1989, ed. Guy Sabbah, 1991, 143–50; (garlic) John Heinerman, The Healing Benefits of Garlic, 1994 (Spanish translation: El ajo y sus propriedades curativas. Historia, remedios y recetas, 1995); (hellebore) Ferdinand Wick, “Beiträge zur Geschichte von Helleborus und Veratrum,” Ph. D. thesis, University of Basel, 1939; (liquorice) Marielene Putscher, “Das Süssholz und seine Geschichte,” Ph.D. thesis, University of Cologne, 1968; (mandrake) Laurie Gluckman, “Mandragora: its Pharmacology and Superstitions,” Scalpel & Tongs 37 (1993): 58–60; (mistletoe) Hans Becker, and Helga Schmoll, Mistel: Arzneipflanze, Brauchtum, Kunstmotiv im Jugendstil, 1986; (roses) Mia Touw, “Roses in the Middle Ages,” Economic Botany 36 (1882): 71–83; (rue) Antonino Pollio, Antonino De Natale, Emanuela Appetiti, Gianni Aliotta, and Alain Touwaide, “Continuity and Change in the Mediterranean Medical Tradition: Ruta spp. (Rutaceae) in Hippocratic Medicine and Present Practices,” Journal of Ethnopharmacology 116 (2008): 469–82; (saffron) Annick Lallemand, “Le Safran et le cinnamome dans les Homélies sur le Cantique des cantiques de Grégoire de Nysse,” L’Antiquité Classique 71 (2002): 121–30; (silphium) Denis Roques, “Médecine et botanique: Le Silphion dans l’oeuvre d’Oribase,” Revue des Etudes Grecques 106 (1993): 380–399; (thyme) Quentin Seddon, A Brief History of Thyme: From Magical Power to the Elixir of Youth, 1994; (valerian) Mansoor Ahmad, “Valerian, a Drug Ignored by Us,” Hamdard medicus 35 (1992): 80–85. In some cases, such publications cover a group of plants, related or not: Pierre Cuttai, “Beiträge zur Geschichte der officinellen Drogen Semen Lini, Fructus Colocynthidis, Radix Saponariae,” Ph.D. thesis, University of Basel, 1937; Heinrich Lehmann, “Beiträge zur Geschichte von Sambucus nigra, Juniperus communis und Juniperus Sabina,” Ph.D. thesis, University of
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Basel, 1935; Jerry Stannard, “Vegetable Gums and Resins in Medieval Recipe Literature,” Acta Congressus Internationalis Historiae Pharmaciae Bremae MCMLXXV, 1978, 41–8 (reproduced in Stannard, Pristina Medicamenta … [above], no. XVII). Spices constitute a chapter in itself in the history of medieval botany, with a wide range of aspects, from the identification and trade of the substances (among others along the silk-road) to their social and cultural meaning. It will suffice to mention here two works of a different nature recently published: Sami H. Hamarneh, “Spices in Medieval Islam: a Perspective,” Hamdard medicus 35 (1992): 82–90; and Marina Ferrara Pignatelli, Viaggio nel mondo delle essenze, 1991. The cultural values linked with spices have become the object of a dictionary: Hansjörg Küster, Wo der Pfeffer wächst: Ein Lexikon zur Kulturgeschichte der Gewürze, 1987. More recently, spices in the Middle Ages have been analyzed in an essay by Paul Freeman, Out of the East: Spices and the Medieval Imagination, 2008. From a more general viewpoint, the history of plants with therapeutic applications has been of particular interest, with a significant transformation from late 19th-century pharmacognosy (which was living its last days, as it was replaced shortly after by pharmaco-chemistry) to the current revival worldwide. Here is a selection of this variety of aspects (works are listed in chronological order of publication): Friedriech A. Flückiger (1828–1894), and Daniel Hanbury (1825–1875), Pharmacographia: A History of the Principal Drugs of Vegetable Origin Met with in Great Britain and British India, 1874; Heinrich Marzell (1885–1970), Alte Heilkräuter, 1926; Pierre Delaveau, Histoire et renouveau des plantes medicinales, 1982; Ernesto Riva, Non far di ogni erba un fascio. Botanica e storia di proprietà farmacologiche di duecento piante medicinali, 1990; Liana Palazzi Mariotti, Il giardino dei semplici: Un itinerario fra le piante aromatiche medicinali velenose esotiche, 1993; Pierangelo Lomagno, Storie di piante medicinali eccellenti, 1994. M. Herbals Books of herbs used for medicinal purposes were also the object of a theoretical analysis on their actual nature, evolution, and transmission. A fundamental work was Arber, Herbals … (above). Later on, Agnes Arber returned to the topic: “From Medieval Herbalism to the Birth of Modern Botany,” Science, Medicine, and History: Essays on the Evolution of Scientific Thought and Medical Practice written in honour of C. Singer, ed. E. Ashworth Underwood, 2 vols., 1953, vol. 1, 317–36. In the meantime, other contributions explored the antique and medieval history of such books.Among them, see, for example: Warren Royal Dawson (1888–1968), “Studies in Medical History, a) the Origin of
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the Herbal, b) Castor-Oil in Antiquity,” Aegyptus 10 (1929): 47–72; Charles Singer (1876–1960), “The Herbal in Antiquity,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 47 (1927): 1–52; Juan Carlos Ahumada (1890–1976), Herbarios medicos primitivos, 1942; Jerry Stannard, “Medieval Herbals and their Development,” Clio Medica 9 (1974): 23–33 (reproduced in Stannard, Herbs and Herbalism … [above], no. III); and Salvatore Pezzella, Gli erbari: I primi libri di medicina (Le virtù curative delle piante), 1993. N. Botanical Science Theoretical notions of botany, its scientific methods, and other aspects of the approach to the world of plants have been little investigated. On the classical background of medieval botanical knowledge, see Alain Touwaide, “La botanique entre science et culture au Ier siècle de notre ère,” Geschichte der Mathematik und der Naturwissenschaften in der Antike, vol. 1: Biologie, ed. Georg Wöhrle , 1999, 219–52. The continuity of the ancient system of classification in a 7th-century Greek manuscript of Dioscorides was ascertained in Annamaria Ciarallo, “Classificazione botanica delle specie illustrate nel Dioscoride della Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli,” Automata 1 (2006): 39–41. A global evaluation of the contribution of Byzantium to botany was made as early as 1939: Félix Brunet (b. 1872), “Contribution des médecins byzantins à l’histoire des plantes et à la botanique médicale en France,” Hippocrates 5 (1939): 524–31. Similarly, Jerry Stannard, “Botany,” Dictionary of the Middle Ages, vol. 2 (1982), 344–49, proposed a synthesis that he further substantiated in such article as “The Theoretical Bases of Medieval Herbalism,” Medical Heritage 1 (1985): 186–98 (reproduced in Stannard, Herbs and Herbalism … [above], no. IV). Other scholars focused more on the scientific method behind the construction of botanical knowledge: Guy Beaujouan (1925–2007), “La prise de conscience de l’aptitude à innover (le tournant du milieu du 13e siècle),” Le Moyen âge et la science: Approche de quelques disciplines et personnalités scientifiques médiévales. Actes du colloque d’Orléans, 21–22 avril 1988, ed. Bernard Ribemont, 1991, 5–14, and, in the same volume, Bernard Ribemont, and Geneviève Sodigne-Costes, “Botanique médiévale: tradition, observation, imaginaire: L’Exemple de l’encyclopédisme,” 153–72. The question of observation was also taken into consideration in the analysis of illustrated herbals as in the following contribution by Giulia Orofino, “Il rapporto con l’antico e l’osservazione della natura nell’illusrazione scientifica di eta’ sveva in Italia meridionale,” Intellectual Life at the Court of Frederick II Hohenstaufen: Proceedings of the symposium sponsored by the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, 18–20 January 1990, ed. William Tronzo, 1994, 129–49. Also, the notion
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of observation has been approached from a theoretical viewpoint: Danielle Jacquart, “L’observation dans les sciences de la nature au moyen âge: Limites et possibilités,” Micrologus 4 (1996): 55–75. This set of notions is linked with the concept of nature, which was the object of several studies, among which we can mention here: Franz Gräser, “Die Naturwissenschaften und das Benediktkloster Fulda im VIII. und IX. Jahrhundert,” Die Vorträge der Hauptversammlung der Internationalen Gesellschaft für Geschichte der Pharmazie e. V. während des Internationalen Pharmaziegeschichtlichen Kongresses in Rotterdam vom 17. – 21. September, ed. Georg Edmund Dann, 1965, 61–71; Andreas Speer, “The Discovery of Nature: The Contribution of the Chartrians to Twelfth-Century Attempts to Find a Scientia Naturalis,” Traditio 52 (1997): 135–51; also Vito Fumagalli, L’uomo e l’ambiente medievale, 1992. Research on these aspects also included an investigation on the link between folk lore and learned herbalism: Jerry Stannard, “Folk Medicine, Philosophy and Medieval Herbalism,” Res Publica Litterarum 3 (1980): 229–36, and id., “Folkloristic Elements in Medieval Herbalism,” Actes du XXVIe Congrès international d’histoire de la médecine, Plovdiv (Bulgaria), 20–25 août 1978, 1981, vol. 2, 203–5. Finally, the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance was the object of some studies that included the theoretical aspects (works are listed in chronological order): Jerry Stannard, “Medieval Italian Medical Botany,” Atti del XXI Congresso internazionale di storia della medicina, Siena, 22–28 settembre 1968, 2 vol., 1970, 1554–65 (reproduced in Stannard, Pristina Medicamenta … [above], no. XI); Richard Palmer, “Medical Botany in Northern Italy in the Renaissance,” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 78 (1985): 149–57; and Karen Meier Reeds, Botany in Medieval and Renaissance Universities, 1991. O. Astrology and Symbolism The uses of plants also included astrology and magic as the many manuscripts listed and accurately described in the Corpus Codicum Astrologorum Graecorum (11 vols., 1898–1951) show. Specific studies have been devoted to this aspect of medieval botany, from a general presentation in the Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft (Friedrich Pfister, “Pflanzenaberglaube,” RE XIX, 2 [1938], 1446–56) to the edition and analysis of manuscripts and texts, as for example: Armand Delatte, “Le traité des plantes planétaires d’un manuscrit de Léningrad,” Annuaire de l’Institut de philologie et d’histoire orientales 9 (1949): 145–77; Adalberto Pazzini (1878–1975), Virtù delle erbe secondo i sette pianeti. L’erbario detto di Tolomeo e quelli di altri astrologi (Cod. Vat. 11423), 1959, which analyses a broad range of texts; or, more recently, an edi-
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tion of some fragments: Arsenio Ferraces Rodríguez, “Dos fragmentos inéditos de la antigua traducción latina del De plantis duodecim signis et septem planetis subiectis atribuido a Tésalo de Tralles,” Traditio 59 (2004): 368–82. On magic, see also, and among many others, such study as Jerry Stannard, “Magiferous Plants and Magic in Medieval Medical Botany,” The Maryland Historian 8 (1977): 33–46 (reproduced in Stannard, Herbs and Herbalism … [above], no. V). Such uses of plants were linked with, and implied, the whole discourse on plant symbology, which cannot be presented in detail here, however. We shall mention only the general Cultural History of Plants edited by Ghillian Prance, and Mark Nesbitt, 2005, and the recent synthesis by Marcel De Cleene, and Marie Claire Lejeune, Compendium of Symbolic and Ritual Plants in Europe, 2 vols., 2002. Of interest, also a text edited by Margaret H. Thomson (Le jardin symbolique: Texte grec tiré du Clarkianus XI [above]), and the study by Jean-Pierre Albert, Odeurs de sainteté: La mythologie chrétienne des aromates, 1990, which focused on the Christian discourse of spices. Contributions to this vast sector dealt also with particular plants, among which (to quote just one): Anthony R. Littlewood, “The Symbolism of Apple in Byzantine Literature,” Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 23 (1974): 33–59. P. Gardens Theoretical botany and plant uses and symbolism combined in the creation of gardens. Much literature has been devoted to the topic of medieval gardens. A collection of essays is Der Garten von der Antike bis zum Mittelalter, ed. Maureen Carroll-Spillecke, 1992. For Byzantium, more specifically, we could mention the classical work by Otmar Schissel (1884–1943), Der byzantinische Garten: seine Darstellung im gleichzeitigen Romane, 1942, now to be replaced (or completed) with the series of essays in the volume Byzantine Garden Culture, ed. Antony Littlewood, Henry Maguire, and Joachim Wolschke-bulmahn, 2002. Other essays should also be mentioned, as for example: Leslie Brubaker. and Anthony R. Littlewood, “Byzantinische Gärten,” Der Garten …, ed. Carroll-Spillecke (above), 212–48; Anthony R. Littlewood, “Gardens of Byzantium,” Journal of Garden History 12 (1992): 126–53; and id., “Gardens of the Palaces,” Byzantine Court Culture from 829 to 1204, ed. Henry Maguire, 1997, 13–38. For the Arabic world, one could select, among the abundant production, the following recent essays, all lavishly illustrated (photos and maps of gardens, reproductions of manuscripts, photos of works of art) (chronological order of publication): Arabesques et jardins de paradis: Collections françaises d’art islamique, Musée du Louvre, Paris, 16 octobre 1989 – 15 janvier 1990, 1989; Il
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giardino islamico. Architettura, natura, paesaggio, ed. Attilio Petruccioli, 1994; D. Fairchild Ruggles, Gardens, Landscape, & Vision in the Palaces of Islamic Spain, 2000; and Yves Porter, and Arthur Thévenart, Palaces and Gardens of Persia, 2003 (first published in French: Palais et Jardins de Perse, 2002). For the Western Medieval world, we could mention Marilyn Stokstad, and Jerry Stannard, Gardens of the Middle Ages, 1983; Dieter Hennebo, Gärten des Mittelalters, 1987; Sylvia Landsberg, The Medieval Garden, 1995; and Sur la terre comme au ciel: Jardins d’Occident à la fin du Moyen Age. Paris, Musée national du Moyen Age – Thermes de Cluny, 6 juin-16 septembre 2002, 2002. Gardens of a special type were the monastic garden (on which see Paul Meyvaert, “The Medieval Monastic Garden,” Medieval Gardens …, ed. Macdougall [above], 23–53) and the garden of medicinal plants (on which see Gundolf Keil, “Hortus Sanitatis, Garten der Gesundheit, Gaerde der Sunthede,” Medieval Gardens …, Macdougall ed. [above], 55–68). The archetype of both is the garden of Saint Gall, which has been the object of an exhaustive analysis: Horn, and Born, The Plan of St Gall … (above), vol. 2, 175–209, and 300–13 for the garden of medicinal plants. At the other end of the chronological spectrum are the Renaissance botanic gardens, the best and earliest examples of which are those of Pisa and Padua. On these gardens, see most recently: Fabio Garbari, Lucia Tongiorgi Tomasi, and Alessandro Tosi, Giardino dei Semplici: L’Orto botanico di Pisa dal XVI al XX secolo, 1991, and L’Orto botanico di Padova, ed. Alessandro Minelli, 1995. On the plants in the medieval gardens, whatever their nature, there are several contributions in the volume Byzantine Garden Culture above: AliceMary Talbot, “Byzantine Monastic Horticulture: the Textual Evidence,” 37–67; Costas N. Constantinides, “Byzantine Gardens and Horticulture in the Late Byzantine Period, 1204–1453: the Secular Sources,” 87–103; Robert Rodgers, “Kêpopoiia: Garden Making and Garden Culture in the Geoponika,” 159–75; and John Scarborough, “Herbs of the Field and Herbs of the Garden in Byzantine Medicinal Pharmacy,” 179–88. For the Western medieval garden, see (in chronological order of publication): Jerry Stannard, “Medieval Gardens and their Plants,” Gardens …, ed. Stokstad, and Stannard, (above), 37–69; Penelope Hobhouse, Plants in Garden History, 1992; Miranda Innes, and Clay Perry, Medieval Flowers, 1997; Michel Botineau, Les Plantes du jardin médiéval, 2001; and Deirdre Larkin, “Hortus Redivivus: The Medieval Garden Recreated,” Health and Healing from the Medieval Garden, ed. Peter Dendle, and Alain Touwaide, 2008, 228–41, which offers new insights on this question, as its author grew the plants of medieval medicinal gardens at The Cloisters of the Metropolitan Museum outside New York City.
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Q. Plant Acclimatation The question of the range of the plants in gardens leads to another one: the transfer of plants, and, in the best cases, their acclimatization and naturalization. A methodological essay was published by Alain Touwaide, “The Jujube-Tree in the Eastern Mediterranean: A Case Study in the Methodology of Textual Archaeobotany,” Health and Healing …, ed. Dendle, and Touwaide (above), 72–100. The problem is not only to ascertain that non-native plants mentioned in texts are actually present in a new environment, but also to identify appropriate sources to trace introduced plants. In this sense, Jerry Stannard explored medieval tables of taxes: “Medieval Arzneitaxe and Some Indigenous Plant Species,” Orbis Pictus: Kultur und pharmaziehistorische Studien. Festschrift für Wolfgang-Hagen Hein zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Werner Dressendörfer, and Wolf-Dieter Müller-Jahncke , 1985, 267–72. As for tracing non-native plants, some studies were made (in chronological order of publication): John M. Riddle, “The Introduction and Use of Eastern Drugs in the Early Middle Ages,” Sudhoffs Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin und der Naturwissenschaften 49 (1965): 175–98 (reproduced in Riddle, Quid pro quo … [above], no. II); Jerry Stannard, “Eastern Plants and Plant Products in Medieval Germany,” Actes du XIIIe Congrès International d’Histoire des Sciences, Moscou, 18–24 août 1971, Sections III & IV: Antiquité et Moyen Age, 1974, 220–25; and several studies by Alain Touwaide: “Un manuscrit athonite du Traité de matière médicale de Dioscoride: l’Athous Magnae Laurae 75,” Scriptorium 45 (1991): 122–27; “Arabic Materia Medica in Byzantium during the 11th Century A.D. and the Problems of Transfer of Knowledge in Medieval Science,” Science and Technology in the Islamic World, ed. S. M. Razaullah Ansari, 2002, 223–47; Medicinalia Arabo-Byzantina, 1: Manuscrits et textes, 1997; “Lexica medico-botanica byzantina … [above]”; “Arabic Medicine in Greek Translation. A Preliminary Report,” Journal of the International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine 1 (2002): 45–53; “Magna Graecia iterata. Greek Medicine in Southern Italy in the 11th and 12th Centuries,” Medicina in Magna Graecia: The Roots of our Knowledge, ed. Alfredo Musajo Somma , 2004, 85–101; and “Medicina Bizantina e Araba alla Corte di Palermo,” Medicina, Scienza e Politica al Tempo di Federico II. Conferenza Internazionale, Castello Utveggio, Palermo, 4–5 ottobre 2007, ed. Natale Gaspare De Santo, and Guido Bellingghieri, 2008, 39–55. Such process of transfer of plants had also an impact on botanical lexicon, on wich there are many studies. For an example, see John A. C. Greppin, Bark’ Galianosi: The Greek-Armenian Dictionary to Galen, 1985.
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R. Botanical Illustration Last but far from least, the botanical illustration. Publications are numerous, from coffee-table books and commented color tables from illuminated manuscripts to expensive facsimiles of manuscripts (with a volume of commentary) and specialized studies best represented by such work as Giulia Orofino, “Gli erbari di età sveva,” Gli erbari medievali tra scienza simbolo e magia: Testi del VII Colloquio Medievale, Palermo, 5–6 maggio 1988 [1990], 325–46, and, more recently, Ead., “Ad decus et utilitatem operis. Caratteristiche e funzioni dell’illustrazione scientifica nel medioevo,” Medicina nei secoli 14 (2002): 439–60. This field of study was radically transformed during the 19th century. At its very beginning, indeed, Aubin-Louis Millin de Grandmaison (1759–1818) published an article in which he denied that plant representations in the manuscripts of Dioscorides, De materia medica, had any value: “Observations Sur les Manuscrits de Dioscorides qui sont conservés à la Bibliothèque nationale,” Magasin Encyclopédique/Journal des Sciences, des Lettres et des Arts 2 (1802): 152–16. Nevertheless, the English botanist John Sibthorp (1758–1796), who was the first to describe and identify the Greek flora according to Linnaeus’ system, consulted three illustrated manuscripts of Dioscorides. On his way to Greece, indeed, he stopped in Vienna where he examined the 6th-century manuscript now at the Österreichische National Bibliothek, medicus graecus 1, and the 7th-century copy now in Naples, National Library. He also visited Mount Athos where he inspected a codex of Dioscorides, which might be the mid-11th-century copy in the collection of the Megisti Lavra Monastery ( 75). In 1855, the German bibliographer of the history of medicine Ludwig Choulant (1791–1861) drew the attention of the scientific community to the Vienna and Naples copies of Dioscorides’ treatise and to their use by Western botanists from Rembert Dodoens (1516–1585), author of the famous Cruydeboeck first published in 1554: “Ueber die Handschriften des Dioskurides mit Abbildungen,” Archiv für die zeichnenden Künste 1 (1855): 56–62. In 1883, Henri Bordier (1817–1888) published a systematic census of the illustrations in the Greek codices of the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris, including the medical manuscripts with botanical illustrations: Description des peintures et autres ornements dans les manuscrits grecs de la Bibliothèque nationale, 1883. However, it was only with the magisterial study of the codex Vienna medicus graecus 1, published in 1906 accompanying its first facsimile that the scientific analysis of ancient botanical illustration started: Antonius De Premerstein (1869–1935), Carolus Wessely (1860–1931), and Iosephus Mantuani (1860–1933) De codicis Dioscuridei Aniciae Iulianae, nunc Vindobonensis Med. Gr. 1 historia, forma, scriptura, picturis, ed. Iosephus de Karabacek (1845–1918), 1906.
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Since then, much work has been done. A classical volume is The Art of Botanical Illustration: An Illustrated History by Wilfrid Blunt (1901–1987) with the assistance of William T. Stearn, which was first published in 1950, and has been repeatedly reedited since. The work was followed by The Illustrated Herbal by Blunt, and Sandra Raphael, first published in 1979 (with a revised edition in 1994), and also translated, among others into Italian (1989). Among the many illustrated books in this vein, we could mention the following (of different types, in different languages, and in chronological order of publication): Karl Eugen Heilmann, Kräuterbücher in Bild und Geschichte, 1966; Immagine e natura: L’immagine naturalistica nei codici e libri a stampa delle Biblioteche Estense e Universitaria. Secoli XV XVII, Catalogo della mostra, Modena, 21 marzo-15 maggio 1984, 1984; and Celia Fisher, Flowers in Medieval Manuscripts, 2004. S. Facsimiles of Herbals The study of botanical manuscripts and, by way of consequence, of botanical illustration – has immensely benefitted from the improvement in printing techniques and quality during the last quarter of the 20th century, and, more recently in image technology, which made it possible to produce facsimiles of manuscripts of the highest quality, almost identical to the originals. The most ancient Greek manuscripts of Dioscorides, De materia medica, have been reproduced twice each (also in more common editions), as well as the Greek Nicander of Paris, some Arabic copies of Dioscorides, other botanico-pharmaceutical compilations, many Latin herbals and, also, the splendidly and lavishly 14th-century illustrated copies of the Tacuinum sanitatis. The production of such high-quality and expensive facsimiles is now challenged by the digital reproduction of manuscripts, be it on CDRom or on the Internet, which is much less expensive and open to a larger audience. Many libraries and museums, particularly libraries of botanical gardens and specialized rare-book collections, are currently digitizing all or parts of the herbals in their collections (manuscript and printed). However interesting these reproductions are (as they give a wider access to these documents, usually rare and often of a restricted access), they do not cover the whole sector and do not provide relevant analytical information (especially botanical). This is the objective, instead, of the Web site PLANT (the name of which is the acronym of Plantarum Aetatis Novae Tabulae or Renaissance Botanical Illustrations) created at the Botany Department of the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution, on the site of the Smithsonian Institution Libraries (http://www.sil.si.edu/digitalcollections/herbals). Though devoted to Renaissance botanical illustration, it includes late medieval books.
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Furthermore, it adds original scientific metadata on the authors and their works, the books themselves, and the history of plant representations. Also and no less important it gives the scientific name of the plants, as well as their medieval names in a broad range of languages extracted from the books themselves, and their names in five modern languages (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish). Images can be consulted by author, title, period, and plant name (in all the languages above, including the several medieval ones). A world inventory of medical and natural history manuscripts with scientific illustrations (in all languages) was published by Loren MacKinney (1891–1963), Medical Illustrations in Medieval Manuscripts, 1965. The photographic archive created by MacKinney to compile this list is deposited at the library of the North Carolina State University at Chapel Hill and is accessible via Internet (http://www.lib.unc.edu/dc/mackinney). T. The Classical Pictorial Tradition In spite of the vast quantity of material preserved, research on botanical illustration has focused on some major illustrated herbals, principally De materia medica by Dioscorides and its epiphenomena, particularly in the Latin West, from the Pseudo-Apuleius to late medieval anonymous herbals of all kinds. On Dioscorides, one could single out the following publications in addition to the 1906 epoch-making study edited by de Karabacek above, and the volumes of commentary that accompany the facsimiles. See, for example (in chronological order of publication): Miranda Anichini, “Il Dioscoride di Napoli,” Atti dell’Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Rendiconti della Classe di Scienze morali, storiche e filologiche Serie VIII, n. 11 (1956): 77–104; Ranuccio BianchiBandinelli (1900–1975), “Il Dioscoride napoletano,” La Parola del Passato 11 (1956): 48–51; Herbert Hunger, “Dioskurides,” Reallixikon zur byzantinischen Kunst, vol. 1 (1966): 1191–96; and, more recently, Sergio Toresella, “Dioscoride,” Enciclopedia dell’Arte Medievale, vol. 5 (1994), 655–63. These publications of an introductory or encyclopedic nature can be usefully complemented by the following in-depth analyses of illustrated herbals: [Henri Omont (1857–1940)], Pedanii Dioscuridis Anazarbei De Materia Medica Libri VII: Accedunt Nicandri et Eutecnii Opuscula Medica. Codex Constantinopolitanus saeculo X exaratus et picturis illustratus, olim Manueli Eugenici, Caroli Rinuccini Florentini, Thomae Phillipps Angli, nunc inter Thesauros Pierpont Morgan Bibliothecae asservatus, 2 vol., 1935; Paul Buberl (1885–1942), Die byzantinische Handschriften, 1. Der Wiener Dioskurides und die Wiener Genesis, 1937; Otto Mazal, Pflanzen, Wurzeln, Säfte, Samen. Antike Heilkunst in Miniaturen des Wiener Dioskurides,1981; Alain Touwaide, “Un recueil grec de pharmacologie du Xe siècle illustré au XIVe siècle: le Vaticanus graecus 284,” Scriptorium 39 (1985): 13–56; Emilie
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Leal, “Un manuscrit illustré du traité de matière médicale de Dioscoride le Paris grec 2180,” B. A. thesis, University of Provence, Aix-Marseille, 2 vols., 1997; Alessia Aletta, “Studi e ricerche sul Dioscoride della Pierpont Morgan Library M. 652”, B. A. thesis, University of Rome “La Sapienza,” 2 vols., 1997–1998; Daniela Fausti, “MP3 2095 Erbario illustrato,” Estratto provvisorio dal Corpus dei Papiri Greci di Medicina, 1998, 43–58; Mauro Ciancaspro, Guglielmo Cavallo, and Alain Touwaide, Dioscurides, De materia medica, facsimile edition with a commentary, 2 vols., 1999; and Alain Touwaide, “The Salamanca Dioscorides (Salamanca, University Library, 2659),” Erytheia 24 (2003): 125–58. Many of such publications deal mainly with the tradition of the illustrations, that is, their models and copies, without necessarily considering the macroscopic tradition of botanical illustration. We cannot discuss here the debated question of the origins of botanical illustration (do they go back to Dioscorides or have they been introduced later into the manuscripts of De materia medica?), as it is out of the scope of the present essay (for one of the latest contributions to this question in the current state, see Giulia Orofino, “Dioskurides war gegen Pflanzenbilder,” Die Waage 30 [1991]: 144–49). The major question posed by the representations of plants in medieval manuscripts (whatever the language, Greek, Latin, or Arabic) is their relation with ancient models. This question implies, as a corollary, another one, on the existence or not of periods of artistic revival. The major contributions in this field were by the historians of art Kurt Weitzmann (1904–1993) (see Die byzantinische Buchmalerei des 9. und 10. Jahrhunderts, 2 vols., 1935 [rpt. 1996]; “Das klassische Erbe in der Kunst Konstantinopels,” Alte und Neue Kunst: Wiener kunstwissenschaftliche Blätter 3 [1954]: 41–59; English translation: “The Classical Heritage in the Art of Constantinople,” Studies in Classical and Byzantine Manuscript Illumination, ed. Herbert L. Kessler with an introduction by Hugo Buchthal, 1971, 126–150; and Geistige Grundlagen und Wesen der makedonischen Renaissance, 1963; English translation: “The Character and Intellectual Origins of the Macedonian Renaissance,” Studies … [above], 176–223), and Heide Grape Albers (Spätantike Bilder aus der Welt des Arztes: Medizin. Bilderhandschriften der Spätantike und ihre mittelalterliche Überlieferung, 1977). On this question, see also such work as Diane O. Le Berrurier, The Pictorial Sources of Mythological and Scientific Illustrations in Hrabanus Maurus’ De rerum naturis, 1978. Another corollary of this question of the link between book production and tradition is the problem of personal observation of nature. In an often cited article considered as seminal, Otto Pächt (1902–1988) (author also of “Die früheste abendländische Kopie der Illustrationen des Wiener Dioskurides,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 38 [1975]: 201–14) ident-
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ified the late 13th-century manuscript now in London, British Library, Egerton 747, possibly of Salernitan origin, as the first manifestation of the interest for nature showed by Italian artists (“Early Italian Nature Studies and the Early Calendar Landscape,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 13 [1950]: 13–47). Much of the later production focused on this question of the birth or realism (see, for example, Sergio Toresella, “Il Dioscoride di Istanbul e le prime figurazioni naturalistiche botaniche,” Atti e Memorie dell’Accademia Italiana di Storia della Farmacia 13 [1996]: 21–40, who locates the origin of realism in a 13th-century of the Arabic translation of Dioscorides), and on the Egerton manuscript, traditionally considered as a milestone in the development of scientific botanical illustration (in this sense, see, for example, the recent reproduction of the manuscript, with a study, by Minta Collins, and Sandra Raphael, A Medieval Herbal: A Facsimile of British Library Egerton MS 747, 2003. For a renewed approach to the manuscript, its text and its illustrations, see Jean Givens, “Reading and Writing the Illustrated Tractatus de herbis, 1280–1526,” Visualizing … , ed. Givens, Reeds, and Touwaide, (above), 115–45, and also Iolanda Ventura, “Per un’edizione del Tractatus de herbis manoscritto Egerton 747,” Salerno: Un progetto di paesaggio, ed. Paola Capone, and Pierfranco Galliani, 2002, 129–37). However correct Pächt’s study might be, other manuscripts make it possible to trace earlier signs of observation of nature. On this question of observation in ancient natural sciences, see, in addition to the articles by Beaujouan, “La Prise de conscience …” (above), Ribemont and Sodigne-Costes, “Botanique médiévale …” (above), and Jacquart, “L’Observation …” (above), Orofino, “Il rapporto con l’antico e l’osservazione …” (above), and also Jean Givens, Observation and image-making in Gothic art, 2005. More generally, see also Guy Beaujouan, “Réflexions sur les rapports entre théorie et pratique au Moyen Age, The Cultural Context of Medieval Learning: Proceedings of the First International Colloquium on Philosophy, Science, and Theology in the Middle Ages September 1973, ed. John E. Murdoch, and Edith Dudley Sylla, 1975, 437–84. The recent work by Minta Collins, Medieval Herbals: The Illustrative Traditions, 2000, does not bring any new element (and is largely misleading on numerous points), however lavishly illustrated it is and well documented it might seem. The fact is that the approach to ancient and medieval botanical illustation lacks a semantics of scientific illustration and particularly of natural history illustration in spite of such publications as, for instance, Alfred Stückelberger, Bild und Wort: Das illustrierte Fachbuch in der antiken Naturwissenschaften, Medizin und Technik, 1994. However needed such study is, the most recent research shifted focus from the pictures themselves to their making and the way they translate the perception of nature (rather than the sup-
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posed objectivity of nature itself), in a significant, and probably post-modern way, as is shown, for example, by the several essays in the collection Visualizing …, ed. Givens, Reeds, and Touwaide, (above). Select Bibliography Julia Ma Carabaza Bravo, Expiración García Sánchez, Esteban Hernández Bermejo, and Alfonzo Jiménez Ramírez, Árboles y arbustos de Al-Andalus (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 2004); Willem F. Daems, Nomina simplicium medicinarum ex synonymariis Medii Aevi collecta: Semantische Untersuchungen zum Fachwortschatz hoch- und spätmittelalterlicher Drogenkunde (Leiden, New York, and Cologne: E. J. Brill, 1993); Marcel De Cleene and Marie Claire Lejeune, Compendium of Symbolic and Ritual Plants in Europe, 2 vols. (Ghent: Mens & Cultuur, 2002); Hendrik J. Drossart Lulofs, and E. L. J. Poortman, Nicolaus Damascenus ‘De plantis’: Five Translations (Amsterdam, Oxford, and New York: North-Holland Publishing Company, 1989); Hermann Fischer, Mittelalterliche Pflanzenkunde (Munich: Verlag der Münchner Drucke,1929; rpt. Hildesheim: Olms, 1967); Carmélia Opsomer, Index de la pharmacopée de Ier au Xe siècle, 2 vols. (Hildesheim, Zurich, and New York: Olms, 1989); John M. Riddle, Quid pro quo: Studies in the History of Drugs (Aldershot, Hampshire, and Brookfield, VT: Variorum, 1992); Fuat Sezgin, Geschichte der arabischen Schrifttums, vol. 4: Alchimie, Chemie, Botanik, Agrikultur bis ca. 430 H. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1971); Jerry Stannard, Pristina medicamenta: Ancient and Medieval Medical Botany, ed. Katherine E. Stannard, and Richard Kay (Aldershot, Hampshire, and Brookfield, VT: Variorum, 1999); id., Herbs and Herbalism in the Middle Age and the Renaissance, ed. Katherine E. Stannard, and Richard Kay (Aldershot, Hampshire, and Brookfield, VT: Ashgate, 1999); Johannes Stirling, Lexicon nominum herbarum arborum fructuumque lingua latinae ex fontibus Latinitatis ante saeculum XVII scriptis, collegit et descriptionibus botanicis illustravit, 4 vols. (Budapest: Encyclopaedia, 1995–1998); Manfred Ullmann, Die Natur- und Geheimwissenschaften im Islam (Leiden and Cologne: E. J. Brill, 1972).
Alain Touwaide
Byzantine Art and Architecture A. Introduction Byzantine art is a Christian art, dedicated to the expression of the faith and the dogmas of the Eastern, Orthodox Church. It includes several aspects of pictorial arts, such as mosaics, murals, icon-painting, illuminative manuscripts, sculptures, ceramics, metal and stone objects, jewels, coins, textiles as well as church- and secular architecture. Both chronologically and topographically it concerns a vast space of time and a wide geographical area,
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with, however, unstable borders; from eastern Asia Minor to southern Balkans, and from northern Africa to Italy and Greece. A typical – not by all scholars accepted – date for its official start is 324 A.D., when the emperor Constantine the Great transferred the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to the newly-founded city of Constantinople. An equally important date is 313, when the Mediolano (Milano) Edictum was declared, which led to religious liberty, and consequently, to the recognition of Christian faith as the state’s religion. A definite end is 1453, when Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine state, was finally conquered by the Ottoman Turks. During the Byzantine era foreign cultures, such as Islam or the West, accepted impacts and transferred influences, establishing interesting forms. After the fall of Constantinople, the tradition of Byzantine art remained vivid and it was reflected centuries hereafter to the artistic production of eastern world (Georg Ostroworsky, Geschichte des byzantinischen Staates [1940; 1963]; The Cambridge Medieval History, vol. IV, 1966; Dionysios Zakythinos, The Byzantine Empire 324–1071, 1st ed. 1969, 1972, 19–23; Gilbert Dagron, Naissance d’ une capitale: Constantinople et ses constitutions de 330 à 451, 1974; Ekaterini Christophilopoulou, Byzantine History, vol. 2, 1st ed. 1975, 1993, 20–21,127–138; Ioannis Karayiannopoulos, The Byzantine State, 1st ed. 1983, 2001, 52–61. B. Terminological Definition and Analysis Despite the variations of style, due to epoch or locality, Byzantine art and architecture is of uniform and distinct character, without nevertheless lucking of experimentations. In order to study it in a more effective, methodological way, a division of time periods and geographical locations is traditionally established. Consequently, there is a typical distinction of the Early Christian (330–843), Middle Byzantine (843–1204) and Late Byzantine era (1204–1453), as well as the artistic production and monuments of great centers (Constantinople, Thessaloniki, northern Italy, etc.) and those of the provinces (Greece, Asia Minor, Balkans, Near East, etc.). The typological evolution of Byzantine architecture is characterized by the progressive abandonment of the large scale basilicas with wooden or vaulted roofs of the first centuries. Parallel to this tendency is the emergence of the magnificent domed churches in Constantinople (Saint Sophia, Saint Erene, etc.) in the middle of the 6th century, which led to the adoption of new provincial types like triconchs, tetraconchs, free crosses, remaining however to a modest scale. The popular use of the cross-in-square inscribed domed type appeared officially in mainland of Greece, in the second half of the 10th century
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(Church of Theotokos, Boiotia). The use of brick patterns as decoratives (letters, crosses, meanders, etc.) as well as of the cloisonné masonry (stones encircled by bricks), prevailed as elements that characterized the church architecture hereafter. The dominance of the Crusaders after 1204 in lands of the Byzantine empire brought about changes in the provincial church architecture. Cheaper and easier to built types became common, such as the traverse vault or the single vaulted churches. The style of late Byzantine architecture is expressed by the addition to the main church of collateral spaces, such as naves, and chapels, with a rich and elegant brick decoration. In pictorial arts, the main tendencies were a higher or lesser degree of abstraction, the corresponding amount of classical heritage, the intense spirituality of figures and the deliberate refusal of nature resemblance. The earliest depictions are testified in tombs and catacombs, with vivid symbolic content. Landmarks of the early Christian period are the panel-icons of the encaustic technique, dated from the 6th to 9th century. The application of mosaic decoration was also common during this period, reaching a peak during the reign of emperor Justinian (527–565). The fact displays the lavish patronage that allowed huge funds on the erection and the decoration of the churches in the grand centers. During however the centuries of Iconoclasm (726–843), a period of political and religious crisis, non-pictorial symbols, such as crosses or geometrical and plant motives were imposed as the official expression of art. A period of great influence of classical artistic values succeeded, known as “Macedonian Renaissance” named after the dynasty that ruled the empire from the 9th century. It inspired miniature painting and reflected in ambitious iconographic programs. In the region of Cappadocia a provincial expression of painting was exercised, further influencing iconography and style of the so-called “lay” art. The conquest of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204 and the consequent division of the former Byzantine lands in Latin states, left decisive effects in the pictorial arts of the East, visible in details in figures and in compositions. The last phase of the Byzantine art, the so-called “Paleologean Renaissance.” named after the last dynasty that ruled the empire, adapted a humanistic character, with dramatic and passionate gestures, voluminous and plastic figures, representations of rich architectural and natural landscape (Architecture: Gabriel Millet, L’ École grecque dans l’ architecture Byzantine, 1916; Georgios Sotiriou, Christian and Byzantine Archaeology, 1942; André Grabar, Martyrium: Recherches sur le culte des reliques et l’ art Chrétien antique, 1946; Anastasios Orlandos, H «
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« « «, vol. 1–3, 1952–1957; Richard Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, 1st ed. 1965, Cyril Mango Architettura Bizantina, 1979; Friedrich-Wilhelm Deichmann, Einführung in die christliche Archäologie, 1983; Painting: Otto Demus, Byzantine mosaic decoration, 1964, Viktor Lazarev, Storia della pittura bizantina, 1967, David TalbotRice, Byzantine painting, the last phase 1968; Kurt Weitzmann-Manolis Chatzidakis, Krsto Mijatev, and Svetozar Radojcic, Frühe Ikonen: Sinai, Griechenland, Bulgarien, Jugoslawien, 1965; Kurt Weitzmann, Studies in Classical and Byzantine Manuscript Illumination, 1971. C. History of Research and Future Trends The particular interest in Byzantine studies was first demonstrated in the sections of Byzantine literature and theology. Foreign travelers were the first who preserved a picture of Byzantine monuments, through descriptions and engravings. Byzantine art was at first considered as part of medieval history and philology, and the first “Department of Byzantine Studies” was founded in Munich, Germany, in 1892 by the scholar Karl Krumbacher. The first books concerning architecture and mural painting were published mainly at the beginning of the 20th century. Scholarly interest was especially focused on the Byzantine antiquities of Asia Minor and Cappadocia, as well as those of Northern Africa. Matters concerning the origin and the expansion of the cross-in-square and of the traverse vault type are still open to debate. A long list of scientific journals and institutes treat aspeds of Byzantine culture, history, and archaeology. The “International Association for Byzantine Studies” was organized in 1948 and since then 21 conferences have been held in several cities. After the end of Second World War, publications as well as great scale excavations took place. One of the greatest expositions that brought out the Byzantine art to the world was organized in Athens in 1964. Since then, numerous exhibitions and museum collections from Europe to the United States have been dedicated to the art of Byzantium. Future trends include the study of settlements, church, secular and preindustrial buildings. Light is also shed upon fields such as ceramics or metal artifacts of daily life – finds often neglected in former times.
Select Bibliography Marcell Restle and Klaus Wessel, Reallexikon zur byzantinischen Kunst (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1966); Charles Delvoye, L’art byzantin (Paris: Arthaud, 1967); Wolfgang Fritz Volbach and Jacqueline Lafontaine-dosogne, Byzanz und der christliche Osten (Berlin: Propyläen Verlag, 1968); André Grabar, L’art de la fin de l’antiquité et
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du moyen age, 3 vol. (Paris: College de France, 1968); David Talbot Rice, Art of the Byzantine Era (New York: Praeger 1963/1994); L’art byzantin, art européen (Athens, 1964 [exhibition catalogue]); The Glory of Byzantium, ed. Helen Evans and William Wixom (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1997 [exhibition catalogue]); Byzantium: Faith and Power, ed. Helen Evans (London: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004 [exhibition catalogue]).
Sophia Germanidou
Byzantine Philosophical Treatises A. Introduction Modern academic Byzantine Studies began around the mid-19th century. Because these Studies had their origin in classical philology, they were first focused on literature, historiography, rhetoric, the visual arts and jurisprudence. Philosophy remained outside the scope of the main interests in Byzantine Studies, despite the seminal research of Karl Krumbacher (Geschichte der byzantinischen Literatur, 1897), and perhaps precisely because of his work, insofar as he treated philosophical texts within the study of Byzantine literature in general, without specifically differentiating philosophical texts from other types of literature. Moreover, Krumbacher denied the possibility of any original philosophical development in Byzantine thought, and spoke of the “further fruitlessness” of the “Greek intellect” (op. cit., 428). In light of the origins of Byzantine Studies and Krumbacher’s judgment, Herbert Hunger’s statement in the mid-20th century comes as no surprise: “It could be argued that there was no Byzantine philosophy at all! Theology was once and for all responsible for the sphere of metaphysics, and every philosophical work produced outside this framework, as far as we can conceive today, essentially is merely some derivative of Platonism and/or Aristotelianism, without even mentioning that there is no room for talking about some development of the Byzantine philosophy” (Herbert Hunger, Byzantinische Geisteswelt, 1958, 15). Exactly twenty years later, however, the same author devoted the first sixty pages of his major work, Die hochsprachliche profane Literatur der Byzantiner (vol. 1, 1978, 4–62), to philosophy in Byzantium, defining the main orbits that research in the next 20 years would follow. So, something happened between 1958 and 1978 – the foundations of which were laid somewhat earlier – that changed Hunger’s views.
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B. The Real Beginning: Tatakis Indeed, the real beginning of the study of Byzantine philosophy may be dated shortly before Hunger’s first book, and is related to the works of Basil Tatakis, most of all to his book La Philosophie Byzantine, published in 1949 as a fascicule supplementaire to the Histoire de la philosophie of Emile Brehier. Tatakis himself declares in the preface of that book that there had been no preceding studies or texts on the subject that he could use in his own research: the philosophical thought in Byzantium had not before then been an object of detailed and systematic research. Although some of Tatakis’s analyses may seem superficial today, we would be ungrateful not to remark his exceptional merits in the study of Byzantine philosophy, of which he undoubtedly is to be considered as the modern founder. Besides identifying the major figures in Byzantine philosophy and their most important teachings, Tatakis posed several questions that became crucial for interpreters in the course of the next 50 years. The first question posed by Tatakis is whether philosophy, in the strict sense of the term, really existed in Byzantium or whether it was merely a technical and didactic instrument of theology. Tatakis answered this question in favor of the independence of philosophy, stressing the higher level of autonomy of philosophy in Byzantium in comparison with the situation in medieval Western Europe. In the context of that argument, it is not by chance that he highlights the work of Michael Psellos; because of Tatakis’s influence Psellos is still regarded by many as “the central figure in Byzantine philosophy,” and his name is known even to those who otherwise do not have the slightest idea about the existence of philosophy in Byzantium. Tatakis’s position entails another question, concerning the relative influence on Byzantine philosophy of ancient philosophy, on the one hand, and of Christian dogma, on the other (for ancient philosophy and Christian dogma indisputably are the two basic sources of philosophy in Byzantium). Tatakis also raised questions concerning, strictly speaking, the actual temporal beginning of Byzantine philosophy. The question arises because of the gradual, “evolutionary” and non-catastrophic beginnings of the historical Byzantine period. Even now historians still argue whether Byzantine philosophy has its origins in the 4th or in the 6–7th or even in the 9th century. Today, there is a tendency to accept that the main problems, definitions and methods of Byzantine philosophy were formed in the period before the 7th century, that the independence of Byzantine philosophy is already visible during the 7–8th century, and that in the 9th century we are able to speak about a “Byzantine classicism” (so Paul Lemerle’s expression, Le Premier humanisme byzantin, 1971, 196 and 204) that refers to “classics” at the roots of its
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own tradition. An overemphasis on the problem of dating is evidence of the uncertainty concerning the constructive elements of Byzantine philosophy. Tatakis, who in 1949 put the beginning in the 4th century, in 1969 (“La Philosophie grecque patristique et byzantine, “Histoire de la philosophie, vol. I, Orient, Antiquité, Moyen Age, 1969, 936–1005) yet speaks about a preceding “early Byzantine period,” which he names “patristic.” He thus symptomatically introduces a concept of “patristic” that is alien to the Byzantine tradition itself, and thereby casts the problem of the self-identity of philosophy into an inadequate and distorting framework. For a long time the criteria determining the “essence” of Byzantine philosophy have been borrowed from the perspective and categories of Western European medieval culture. That perspective is especially evident in the ways scholars have posed and resolved questions concerning the relationship between “theology and philosophy” in Byzantium. C. The Establishment of the Paradigm The book Kirche und theologische Literatur im byzantinischen Reich by Hans-Georg Beck, published in 1959, advanced this question further. Beck catalogues, systemizes and characterizes the authors and the texts, which still today remain the most important objects of research for the historians of Byzantine philosophy; working as an historian of theology and adopting an entirely Western European definition of “theology,” he subdivides philosophical texts into the categories “dogmatic and polemical.” He thus began a discussion that has lasted for nearly 50 years, providing a framework for the investigation of the philosophical affiliations of authors, with fundamental significance for philosophical developments in Byzantium. In his collection of articles titled Antike Philosophie und byzantinisches Mittelalter and especially in his program text, “Die Kontinuität in der Philosophie der Griechen bis zum Untergang des byzantinischen Reiches” (op. cit., 15–37), Klaus Oehler established another circle of questions and problems concerning Byzantine philosophy. As the title of his program text indicates, Oehler sought to prove that Byzantine philosophy was essentially a continuation of ancient philosophy in the Byzantine Christian “regime;” thus he emphasized the continual reception of Aristotle and especially of Plato by Byzantine thinkers, and invented the formula of the “neo-Platonic-Byzantine” philosophy – also under the sign of Christianity – which according to him lasted from the 3rd until the 15th century. Oehler’s interpretation has given rise to endless discussions concerning Platonism and Aristotelianism in Byzantium; as a result of being analyzed in these broad categories, it became a commonplace that the prevailing “Platonic” character of Byzantine
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philosophy may be contrasted with the prevailing “Aristotelian” character of Western philosophy. Reading Byzantine philosophy in these terms made it difficult to find anything philosophically specific to the thought of Byzantine thinkers themselves. This discussion has become exhausted. Contemporary scholarship on Byzantine philosophy supports the argument of Linos Benakis that despite the direct reception and assimilation of terms, concepts, problems and views articulated in ancient philosophy, it is proper to think of “an authentic […] philosophical tradition in the Byzantine world” (“Byzantine Philosophy,” Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol 2, ed. E. Craig, 1998, 160–65, here 162). Indeed, we can speak properly and not merely generically about Byzantine “Platonism” and “Aristotelianism” only during and after the decade of the 1440s! It is curious, for Benakis claims that Byzantine philosophy exactly at that time is “unsystematic,” a statement which itself has recently become an object of dispute. Oehler also undertook to identify and systemize what he judged to be the main problems of Byzantine philosophy. He determined the most important basic questions concerning not only the origins and primary sources of Byzantine philosophy but also concerning its “essence” or “spirit.” That ‘essence’ of Byzantine philosophy, Oehler argued, is to be found especially in anthropological questions concerning the human substance and hypostasis, the soul, reason and the body. Within this network of anthropological questions, Oehler identifies the doctrine concerning the distinction between the essence and its energies (which has its origins in Aristotle but was transmitted as well in neo-Platonic and Christian speculations) as central to all of Byzantine philosophy. The main lines of research on Byzantine philosophy in the period 1949–1969 were consolidated and ratified in Hunger’s fundamental work published in 1978. The whole problematic of this line of interpretation centers around three questions or topics: (1) the definition of philosophy (which established, entails the question of the historical “continuity” and “innovation”); (2) the relations between “Platonism” and “Aristotelianism”; (3) the relation between “philosophy and theology.” Another product generated by Hunger’s analysis of Byzantine philosophy is the notion “Christian Humanism” in Byzantium, which term in the end explains nothing – or perhaps everything. In any event, the tight linking of philosophy with theological discourse in Byzantium has enabled scholars to comprehend the whole content and wide range of problems discussed by Byzantine “philosophic” thinkers. In 1977 Gerhard Podskalsky published his capital work titled Theologie und Philosophie in Byzanz (Podskalsky’s recent book, Von Photios zu Bessarion,
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2003, develops the same line of interpretation). The significance of Podskalsky’s book surpasses that of the works I have mentioned heretofore. Podskalsky’s work is based on a detailed knowledge of the sources and evinces several other remarkable qualities, without which the advances of contemporary studies of Byzantine philosophy would be inconceivable. At the same time, one cannot fail to remark the polemic character of his work, whereby he defines his own positions by contrast with those of a set of opponents (which doe not include any of the authors that was mentioned so far). This character of Podskalsky’s work makes it easy for one to identify the preconceptions that affect his interpretations. One should first note that Podskalsky does not radically pose the question of the specific meaning of the concept of ‘theology’ within Byzantine culture; rather, he insists that in relation to this term we ought to speak mainly of a spiritual experience, and he points out further that in Byzantium theology was not transformed into “science,” as was attempted in the West. Although he does not say so explicitly, Podskalsky’s arguments suggest that the speculative discourse and reflection on theological problems in Byzantium is an element of philosophical thought, that is, that such discourse and speculation pertains to the superior part of “first philosophy.” Podskalsky’s re-conception of Byzantine theological speculation enables him to draw attention to the actual methods of philosophizing in Byzantium, and to differentiate diverse tendencies in Byzantine philosophical culture. Some of his preconceptions and prejudices, however, cause him underestimate a limine some trends in Byzantine thought in favor of others; thus, for example, he speaks of a collision between “mystical theology” (identified with some “bildungsfeindliche Orthodoxie”) and “humanism” standing for an “assimilationsfreudige theologische Wissenschaft.” Podskalsky’s criteria for “humanism” (like Hunger’s) are such that under this category one may include, de facto, all of the philosophically active authors in Byzantium. That Podskalsky places authors whom he does not like in a contrary category is not the result of an analysis of historical realities but of his polemical preconceptions. Podskalsky’s modern opponents are thinkers, who have contributed decisively to the development of the studies in Byzantine philosophy, even though none of them is a philosopher ex professo and many of them explicitly reject philosophizing in the theological sphere. Here we refer to such figures as Vladimir Lossky, Georgy Florovsky and Jean Meyendorff, to which we can add the names of Vasilij Kriwoshein, Dumitru Staniloae, Kallistos Ware and others. The works of these scholars and thinkers, the so-called “neo-Palamites” (originally a pejorative name), began to appear in the years
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immediately following World War II; in their writings they construct an immanently coherent or “integral” theological teaching, based strongly on the works of Gregorius Palamas, which they polemically defend and cast in the conceptual framework of western European culture, where most of them anyway live and work. The significance of these thinkers’ work is to be appreciated by reason of the fact that, by means of immanent criteria, they discovered the main problems pertaining to thought about God in the Eastern Christian tradition, emphasized the main stages in its unfolding, and produced the first critical editions of Byzantine authors of capital importance. Their work reveals the specific character of thought within the Eastern tradition and its independent value. Precisely in their attempt to stress the specific identity of Byzantine thought and its independence, and in their responses to sharp criticisms of their work by its opponents, the “neo-Palamites” choose often to exaggerate the “otherness” of the Eastern tradition, to ascribe to it an absolute incommunicability with Western philosophical and theological thought, and in so doing not rarely impose upon Byzantine thought a certain antirationalism and anti-philosophic attitude, etc. D. The Academical Establishment and the Quest for Philosophical Histories It is within this perspective that one should evaluate the work of Linos Benakis, whose first article on Byzantine philosophy was published in 1958. One can say surely that thanks to the books and articles of Benakis, concerning key authors and the general characteristics of Byzantine thought, studies of Byzantine philosophy now move steadily in the direction of the investigation of authentic philosophical problems within the Byzantine cultural tradition, and that they are perceived through the lens of a problematic specific to Byzantine thought (and not, for example, imported from the study of Western Latin philosophy). Benakis has made another major contribution: from Tatakis until now students of Byzantine philosophy have lamented that a huge number of Byzantine philosophical texts remain unedited or published at all. Benakis, his students and the school founded by him have done much to remedy that situation and to fill that serious void. Concerning Benakis one should acknowledge yet another important contribution: it was because of his initiative that in 1987 the Commission on “Byzantine philosophy” in the Société Internationale pour l’Étude de la Philosophie Médiévale (S.I.E.P.M.) was founded; Benakis served as the President of that Commission from that date until 2002. In sum, one can say that it is due to the efforts of Linos Benakis’s that studies in Byzantine phil-
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osophy have become recognized as a normal research and academic discipline. At this historical juncture, it is a fact that all of the large questions concerning Byzantine philosophy posed by scholars during the second half of the 20th century concerning the existence, sources and general characteristics of Byzantine philosophy, its main trends, historical developments, periods and figures are in principle answered, at least according to the terms in which they were posited. Essentially a macro-framework for the study of Byzantine philosophy has achieved consensus. This makes possible and even demands the investigation of what until now have been by-passed fields of research. Such, for instance, are the analyses of the influence of Latin philosophy and theology upon Byzantine thinkers (important here are the works of John Demetracopoulos) and comparative analyses of the Byzantine and Latin traditions (such as the works of Tzotcho Boiadjiev and generally those of the Bulgarian school of philosophical medieval studies, exemplified, e. g., by the volume Die Dionysius Rezeption im Mittelalter, ed. Tzotcho Boiadjiev, Georgi Kapriev, and Andreas Speer, 2000). Likewise Byzantine philosophers have been studied in perspectives that are not strictly “philosophical”; noteworthy in this regard is Nagel G. Wilson’s Scholars of Byzantium (1st ed. 1983, 2nd. ed. 1996), wherein Wilson explores the Byzantine philosophers in terms of their relation to the written text. As I stated above, the study of Byzantine philosophy has become increasingly recognized as a distinct academic discipline. Since 1999 course in the history of Byzantine philosophy have been established in the curricula of the universities in practically all of the Orthodox Balkan countries. Such courses have also appeared in the universities of Western Europe and in America. There is a noticeable similar expansion of the geography of the research centers. More and more Byzantine philosophy has attracted interest independently of religious or regional and cultural motivation, and there has developed an interest in philosophical texts beyond the disciplinary boundaries of philosophy and theology, e. g., among sociologists. Having reached the first decade of the 21st century, it is just to say that the founding, accumulative phase of research in Byzantine philosophy – during which the basic facts were accumulated, the major themes determined and the proper methods established – has successfully come to an end. It is for that reason to disagree with Linos Benakis’s thesis from 2002, according to which “we are not yet ready to replace Tatakis’s work with a new, more comprehensive history of Byzantine philosophy” (“Current research in Byzantine Philosophy,” Byzantine Philosophy and its Ancient Sources,
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ed. K. Ierodiakonou, 285). On the contrary, today we are not only ready but obliged to “replace” it. Of course, the point here is not simply to replace Tatakis’s book with books of the same kind, even if these books would be broader in scope, more detailed or more precise. The development of research has already reached a point at which the creation of historical surveys of Byzantine Philosophy, i. e. of more or less elaborate descriptions of its contents, could be viewed only as anachronism. On the contrary, the period that was started in such one honorable way by Tatakis, requires, in order to be worthy of the honor due to its pioneers, to be finished by the construction of a philosophical history or even philosophical histories of the philosophical practices in Byzantium (to make use of a Kent Emery’s, Jr., terminological formulation of this distinction). Only a mature conceptual analysis of the Byzantine philosophical tradition can explicate to the full the essence of what Tatakis started in 1949. One contribution to that effort is Georgi Kapriev’s book, Philosophie in Byzanz, 2005; as well as its pilot Bulgarian version (The Byzantine Philosophy: Four Centres of the Synthesy, 2001). The object in that book is to present a general outline of Byzantine philosophy, constructed in light of the research accumulated during the period that has just now come to an end. The book answers or responds to at least two questions that have remained open. First, it has addressed the problem of the so-called “unsystematic” quality of the thought of Byzantine philosophers. This view was imposed by two different parties. The first group is constituted by the Orthodox theologians of the 20th century, who correctly relate the concept of a “system” with a certain quality of the strictly rational reflection, and therefore reject such a notion in light of their entirely theological interpretation of the Byzantine tradition. The second group consists of those who have adopted the Western assumption that the presence of a “system” requires and is necessarily verified by a systematic text. On the contrary, the book argues that “systematic” thought exists foremost in the mind, whether or not it ever finds explicit literary expression, which it is not obliged to do by some inner necessity. Following a remark by Vladimir Lossky, Kapriev has determined the systematic structure of Byzantine philosophy through certain points of the synthesis in which the whole tradition regroups around a given concept, which defines the paradigm of philosophizing for a sufficient period of time, although Byzantium does not witness the establishment of philosophical schools in the strict sense of the term. Against this background can be solved the problem of the “development” of Byzantine philosophy, which is “unthinkable” (Hunger) if one tries to chart that development
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according to the measure of the Latin tradition. If, however, one considers the new problematic spheres that emerge from a different structuring of the thematic massifs, the increasing subtlety of the conceptual apparatus, and an in-depth control of the problems, we can speak with confidence of the unfolding of a philosophical tradition that moves towards a more-and-more universal philosophical synthesis, until the time that it was violently ruptured. The end of the 50-year period of scholarly research that outlined will be marked by the critical recapitulation of that research to be published in the fascicule on Byzantinische Philosophie in the new Ueberweg history of philosophy (Byzantinische Philosophie: Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie: Begründet von Friedrich Ueberweg, rev. ed., ed. Helmut Holzhey, Die Philosophie des Mittelalters, vol. 1/1, ed. Georgi Kapriev, forthcoming). Klaus Oehler was indignant at the fact that in the old four-volume edition of the UeberwegGeschichte all of Byzantine philosophy is summarized in 7 pages. In the new edition Byzantine philosophy will receive around 30 times more space, which still is not enough to do full justice to the scope of the tradition and the factual knowledge that we have about it. Even so, it is adequate for a fitting summary. E. The New Phase of Research At the same time, the strategies and perspectives that will characterize the new period of research on Byzantine philosophy have already been delineated. These may be seen most clearly in the volume Byzantine Philosophy and its Ancient Sources, 2002, edited by Katerina Ierodiakonou. The approach taken by the authors in this volume leaves behind generalizing problems, while standing firmly on what has already been achieved. The authors study their subjects in-depth and in detail, focusing on special, concrete and symptomatic problems. So the authors refrain from generalizing conclusions, understanding that new discoveries will call into question some things that have seemed evident until now. I do have no doubts that this volume will be interpreted as the first complete product establishing the paradigm for a new, second period of research in Byzantine philosophy. Thus, we are entering an intensive (as opposed to extensive) phase of scholarship in Byzantine philosophy. During this phase texts offering a general explanation of Byzantine philosophy will be fewer and fewer. The scholarship will concentrate on investigating concrete details through different, sometimes unexpected and provocative points of view. An expansion of horizons will undoubtedly occur, as will discoveries of unexpected connections, until now not seriously considered, and new parameters of the Byzantine
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tradition of thought will be established. Prejudices and clichés of the past generation will be overcome, although the new scholarship will probably generate its own “clichés of the second generation” that will be detected by some third generation of scholars that follow. The new phase of scholarship that we are entering will be more firmly based on a more elaborate and perfected material and technical apparatus; this aspect means that we shall see a more dynamic activity in the editing and publishing of primary texts and sources. Another salient characteristic of the new research agenda will be extensive international cooperation, conceived in the framework of precisely formulated and detailed projects, conducted by large-scale international teams. In this context, one can expect a closer cooperation among the growing number of research centers dedicated to specialized research in Byzantine philosophy and intellectual history. All will observe that this state of affairs parallels rather closely the present historical situation in many long well-established fields of research (e. g., in the field of medieval Latin philosophy). Studies in Byzantine philosophy, then, are not under-going some scientific revolution, but are experiencing a normal stage of growth, evincing all of the advantages and disadvantages of its particular condition. Select Bibliography Hans-Georg Beck, Kirche und theologische Literatur im byzantinischen Reich (Munich: Beck, 1959); Linos Benakis, Byzantine Philosopha (Athens: Parusia, 2002); Herbert Hunger, Die hochsprachliche profane Literatur der Byzantiner, vol. 1 (Munich: Beck, 1978), 4–62; Byzantine Philosophy and its Ancient Sources, ed. Katerina Ierodiakonou (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002); Georgi Kapriev, Philosophie in Byzanz (Wuerzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2005); Karl Krumbacher, Geschichte der byzantinischen Literatur von Justinian bis zum Ende des oströmischen Reiches (527–1453) (1892; Munich: Beck, 2nd ed. 1897); Paul Lemerle, Le Premier humanisme byzantin (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1971); Klaus Oehler, Antike Philosophie und byzantinisches Mittelalter: Aufsätze zur Geschichte des griechischen Denkens (Munich: Beck, 1969); Gerhard Podskalsky, Theologie und Philosophie in Byzanz: Der Streit um die theologische Methodik in der spätbyzantinischen Geistesgeschichte (14./15. Jh.), seine systematischen Grundlagen und seine historische Entwicklung (Munich: Beck, 1977); Basile Tatakis, La philosophie byzantine (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1949).
Georgi Kapriev
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Byzantine Sciences A. The End of Byzantine Science: the East Scientific activity was thriving in the Byzantine Empire after the re-conquest of Constantinople in 1261 over the ephemeral Latin Kingdom (particularly in the late-13th and the early-14th centuries). Nevertheless, it necessarily decreased during the last decades of the Empire because of the strong reduction of the territory, the population, and the available resources, without ceasing, however, and not even after the fall of Constantinople on the 29th of May 1453, contrary to an opinio communis. After the Ottoman conquest, the Byzantine scientists who had stayed in the area of the former empire, be they physicians, mathematicians, astronomers, or geographers for instance, integrated into the Ottoman society and worked for the new ruling class – including in close collaboration with Ottoman and other colleagues – as such a manuscript as Vienna, Austria National Library, medicus graecus 1 (dating back to ca. 512 C.E.) suggests. If the practice of science was not interrupted by the Ottoman conquest, it was partially transformed, however, as it included from then on a process of transcultural interaction and transfer, as the many multilingual lexica of plant names, for example, indicate. Such transcultural exchange increased over time, particularly with the expansion of the Ottoman Empire by Soliman the Magnificent (b. ca. 1494; sultan 1520; d. 1566), the conquest of Persia, and the capture of such important cities as Baghdad in 1535. The library collections in the capital and in other wealthy cities of the ex-Abbasid Empire were transferred to Istanbul, and their books moved to the hands of Greek librarians, if not scientists, as their re-binding indicates. Nevertheless, with the passing of time, this trend decreased, if it did not stop. With the organization of Ottoman Empire and the instauration of the system of the millet, that is, the groups within the Ottoman society defined on the basis of religions, Greek speaking communities interacted increasingly less with the other linguistic and religious groups of the Empire, and became gradually isolated without necessarily having the indispensable means to pursue and develop a scientific culture. Among others, they did not have access to printing within the Ottoman Empire (books in Greek alphabet were printed outside, principally in the Austrian Empire). In these conditions, Greek communities in the Ottoman world tended to perpetuate the Byzantine tradition. In medicine, this took the form of the iatrosofia, that is, compilations of formulas for medicines listed according to the principle a capite ad calcem (from head to toe). Although such compilations
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were often entitled as being by Hippocrates (460–between 375 and 351 B.C.E.), Dioscorides (1st c. C.E.), Galen (129–after 216 [?] C.E.), and Meletius (of uncertain epoch; usually dated between the 7th and the 13th c.), the formulas were often of a different origin: they came from the medical practices of the authors of these manuals, as well as from Byzantine medical encyclopedias and therapeutic handbooks preserved among Greek-speaking groups. The attribution of iatrosofia to the physicians of classical Antiquity is significant, for it reveals a process of self-identification of Greek-speaking populations, who affirmed in this way not only their authenticity, but also – if not above all – their anteriority in a context in which they felt segregated, and even oppressed. As for the Byzantine Meletius, he was included in the titles of iatrosofia because he was the author of the work of Christian anthropology that had probably the largest circulation in the Byzantine world. The presence of his name in the title of iatrosofia reveals the second most important parameter of the self-definition of the Greek-speaking communities in the Ottoman world, that of religion, in the specific case here Orthodoxy, and shows that the Ottoman division of society into groups defined by their religion was not necessarily perceived as a measure imposed from the outside by the political authority, but corresponded to a reality (for the primary sources on Greek science in the Ottoman Empire, see the inventory by Giannês Karas, Oi epistêmes stên Tourkokratia: Cheirographa kai entupa, 3 vols., 1992–1994; for the iatrosofion, see Touwaide Alain, “Byzantine Hospital Manuals (Iatrosophia) as a Source for the Study of Therapeutics,” The Medieval Hospital and Medical Practice, ed. Barbara S. Bowers, 2007, 147–73). It was only with the independence of Greece in 1829 that modern, viz. Western, science arrived in Greece, mainly with the German scientists invited by King Otto (b. 1815; king 1832; d. 1867) to become the first professors of the newly founded university at Athens. Printing also started to develop in the country, contributing to the introduction and diffusion of modern science among the Greek population of the kingdom. Nevertheless, such works as the iatrosofia continued to be copied by hand until late in the 19th century, not only within the Greek-speaking communities still in the Ottoman empire (for example, in Egypt), but even in Greece. B. The End of Byzantine Science: the West In the West, Byzantine science had a different fortuna. During the 15th century, particularly after the fall of Constantinople, many Byzantine scientists left the territory of the defunct Empire in a wide move of population going into exile. They fled westward, to Crete (then a Venetian territory) or further west to Italy, mainly Florence, Venice-Padua, and Rome, but also to such im-
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portant cities as Milan or smaller, but not necessarily less intellectually active towns such as Ferrara, Modena, or Urbino. They brought with them the texts that provided the basis of their education, be it general – from Homer to Demosthenes, including Pindar, Eschylus, Sophocles, Euripides or Thucydides to mention some – philosophical – Plato, for example – or scientific – from Aristotle to Dioscorides, Ptolemy, or Galen, for instance. In a first phase, such texts were newly translated into Latin and printed, replacing old medieval translations. The availability of Greek works in the original language – be they literary, philosophical, or scientific – and their comparison with the Latin versions produced in the Middle Ages made Western scientists aware of the transformations introduced in these works over time, particularly because of their translation(s) and their transmission from one culture to another, first from Byzantium to the Arabic world and then from the Arabic world to the West. Although these transformations were not always deteriorations resulting from the reproduction of texts by hand, but were often new developments added to the texts in layered levels of sedimentation by AraboIslamic and then medieval scientists, they were seen by Western Renaissance scientists as corruptions of the original contents. The medieval versions of classical texts that circulated in the West at that time were rejected, as were also their epiphenomena, be they glosses, more developed commentaries, new interpretations, or more original works rooted, however, in the ancient heritage. One of the most adamant defenders of this return to the supposed original purity of ancient scientific works was the physician of Ferrara, Nicolao Leoniceno (1428–1524). Probably transferring to scientific treatises the methods of textual criticism developed for literary works by Angelo Poliziano Ambrogini (1454–1494), better known as Poliziano, Leoniceno promoted a return to the most ancient works of the Greeks, which, in the field of medicine, were those by Hippocrates, Dioscorides, and Galen, thus eliminating de facto, though not necessarily explicitly, their subsequent developments in the Byzantine world, from Oribasius (4th c.) to Nicolaus Myrepsus (14th c.), and including Aetius and Alexander of Tralles (both 6th c.), Paul of Egina (7th c.), Theophanes Chrysobalantes (10th c.; renamed Theophanes Nonnos in the Renaissance), Symeon Seth (11th c.), or Ioannes Zacharias Actuarius (13th–14th c.). The corpus of writings by or attributed to Aristotle was printed in Greek as early as 1495–1497 by the humanist publisher Aldo Manuzio (1449–1515), the Corpus Galenicum in 1525 by the heirs of Aldo Manuzio, and the whole series of treatises ascribed to Hippocrates in 1526 by the same. There were some exceptions in this shift from contemporary to ancient works, the most characteristic of which was Giorgio Valla (ca. 1447–1500).
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The owner of the largest collection of Greek manuscripts of that time, he translated into Latin some Byzantine scientific treatises, among them the 11th-century Byzantine translation of the Arabic treatise On Smallpox and Measles originally by abû Bakr ar-Râzî (865–925 C.E.). The work seemed to offer therapeutic value for the treatment of syphilis that was spreading throughout Europe at that time. This case of transfer from Byzantine to Western medical practice is probably unique, however. Leoniceno’s program, first embraced and reinforced by publishers and printers, particularly Aldo Manuzio with whom Leoniceno was in close contact, had a deep impact on contemporary scientists. Byzantine scientific literature did not disappear totally, however, but benefitted from the search of ancient Greek books in the 16th century and the formation of collections of manuscripts such as the Bibliothèque royale in France, the Bibliotheca Vaticana, or the collection at El Escorial in Spain, to mention just a few. Byzantine science entered the many collections of Greek manuscripts created at that time, without being printed, be it in Renaissance Latin translations or in the original Greek text, before the 1530s, however (with few exceptions) (alphabetical order of names and titles: Aetius: 1533–35 Latin, and1534 Greek; Cassius iatrosophistes [between the 4th and the 7th c.]: 1541 Greek [and also a Latin version the same year]; Demetrius Pepagomenos [15th c.], De podagra: 1517 Latin, and 1558 Greek; Ioannes Zacharias Actuarius, De actionibus et affectibus spiritus animalis: 1547 Latin, 1557 Greek; De medicamentorum compositione: 1540 Latin; De urinis: 1519 Latin; Methodus medendi: 1554 Latin; Meletius: 1552 Latin; Nemesius [late 4th c.]: 1538 Latin, 1565 Greek; Nicolaus Myrepsus: 1541 Latin; Oribasius: 1543 Greek and Latin; Paul of Egina, Book I: 1510 Latin; opera omnia: 1528 Greek; Stephanus of Athens [or Alexandria; 5th/6th c.], Alphabetum empericum: 1581 Latin, and Commentarium in Galeni de medendi methodo: 1536 Greek). Even when Byzantine scientific texts were printed, the interest was more of an antiquarian than of a scientific nature, contrary to what happened with the Corpus Hipppocraticum, Dioscorides, and Galen. C. Early History of Byzantine Science At the turn of the 17th to the 18th century, the interest in Byzantine science faded even more. The field of medicine is significant. When the Frenchman Daniel Le Clerc (1652–1728) wrote his Histoire de la médecine, which was published in 1702, he covered the period from Hippocrates to Galen. It was the merit of the Englishman John Freind (1675–1728) to take over the history of medicine from Oribasius on in his History of physick published in 1725–1726. However, whereas he treated Oribasius in seven pages (4–10 of the 1735 Latin edition of Venice), Aetius and Alexander of Tralles in twelve each (11–23 and
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24–35 respectively), Uranius (6th c.) and the historian Procopius (507–after 555) in eight (36–43), and Paul of Egina in seventeen (44–60), he covered the whole period from 640 (the supposed date of Paul of Egina) to 1453 in 26 pages (61–86) which included general considerations on the style of late Byzantine physicians and conclusive reflections (five pages, 82–86).The only late Byzantine to receive more attention is Ioannes Zacharias Actuarius, to whom Freind devoted nine pages (73–81). This exception might result from a practical consideration, expressed by Freind in the title page of his History, where the subtitle reads: “… In qua ea praecipue notantur quae ad Praxin pertinent …” Yet, in the fight of English physicians against smallpox, Freind suggested, in a way that reminds of Giorgio Valla, the use of treatments prescribed by ancient physicians, namely purgation. Indeed, in his History of medicine, Freind prized Actuarius for being, according to him, the first among Greek authors to recommend the use of purgative agents (75–76). This regain of interest was short-lived. After Freind and during the whole 18th and 19th centuries, Byzantine medicine and, more generally, Byzantine science did not receive much attention among scholars and scientists. This was particularly the case in the 19th century, during which two monumental editions of classical works were produced that eclipsed almost any other work: the Opera omnia of Galen edited by the German physician and classicist Karl Gottlobb Kühn (1754–1840) and published in 20 volumes (with 22 tomes) from 1821 to 1833, and, slightly later, the Oeuvres complètes d’Hippocrate by the French scholar and lexicographer Emile Littré (1801–1877), published in 10 volumes from 1839 to 1861. Classicism was triumphant as was further demonstrated by the catalogue of Greek medical manuscripts published under the direction of the German philologist Hermann Diels (1848–1922) by the Academy of Sciences of Prussia in Berlin (Die Handschriften der antiken Ärzte, vol. 1: Hippokrates und Galenos, ed. Hermann Diels, 1905; Die Handschriften der antiken Ärzte, vol. 2: Die übrigen griechischen Ärzte ausser Hippokrates und Galenos, ed. id., 1906; with a supplement: Bericht über den Stand des interakademischen Corpus Medicorum Antiquorum und erster Nachtrag zu den in den Abhandlungen 1905 and 1906 veröffentlichten Katalogen: Die Handschriften der antiken Ärzte. I. und II. Teil, ed. id., 1908. The first two parts were republished in 1906 under the following title: Die Handschriften der antiken Ärzte: Griechische Abteilung, ed. id., 1906. This version was reprinted together with the supplement under the following title: Die Handschriften der antiken Ärzte. I. Hippokrates und Galenos; II. Die übrigen griechischen Ärzte; III. Nachtrag, ed. id., with a preface by Fridolf Kudlien, 1970). The purpose of the enterprise was to edit critically Greek medical texts (see, for example, Hermann Diels, “Über das neue Corpus medicorum,” Neue Jahrbücher
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für das klassische Altertum, Geschichte und deutsche Literatur und für Pädagogik 19 [1907]: 722–26). The focus was mainly on a narrowly defined classical antiquity as an overview of the two volumes of the catalogue shows. Whereas the first volume (1905) was devoted to Hippocrates and Galen and contained 151 pages, the second (1906) was to “all other physicians” from Diocles (4th c. B.C.E.) to Ioannes Zacharias Actuarius, and consisted of only 112 pages. The list of physicians included the post-Aristotelian physician Diocles (2 pp., 27–28), the Alexandrian surgeon Heliodorus (2 pp., 41–42), such classical authors as Aretaeus (3 pp., 17–19), Dioscorides (6 pp., 29–35), Rufus (4 pp., 88–91), and Soranus (3 pp., 92–94), the three 4th-century Christian anthropologists Basil the Great (1 p., 21), Gregory of Nyssa (2 pp., 39–40), Gregory the Theologian (2pp., 40–41), Meletius (3pp., 62–64), Nemesius (3pp., 66–68), and Hermes Trismegistus (6pp., 43–48). Among the Byzantine authors, Aetius (3 pp., 5–7), Alexander of Tralles (3 pp., 11–13), Oribasius (5 pp., 70–74), and Paul of Egina (4 pp., 77–81) (that is, the early Byzantines who pursued the classical tradition) cover 15 pages (i. e., 14 % of the volume), while the others (actually, some early Byzantine, and a selection of Middle- and Late-Byzantine ones) are almost all treated in one page as the following cases show (selection; alphabetical order of names): Antonius Pyropoulos (15th c.) (p. 15, 2 manuscripts), Constantine Meliteniotes (14th c.) (p. 24, 1 ms.), Ioannes of Alexandria (6th or 7th c.) (p. 51, 1 ms.), Ioannes Choumnos (15th c.) (p. 52, 1 ms.), Ioannes Staphidaces (14th c.) (p. 55, 1 ms.), Leo (9th or 10th c. ?) (p. 57, 3 mss. and some fragments), Neophytos Prodromênos (14th c.) (p. 68, 7 mss.), Nicolaus Myrepsus (59, 7 mss.), Stephanus of Alexandria and Athens (2 pp. each, pp. 95–96 and 97–98, and 18 and 29 mss., respectively), Theophilus (7th c.) (6 pp., pp. 101–106), and Ioannes Zacharias Actuarius (4 pp., pp. 108–111). This treatment reflects a major focus on classical antiquity (177 pages out of a total of 263 corresponding to almost 70 %), and, for the rest, a similar importance given to the authors of late antiquity (15 pp.) and the Christian anthropologists (11 pp.), followed by Hermes Trismegistus (6 pp.). None of the Byzantine physicians equal this latter number of pages, with the exception of Theophilus, whose treatises had been very influential in the West (in Latin trans.). D. 20th-Century Obscurantism In 20th-century Byzantine Studies, science(s) might be rightly considered as la grande absente. As in the previous centuries, the case of medicine is particularly revealing. The conclusions by Auguste Corlieu (1825–1905), Les médecins grecs depuis la mort de Galien jusqu’à la chute de l’empire d’Orient (210–1453), 1885, are emblematic (pp. 173–74):
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This judgment was shared by Byzantinists as the epoch-making Geschichte der byzantinischen Literatur von Justinian bis zum Ende des oströmischen Reiches (527–1453), published in 1897 by Karl Krumbacher (1856–1909), shows (pp. 613–14): Auch auf diesem Gebiete [= medicine] … äusserte die blindgläubige Verehrung der alten ihre verderbliche Wirkung auf die Entwicklung einer originellen forschenden und darstellenden Thätigkeit …
Krumbacher covered the whole section of Byzantine science in only 23 out of the 1193 pages contained in his monumental work, treating all disciplines in an equally brief way (medicine, pp. 613–16 [bibliography 616–20]; mathematics and astronomy, 620–24 [bibliography 624–31]; zoology, botany, mineralogy, alchemy, 631–33 [bibliography 633–34]). The historian of medicine, Iwan Bloch (1872–1922), in the Handbuch der Geschichte der Medizin edited by Max Neuburger (1868–1955) and Julius Leopold Pagel (1851–1912), and published in 1902, had a somewhat more complex, though still negative, opinion. Starting with a seemingly positive reevaluation of Byzantium (p. 492): Die Kultur des byzantinischen Reiches war nicht bloss … eine Kultur des Verfalls, nicht bloss eine in das Mittelalter hineinragende Ruine des Altertums …
He went on with a dark evocation of Byzantine political life (p. 492): Die politische Geschichte des Byzantinerreiches ist im grossen und ganzen eine “eintönige Geschichte der Intrigen von Priestern,Verschnittenen und Frauen, der Giftmischereien, der Verschwörungen der gleichmässigen Undankbarkeit, der beständigen Vatermorde” …
Once the stage was set, he described science in negative terms and identified the following factors as the causes of this:
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(493) Das Christentum … musste, je mehr es sich in der Kirche organisierte, den Fortschritt der Wissenschaft in ungünstigem Sinne beeinflussen … (p. 501) Neben dem Einflusse der christlichen Lehre ist derjenige der philosophischen Mystik und des Aberglaubens bezeichnend (p. 502) für den Charakter der byzantinischen Epoche … (p. 504) Eine noch bestimmtere Ausgestaltung erfuhren Magie und Zauberglauben durch ihre Verknüpfung mit der Philosophie …
Nevertheless, Bloch credited Byzantine physicians with one merit: they traveled abroad to learn about medicine and therapeutics ([sic]) (p. 513)! More recently, the authoritative and deeply respected Viennese Byzantinist Herbert Hunger (1914–2000), though not openly as critical as his predecessors, was no more positive, devoting to science some 100 pages (vol. 2, p. 218–320) of his 2-volume set Die hochsprachliche profane Literatur der Byzantiner, 1978 (XXVI + 542, and XX + 528 pp.) in the new authoritative Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft. His consideration on iatrosofia is significant (vol. 2, p. 304): Niemand wird monatelange Arbeit auf das Lesen elend geschriebener Codices aufwenden wollen, um zuletzt eine Rezeptsammlung mehr aus dem Dschungelbereich der Iatrosophia in Händen zu haben, noch dazu wo es in der byzantinischen Literatur allenthalben reizvollere Inedita gibt …
Shortly after, in his introductory remarks to a symposium on Byzantine medicine held in 1983, the convener, John Scarborough, opened the meeting with the following statement (Symposium on Byzantine Medicine, 1984) (see p. ix): Among medical historians, the commonly held opinion of Byzantine medicine is one of stagnation, plagiarism of the great medical figures of classical antiquity, and a somber boredom that seemingly awaited the Italian Renaissance …
And referring to Guido Majno, The Healing Hand: Man and Wound in the Ancient World, 1975, he added (p. ix): Typical is Majno’s “… after Galen, the history [of medicine] grinds to a halt for at least one thousand years. Europe sank into the Dark Ages” …
E. The Long Search for a Method 20th-century research on Byzantine science came out of an increased interest in material life and the developments in manuscript heuristic in the 19th century. The German classicist August Friedrich von Pauly (1796–1845), who was more interested in the concrete aspects of life than in linguistics, literary criticism, or hermeneutics, as he himself stated, conceived and started publishing the Real-Encyclopädie der Alterthumswissenschaft in 1839 (Stuttgart).
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His death in 1854 at the age of 49 prevented him from completing the work, which was achieved in 1852 (6 vols.). The Real-Encyclopädie, which was later expanded, devoted a certain number of entries to the history of sciences, including the continuity of classical science in Byzantium, although the work was specifically about classical antiquity. Manuscript heuristic started at almost the same period, with the German physician and classicist Friedrich Reinhold Dietz (1804–1836) of Königsberg. In preparing critical editions, he did not limit his work to consulting only locally available manuscripts, but he traveled throughout Germany, Italy, Spain, France, and Britain, systematically searching codices containing Greek medical texts. Although he was mainly focused on Hippocrates, he was also interested in Byzantine physicians from Oribasius to Actuarius. He was supposed to prepare an edition of Oribasius for the corpus edited by Kühn (below), and he collated manuscripts of (in chronological order) Aetius, the Alexandrian commentators on Hippocrates, Paul of Egina, Theophilus, Symeon Seth, Ioannes Zacharias Actuarius and others. He could not fully complete his program, however, because he died in 1836 at the age of 32. Editorial activity was taken over and transformed into a systematic enterprise by the German physician and historian of medicine, Karl Gottlob Kühn, who launched a monumental corpus entitled Medicorum graecorum opera quae exstant in 28 volumes (Hippocrates, Dioscorides, Galen, and Aretaeus), which should have also included Oribasius (to be published by Dietz), Aetius (to be published by Karl Christian Lebrecht Weigel [1769–1845]), and Paul of Egina (to be published by the botanist and historian of botany Kurt Sprengel [1766–1833]). The search for manuscripts was pursued mainly by the French physician and historian of medicine Charles Daremberg (1817–1872), who proposed in 1847 the publication of a new corpus of ancient medical texts, the Collection des médecins grecs et latins, with an intention similar to that of Dietz, that is, to produce critical editions based on an accurate examination and collation of manuscripts. Daremberg differred from Dietz, however, as he wanted to be exhaustive. He visited libraries in Germany, Belgium, England, and Italy, and brought back a great wealth of data, which he combined with the results of his examination in loco of the codices in the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris. On this basis he prepared what he called a Catalogue raisonné des manuscrits médicaux, a project that dated back to an incubation in the years 1841–1844. The catalogue was conceived as the necessary first step for the publication of medical texts in the Collection des médecins grecs et latins. But, as Daremberg explained, this catalogue was more than a list of manuscripts: it also included data on the production of the manuscripts (their
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period and place of writing), as, according to him, such information is of primary importance for the history of science. A specimen of the catalogue was published in two parts in 1851 and 1852, with a revised edition in 1853. As active Daremberg had been, neither the full Catalogue raisonné nor the comprehensive Collection of ancient medical texts he had envisioned ever appeared, with the exception of an edition of Oribasius prepared in collaboration with the Dutch scholar Ulgo Cats Bussemaker (1810–1865). Nevertheless, Daremberg could illustrate the validity of his intuition about the value of manuscripts as witnesses to the practice of science in Byzantium. In analyzing a codex of the Phillipps collection in England, he investigated the genesis of the Byzantine translation of the zâd al musâfir wa qût al hâdir (Provisions for the Traveller and Nourishment for the Sedentary) by ibn al-Jazzâr (d. 979/980 or 1010 C.E.), known as the efodia tou apodêmountos (that is, [Medical] Recommendations for the Traveler), producing an important contribution to the history of medicine in the Byzantine world, particularly in southern Italy (Sicily or the mainland). Nevertheless, he did not apply this approach to other works, and did not bring to light, thus, the new scientific activity generated by the classical texts. It will be a century before Daremberg’s intuition is rediscovered and applied in a productive way. In the meantime, several Byzantine scientific texts were edited, among which (in the fields of medicine, and natural sciences) Alexander of Tralles in 1878–1879 by Theodor Puschmann (1844–1899); the the Epistula de vermis of Alexander of Tralles, Cassius iatrosophistes, and Theophilus, to mention some, by Julius Ideler (1809–1842) in the Physici greci minores (2 vols., 1841–1842); Adamantius (5th c.) by Valentin Rose (1829–1916) in his Anecdota Graeca et Graecolatina (vol. 1, 1864); Meletius by John Anthony Cramer (1793–1848) in his Anecdota Graeca (4 vols., 1835–1837); the Scriptores physiognomici (1893) by Richard Förster (1843–1922); Theophilus by William Alexander Greenhill (1814–1894) in 1842, and the alchemists (1887–1888) by Marcelin Berthelot (1827–1907) and Charles-Emile Ruelle (1833–1912). The idea of a systematic inventory of manuscripts first launched by Daremberg was still present in the scholarly community even though Daremberg could not implement it. The Athenian ophthalmologist Georges A. Costomiris (1849–1902), who was also doing historico-medical research in Paris in the footsteps of Daremberg, began in 1887 to browse the holdings of the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris, and to consult printed catalogues of Greek manuscripts, in order to bring to the attention of the scholarly community unknown Greek medical texts. Costomiris’s catalogue, published in five issues of the French Revue des Études Grecques (1889–1897), listed 214
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different codices containing the texts of twenty authors, many of whom were Byzantines (names are followed by the references to the several issues of Costomiris’ work [number of the issue, and pages]): Ioannes Zacharias Actuarius (5.414–445), the Byzantine compilations attributed to Aelius Promotus (2nd c. C.E.) in the manuscripts and by modern scholars (1.363–368), Aetius (2.150–179), Damnastes (11th c. [?]) (4.71–72), the Ephodia (11th c.) (3.101–110), the Hippiatrica (4.61–69), Leo the Philosopher (3.99–100), the enigmatic Metrodora of unknown time period (2.147–148), Nicolaus Myrepsos (5.406–414), Oribasius (2.148–150), Psellus (1018– after [?] 1081) (4.68–60), Symeon Seth (4.70–71), Theophanes Nonnos (3.100–101), Timotheus (5th c.) (3.99), and Tzetzes (ca. 1110–between 1180 and 1185) (5.405). On the basis of such inventory – and as a sort of défense et illustration – Costomiris produced a critical edition of the twelfth book of Aetius’ medical encyclopedia (1892). Another Greek physician, Skeuos Geôrgios Zerbos (1875–1966), investigated Greek medical manuscripts, with a particular interest in Aetius, Paul of Nicea (between the 7th and the 9th/10th c.), Metrodora, and Magnos of Emessa (4th c. [?]) as he himself indicated (“Kathorismos tôn onomatôn tôn suggrafeôn duo anônumôn iatrikôn keimenôn,” Athêna 20 [1908]: 502–08; see 502). On this basis he published critical editions of Aetius (partial; see [chronological order of publication]): Aetii Sermo sextidecimus et ultimus: Erstens aus Handschriften veröffentlicht mit Abbildungen, Bemerkungen und Erklärungen, 1901; “Aetiou Amidênou peri daknontôn zôôn kai ibolôn êtoi logos dekatos tritos,” Athêna 18 (1905): 241–302 (contains many, but not all chapters of book 13), with a re-edition as a monograph under the same title and two different printings (1905, in the series Editio graeca scriptorum medicorum veterum graecorum, and Syros, 1909); “Aetiou Amidênou logos dekatos pemptos,” Athêna 21 (1909): 2–138; “Aetiou Amidênou logos enatos,” Athêna 23 (1911): 265–392. Also, he studied some aspects of Byzantine medicine and some Byzantine physicians, including specific manuscripts (“O suggrafeas duo anônumôn archaiôn iatrikôn keimenôn,” Athêna 21 [1909]: 381–83) (alphabetical order of names of Byzantine authors): (Aetius) Die Gynekologie des Aëtios, 1901, and “Paratêrêseis eis ton triskaidekaton logon êtoi peri daknontôn zôôn kai ibolôn ofeôn Aetiou Amidênou,” Epetêris Ethnikou Panepistêmiou (1908): 307–60; (Metrodora) “Das unveröffentliche medizinische Werk der Metrodora,” Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin 3 (1909–1910): 141–44; (Paul of Nicea) Oi kôdikes tôn archaiôn anekdotôn iatrikôn cheirografôn tou Paulou Nikaiou: Ai peri toutôn dêmosieutheisai eidikai meletai mou kai ai ep’ autôn kriseis tês akadêmias tôn epistêmôn tou Berolinou kai tou kathêgêtou tês Istorias tês iatrikês en tô Panepistêmiô tou Berolinou, 1915.
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Daremberg’s and Costomiris’s work highlighted the interest and urgent need of a systematic catalogue of manuscripts containing scientific works, be they Byzantine or earlier. It was the merit of the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin to produce such a general catalogue of medical manuscripts, published under the direction of Hermann Diels and referred to above. Interestingly, the catalogue included the codices of the medieval Latin, Syriac, Arabic, and Hebrew translations of the Greek works, and constituted a basis for further study of the diffusion of classical science from the Byzantine Empire to the West (the early medieval Latin translations) and to the East (the translations into oriental languages). The project of new editions to be published in a new Corpus Medicorum Graecorum came to fruition as early as 1908, with the first volume on Philumenus (3rd c. C.E. [?]), edited by Max Wellmann (1863–1933) on the basis of an unicum (Vaticanus graecus 284). After 3 volumes of Galen were published (1914 [2 items] and 1915), Paul of Egina (2 vols., 1921–1924) was edited by Johan Ludvig Heiberg (1854–1928), Oribasius by Johann Georg Raeder (b. 1905) in 5 volumes (1926–1933), and half of Aetius’s medical encyclopedia in 2 volumes (1935 and 1950) by Alessandro Olivieri (b. 1872). Whereas this editing activity seemed promising for Byzantine science, it was only in 1969 that a volume on a physician of the middle Byzantine period came out (Leo, edited by Robert Renehan). Then, from 1983 to 1997, the commentaries on Hippocrates, Aphorisms, and Prognostic by the late Alexandrian Stephanus were edited in 5 volumes by Leendert G. Westerink (1913–1990). That is, a total of 15 out of the almost 60 volumes currently published in the Corpus (= 25 %), with three authors from late antiquity – actually a commentator on a classical author and three encyclopedists who synthesized the classical literature (mainly Galen) – and only one after the end of the school of Alexandria. A leading figure in the publication of Greek scientific texts from the 1880s to 1927 was the Danish scholar and historian of ancient science Johan Ludvig Heiberg. He edited (alphabetical order of ancient authors’ names): (anonymous) Anonymi logica et quadrivium cum scholiis antiquis (1928); (Apollonius of Perga [between 260 and 190 B.C.E.]) Apollonii Pergaei quae graece exstant (2 vols., 1891–1893); (Archimedes [287–212 B.C.E.]) Archimedis opera omnia (3 vols., with two editions: 1880–1881, and 1910–1915); (Corpus Hippocraticum) Aphorisms (1892), and the first volume of the Opera (1927) in the Corpus Medicorum Graecorum (in collaboration with Johannes Mewaldt [1880–1964], Ernst Nachmanson [1877–1943], and Hermann Schöne [1870–1941]); (Euclid [ca. 300 B.C.E.]) Euclidis opera omnia (8 vols., 1883–1916); (Hero [1st c. C.E.]) Heronis Alexandrini opera quae supersunt omnia
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(5 vols., 1899–1914); (mathematicians) the Mathematici graeci minores (1927); (Paul of Egina) Pauli Aeginetae libri tertii interpretatio latina antiqua (1912); Glossae medicinales (1924); (Ptolemaeus [1st-2nd c.]) the Syntaxis mathematica (2 vols., 1898–1903), and the Opera astronomica minora (1907) in Claudii Ptolemaei opera quae exstant omnia; (Serenus [4th c. C.E.]) Sereni Antinoensis opuscula [mathematica] (1896); and (Theodosius [ca. 160–ca. 90 B.C.E.]) De sphaericis (1927). Heiberg wrote also a history of mathematical and natural sciences in antiquity (Geschichte der Mathematik und Naturwissenschaften im klassischen Altertum, published in the Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft, 1st ed. in 1912 [English trans. in 1922; Italian trans. in 1924], with a rev. ed. in 1925). In spite of its title, the latter includes some data about post-classical and Byzantine science, as it extends up to Martianus Capella (early 5th c.) for the mathematics; it mentions the university of Constantinople, created in 425 (p. 61), and such Byzantine scientists as Psellus, Theodoros Metochites (1270–1332), Nicephore Gregoras (ca. 1290–between 1358 and 1361), Georgios Chrysokokkes (fl. ca. 1335–1350) (author of a work based on Persian astronomy and dated 1346), Isaak Argyros (between 1300 and 1310–ca. 1375), and Nicolaus Kabasilas (d. 1371) in the chapter on astronomy (pp. 61–62); and, in that on medicine (p. 116), it includes Oribasius, Paul of Egina, Stephanus of Athens (and Alexandria), and Theophilos Protospatharios. Next, however, the chapter passes to Byzantium, which it treats in half-a-page, with such considerations as (p. 117): Auch in Byzanz wurde medizinische Schrifstellerei bis zuletzt betrieben, ohne Originalität, aber recht fleissig … Im 10. Jahrh. hat Theophanes Nonnos eine kümmerliche Kompilation Iatrika aus Oreibasios hergestellt …
This corresponds to what Heiberg wrote about Byzantine geography (deprived of originality according to him [p. 87]) and botany (supposedly absent from the Byzantine scientific panorama unless it was agronomical or medical [p. 90]). Such statements contrasted with Heiberg’s knowledge of Byzantine manuscripts, of which he mentioned some (for example the Florentinus Laurentianus 74, 7, containing Apollonius of Citium [1st c. B.C.E.] and richly illustrated [p. 117]), and in some of which he traced an Arabic influence on Byzantine astronomy (pp. 61–62) and medicine (p. 117). To prepare his many editions, Heiberg consulted, indeed, a great many manuscripts from several collections in Europe, which he knew well, including their history (he published an article on one of the most significant collections of the Renaissance, that of Giorgio Valla [above], which is still the work of reference on the topic). Also, he participated in the Catalogue des manuscrits alchimiques grecs
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(vols. 1 and 3 [both 1924]). Such familiarity with manuscripts probably contributes to explain why, in 1901, he invited Diels to publish a new corpus of ancient Greek medical literature for which preparation the catalogue of Greek medical manuscripts would be indispensable. But, at the same time, this deep knowledge of the manuscripts stresses a contradiction in Heiberg’s work, and perhaps also in the practice of the history of ancient and Byzantine science, be it at Heiberg’s time or possibly also in current research: Byzantium was viewed mainly – if not only – as the agent of transmission of classical science, and not so much as a producer of science, whatever its form. Such an interpretation is not contradicted by the major programs on astrological and alchemical manuscripts (all Byzantine) that started at that time and in the launching of which Heiberg participated (Catalogus Codicum Astrologorum Graecorum, 20 vols., 1898–1953; Catalogue des manuscrits alchimiques grecs, 8 vols., 1928–1932): astrological and alchemical manuscripts were considered as sources for the history of mentalities and religion, both in Antiquity and Byzantium, and not for the history of science(s), according to an approach going back to Karl Usener (1834–1905), who had been a university teacher of Diels. Such approach was particularly the case of the Belgian philologist Franz Cumont (1868–1947), who created and directed the corpus of astrological manuscripts for a certain time, and shared such responsibility with his co-citizen Joseph Bidez (1867–1945). In this view, Heiberg did not bring to light the data he discovered in the Byzantine manuscripts of the texts he studied, and did not consider the data resulting from their codicological, paleographical, and historical analysis as a significant primary source for the history of Byzantine science(s). Instead, he simply reproduced the interpretation of Byzantine science developed during the 19th century, particularly in the German school of Altertumswissenschaft, for which culture and science were born in classical antiquity (particularly in Greece) and declined afterwards until the Renaissance. Significantly, however, although he used the few available 19th-century editions of Byzantine scientific texts and some 19th-century secondary literature (among others the works by Usener), Heiberg relied on late 18th-century antiquarian bibliography in his references to Byzantine scientists (mainly the Bibliotheca graeca of Johann Albert Fabricius [1668–1736] in the 4th edition by Gottlieb Christoph Harles [1738–1815], published in 1790–1804). Only in the 1930s did historians and philologists begin to have a per se interest in Byzantine scientific texts. The Greek physician Aristotelês Kouzês (1872–1961) of Athens published several articles on Byzantine physicians and their works on the basis of his explorations of Greek manuscripts. His activity seems to have proceeded in two waves. In a first time (1907–1910),
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after a critical edition of Marcellus of Side, On pulses (1907), he focused on three key, though minor, Byzantine texts, which he edited: the treatise On Gout by Demetrius Pepagomenos (Dêmêtriou Pepagomenou, Suntagma peri tês podagras, 1909), the translation into Greek of the treatise On Smallpox and Measles originally written in Arabic by the physician abu Bakr ar-Râzî, best known in the medieval West as Rhazes (Razê, Logos peri loimikês exellênistheis ek tês surôn dialektou pros tên êmeteran, 1909), and the influential treatise On urine by Theophilos (Theofilou, Peri ourôn biblion, 1910). Then, after an interruption of almost 20 years, he published again on the history of Byzantine medicine, starting with a general note drawing the attention to some unedited manuscripts (“Paratêrêseis epi tinôn anekdotôn iatrikôn kôdikôn tôn bibliothêkôn tês Eurôpês kai kathorismos eniôn toutôn,” Epetêris Etaireias Byzantinôn Spoudôn 6 [1929]: 375–82). His subsequent production was more markedly based on, and oriented toward, manuscript analysis, and resulted in bringing little known texts to the attention (chronological order of publication) (Neophytos Prodromênos): “To peri tôn en odousi pathôn ergon Neofutou tou Prodromênou,” Epetêris Etaireias Buzantinôn Spoudôn 7 (1930): 348–57; (Ioannes Prisduanôn [of unknown epoch: 12th c. ?]) “To peri ourôn ergon tou Iôannou episkopou Prisduanôn,” Epetêris Etaireias Buzantinôn Spoudôn 10 (1933): 364–71; (Constantine Meliteniotes) “Quelques considérations sur les traductions en grec des oeuvres médicales orientales et principalement sur les deux manuscrits de la traduction d’un traité persan par Constantin Méliténiotis,” Praktika tês Akadêmias Athênôn 14 (1939): 205–20; (Nicephoros Blemmydes [1197–ca. 1269]) “Les oeuvres médicales de Nicéphore Blémmydes selon les manuscrits existants,” Praktika tês Akadêmias Athênôn 19 (1944): 56–75; (Theophilos) “The Apotherapeutic of Theophilos according to the Laurentian Codex, plut. 75, 19,” Praktika tês Akadêmias Athênôn 19 (1944): 9–18; (Romanos [10th c.]) “The Medical Work of Romanos According to the Vatican Greek Codex 280,” Praktika tês Akadêmias Athênôn 19 (1944): 162–170; (Leo) “The Written Tradition of the Works of Leo the Iatrosophist,” Praktika tês Akadêmias Athênôn 19 (1944): 170–177; (Antonius Pyropoulos [15th c.]) “Some New Informations on Antony Pyropoulos as Physician and on his Small Notice: ‘Peri metrôn kai stathmôn’ according the Codex 877 of the Iberia Monastery on Mount Athos and the Cod. med. gr. 27 of the National Library of Vienna,” Praktika tês Akadêmias Athênôn 21 (1946): 9–18. Almost at the same time Kouzês was starting the second phase of his activity, the Belgian philologist Armand Delatte (1886–1964) published several botanical lexica and texts on plants from manuscripts: “Le lexique de botanique du Parisinus graecus 2419,” Serta Leodiensia ad celebrandam patriae libertatem iam centesimum annum recuperatam composuerunt philologi leodenses,
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1930, 59–101, and Anecdota Atheniensia et alia, vol. 2: Textes grecs relatifs à l’histoire des sciences, 1939, passim. The troubled history of the 20th century brought an end to these attempts. After World War II, it was the merit of Joseph Mogenet (1913–1980) to show that Byzantine manuscripts of classical scientific texts may illustrate the practice of science in Byzantium – instead of being just the vehicles of these texts. Mogenet showed, indeed, that a scholion in a manuscript of Ptolemy’s Almagest (Vaticanus graecus 1594, 10th c.) reveals a practice of the text that was not limited to a poor or impoverished repetition, but was also used for new applications, including methods of calculation borrowed from the Arabic world (Joseph Mogenet, “Une Scolie inédite du Vat. gr. 1594 sur les rapports entre l’astronomie et Byzance,” Osiris 14 [1962]: 198–221). In so doing, Mogenet transformed the study of Byzantine scientific manuscripts: instead of only transmitting classical texts, they also bear witness to the way these texts were studied and to the work done on these texts, in a significant shift of the focus that brilliantly illustrated the validity of Daremberg’s intuition on the interest of studying the history of manuscripts, and eventually laid down the necessary methodological foundations for Byzantine science to be investigated on a solid basis. F. 20th-Century Research While history of Byzantine science(s) was searching its way in the late 19th and early 20th century, ongoing research on the history of science(s) included Byzantium in some of its encyclopedic programs. One of them was the monumental five-volume Introduction to the History of Science (1927–1948) by the Belgian-born historian of science(s) George Sarton (1884–1956), covering the whole Mediterranean and Western tradition from Homer to the 14th century. In the first volume, the work proceeds by time-periods characterized by a leading figure each, some of whom are Byzantine: the time of Oribasius (second half of 4th c.) (1, pp. 359–76); the time of Proclus (412–485 C.E.) (second half of 5th c.) (1, pp. 399–413); and the time of Ioannes Philoponus (ca. 490–ca. 570) (first half of 6th c.) (1, pp. 411–42). All chapters (whatever their emblematic figure) include data about the several scientific traditions taken into consideration, Byzantine, Syriac, Arabic (when appropriate), Persian, Indian, and Chinese. In the second volume, Sarton used the same approach, together with a more analytical one, by disciplines and/or problems. For the first half of the 12th century, for example (under the sign of William of Conches [before 1090–after 1154], Abraham Ibn Ezra [ca. 1089–ca. 1167], and Ibn Zuhr [= Averroes] [ca. 1091–1162]), the place of Byzantium in the initial synthetic survey (2.1, pp. 109–52) is pretty much reduced: it receives,
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indeed, 9 lines (p. 120) in Philosophic Background (pp. 117–22), 4 (p. 124) in Mathematics and Astronomy (pp. 122–27), 5 (p. 133) in Natural History (pp. 132–33), and 6 (p. 134) in Medicine (pp. 133–37). Absent from Chemistry (pp. 129–130) and Geography (pp. 130–32), it does not appear either in the analytical part, in Religious Background (pp. 153–66), Translators (pp. 167–81), Chemistry (pp. 218–20), and Geography (pp. 221–25), and is briefly treated (191–92) in Philosophic Background (pp. 182–203), as in Mathematics (pp. 204–15; 209 for Byzantium), Natural History (pp. 226–28; 228 for Byzantium), and Medicine (pp. 229–48; 236 for Byzantium). On astronomy, specifically, Pierre Duhem (1861–1916) compiled Le Système du monde, devoted to the history of the discipline until Copernicus (1473–1543). Whereas he intended it as a twelve-volume work, he could complete only nine (published 1913–1959; English trans. of volumes 7–9 under the title Medieval Cosmology, 1985). Similarly, on experimental sciences, Lynn Thorndike (1882–1965) wrote an eight-volume History of Magic and Experimental Science (1923–1958), During the First Thirteen Centuries of our Era, as the sub-title specifies. Byzantium is barely present (1, pp. 480–503) with Basil, Epiphanius (between 310 and 320–402 or 403), and the Physiologus, and postclassical medicine (actually Oribasius, Aetius, Alexander of Tralles, and Paul of Egina; 1, pp. 566–84). Continuous during the 20th century with such major projects as the Encyclopedia of Islam (2 editions, especially the 2nd; the 3rd is in preparation) and the Encyclopaedia Iranica (now also available on the internet in open access), encyclopedism was particularly productive toward the end of the century, with the following realizations, specifically devoted to the history of science or including it (in chronological order of publication): Dictionary of Scientific Biography, ed. Charles Gillispie, 18 vols. (1970–1990), containing the following entries on Byzantine scientists (alphabetical order of names): Alexander of Tralles (1 p. 121), Nemesius (10, pp. 20–1), Oribasius (10, pp. 230–31), Paul of Egina (10, pp. 417–19), Psellus (11, pp. 182–86), and Stephanus of Alexandria (13, pp. 37–8); the Dictionary of the History of Ideas, ed. Philip P. Wiener, 5 vols., 1973–74; the Lexikon des Mittelalters, ed. Robert Auty, 9 vols., 1980–1999; the Dictionary of the Middle Ages, ed. Joseph Strayer (1904–1987), 13 vols., 1982–1989; the Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, ed. Alexander P. Kazhdan et al., 3 vols., 1991; the Neue Pauly, ed. Hubert Cancik, and Helmuth Schneider, 13 vols. with an index and 5 supplements, 1996–2003 (English trans. under the title Brill’s New Pauly, 16 vols. and 4 supplements published from 2002); Medieval Science, Technology, and Medicine: An Encyclopedia, ed. Thomas Glick, Steven J. Livesey, and Faith Wallis, 2005, with contrasted information: whereas there is no entry on By-
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zantium and no mention of Byzantium in some important entries (Astronomy [64–67], Euclid [164–67], Illustration, Medical [262–64] and Scientific [264–67], Medicine [336–40], Ptolemy [427–29], and Translation Movements [482–86]), others include Byzantium (Botany [96–8], Burgundio of Pisa [104–105], Cartography, Byzantine [117–18], Dioscorides [152–54], Galen [179–82], Herbals [218–20], Kosmas Indikopleustês [302–303], Pharmaceutic Handbooks [393–94], Pharmacology [394–97], and Pharmacy and Materia Medica [397–99]); Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte, ed. Werner E. Gerabek, Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil, and Wolfgang Wegner, 2005, with several entries on Byzantine physicians (alphabetical order of names): Aetius (16), Alexander of Tralles (31–2), Iohannes Zacharias Aktuarios (703), Nicolaus Myrepsus (1020), Nemesius (1030), Oribasius (1076–77), Paul of Egina (1116), Philaretos (9th c. [?]) (1150), Psellus (1189), Stephanus of Athens (1360), Symeon Seth (1332), the Suda (ca. 1000 [?]) (1366), and Theophilos Protospatharios (1385); the Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers, ed. Thomas Hockey, 2 vols., 2007, with a limited number of Byzantine astronomers (alphabetical order of names): Gregory (or George) Chionides (or Chioniades) (ca. 1240–1250–ca. 1320) (229); Nicephore Gregoras (440–41); Hypatia (ca. 370–415) (544–45), Olympiodorus the Younger (ca. 495/505–after 565) (853); Pappus of Alexandria (4th c. [?]) (869–70); Ioannes Philoponus (900–1); Simplicius of Cilicia (ca. 490–ca. 560) (1062–63); Synesius of Cyrene (ca. 365/370–ca. 413) (1117–18); and Theon of Alexandria (ca. 335–ca. 400) (1133–1134); Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia, 2 vols., ed. Josef W. Meri, 2006; the Encyclopedia of Ancient Natural Scientists: The Greek Tradition and its Many Heirs, ed. Paul Keyser, and Georgia Irby-massie, 2008, which presents some data on Early-Byzantine scientists or anonymous works; and the New Dictionary of Scientific Biography, ed. Noretta Koertge, 8 vols., 2008, which has some entries on less known or recently better researched Byzantine men of science (alphabetical order of names, with the mention of the field of activity): Isaac Argyrus (1300 or 1310–ca. 1375) (1, 98–9; astronomy); George (or Gregory) Chioniades (or Chionides) (2, 120–2; astronomy); Ioannes Philoponus (4, 51–3, natural philosophy); Theodore Meliteniotes (ca. 1320–1393) (5, 94–6, astronomy); Manuel Moschopoulos (ca. 1265–after 1340) (5, 196, mathematics); Olympiodorus of Alexandria (5, 338–40, natural philosophy, astrology, alchemy); and Stephanus of Alexandria (6, 516–19, astronomy, astrology, alchemy, medicine, mathematics). Specialized research in the 20th century dealt with such topics as (alphabetical order of disciplines; within each section, chronological order of publication; selection) (alchemy) Robert Halleux, Les Textes alchimiques, 1979; Maria Papathanassiou, “Stephanus of Alexandria: On the Structure and
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Date of his Alchemical Work,” Medicina nei secoli 8 (1996): 247–266; L’alchimie et ses racines philosophiques: La tradition grecque et la tradition arabe, ed. Cristina Viano, 2005; (arithmetic, general) Paul Tannery (1843–1904), Mémoires scientifiques, vol. 4: Sciences exactes chez les Byzantins, ed. Johan Ludvig Heiberg, and Hieronymus Georg Zeuthen (1839–1920), 1920; André Allard, “L’enseignement du calcul arithmétique à partir des XIIe et XIIIe siècles: l’exemple de la multiplication,” Manuels, programmes de cours et techniques d’enseignement dans les Universités médiévales, 1994, 117–35; Jaap Mansfeld, Prolegomena Mathematica from Apollonius of Perga to Late Neoplatonism with an Appendix on Pappus and the History of Platonism, 1998; (arithmetic, Diophantus of Alexandria [3rd c. C.E.]) Paul Tannery, Diophanti Alexandrini Opera omnia cum Graecis commentariis, 1893–1895; André Allard, “La Tradition du texte grec des Arithmétiques de Diophante d’Alexandrie,” Revue d’Histoire des Textes 12/13 (1982/3): 57–137; Id., “Les scolies aux arithmétiques de Diophante d’Alexandrie dans le Matritensis Bibl. Nat. 4678 et les Vaticani gr. 191 et 304,” Byzantion 53 (1983): 682–710; Jean Christianidis, “Une Interpretation byzantine de Diophante,” Historia Mathematica 25 (1998): 22–28; (arithmetic, George Pachymeres [1242–ca. 1310]) Paul Tannery, Quadrivium de Georges Pachymère ou Suntagma tôn tessarôn mathêmatôn arithmêtikês, mousikês, geôgraphias kai astronomias, ed. E. Stéphanou, 1950; (arithmetic, Isaac Argyrus) André Allard, “Le Petit traité d’Isaac Argyre sur la racine carrée,” Centaurus 22 (1978): 1–43; (arithmetic, Indian) André Allard, “Le premier traité byzantin de calcul indien: Classement des manuscrits et édition critique du texte,” Revue d’Histoire des Textes 7 (1978): 57–107; (arithmetic, Maximos Planudes [ca. 1255–ca. 1305]) André Allard, Maxime Planude, le ‘Grand calcul selon les Indiens’: Histoire du texte, édition critique traduite et annotée, 1981; Jean Christianidis, “Maxime Planude sur le sens du terme diophantien plasmatikon,” Historia Scientiarum 6 (1996): 37–41; (astronomy) David Pingree (1933–2005, “Gregory Chioniades and Palaeologan Astronomy,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 18 (1964): 135–160; Anne Tihon, “Le calcul de la longitude de Vénus d’après un texte anonyme du Vat. gr. 184,” Bulletin de l’Institut historique belge de Rome 39 (1968): 51–82; Ead., Le ‘Petit Commentaire’ de Théon d’Alexandrie aux Tables Faciles de Ptolémée: Histoire du texte, édition critique, traduction, 1973; Joseph Mogenet, and Anne Tihon, in collaboration with Daniel Donnet, Barlaam de Seminara, Traités sur les éclipses de soleil de 1333 et 1337: Histoire des textes, éditions critiques, traductions et commentaires, 1977 (on Barlaam [ca. 1290–1348]); Anne Tihon, “Un traité astronomique chypriote du XIVe siècle,” Janus 64 (1977): 279–308; 66 (1979): 49–81; 68 (1981): 65–127; Ead., “L’astronomie byzantine,” Byzantion 51 (1981): 603–24; Joseph Mogenet, Le ‘Grand Commentaire’ de Théon d’Alexandrie aux
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Tables Faciles de Ptolémée, Livre I: Histoire du texte, édition critique, traduction. Rev., with a trans. by Anne Tihon, 1985; Ead., “Calculs d’éclipses byzantins de la fin du XIVe siècle,” Le Muséon 100 (1987): 353–61; Ead., Le ‘Grand Commentaire’ de Théon d’Alexandrie aux Tables Faciles de Ptolémée, Livres II et III: Histoire du texte, édition critique, traduction, and id., Livre IV, 2 vols., 1991–1999; Ead., Etudes d’astronomie byzantine, 1994 (reproduces articles previously published by the author); Ead., “Sous la plume de Jean Chortasmenos: Des scolies byzantines sur la trépidation des équinoxes,” Philosophie et sciences à Byzance de 1204 à 1453: Les textes, les doctrines et leur transmission, ed. Michel Cacouros, and Marie-Hélène Congourdeau, 2006, 157–184 (on Ioannes Chortasmenos [ca. 1370-before 1439]; (astronomy, applied) Otto Neugebauer (1899–1990), and Henry Bartlett Van Hoesen (1885–1965), Greek Horoscopes, 1959; (biology) Jean Théodoridès, Les sciences biologiques et médicales à Byzance, 1977; (botany) Vilhelm Lundström (1869–1940), “Neophytos Prodromenos’ botaniska namnförteckning,” Eranos 5 (1903–1904): 129–55; Armand Delatte, “Le lexique de botanique …” (above); Id., Anecdota … (above), passim; Félix Brunet (b. 1872), “Contribution des médecins byzantins à l’histoire des plantes et à la botanique médicale en France,” Hippocrates 5 (1939): 524–31; Armand Delatte, “Le traité des plantes planétaires d’un manuscrit de Léningrad,” Annuaire de l’Institut de philologie et d’histoire orientales 9 (1949): 145–77; Margaret H. Thomson, Textes grecs inedits relatifs aux plantes, 1955; Ead., Le jardin symbolique: Texte grec tiré du Clarkianus XI, 1960; Ernst Heitsch, ‘Carmen de viribus herbarum’, Die griechischen Dichterfragmente der römischen Kaiserzeit, vol. 2, 1964, 23–38; John Riddle “Byzantine Commentaries on Dioscorides,” Symposium on Byzantine Medicine, ed. John Scarborough, 1985, 95–102 (reproduced in John M. Riddle, Quid pro quo: Studies in the History of Drugs, 1992, no. XIII]); Alain Touwaide, “Lexica medico-botanica byzantina. Prolégomènes à une étude,” Tês filiês tade dôra. Miscelánea léxica en memoria de Conchita Serrano, 1999, 211–28; (chemistry) James R. Partington (1886–1965), A History of Greek Fire and Gunpowder, 1960; Carlo Maria Mazzucchi, “Il fuoco greco,” Storia della guerra futura: Atti del Convegno, Varallo, 22 settembre 2006, ed. Carlo Rastelli, and Giovanni Cerino Badone, 2006, 125–32; (geography) Didier Marcotte, Les géographes grecs, vol. 1: Introduction générale and Pseudo-Scymnos, Circuit de la Terre, 2000; Maria Gabriela Schmidt, Die Nebenüberlieferung des 6. Buchs des Geographie des Ptolemaios. Griechische, lateinische, syrische, armenische und arabische Texte, 1999; (mathematics) Jean Verpeaux (1922–1965), Nicéphore Choumnos, homme d’état et humaniste byzantin (ca. 1250/1255–1327), 1959 (see 151–70: chapter 5: Nicéphore Choumnos et les connaissances mathématiques); Alistair Macintosh Wilson, The Infinite in the Finite, 1995, on Pappus of Alexandria (408–20) and The
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Last of the Greeks (420–23); (medicine [general; see below for specific studies]) Théodoridès, Les sciences … (above); Aristotelês Eytichiadês, Ê aksêsis tês buzantinês iatrikês epistêmês kai koinônikai afarmogai autês kata schetikas diataxeis, 1983; Nicoletta Palmieri, “La théorie de la médecine des Alexandrins aux Arabes,” Les voies de la science grecque: Etudes sur la transmission des textes de l’Antiquité au dix-neuvième siècle, ed. Danielle Jacquart, 1997, 33–133; MarieHélène Congourdeau, “La médecine byzantine: Une réévaluation nécessaire,” La revue du praticien 54 (2004): 1733–37; Ead., “La médecine à Nicée et sous les Paléologues: état de la question,” Philosophie et sciences …, ed. Cacouros, and Congourdeau (above), 185–88; Alain Touwaide, “The Development of Palaeologan Renaissance: An Analysis Based on Dioscorides’ De materia medica,” ibid., 189–224; (metrology) Erich Schilbach, Byzantinische Metrologische Quellen,1970; Id., Byzantinische Metrologie, 1970; (mineralogy) Dietlinde Golz, Studien zur Geschichte der Mineralnamen in Pharmazie, Chemie und Medizin von den Anfängen bis Paracelsus, 1972; Sonja Schönauer, Untersuchungen zum Steinkatalog des Sophrosyne-Gedichtes des Meliteniotes mit kritischer Edition der Verse 1107–1247, 1996; (oneirology) M. Andrew Holowchak, Ancient Science and Dreams. Oneirology in Greco-Roman Antiquity, 2001; Maria Mavroudi, A Byzantine Book on Dream Interpretation: The Oneirocriticon of Achmet and Its Arabic Sources, 2002; Steven M. Oberhelman, Dreambooks in Byzantium: Six Oneirocritica in Translation, with Commentary and Introduction, 2008; (pharmacy) Pan. G. Kritikos, and Stella P. Papadaki, “Contribution à l’histoire de la Pharmacie chez les Byzantins, “Die Vorträge der Hauptversammlung der Internationalen Gesellschaft für Geschichte der Pharmazie e. V. während des Internationalen Pharmaziegeschichtlichen Kongresses in Athen vom 8. bis 14. April 1967, ed. Georg Edmund Dann (1898–1979), 1969, 13–78; Jerry Stannard, “Aspects of Byzantine Materia Medica,” Symposium …, ed. Scarborough (above), 205–11 (reproduced in Jerry Stannard, Pristina Medicamenta: Ancient and Medieval Medical Botany, ed. Katherine E. Stannard, and Richard Kay, 1999, no. IX); John Scarborough, “Early Byzantine Pharmacology,” Symposium …, ed. Scarborough (above), 213–32; Maria Papathomopoulos, “Stephanus of Alexandria: Pharmaceutical Notions and Cosmology in his Alchemical Work,” Ambix 37 (1990): 121–33; Rudolf Schmitz (1918–1992), Geschichte der Pharmazie, vol. 1: Von den Anfängen bis zum Ausgang des Mittelalters, 1998, 205–17; Marie-Hélène Marganne, “Etiquettes de médicaments, listes de drogues, prescriptions et réceptaires dans l’Egypte gréco-romaine et byzantine,” Pharmacopoles et apothicaires: Les ‘Pharmaciens’ de l’Antiquité au Grand Siècle, ed. Franck Collard, and Evelyne Samama, 2006, 59–73; (veterinary medicine) Gudmund Björck (1905–1955), “Le Parisinus grec 2244 et l’art vétérinaire grec,” Revue des études grecques 48 (1935):
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505–24; Anne-Marie Doyen-higuet, “The Hippiatrica and Byzantine Veterinary Medicine,” Symposium …, ed. Scarborough (above), 111–20; Stavros Lazaris, “Les rapports entre l’illustration et le texte de l’Epitome, manuel byzantin d’hippiatrie,” Archives internationales d’histoire des sciences 49 (1999): 281–301; Id., “La production nouvelle en médecine vétérinaire sous les Paléologues et l’oeuvre cynégétique de Dèmètrios Pépagôménos,” Philosophie et sciences …, ed. Cacouros, and Congourdeau (above), 225–68; Anne-Marie Doyen-Higuet, L’epitomé de la Collection d’hippiatrie grecque: Histoire du texte, édition critique, traduction et notes, vol. 1, 2006; Anne McCabe, A Byzantine Encyclopaedia of Horse Medicine: The Sources, Compilation, and Transmission of the Hippiatrica, Oxford, 2007; (zoology) Jean Théodoridès, “L’intérêt scientifique des miniatures zoologiques d’un manuscrit byzantin de la ‘matière médicale’ de Dioscoride (Codex M 652, Pierpont Morgan Library, New York),” Acta biologica Debrecina 7–8 (1969–1970): 265–72; Zoltan Kádár, Survivals of Greek Zoological Illuminations in Byzantine Manuscripts, 1978; Stavros Lazaris, “Le Physiologus grec et son illustration: Quelques considérations à propos d’un nouveau témoin illustré (Dujcev. gr. 297),” and Jacqueline Leclerc-Marx, “La sirène et l’(ono)centaure dans le Physiologus grec et latin dans quelques Bestiaires: Le texte et l’image,” Bestiaires médiévaux: Nouvelles perspectives sur les manuscrits et les traditions textuelles, ed. Baudouin Van den Abeele, 2005, 141–67 and 169–82 respectively; Pierre Beulens, “L’étude de l’Histoire des animaux durant l’occupation latine de Constantinople et sous les Paléologues,” Philosophie et sciences …, ed. Cacouros, and Congourdeau (above), 113–25. The current bibliography on the history of sciences, can be found in the volume ISIS Current Bibliography of the History of Science and its Cultural Influences, published as a yearly supplement to ISIS, the journal of the History of Science Society (HSS) of America. Byzantium is dealt with in a specific section (no. 220), which includes several sub-sections (by disciplines). Since there are also disciplinary sections (nos. 101–64), all sections are crossed-referenced and indexed (subject index) in order to make it possible to easily locate any relevant item. Besides the Catalogus Codicum Astrologorum Graecorum and the Catalogue des manuscrits alchimiques grecs (above), another important 20th-century achievement is the Corpus des astronomes byzantins, 10 vols., by different publishing companies over time, 1983–2001 (in chronological order of publication, and number in the series): Joseph Mogenet, Anne Tihon, Robert Royez, and Anne Berg, Nicéphore Grégoras, Calcul de l’éclipse de Soleil du 16 juillet 1330, 1983; David Pingree, The Astronomical Works of Gregory Chioniades, 2 vols., 1985–1986; Alexander Jones, An Eleventh-century Manual of Arabo-Byzantine
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Astronomy, 1987; Régine Leurquin, Théodore Méliténiote, Tribiblos astronomique, 3 vols., 1993; Raymond Mercier, An Almanac for Trebizond for the Year 1336, 1994; David Pingree, The Preceptum Canonis Ptolomei, 1997; Anne Tihon, and Raymond Mercier, Georges Gémiste Pléthon, Manuel d’astronomie, 1998; Anne Tihon, Régine Leurquin, and Claude Scheuren, La version grecque du Traité sur l’astrolabe du Pseudo-Messahalla, 2001. G. The Case of Medicine The field of Byzantine science that developed more in 20th-century Western scholarship is medicine. Though with the limitations we have stressed, many texts have been edited and studied (including sometimes the biography of the author). A bibliographical guide on Greek medical literature (actually, a list of critical editions by ancient authors) including some Byzantine authors has been published by Helmut Leitner, Bibliography to the Ancient Medical Authors, 1973, which was not necessarily well received (see, for example, a review by K. R. Walters, and David Wilson, Gnomon 48 [1976]: 604–06). Supplementary bibliographical information has been provided in such notes as John Scarborough, “Texts and Sources in Ancient Pharmacy,” Pharmacy in History 29 (1987): 81–84, and 133–39; Wesley D. Smith, “The Leitner Supplements: An Addendum,” Society for Ancient Medicine Newsletter 20 (1992): 34–35; and John Scarborough, “New Texts in Byzantine and Arabic Toxicology and Pharmacology,” Pharmacy in History 38 (1996): 96–99. Also, several reports on such major enterprise as the Corpus Medicorum Graecorum (which includes some early-Byzantine physicians) have been published during the century; for the most recent (with the references of the earlier reports), see: Jutta Kollesch, “Das Berliner Corpus der antiken Ärzte: Zur Konzeption und zum Stand der Arbeiten,” Tradizione e ecdotica dei testi medici tardoantichi e bizantini: Atti del Convegno Internazionale, Anacrapri 29–31 ottobre 1990, ed. Antonio Garzya, 1992, 357–50. Finally, an anthology of texts (in Italian trans.) has been recently published by Neapolitan philologists (see below): Medici Bizantini, 2006, (includes [chronological order of Byzantine authors] Oribasius, Aetius, Alexander of Tralles, Paul of Egina, Leo; translations are by Antonio Garzya, Roberto De Lucia, Alessia Guardasole, Anna Maria Ieraci Bio, Mario Lamagna, Roberto Romano). For specific studies on Byzantine authors and medical texts, see (alphabetical order of Byzantine authors’ name; selection): Aelius Promotus (pseudo-) Sibylle Ihm, “Der Traktat peri tôn iobolôn thêriôn kai dêlêtêriôn farmakôn des sog. Aelius Promotus: Vorstellung eines erstmals vollständig edierten toxikologischen Textes,” Antike Naturwissenschaft und ihre Rezeption, ed. Klaus Döring, Bernhard Herzhoff, and Georg Wöhrle, vol. 5 (1995):
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79–89; Ead., Der Traktat peri tôn iobolôn thêriôn kai dêlêtêriôn farmakôn des sog. Aelius Promotus: Erstedition mit texkritischen Kommentar, 1995; (Aetius), Alessandro Olivieri, “Gli Iatrika di Aetios nel cod. Messinese no. 84,” Studi italiani di filologia classica 9 (1901): 299–367; Zerbos, Die Gynekologie … (above); Id., Aetii Sermo sextidecimus … (above); Id., “Aetiou Amidênou peri daknontôn zôôn …” (above); Id., “Paratêrêseis eis ton triskaidekaton logon …” (above); Id., “Aetiou Amidênou logos dekatos pemptos” (above); Id., “Aetiou Amidênou logos enatos” (above); Jean Théodoridès, “Sur le 13e livre du traité d’Aétios d’Amida, médecin byzantin du VIe siècle,” Janus 47 (1958): 221–37; Antonio Garzya, “Problèmes relatifs à l’édition des livres IX–XVI du Tétrabiblon d’Aétios d’Amida,” Revue des Etudes Anciennes 86 (1984): 246–57; (Alexander of Tralles) Félix Brunet, Médecine et thérapeutique byzantines: Œuvres médicales d’Alexandre de Tralles, le dernier auteur classique des grands médecins grecs de l’antiquité, 4 vols., 1933–1937; Barbara Zipser, “Die Therapeutica des Alexander Trallianus: Ein medizinisches Handbuch und seine Überlieferung,” Selecta colligere, vol. 2: Beiträge zur Technik des Sammelns und Kompilierens griechischer Texte von der Antike bis zum Humanismus, 2005, ed. Rosa Maria Piccione, and Matthias Perkams, 2005, 211–34; (anonymous) Ivan Garofalo (ed. and comm.), and Brian Fuchs (trans.), Anonymi Medici, De morbis acutis et chronicis, 1997; (Antonius Pyropoulos) Kouzês, “Some new informations …” (above); (Constantine Meliteniotes) Kouzês, “Quelques considérations …” (above); (Demetrius Pepagomenos) Kouzês, Dêmêtriou Pepagomenou, Suntagma …, (above); Maria Capone Cipollaro, Demetrio Pepagomeno, Prontuario medico, 2003; (Dioscorides) Pan. G. Kritikos, and Theodora Athanassoula, Sur les codex pharmaceutiques grecs: Un Codex inconnu de Dioscoride (1ère communication), no date; Geôrgios Christodoulos, Summikta kritika, 1986, 131–99 (on the Athos manuscript of Dioscorides [= 75, 11th c.]); Alain Touwaide, “Le traité de matière médicale de Dioscoride en Italie depuis la fin de l’Empire romain jusqu’aux débuts de l’école de Salerne: Essai de synthèse,” From Epidaurus to Salerno: Symposium held at the European University Centre for Cultural Heritage, Ravello, April, 1990, ed. Antje Krug, 1994, 275–305; Emilie Léal, “Un manuscrit illustré du traité de matière médicale de Dioscoride: le Paris grec 2180,” 2 vols., B.A. thesis, University of Provence, Aix-Marseille, 1997; Alessia Aletta, “Studi e ricerche sul Dioscoride della Pierpont Morgan Library M.652,” 2 vols., B.A. thesis, University of Rome, 1997–1998; Pascal Luccioni, “La postérité de l’œuvre de Dioscoride jusqu’au VIe siècle: Remèdes, fraudes et succédanés,” Ph.D. thesis, University of Paris IV-Sorbonne, 1998; Annamaria Ciarallo, “Classificazione botanica delle specie illustrate nel Dioscoride della Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli,” Automata 1 (2006): 39–41; (Pseudo-Diosco-
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ride, toxicological treatises) Julius Berendes (1837–1914), “I. Des Pedanios Dioskurides Schrift über die Gifte und Gegengifte – II. Des Pedanios Dioskurides Schrift über die giftigen Tiere und den tollen Hund,” Apotheker Zeitung 20 (1905): 908–11, 918, 926–28, 933–35, 945–46, 952–54; Alain Touwaide, “Les deux traités toxicologiques attribués à Dioscoride: La Tradition manuscrite grecque, édition critique du texte grec, index,” 5 vols., Ph.D. thesis, University of Louvain, 1981; Id., “L’authenticité et l’origine des deux traités de toxicologie attribués à Dioscoride: I. Historique de la question. II. Apport de l’histoire du texte grec,” Janus 70 (1983): 1–53; Id., “Les deux traités de toxicologie attribués à Dioscoride: Tradition manuscrite, établissement du texte et critique d’authenticité,” Tradizione e ecdotica … (above), 291–339; (Pseudo-Dioscorides [?], On simple medicines) Julius Berendes, “Die Hausmittel des Pedanios Dioskurides, übersetzt und mit Erklärungen versehen,” Janus 12 (1907): 10–33, 79–102, 140–63, 203–24, 268–92, 340–50, 401–12; (efodia) Marie-Hélène Congourdeau, “À propos d’un chapitre des Éphodia: L’avortement chez les médicins grecs,” Revue des Etudes Byzantines 55 (1997): 261–77; Alain Touwaide, “Magna Graecia iterata: Greek medicine in Southern Italy in the 11th and 12th centuries,” Medicina in Magna Graecia: The Roots of our Knowledge, ed. Alfredo Musajo Somma, 2004, 85–101; Id., “Medicina Bizantina e Araba alla Corte di Palermo,” Medicina, Scienza e Politica al Tempo di Federico II: Conferenza Internazionale, Castello Utveggio, Palermo, 4–5 ottobre 2007, ed. Natale Gaspare De Santo, and Guido Bellinghieri, 2008, 39–55; (Galen) Nigel G. Wilson, “Aspects of the Transmission of Galen,” Le strade del testo, ed. Guglielmo Cavallo, 1987, 45–64; Jean Irigoin (1920–2006), Tradition et ecdotique des textes grecs, 1997, passim; Vivian Nutton, “Galen in Byzantium,” Material Culture and Well-Being in Byzantium (400–1453): Proceedings of the International Conference (Cambridge, 8–10 September 2001), ed. Michael Grünbart, Ewald Kislinger, Anna Muthesius, and Dionysios Stathakopoulos, 2007, 171–76; Peter E. Pormann, “The Alexandrian Summary (Jawami) of Galen’s On the Sects for Beginners: Commentary or Abridgment?,” Philosophy, Science and Exegesis in Greek, Arabic and Latin Commentaries, ed. Peter Adamson, Han Baltussen, and M. W. F. Stone, 2 vols., 2004, vol. 2, 11–33; (Hippocrates) Owsei Temkin (1902–2002), “Geschichte des Hippokratismus im ausgehenden Altertum,” Kyklos 4 (1932): 1–80; Id., Hippocrates in a World of Pagans and Christians, 1991; (Ioannes of Alexandria) Iohannis Alexandrini Commentaria in Librum De Sectis Galeni, ed. C. D. Pritchet, 1982; John of Alexandria, Commentary on Hippocrates’ Epidemics VI, Fragments, ed. and trans. John M. Duffy, and Commentary on Hippocrates’ On the Nature of the Child, ed. and trans. T. A. Bell et al., 1997; (Ioannes Argyropoulos [ca. 1393/4–1487]) Alain Touwaide, “The Letter …
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to a Cypriot Physician attributed to Johannes Argyropoulos (ca. 1448–1453),” Medicina nei Secoli 11 (1999): 585–601; (Ioannes Prisduanôn) Kouzês, “To peri ourôn …” (above); (Ioannes Zacharias Actuarius) Stauros Iô. Kourouzês, “O Aktouarios Iôannês Zacharias paralêpês tês epistolês i’ tou Geôrgiou Lakapênou,” Athêna 78 (1980–1982): 237–76; Armin Hohlweg, “Johannes Aktouarios: Leben, Bildung und Ausbildung; De methodo medendi,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 76(1983): 302–21; Id., “John Actuarius’s De methodo medendi: On the New Edition,” Symposium …, ed. Scarborough (above), 121–33; Stauros Iô. Kourouzês, To epistolarion Geôrgiou LakapênouAndronikou Zaridou (1299–1315 ca.) kai o iatros Aktouarios Iôannês Zacharias (1275 ca.-1328?): Meletê filologikê, Athens, 1984–1988; (Leo the Physician) Kouzês, “The Written Tradition …” (above); Robert Renehan, “On the Text of Leo Medicus: A Study in Textual Criticism,” Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 113 (1970): 79–88; Lawrence J. Bliquez, “The Surgical Instrumentarium of Leon Iatrosophistes,” Medicina nei Secoli 11 (1999): 291–322; Barbara Zipser, “Überlegungen zum Text der Sunopsis iatrikes des Leo medicus,” Studia Humanitatis ac Litterarum Trifolio Heidelbergensi dedicata: Festschrift für Eckhard Christmann, Wilfried Edelmaier und Rudolf Kettemann, ed. Angela Hornung, Christian Jäkel, and Werner Schubert, 2004, 393–99; Ead., “Zu Aufbau und Quellen der Sunopsis iatrikes des Leo medicus,” Antike Fachtexte-Ancient Technical Texts, ed. Thorsten Fögen, 2005, 107–15; (Meletius) Robert Renehan, “Meletius’ Chapter on the Eyes: An Unidentified Source,” Symposium …, ed. Scarborough (above), 159–68; (Metrodora) Zerbos, “Das unveröffentlichte medizinische Werk …” (above); Marie- Hélène Congourdeau, “Mètrodôra et son œuvre (traduction d’un traité de gynécologie populaire),” Maladie et société à Byzance, ed. Evelyne Patlagean, 1994, 21–42; (Nemesius) Hellen Brown Wicher, “Nemesius Emesenus,” Catalogus Translationum et Commentariorum: Mediaeval and Renaissance Latin Translations and Commentaries: Annotated Lists and Guides, ed. F. Edward Cranz (1914–1998), vol. 6, 1986, 31–72; Moreno Morani, Nemesius, De natura hominis, 1987; (Neophytos Prodromênos) Lundström, “Neophytos Prodromenos’ …” (above); Kouzês, “To peri tôn en odousi pathôn …” (above); (Nicephoros Blemmydes) Id., “Les œuvres médicales …” (above); Evangelia A. Varella, “Nicephorus Blemmydes: Naturwissenschafliches Porträt eines Gelehrten des späten Mittelalters,” Orthodoxes Forum 2 (1990–1991): 1–16; Athanasios Diamantopoulos, Musical Uroscopy: On Urines by the Wisest Vlemydes; An Excellent Medical Work in the Iambic Manner by the Wisest Psellus, 1996; (Paul of Egina) Julius Berendes, “Des Paulos von Aegina Abriss der gesammten Medizin in sieben Büchern, übersetzt und mit Erklärungen versehen,” Janus 13 (1908): 417–32, 515–31, 538–600, 654–69; 14 (1909): 33–49, 124–39,
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602–24, 689–707, 754–74; 15 (1910): 9–40, 73–111, 143–73, 229–60, 462–83, 534–62, 622–49; 16 (1911): 153–68, 381–89, 492–511, 548–65; 17 (1912): 20–44, 93–116, 233–61, 316–47, 368–99, 448–79, 557–72, 593–609; 18 (1913): 24–55, 121–51, 210–14, 282–97, 380–401; this translation was further reproduced in a monographic form under a new title: Paulos’ von Aegina des besten Arztes, Sieben Bücher. Übersetzt und mit Erläuterungen versehen, 1914; Mario Tabanelli, Studi sulla Chirurgia Bizantina: Paolo di Egina, 1964; Eugene F. Rice, “Paulus Egineta,” Catalogus Translationum et Commentariorum: Mediaeval and Renaissance Latin Translations and Commentaries: Annotated Lists and Guides, ed. F. Edward Cranz, vol. 4, 1980, 145–91; (Paul of Nicea) Zerbos, Oi kôdikes tôn archaiôn anekdotôn iatrikôn cheirografôn tou Paulou Nikaiou … (above); Anna Maria Ieraci Bio, Paolo di Nicea, Manuale Medico, 1996; (Philaretos) John A. Pithis, Die Schriften peri sfugmôn des Philaretos: Text, Übersetzung, Kommentar, 1983; (Psellus) Armin Hohlweg, “Medizinischer ‘Enzyklopedismus’ und das ponêma nousôn des Michael Psellos,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 81 (1988): 39–49; Robert Volk, Der medizinische Inhalt der Schriften des Michael Psellos, 1990; Diamantopoulos, Musical Uroscopy …, (above); (Râzî) Kouzês, Razê, Logos peri loimikês … (above); (Romanos) Id., “The Medical Work …” (above); (Stephanos of Athens [and Alexandria]) Wanda Wolska-conus, “Stéphanos d’Athènes et Stéphanos d’Alexandrie: Essai d’identification et de biographie,” Revue des Etudes Byzantines 47 (1989): 5–89; Ead., “Les commentaires de Stéphanos d’Athènes au Prognostikon et aux Aphorismes d’Hippocrate: de Galien à la pratique scolaire alexandrine,” Revue des Etudes Byzantines 50 (1992): 5–86; Ead., “Stéphanos d’Athènes (d’Alexandrie) et Théophile le Prôtospathaire, commentateurs des Aphorismes d’Hippocrate: Sont-ils indépendants l’un de l’autre?,” Revue des Etudes Byzantines 52 (1994): 5–68; Ead., “Sources des commentaires de Stéphanos d’Athènes et de Théophile le Prôtospathaire aux Aphorismes d’Hippocrate,” Revue des Etudes Byzantines 54 (1996): 5–66; Ead., “Un ‘Pseudo-Galien’ dans le commentaire de Stéphanos d’Athènes aux Aphorismes d’Hippocrate: O neôteros exêgêtês,” Revue des Etudes Byzantines 56 (1998): 5–78; Keith Dickinson, Stephanus the Philosopher and Physician: Commentary on Galen’s Therapeutics to Glaucon, 1998; (Theophanus Nonnus [actually, Chrysobalantes]) Io. Steph. Bernard (1718–1793), Theophanis Nonni Epitome de Curatione Morborum Graece ac Latine ope codicum manuscriptorum recensuit notasque adiecit, 2 vols., 1794–1795; Joseph A. Sonderkamp, “Theophanes Nonnus: Medicine in the Circle of Constantine Porphyrogenitus,” Symposium …, ed. Scarborough (above), 29–41; Id., Untersuchungen zur Überlieferung der Schriften des Theophanes Chrysobalantes (sog. Theophanes Nonnos), 1987; (Theophilos) Kouzês, Theofilou, Peri ourôn biblion … (above); Id., “The Apotherapeutic …” (above).
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Over time – particularly in recent years – a different type of approach developed, by topics (alphabetical order of topic names; selection) (abortion) Effie Poulakou-Rebelakou, John Lascaratos, and Spyros G. Marketos, “Abortions in Byzantine Times (325–1453 AD),” Vesalius 2 (1996): 19–25; Marie-Hélène Congourdeau, “Les abortifs dans les sources byzantines,” Le corps à l’épreuve: Poisons, remèdes et chirurgie. Aspects des pratiques médicales dans l’Antiquité et au Moyen-Age, ed. Franck Collard, and Evelyne Samama, 2002, 57–70; (Alexandria) Owsei Temkin, “Studies on Late Alexandrian Medicine. I: Alexandrian Commentaries on Galen’s De Sectis ad Introducendos,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 3 (1935): 405–430; (analgesics) George Kalantzis, Constantine Trompoukis, Constantine Tsiamis, and John Lascaratos, “The Use of Analgesics and Hypnotics in the Ancient Greek and Byzantine Era,” Proceedings of the History of Anaesthesia Society 32 (2003): 27–31; Kônstantinos Tsiamês, and Iôannês Laskaratos, “Analgêtika kai upnôtika stên Archaia Ellada kai sto Buzantio,” Hellenic Journal of Surgery 76 (2004): 65–71; (anthropology, Christian) Carolus Burkhard (b. 1858), Alfanus, Nemesii Episcopi Premnon Physicon Peri fuseôs anthrôpou liber a N. Alfano achiepiscopo Salerni in Latinum translatus, 1917; Alexis Smets, and Michel Van Esbroeck, Basile de Césarée, Sur l’origine de l’homme (Hom. X et XI de l’Hexaéméron): Introduction, texte critique, tradution et notes, 1970; Kristijan Domiter, Gregor von Nazianz, De human natura (c. 1, 2, 14): Text, Übersetzung, Kommentar, 1999; (cosmetic medicine) John Lascaratos, Constantine Tsiamis, Gerassimos Lascaratos, and Nicholas G. Stavrianeas, “The Roots of Cosmetic Medicine: Hair Cosmetics in Byzantine Times (AD 324–1453),” International Journal of Dermatology 43 (2004): 397–401; (Crusades) Piers D. Mitchell, Medicine in the Crusades: Warfare, Wounds and the Medieval Surgeon, 2004; (dentistry) Effi Poulakou-Rebelakou, M. Stravrou, Constantinos Tsiamis, J. Stravrou, and M. Prokopidi, “Dental Drugs during the Byzantine Times (330–1453 AD),” Program Abstracts of the XXth Nordic Medical History Congress, Reykjavik, Iceland, August 10–13, 2005; (diet) Dionysios Ch. Stathakopoulos, Famine and Pestilence in the Late Roman and Early Byzantine Empire: A Systematic Survey of Subsistence Crises and Epidemics, 2004; Feast, Fast or Famine: Food and Drink in Byzantium, ed. Wendy Mayer, and Silke Trzcionda, 2005; Eat, Drink, and Be Merry (Luke 12:19): Food and Wine in Byzantium, in Honour of Professor A. A. M. Bryer, ed. Leslie Brubaker, and Kalliroe Linardou, 2007; (elderly) John Lascaratos, and Effie Poulacou-rebelacou, “The Roots of Geriatric Medicine: Care of the Aged in Byzantine Times (324–1453 AD),” Gerontology 46 (2000): 2–6; (generation) Marie-Hélène Congourdeau, “Sang féminin et génération ches les auteurs byzantins,” Le sang au moyen âge: Actes du quatrième colloque inter-
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national de Montpellier, Université Paul-Valéry (27–29 novembre 1997), 1999, 19–23; Ead., “L’embryon entre néoplatonisme et christianisme,” Oriens-Occidens 4 (2002): 201–16; (hospital) Timothy Miller, “Byzantine Hospitals,” Symposium …, ed. Scarborough (above), 53–63; Id., The Birth of the Hospital in the Byzantine Empire, 1985 (rev. ed. 1997); Urs Benno Birchler-Argyros, Quellen zur Spitalgeschichte im Oströmischer Reich, 1998; Timothy Miller, “Byzantine Physicians and Their Hospitals,” Medicina nei Secoli 11 (1999): 323–35; David Bennett, “Three Xenon Texts,” Medicina nei Secoli 11 (1999): 507–19; Andrew Crislip, From Monastery to Hospital: Christian Monasticism & the Transformation of Health Care in Late Antiquity, 2005; Peregrine Horden, “The Earliest Hospitals in Byzantium, Western Europe, and Islam,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 35 (2005): 361–89; Id., “How Medicalised were Byzantine Hospitals?,” Medicina e storia 10 (2005): 45–74; (iatromathematics) Maria Papathanassiou, “Iatromathematica (Medical Astrology) in Late Antiquity and the Byzantine Period,” Medicina nei Secoli 11 (1999): 357–76; (illness, plague) Marie-Hélène Congourdeau, “La peste noire à Constantinople de 1348 à 1466,” Medicina nei Secoli 11 (1999): 377–89; Plague and the End of Antiquity, ed. Lester K. Little, 2007; (illness, smallpox) Karl-Heinz Leven, “Zur Kenntnis der Pocken in der arabischen Medizin, im lateinischen Mittelalter und in Byzanz,” Die Begegnung des Westens mit dem Osten: Kongressakten des 4 Symposion des Mediävistenverbandes in Köln 1991 aus Anlass des 1000. Todesjahres der Kaiserin Theophanu, ed. Odilo Engels, and Peter Schreiner, 1993, 341–54; John Lascaratos, “Two Cases of Smallpox in Byzantium,” International Journal of Dermatology 41 (2002): 792–95; (Late Antiquity) Vivian Nutton, “From Galen to Alexander: Aspects of Medicine and Medical Practice in Late Antiquity,” Symposium …, ed. Scarborough (above), 1–14; (leprosy) Luke Demaître, Leprosy in Premodern Medicine: A Malady of the Whole Body, 2007; (monasteries) Volk Robert, Gesundheitswesen und Wohltätigkeit im Spiegel der byzantinischen Klostertypika, 1983; (ophthalmology) John Lascaratos, and Spyros Marketos, “Ophthalmological Therapy in Hospitals (xenones) in Byzantium,” Documenta Ophthalmologica 77 (1991): 377–83; John Lascaratos, “Eyes on the Thrones: Imperial Ophthalmologic Nicknames,” Survey of Ophthalmology 44 (1999); 73–8; Id., “Ophthalmology in Byzantium (10th–15th Centuries),” Medicina nei Secoli 11 (1999): 391–403; (psychosomatic medicine) Aristotelis Chr. Eftychiadis, “Byzantine Psychosomatic Medicine (10th–15th Centuries),” Medicina nei Secoli 11 (1999): 415–21; (rabies) Jean Théodoridès, “Rabies in Byzantine and Islamic Medicine,” Symposium …, ed. Scarborough (above), 149–58; Id., Histoire de la rage: Cave canem, 1986; (Ravenna) Nicoletta Palmieri, “Un antico commento a Galeno della scuola medica di Ravenna,” Physis 23 (1981):
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197–296; (religion) Gary B. Ferngren, and Karl-Heinz Leven, “Médecine aux premiers siècles du christianisme,” Lettre d’informations-Université Jean Monnet-Saint Etienne (Centre Jean Palerne) 26 (1995): 2–22; Pierre Julien, François Ledermann, and Alain Touwaide, Cosma e Damiano dal culto popolare alla protezione di chirurghi, medici e farmacisti: Aspetti e immagini, 1993; JeanClaude Larchet, Théologie de la maladie, 1991; Les pères de l’église face à la science médicale de leur temps, ed. Véronique Boudon-Millot, and Bernard Pouderon, 2005; (rhumatism) Constantine Tsiamis, Nicholas Tiberio Economou, and Effie Poulakou-Rebelakou, “Teorie e trattamento delle malattie reumatiche nel periodo bizantino (330–1453),” Reumatismo 58 (2006): 157–64; (surgery) Lawrence J. Bliquez, “Two Lists of Greek Surgical Instruments and the State of Surgery in Byzantine Times,” Symposium …, ed. Scarborough (above), 187–204; John Lascaratos, and Athanasios Kostakopoulos, “Operations on Hermaphrodites and Castration in Byzantine Times (324–1453 AD),” Urologia Internationalis 58 (1997): 232–35; John Lascaratos, C. Liapis, and C. Ionidis, “Surgery on Aneurysms in Byzantine Times (324–1453 A.D.),” European Journal of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery 15 (1998): 110–14; John Lascaratos, Constantine Tsiamis, and Alkiviadis Kostakis, “Surgery for Inguinal Hernia in Byzantine Times (A.D. 324–1453): First Scientific Descriptions,” World Journal of Surgery 27 (2003): 1165–69; Stephanos Geroulanos, “Surgery in Byzantium,” Material Culture ... (above), 129–34; (terminal patients) John Lascaratos, Effie PoulakouRebelakou, and Spyros G. Marketos, “Abandonment of Terminally Ill Patients in the Byzantine Era: An Ancient Tradition?,” Journal of Medical Ethics 25 (1999): 254–58; (therapy) Aristotelês Eytychiadês, Eisagogê eis tên buzantinên therapeutikên, 1983; Pavlos Ntafoulis, and G. Lavrentiadis, “Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy in 6th Century: St. John’s Ladder of Divine Ascent,” Psychiatriki 16 (2005): 270; (urology) Mario Lamagna, ‘Il trattato De urinis di Stefano d’Atene e l’uroscopia alessandrina,” Galenismo e medicina tardoantica: Fonti greche, latine e arabe. Atti del Seminario Internazionale di Siena, Certosa di Pontignano, 9 e 10 settembre 2002, ed. Ivan Garofalo, and Amneris Roselli, 2003, 54–73; (uroscopy) Konstantin Dimitriadis, “Byzantinische Uroskopie,” Ph.D. thesis, University of Bonn, 1971; Athanasios A. Diamantopoulos, “Uroscopy in Byzantium,” American Journal of Nephrology 17 (1997): 222–27 (reproduced in Istoria tês Ellênikês Nefrologias, vol. 1., ed. Thanasês Diamantopoulos, 2000, 220–25); Alain Touwaide, “On Uroscopy in Byzantium,” Istoria tês Ellênikês Nefrologias (above), 218–20; The History of Byzantine Uroscopy, ed. Athanasios Diamantopoulos, 2005; (well being) Athanasios Diamandopoulos, “The Effect of Medicine, in Particular the Ideas about Renal Diseases, on the ‘Well-Being’ of Byzantine
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Citizens,” Material Culture … (above) 93–99; Klaus Bergdolt, Wellbeing: A Cultural History of Healthy Living, 2008. Also, social historians have become increasingly interested in the history of medicine. Investigation on the scientific and intellectual life in Byzantium, which constituted the context of the exercise of science, is not new, as it was illustrated as early as the 1960s (if not before) by such works as Ihor Sev cenko ˇ (1922–2009), Etudes sur la polémique entre Théodore Métochite et Nicéphore Choumnos: La vie intellectuelle et politique à Byzance sous les premiers Paléoloques, 1962; Id., “Théodore Métochites, Chora et les courants intellectuels de l’époque,” Art et société à Byzance sous les Paléologues: Actes du colloque organisé par l’Association Internationale des Etudes Byzantines, Venise, 1968, 1971, 13–39 (reproduced in Id., Ideology, Letters & Culture in the Byzantine World, 1982, no. VIII; English trans.: “Theodore Metochites, the Chora, and the Intellectual Trends of his Time,” The Kariye Djami, vol. 4: Studies in the Art of the Kariye Djami and its Intellectual Background, ed. Paul Atkins Underwood, 1975, 19–91). In this view, teaching, be it general or scientific, became an object of renewed study after such classical works as (chronological order of publication): Theodor Puschmann (1844–1899), Geschichte des medicinischen Unterrichts von den ältesten Zeiten bis zur Gegenwart, 1889, 113–30 (see chapter 2: Der medicinische Unterrichte im Mittelalter: Der Einfluss des Christenthums); Friedrich Fuchs (b. 1890), Die höheren Schulen von Konstantinople im Mittelalter, 1926. For more recent work, see Marjorie Ann Moffat, “School-Teachers in the Early Byzantine Empire, 330–610 A.D.,” Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1972; Constantinos N. Constantinides, Higher Education in Byzantium in the Thirteenth and Early Fourteenth Centuries (1204–ca. 1310), 1982; John Duffy, “Byzantine Medicine in the Sixth and Seventh Centuries: Aspects of Teaching and Practice,” Symposium …, ed. Scarborough (above), 21–27; Anne Tihon, “Enseignement scientifique à Byzance,” Organon 24 (1988): 89–108 (reproduced in Ead., Etudes d’astronomie … [above], no. IX). Also, the place of medicine in literature became a topic for research: Alice Leroy-Molinghen, “Médecins, maladies et remèdes dans les Lettres de Théophylacte de Bulgarie,” Byzantion 55 (1985): 483–92; Alexander Kazhdan, “The Image of the Medical Doctor in Byzantine Literature of the Tenth to Twelfth Centuries,” Symposium …, ed. Scarborough (above), 43–51; Karl-Heinz Leven, Medizinisches bei Eusebios von Kaisareia, 1987; Paraskevi Timplalexi, Medizinisches in der byzantinischen Epistolographie (1100–1453), 2002. Similarly, the place of medicine in society, its role and impact on the patients’ health was investigated. One component of such research is the investigation about famous patients: Ewald Kislinger, “Der kranke Justin II. und die ärztliche Haftung bei Operationen in Byzanz,” Jahrbuch der österreichischen byzantinistischen Gesellschaft
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36 (1986): 39–44; John Lascaratos, “The Poisoning of the Byzantine Emperor Romanos III Argyros (1028–1034 A.D.),” Mithridata 10 (1995): 6–10; John Lascaratos, and Panaghiotis Vassilios Zis, “The Epilepsy of the Emperor Theodore II Lascaris (1254–1258),” Journal of Epilepsy 11 (1998): 296–300; John Lascaratos, and Spyros Marketos, “The Cause of Death of the Byzantine Emperor John I Tzimisces (969–976): Poisoning or Typhoid Fever?,” Journal of Medical Biography 6 (1998): 171–74; John Lascaratos, and V. Manduvalos, “Cases of Stroke on the Throne of Byzantium,” Journal of the History of the Neurosciences 7 (1998): 5–10; John Lascaratos, and Effie Poulakou-rebelakou, “Did Justinian the Great (527–565 CE) Suffer from Syphilis?,” International Journal of Dermatology 38 (1999): 787–91; John Lascaratos, and Panaghiotis Vassilios Zis, “The Epilepsy of Emperor Michael IV, Paphlagon (1034–1041 A.D.): Accounts of Byzantine Historians and Physicians,” Epilepsia 41 (2000): 913–17. Going together, research on famous historical individuals who are also physicians: John Lascaratos, and Spyros Marketos, “A Little-known Emperor-physician: Manuel I Comnenus of Byzantium (1143–1180),” Journal of Medical Biography 4 (1996): 187–90. This shift toward the perception of medicine – rather than its production – took a new dimension with the interrogation on the body and the construction of a new perception of the body in the Early-Byzantine world: Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity, 1988. In the same way, research became interested in the reactions, both of individuals and the society, toward diseases, plague among others: Marie-Hélène Congourdeau, and Mohammed Melhaoui, “La perception de la peste en pays chrétien byzantin et musulman,” Revue des Études Byzantines, 59 (2001): 95–124; Alessio Sopracasa, “Aspetti dell’immaginario bizantino: Le fantasie e la verità nell’esperienza della malattia, una quotidianità straordinaria,” Annali 2000. Studi e Materiali dalle Tesi di laurea, II, Università Ca’ Foscari-Venezia, Dipartimento di studi storici, 2001, 29–50; Id., “La maldie et la peste dans l’empire byzantin à l’époque des Paléologues (XIIIe-XVe siècles)”, M.A. thesis, University of Paris IV-Sorbonne, 2000–2001. Another aspect of this new orientation is the interest in a whole region approached in all its aspects at a certain point of time, as is the case in Patricia Skinner, Health & Medicine in Early Medieval Southern Italy, 1997. The focus is not on the capital or a major city (wherever it was located), but on an area taken as a whole, in the periphery of the empire; not only the producers of medical knowledge, but also the users of such knowledge in the daily practice of medicine; not only the schools and centers of learned medicine (including libraries and their books, as well as other professional loci), but also the places where medical service was provided, with the providers and users
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(that is, the patients) of such service, including the epidemiological conditions of the population. This orientation of the historical enquiry had also an impact on the approach to the primary sources, that is, the manuscripts containing medical texts. The medical book became a specific object of historico-medical investigation, of an archeological nature. See for example: Aristomenis Matsagas, Spyros Marketos, and Konstantinos Siokos, “Das medizinische Buch in Byzanz,” Proceedings of the XXX International Congress of the History of Medicine, Düsseldorf, 1986, 1988, 1139–45; Guglielmo Cavallo, “I libri di medicina: Gli usi di un sapere”, Maladie et société …, ed. Patlagean (above), 43–56; Iatrika buzantina cheirografa, 1995. In this view, scientific illustration was particularly scrutinized as a source of information on the practice of medicine, making inventories of illustrations more necessary than ever, from the old and now obsolete, though still useful work of Henri Bordier (1817–1888), Description des peintures et autres ornements dans les manuscrits grecs de la Bibliothèque nationale, 1883, to such other works as Loren Mackinney (1891–1963), Medical Illustrations in Medieval Manuscripts, 1965, or, more recently (though limited to only one sector): Stavros Lazaris, “Inventaire sommaire des manuscrits grecs scientifiques illustrés de la Bibliothèque nationale de Paris: Manuscrits zoologiques, botaniques, remèdes, recettes d’antidotes, alchimiques, astrologiques,” Byzantiaka 13 (1993), 191–265. Also, single manuscripts of particular importance were analyzed in detail (chronological order of publication; selection): Paul Buberl (1885–1942), Die Byzantinischen Handschriften, vol. 1: Der Wiener Dioskurides und die Wiener Genesis, 1937 (about codex Vienna, National Library of Austria, medicus graecus 1); Jean Théodoridès, “Remarques sur l’iconographie zoologique dans certains manuscrits médicaux byzantins et étude des miniatures zoologiques du codex Vaticanus graecus 284”, Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinischen Gesellschaft 10 (1961): 21–29; Alain Touwaide, “Un recueil grec de pharmacologie du Xe siècle illustré au XIVe siècle: Le Vaticanus graecus 284”, Scriptorium 39 (1985): 13–56; Léal, “Un manuscrit illustré …” (above) (about codex Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, graecus 2180); Aletta, “Studi e ricerche …” (above) (about codex New York, Morgan Library, M652); and Alain Touwaide, “The Salamanca Dioscorides (Salamanca, University Library, 2659),” Erytheia 24 (2003): 125–58. Also, the lexicology of medical texts was newly approached, particularly in the context of the dictionary of Byzantine Greek prepared at the University of Vienna (below). See for example: Armin Hohlweg, “Terminologie in Byzantinischen Medizinischen Texten und Lexikographie,” Lexicographica Byzantina: Beiträge zum Symposion zur Byzantinischen Lexikographie (Wien, 1.–4. 3.
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1989), ed. Wolfram Hörander, and Erich Trapp, 1991, 129–35; Dionysios Ch. Stathakopoulos, “Die Terminologie der Pest in Byzantinischen Quellen,” Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 48 (1998): 1–7. The analysis of textual traditions, however, remained mainly oriented to the construction of a stemma codicum (instead of considering the way the texts were read and used at the different time periods of Byzantine history or, conversely, investigating what the books and texts tell about the places where they were produced and used as is the case, for example, in David Bennett, “Medical Practice and Manuscripts in Byzantium,” Social History of Medicine 13 [2000]: 279–91), following a tradition going back to the early days of the scientific approach to textual tradition and illustrated in the 20th century by such works as Hermann Diels, Die handschriftliche Überlieferung des Galenschen Commentars zum Prorrheticum des Hippokrates, 1912; Georg Helmreich (1849–1921), Handschriftliche Studien zu Meletius, 1918; Fridolf Kudlien, Die handschriftliche Überlieferung des Galenkommentars zu Hippokrates De articulis, 1960; Jean Irigoin, “Tradition manuscrite et histoire du texte: Quelques problèmes relatifs à la Collection hippocratique,” Revue d’Histoire des Textes 3 (1973): 1–13; Id., “L’Hippocrate du Cardinal Bessarion (Marcianus graecus 269 [533]),” Miscellanea Marciana di studi Bessarionei a coronamento del V Centenario della donazione nicena, 1976, 161–74; Jacques Jouanna, “L’analyse codicologique du Parisinus gr. 2140 et l’histoire du texte hippocratique,” Scriptorium 38 (1984): 50–62; Id., “L’Hippocrate de Modène: Mut. Est. gr. 233 (. T. 1. 12), 220 (. O. 4. 8) et 227 (. O. 4. 14),” Scriptorium 44 (1995): 273–83; Anna Maria Ieraci Bio, “Testi ginecologici tra Oriente ed Occidente, 1. Metrodora ed il Dynameron di Nicola Mirepso. 2. Una testimonianza italogreca su una Quaestio medicalis salernitana,” La Scuola Medica Salernitana: Gli autori e i testi, Convegno internazionale, Università degli Studi di Salerno, 3–5 novembre 2004, ed. Danielle Jacquart, and Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, 2007, 283–314. This is also – and particularly – the case of the Italo-French conferences on medical literature organized since 1990, markedly of a philological nature, rather than of history of medicine (chronological order of the conferences and their proceedings): Tradizione e ecdotica dei testi medici tardoantichi e bizantini: Atti del Convegno internazionale, Anacapri, 29–31 ottobre 1990, ed. Antonio Garzya, 1992; Storia e ecdotica dei testi medici greci: Atti del II Convegno Internazionale, Parigi 24–26 maggio 1994, ed. Antonio Garzya, and Jacques Jouanna, 1996; I testi medici greci: Tradizione e ecdotica: Atti del III Convegno Internazionale, Napoli, 15–18 ottobre 1997, ed. Antonio Garzya, and Jacques Jouanna, 1999; Trasmissione e ecdotica dei testi medici greci: Atti del IV Convegno Internazionale, Parigi, 17–19 maggio 2001, ed. Antonio Garzya, and Jacques Jouanna, 2003; Ecdotica e ricezione dei testi medici greci: Atti del V
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Convegno Internazionale Napoli, 1–2 ottobre 2004, ed. Véronique Boudon-Millot, Antonio Garzya, Jacques Jouanna, and Amneris Roselli, 2006. Among the many contributions to these volumes of proceedings, one could quote the following from the 2006 proceedings, which illustrate well the strictly philological approach of such conferences (alphabetical order of modern author’s name): Maria Capone Ciollaro, “Un ricettario medico attribuito a Giovanni Archiatra,” 213–30; Marie Cronier, “Quelques aspects de l’histoire du texte du De materia medica de Dioscoride: Forme originelle, remaniements et révisions à Constantinople aux Xe – XIe siècles,” 43–65; Roberto De Lucia, “La sezione ginecologica della miscellanea medica in Vat. gr. 299,” 231–51; Rita Masullo, “Sul Peri sfugmôn attribuito a Mercurio monacho,” 335–46. More interested in the transmission of knowledge, instead, though based only on manuscripts, is Nigel G. Wilson, “Aspects of the Transmission of Galen,” Le strade del testo, ed. Guglielmo Cavallo, 1987, 45–64, and Jean Irigoin, Tradition et critique des textes grecs, 1997, which contains several fundamental studies on the history of medical texts: (35–7) Le corpus hippocratique: la tradition médiévale; (191–210) Hippocrate et la Collection hippocratique; (211–36) Hippocrate, Galien et quelques autres médecins grecs. In general, the model of textual explanation of classical literature (be it Greek or Latin) is simply transferred to medical treatises. This is particularly the case in the critical editions and in the analysis of medical and scientific texts, which focus on such aspects as the literary explanation, the identification of the sources, and/or the influence. For example: Claudio Schiano, “Il trattato inedito Sulle febbri attribuito a Giovanni Filopono: Contenuto, modelli e struttura testuale,” Galenismo e medicina …, ed. Garofalo, and Roselli, …, 75–100; Nicoletta Palmieri, “Fonti galeniche (e non) nella lettura alessandrina dell’Ars medica,” ibid., 133–60; Ivan Garofalo, “I sommari degli Alessandrini,” ibid., 203–231; Peter E. Pormann, “Jean le Grammarien et le De sectis dans la littérature médicale d’Alexandrie,” ibid., 233–263. H. Current Organization of Research and Future Directions As this panorama shows, the history of Byzantine science(s) is still largely philological, and deals predominantly with the search for manuscripts, their deciphering and analysis, the edition of texts that may have been known but have been overlooked, or, instead, that remained unknown, and the understanding of their content from a philological, and not necessarily from a technical viewpoint, that is, from the viewpoint of the history of science(s).
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History of Byzantine science(s) is a multi-faceted field of scientific investigation located at the intersection of several historical techniques and requiring a solid philological formation, an excellent training as codicologist, the acute eye of a paleographer, the perseverance of a Benedictine (to decipher texts), the endurance (and funding) of an explorer (to travel worldwide, visit the libraries where manuscripts are preserved, and browse their collections), and also a good level of acquaintance with – or at least of understanding of – the scientific discipline of the field of study, astronomy, medicine, botany, or mathematics, for example. As such, the history of Byzantine science(s) does not always find a place in the current structure of the academia. As a consequence, there are no departments, no research centers, no society, no journal, or no specialized library collection on the argument, with the very few exceptions below. More deeply, many of the indispensable instrumenta studiorum are still lacking, starting with the inventory of the manuscripts and, on this basis, of the texts that have been preserved. Medicine, astrology, and alchemy are exceptions, however, as there are specific catalogues of manuscripts (Diels, Die Handschriften …; the Catalogus Codicum Astrologorum …, and the Catalogue des manuscrits alchimiques grecs [all above]). Nevertheless, these catalogues, which were compiled in the early or until mid-20th century, are not as useful as one would wish because of limitations in their approach (this is particularly the case for medical manuscripts, predominantly oriented toward classical antiquity sensu stricto), the sources used to compile the information (earlier printed catalogues, sometimes with two catalogues for the same collection, each of them possibly using a different system of shelfmarks), and changes in the collections during the 20th century (damages because of conflicts in Europe, and/or move of some collections) (for some updates for medical manuscripts, see, for example, Mariarosa Formentin, I codici greci di medicina nelle tre Venezie, 1978, and, though of a different nature [the manuscripts produced in southern Italy]: Anna Maria Ierraci Bio, “La trasmissione della letteratura medica greca nell’Italia meridionale fra X e XV secolo,” Contributi alla cultura greca nell’Italia meridionale, I, ed. Antonio Garzya, 1989, 133–258). Also, cataloguing of Greek manuscripts made substantial progress during the 20th century, particularly the second half (for a list of the catalogues of Greek collections of manuscripts by cities, see Jean-Marie Olivier, Répertoire des bibliothèques et des catalogues de manuscrits grecs de Marcel Richard. Troisième édition entièrement refondue, 1995). On the basis of this renewed production, the so-called Greek Index Project, originally located at the Pontifical Institute of Medieaeval Studies in Toronto, aimed to catalogue all the manuscripts of all Greek authors from Antiquity to the end of Byzantium, including scientists and anonymous scientific texts
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(Robert E. Sinkewicz, and Walter H. Hayes, Manuscript Listings for the Authored Works of the Palaeologan Period, 1989; Robert E. Sinkewicz, Manuscript Listings for the Authors of Classical and Late Antiquity, 1990; Id., Manuscript Listings for the Authors of the Patristic and Byzantine, 1992). In 1993, the Project was transferred to the Institut de Recherche et d’Histoire des Textes of the French CNRS and transformed into the database PINAKES: Textes et manuscrits grecs, which has been recently (September 2008) made available through the Internet (http://pinakes.irht.cnrs.fr). PINAKES compensates partially for the problems of the Project, as it includes some update on the current location of items that have been moved during the 20th century and since the publication of the catalogues in which they are listed (if any). Also, some catalogues and/or studies of scientific manuscripts by author and type of texts have been published. For Aristotle, see Paul Moraux (1919–1985), Dieter Harlfinger, Dietrich Reinsch, and Jürgen Wiesner, Aristoteles Graecus: Die griechischen Manuskripte des Aristoteles, vol. 1: Alexandrien-London, 1976; for medical commentaries: Sibylle Ihm, Clavis Commentariorum der antiken medizinischen Texte, 2002; for lexica: Les manuscrits des lexiques et glossaires de l’antiquité tardive à la fin du moyen âge: Actes du Colloque international organisé par le “Ettore Majorana Centre for Scientific Culture” (Erice, 23–30 septembre 1994), ed. Jacqueline Hamesse, 1996, and Lexiques bilingues dans les domaines philosophique et scientifique (Moyen Age et Renaissance): Actes du Colloque international organisé par l’Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Paris, 1997), ed. Jacqueline Hamesse, and Danielle Jacquart, 2001; and Touwaide, “Lexica medico-botanica byzantina …” (above). Also, a program aimed at producing a new listing and, later on, a catalogue of Greek medical manuscripts is currently running at the Institute for the Preservation of Medical Traditions located at the Smithsonian Institution (Alain Touwaide, “Greek Medical Manuscripts-Toward a New Catalogue,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 101 [2008]: 199–208; Id., “Byzantine Medical Manuscripts: Towards a New Catalogue, with a Specimen for an Annotated Checklist of Manuscripts Based on an Index of Diels’ Catalogue,” Byzantion 79 [2009]: 453–595). Such listing is posted on the Internet (as the catalogue also will be) so as to be possibly updated constantly (http://www.medicaltraditions.org). Research centers that have been active in the last decades of the 20th century – or still are – in History of Byzantine Science(s) include the Université de Louvain (Belgium), where the type of analysis based on manuscripts described above has been particularly developed. Anne Tihon (above, for her publications) pursued the activity on Byzantine astronomy started by Joseph Mogenet (above) and, before him, by Adolphe Rome (b. 1889), editor of Pappus’ and Theon’s commentaries on Ptolemy’s Almagest (3 vols., 1931–1943). Besides her own publications – with a particular focus on the
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exchanges between the Arabic and Byzantine worlds in more recent times – Tihon has launched the Corpus des astronomes byzantins (above). Typically, publications from Louvain are of a technical nature, and analyze the data of the texts in great detail. The historian of mathematics and astronomy David Pingree (below) published important texts in the Corpus des astronomes byzantins (above), as did also Alexander Jones (above), who edited astronomical papyri, including early-Byzantine ones (Astronomical Papyri from Oxyrhynchus, 1999), and is now with the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World of New York University in New York, N.Y. The model developed at Louvain on the history of astronomy was further transposed to other sectors: the history of mathematics with André Allard (Faculté Universitaires de Namur, and Université catholique de Louvain, at Louvain-la-Neuve [Belgium]) (above); medicine and natural sciences with Alain Touwaide (currently at the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C. [U.S.A.]) (below); and veterinary medicine with Anne Marie Doyen-Higuet (Faculté Universitaires de Namur, and Université catholique de Louvain, at Louvain-la-Neuve [Belgium]) (above). In Belgium also, the Université de Liège has developed similar research programs in history of science, which include Byzantine science and deal with two different disciplines: medical papyri with Marie-Hélène Marganne at the CEDOPAL-Centre de Documentation de Papyrologie Littéraire. Marganne has published an inventory of Greek medical papyri (including EarlyByzantine pieces) (Inventaire analytique des papyrus grecs de médecine, 1981), and wrote a thesis on the same topic (“Papyri Medicae Graecae. Contribution de la papyrologie à l’histoire de la médecine antique,” Ph.D. thesis, University of Liège, 1982–1983). She curates the so-called Mertens-Pack3 archive on literary papyri, with a particular focus on medical pieces. She has published regular updates, with a synthesis in “Médecine grecque et papyrologie: bilan et perspectives,” Colloque la médecine grecque antique: Actes, ed. Jacques Jouanna, and Jean Leclant, 2004, 235–251. The archive on Greek medical papyrus has been transformed in a computerized database available on the Internet since 2001: http://promethee.philo.ulg.ac.be/cedopal/indexanglais.htm. In collaboration with the pharmacist Pierre Koemoth, she has also posted on the Internet a bibliographical list on pharmacology in papyri entitled Pharmacopoea aegyptia et graeco-aegyptia, which contained some material on the Byzantine period and is regularly updated (http://www2.ulg.ac.be/facphl/services/ cedopal/pages/bibliographies/PHARMEG.htm). In Liège also, Robert Halleux at the Centre d’Histoire des Sciences et des Techniques, specialized on mineralogy and metallurgy and edited, among others, Greek lapidaries (Les
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lapidaires grecs: Lapidaire orphique, Kérygme, Lapidaires d’Orphée, Socrate et Denys, Lapidaire nautique, Damigéron-Evax, 1985). Other centers worldwide include the Laboratoire “Médecine grecque” currently directed by Véronique Boudon-Millot, in the Unité Mixte de Recherche (UMR) 8167 Orient et Méditerranée affiliated with the French CNRS and the Université Paris Sorbonne. The Laboratoire co-organizes with the University of Naples the philological conferences on medical texts originally started by Antonio Garzya (above). Some of the scholars associated with the Laboratoire work on early-Byzantine medical texts, doing philological work. The Laboratoire has created and still develops the Medic@ Library in collaboration with the Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire de Médecine (BIUM) in Paris directed by Guy Cobolet (himself a historian of medicine). It is a digital collection available in open access on the Internet (http://www.bium. univ-paris5.fr/histmed/medica.htm), which contains, among others, printed editions (16th to the 19th c.) of Byzantine medical texts (Aetius, Alexander of Tralles, Oribasius, Paul of Egine, Stephanus of Athens, Theophanes Nonnus, and Theophilus) and also secondary literature. In Paris also, the Centre de recherche d’Histoire et Civilisation de Byzance affiliated with the CNRS and participating in the Unité Mixte de Recherche (UMR) 8167 Orient et Méditerranée is hosted by the Collège de France. Some among the scholars associated with the Centre (for instance Marie-Hélène Congourdeau) include Byzantine medicine in their programs. In Italy, the Istituto Papirologico “G. Vitelli” in Florence prepares a corpus of Greek medical papyri (including Early Byzantine [up to the 6th c.]), which was coordinated by Isabella Andorlini, now with the University of Parma. A prototype of the corpus was published in 1997: ‘Specimina’ per il Corpus dei Papiri Greci di Medicina: Atti dell’incontro di studio (Firenze, 1996), ed. Isabella Andorlini, 1997. Andorlini also published a list of medical papyri similar to that previously authored by Marganne (above): Isabella Andorlini Marcone, “L’apporto dei papiri alla conoscenza della scienza medica antica,” ANRW II.37.2 (1996): 458–562. In Naples, Antonio Garzya, formerly at the Department of Classics of the University Federico II, fostered the study of the history of Greek medicine, including early-Byzantine texts. In so doing, he followed Alessandro Olivieri, editor of Aetius (vols. 1 and 2) in the Corpus Medicorum Graecorum (above). He also launched the series of philological conferences on classical medical texts now held in Naples and Paris (above), and announced a program aimed to take over the program of completing the critical edition of Aetius. In Greece, the Chair of History of Medicine at the Medical Faculty of the University of Athens was held for a long time by Spyros Marketos. Himself
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a physician, he associated several others to the Chair, among whom John Lascaratos (an ophthalmologist), and Effie Poulakou-Rebelakou (a pediatrician). Frequently with one or more of his collaborators, he authored several specialist analyses on Byzantine medicine (see the many references above). Also, Stefanos Geroulanos, a physician initially in Zürich and now in Athens, developed a museum of history of medicine at the University of Iôannina, and published on the history of Byzantine medicine and surgery (above). In Patras, Athanasios Diamantopoulos, a physician and an archeologist, worked particularly on nephrology and urology (above). In Thessalonika, the pharmacist Evangelia Varella specialized on the history of her own discipline (including Byzantium), and contributed to the creation of a museum of history of pharmacy, which opened recently. In Germany, the Corpus Medicorum Graecorum in Berlin, which was directed for a long time by Jutta Kollesch, publishes the Corpus (above) and holds the archive of the catalogue of Greek medical manuscripts compiled by Diels’s collaborators (above). Many of these centers host researchers preparing a Ph.D. thesis, as do also individuals worldwide, and other research centers and libraries specialized in Byzantine studies or in the history of medicine. Vienna (Austria) is a major center for Byzantine studies with a cluster of institutions that have published (or are preparing) reference works for Byzantine studies: the Institut für Byzantinistik und Neogräzistik at the University, the Institut für Byzanzforschung of the Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, and the Österreichische National Bibliothek. None of the research programs in Vienna (conducted or sponsored by any single institution or in collaboration) specifically deals with the history of science(s). However, many such programs (completed or still running) offer important information for the study of science(s) in Byzantium: the Prosopographisches Lexikon der Palaeologenzeit (directed by Erich Trapp [now with Bonn University] and published by the Academy, 1976–1996) lists all the individuals in the Byzantine Empire from 1261–1453 known by name (including scientists); the Lexikon zur Byzantinischen Gräzität, besonders des 9.–12. Jahrhunderts (University and Academy) includes many items from scientific texts (published by the Academy; current state of publication: until palianthrôpos); the program on Alltagsleben und materielle Kultur von Byzanz (University) studies the material component of every day life in the Byzantine Empire, including medicine; the Bibliography on Byzantine Material Culture and Daily Life (University) aims “to collect all secondary sources concerning objects of daily life and the material culture of Byzantium”; and the Repertorium der griechischen Kopisten 800–1600 (Academy, 3 vols. published so far; research has been conducted under the supervision of the
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late Herbert Hunger, by Ernst Gamillscheg [now at the National Library] in collaboration with Dieter Harlfinger then [and now again, after years in Hamburg] at the Aristoteles-Archiv in Berlin [below]; from volume 3 on, external collaborators have been associated) lists all the Greek manuscripts signed by, attributed to, or newly identified as being produced by known copyists. The Aristoteles-Archiv, at the Freie Universität in Berlin, “has a unique microfilm collection of all Greek Aristotle manuscripts as well as approximately 1,000 additional manuscripts with late antique and Byzantine commentaries on Aristotle’s treatises.” The Program in Byzantine Studies at Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collections of Harvard University, but located in Washington, D.C. (U.S.A.), hosts a collections of 149,000 volumes devoted to all aspects of Byzantine history, including sciences. It offers yearly fellowships for pre- and post-doctoral research, and publishes the Dumbarton Oaks Papers. In Washington also, the Institute for the Preservation of Medical Traditions hosted by the Smithsonian Institution (National Museum of Natural History, Department of Botany) preserves a library collection of ca. 15,000 items specifically on the history of science(s) (mainly natural and life sciences) in the ancient Mediterranean (Antiquity, the Middle Ages [with a particular focus on Byzantium], and the Renaissance), which contains critical editions of primary sources, secondary literature (from classical philology to botany, ethnobotany, and ethnopharmacy, and including Greek paleography and codicology), microfilms of Greek medical manuscripts, computerized databases, and a digital collection of still unpublished Byzantine medical texts reproduced from manuscripts. Close to Washington (actually in Bethesda, MD), the History of Medicine Division of the U.S. National Library of Medicine on the campus of the National Institutes of Health has one of the most extensive collections in the world on the history of medicine, including early printed books. Though not specialized on Byzantium or any other specific time period and/or area, it holds a vast quantity of material relevant for the study of Byzantine medicine and science (from incunabula printed editions to the most recent secondary literature). In the United States also, Brown University (Providence, Rhode Island) had a Department of History of Mathematics specialized in the Mediterranean tradition from Mesopotamia to the Renaissance and including Byzantium. The Department was created by Otto Neugebauer (above) and directed until recently by David Pingree (above), who built a library of more than 20,000 items on the history of exact sciences. The collection is now included in the library of Brown University. In London (U.K.), the Wellcome Library of History of Medicine is a major repository of material on the history of medicine (books, journals, manu-
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scripts, and pictures), including Byzantium (some items in the manuscript collection are Byzantine). Whereas there is no society, group of any kind, or conference specifically devoted to the history of Byzantine science(s), many local, national, and international societies (be they devoted to Byzantine history or history of science, medicine, pharmacy or other discipline[s]) usually include Byzantium into their fields of interest (even though, often, they do not necessarily encourage the history of Byzantine science[s]). Many such societies usually organize annual meetings (particularly the national societies), whereas the international societies (history of science, and Byzantine studies) organize large conferences every four years. There is no specific medium for publications on the history of Byzantine science, with the exception of the Corpus des astronomes byzantins (above) and, for medicine, the Corpus Medicorum Graecorum (particularly its Supplementum Orientale as the Corpus is focused on classical antiquity from the 5th century B.C.E. to the end of antiquity [“… vom 5. Jahrhundert v. Chr. bis zum Ausgang der Antike …”]), and the newly created series Medicine in the Medieval Mediterranean focusing on Byzantium and its neighbors in the Eastern Mediterranean. However, such journals as (alphabetical order of titles) Byzantinische Zeitschrift (currently edited by Albrecht Berger, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich), Byzantinoslavica (published by the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, in Prague), Byzantion (published by the Société belge d’études byzantines), the Dumbarton Oaks Papers (above), Erytheia (directed by Prof. Pedro Bádenas de la Peña [Madrid] and published by the Asociación cultural Hispano-Helénica), Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies (edited by Duke University, Durham, N.C. [U.S.A.]), the Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik (edited by the Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften in Vienna [Austria]), the Revue des Etudes Byzantines (published by the Société française d’études byzantines), and Thesaurismata (published by the Istituto Ellenico di Studi Bizantini e Postbizantini in Venice [Italy]) accept articles on topics related to the history of science(s) in Byzantium. The Byzantinische Zeitschrift also includes in each issue a bibliography of current production with the following sections on the history of sciences: 11. Fachwissenschaften, with the subsections A. Mathematik, Physik, Astronomie, Astrologie; B. Naturwissenschaften (Zoologie, Botanik, Minealogie, Alchemie); C. Medizin, Pharmazie. Also, the editions of texts (including scientific ones) are listed in the section 1 A. Hochsprachliche Literatur, with its several subdivisions: b. Literaturgattungen; c. Fortleben antiker Autoren; d. Byzantinische Autoren (Ausgaben, Übersetzungen, Sekundärlitertur). On the other hand, the journals on the history of sciences below publish ocasionally articles on Byzantine science (though
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not necessarily soliciting them) (alphabetical order of titles): Ambix (specialized on the history of alchemy), Centaurus (history of mathematics), Early Science and Medicine, Historia Scientiarum, Historia Mathematica, ISIS (history of sciences in general), Nuncius (id.), Physis (id.), and Sudhoffs Archiv (id.). Given the importance of manuscripts and texts in the field, such journals as (alphabetical order of titles) Codices manuscripti, Manuscripta, Revue d’Histoire des Textes, Scriptorium, Scrittura e civiltà (until 2001), and the newly created journals Galeno and Scripta also publish articles on manuscripts and the tradition of text of scientific works, including Byzantine ones. Finally, some of the journals above are accompanied by a series of monographs, and the International Society of History of Sciences edits the series De diversis artibus, which publishes any work relevant to the history of science(s), including Byzantine science(s). Byzantine science(s) is an under-researched field of historical inquiry, where fundamental research is urgently needed (actually, inventory and critical editions of primary sources from manuscripts [themselves still to be systematically explored], ideally also translation of edited texts into a modern language, and technical analysis of such edited texts). Such need explains the profile of the all too rare researchers in the field, who are primarily (and altogether) classicists, Byzantinists, philologists, historians, codicologists, paleographers, historians of texts and editors, preferably with a good level of understanding, if not of knowledge, of the scientific discipline of the texts they are working on. Only such fundamental research will make it possible to write the documented syntheses on Byzantine science(s) that are still missing, and, on this basis, to do comparative work on the several medieval traditions, so as to make it possible to perceive the place, importance, and impact of Byzantine science(s) in medieval Mediterranean science(s). Work of this type has already started, however. As I have mentioned, indeed, the introduction of Arabic medicine into Byzantium has been noticed as early as the 1930s by Aristotelês Kouzês (“Quelques considérations …,” [above]). Later on, Joseph Mogenet brought to light the earliest known trace of this phenomenon in astronomy (“Une scolie …,” [above]), and the German historian of medicine Georg Harig (1935–1989) in Berlin (Germany) made similar work on the 11th-century polymath Symeon Seth (“Von den arabischen Quellen des Simeon Seth,” Medizinhistorisches Journal 2 [1967]: 248–68). Probably following Mogenet, Anne Tihon studied more indepth the introduction and assimilation of Arabic astronomy into Byzantium, as did also Alain Touwaide for medicine (chronological order of publication): Anne Tihon, “Les tables astronomiques persanes à Constantinople dans la première moitié du XIVe siècle,” Byzantion 57 (1987): 471–87;
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Ead., “Sur l’identité de l’astronome Alim,” Archives internationales d’histoire des sciences 39 (1989): 3–21; Ead., “Tables islamiques à Byzance,” Byzantion 60 (1990): 401–25; Alain Touwaide, “Un Manuscrit athonite du Traité de matière médicale de Dioscoride: l’Athous Magnae Laurae 75,” Scriptorium 45 (1991): 122–27; Marie-Hélène Congourdeau, “Prolongements et diffusion: Le monde byzantin,” A l’ombre d’Avicenne: La médecine au temps des califes, 1996, 271–73; Alain Touwaide, Medicinalia Arabo-Byzantina, vol. 1: Manuscrits et textes, 1997; Anne Tihon, “Les textes astronomiques arabes importés à Byzance aux XIe et XIIe siècle,” Occident et Proche-Orient: Contacts scientifiques au temps des Croisades. Actes du colloque de Louvain-la-Neuve, 1997, ed. Isabelle Draelants, Anne Tihon, and Baudouin van den Abeele, 2000, 313–24; Ead., “Un texte byzantin inédit sur une horloge persane,” Sic itur ad Astra: Festschrift für den Arabisten Paul Kunitzsch zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. Menso Folkerts, and Richard Lorch, 2000, 523–35; Alain Touwaide, “Arabic Medicine in Greek Translation: A Preliminary Report,” Journal of the International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine 1 (2002): 45–53; Id., “Arabic Materia Medica in Byzantium during the 11th Century A.D. and the Problems of Transfer of Knowledge in Medieval Science,” Science and Technology in the Islamic World,” ed. S. M. Razaullah Ansari, 2002, 223–47; Id., “Magna Graecia iterata …,” Medicina …, ed. Musajo Somma (above), 85–101; Id., “Arabic Urology in Byzantium,” The History of Nephrology New Series, vol. 1, ed. Natale G. De Santo, Luigi Iorio, Spyros G. marketos, Shaul G. Massry, and Garabed Eknoyan, 2004, 167–73; Id., “The Jujube-Tree in the Eastern Mediterranean: A Case Study in the Methodology of Textual Archaeobotany,” Health and Healing from the Medieval Garden, ed. Peter Dendle, and Alain Touwaide, 2008, 72–100; Id., “Medicina Bizantina …,” Medicina …, ed. De Santo, and Bellinghieri (above) (the works by Mario Lamagna, “La recensio amplior inedita del De urinis di Avicenna,” Trasmissione e ecdotica …, ed. Garzya, and Jouanna [above], 271–80; and “La recensio amplior del De urinis di Avicenna: Lo stato della tradizione manoscritta,” Ecdotica e ricezione …, ed. Boudon-Millot et al. [above], 321–44, are only philological [producing a stemma codicum and discussing the variant readings] and not interested in the origin of the text, a comparison with the text in Arabic, the impact of the translation on Byzantine medicine, a scientific approach and/or evaluation, or any other aspect of the transfer of knowledge). This highly-specialized and multi-faceted profile required from historians of Byzantine science(s) may contribute to explain their rarity and, consequently, the exiguity of the space given to the history of Byzantine science(s) in current historical research. Also, the high level of specialization of the discipline may be responsible for the absence or misconception about Byzantine
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science(s) in reference works aimed at a wider audience, however well informed such works might be (see for example in Lawrence I. Conrad, Michael Neve, Vivian Nutton, Roy Porter [1946–2002], and Andrew Wear, The Western Medical Tradition, vol. 1: 800 BC to AD 1800, 1992, where Byzantium is almost totally absent, and Gotthard Strohmaier, “La ricezione e la tradizione: la medicina nel mondo bizantino e arabo”, Storia del pensiero medico occidentale, vol. 1: Antichità e medioevo, ed. Mirko D. Grmek, 1993, 167–215 [English trans.: “Reception and Tradition: Medicine in the Byzantine and Arab World”, Western Medical Thought from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, ed. Mirko D. Grmek [1924–2000], 1998, 139–69], where Byzantine medicine is briefly treated as lacking originality). Conversely, the rarity of scholars in the field, and the lack, together with the crucial need, of reference works leaves the field open and more necessary than ever, also allowing for original research. This is valid for both individual involvement and major research programs to be institutionally supported and sponsored (be it in the disciplines that have already been – and still are – studied [from medicine to zoology, for example] or new ones still to be explored). Only new and innovative research, preferably based on primary sources and of a truly trans-disciplinary nature, will make it possible to compensate for the lacunas on Byzantium in the current panorama of history of science(s), as it has started to be the case, though in a limited way, in such historical dictionaries and encyclopedias as the New Dictionary of Scientific Biography (above), the Encyclopedia of Astronomers (above), and Medieval Science, Technology, and Medicine (above), in which entries on Byzantine scientists of different disciplines have been written by modern specialists. Select Bibliography Catalogue des manuscrits alchimiques grecs, 5 tomes in 8 vols. (Brussels: Lamertin [except vols. 4 and 8: Secretary of the Union Académique Internationale], 1924–1932); Catalogus Codicum Astrologorum Graecorum, 12 tomes in 20 vols. (Brussels: Lamertin [except vols. 5/4, 9/1 and 9/2: Aedes Academiarum], 1898–1953); Corpus des astronomes byzantins, 10 vols. (Amsterdam: J.C. Gieben [vols. 1–6]; and Louvain-la-Neuve: Academia-Erasme [vol. 7]; Academia Bruylant [vols. 8–9]; and Bruylant-Academia [vol. 10], 1983–2001); Herbert Hunger, Die hochsprachliche profane Literatur der Byzantiner, 2 vols. (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1978); Symposium on Byzantine Medicine, ed. John Scarborough (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1985); Anne Tihon, Etudes d’astronomie byzantine (Aldershot [UK]: Variorum, 1994); Alain Touwaide, “Greek Medical ManuscriptsToward a New Catalogue,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 101 (2008): 199–208; id., “Byzantine Medical Manuscripts: Towards a New Catalogue, with a Specimen for an Annotated Checklist of Manuscripts Based on an Index of Diels’ Catalogue,” Byzantion 79 [2009]: 453–595.
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Byzantine Theology A. Historical Background Byzantine theology was shaped through a succession of debates, conflicts and confluences, intellectual and others, that took place ever since the instauration of the Byzantine state as a Christian state. The Hellenistic heritage was simultaneously denied and assumed by the intellectuals of the new faith. A series of Ecumenical Councils, seven in total (from 325 to 787), were to construe the doctrinal configuration of the new Church. The struggle against the heresies such as monophysitism was the impetus behind the need for stating the dogmas in a time where doctrinal formulations were the subject even of common discussion. The Cappadocian Fathers, Gregory Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa, and Basil the Great, together with John Chrysostom (4th c.), were key figures in the origin of the new tradition. The co-presence of the organized Church and the imperial structures gave to the new state form its distinctive nature although remnants of the Roman ‘imperial cult’ continued to play some role. The decisive factor that Church and Orthodoxy were in Byzantium made possible the later attribution to this form of government of the rather confusing terms of ‘Theocracy’ or ‘Caesaro-papism.’ The conflict with the rising Islamic force of the Arabs restrained the spread of Byzantine Christianity but made the men of the Church even more decisive as to the defense of their faith. Maximus the Confessor (580–662) distilled the negative theology of pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita and the origenism in the service of Orthodoxy and Byzantine mysticism; apophatic or negative theology became the special trend of the Eastern Christian tradition. The Iconoclastic crisis, from 730 to 843, permitted to decide, on the basis of the paradigm of the cult of the icons, upon the measure of abstraction that was theologically admitted and to confirm that the more spiritual and mystic representatives of the Church, i. e. the monastic people, were an important factor in the overall life of the state. John of Damascus (Mansur ibn Sarjun to his real name, ca. 665–749) although residing out of Byzantium contributed greatly to the construction of the new tradition with his work The Fountain Head of Knowledge, a sum of the up to his time theological and philosophical knowledge; the same man was of the principal defenders of the icons. By the end of the crisis, the reinforced Church assumed a more humanistic role regarding the safeguard and cultivation of the Greek letters while the dogmatic argument became less inspired. The splendor of the Byzantine Church appealed to the non-Christians of the North, the Slavs, and attracted them to Orthodoxy. The opposition to the
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Church of Rome was to push even further towards the affirmation of the identity of the Byzantine Orthodoxy. An imposing Patriarch like Photius (ca. 820–893) is emblematic of the evolution of Byzantine theology: a great humanist himself but also a strong ecclesiastical man who did not hesitate before the conflict with the Roman Church. The Schism between the two Churches was not to be consumed before two centuries, at the time of the Patriarch Michael Keroularios. The period before the Schism was marked by the exceptional presence of a mystical writer as Symeon the New Theologian. The invasions of the Crusaders and the sack of Constantinople (1204) opposed radically the orthodox folk religion and the spiritual representatives of Orthodoxy to the ‘Latins’. The short-lived Latin Empire could not alter this state of things and attract the Byzantines to the western faith. The regain of Constantinople by the Byzantines (1261) gave life to the mortally wounded state. In front of the rising power of the Ottoman Turks, the union with the Latin Church was felt as a necessity by a part of the governing elite as the state needed the help of the forces of the West but the Orthodoxy had by then acquired a distinctive national character and the people and the monks strongly opposed to the idea of a possible association between the two Churches. The Hesychast crisis (14th c.), from which the defender of the mystical method of the hesychast-quietist monks – the ‘omphaloscopes’/navel gazers for their opponents – Gregory Palamas (1296–1359) and his followers came out triumphant, insisted upon and furthered the tradition of the orthodox spirituality and mysticism. Among his adversaries figured an intellectual party that was influenced by and translating the works of Thomas Aquinas. A Union purposed Council held in Florence/Ferrara in the 15th century had no pragmatic effect. Georgios Gemistos Pletho (ca.1355–1452), a neo-pagan anti-unionist philosopher, felt that the rescue of the state could be achieved by the adoption of a state religion inspired by the Hellenic twelve-gods paganism but this idea found no echo and the Greek nation could not henceforth be regarded as distinguished from Orthodoxy. Only a small portion of the Byzantine intellectuals that fled the Turks was converted to Catholicism. The fall of Constantinople into the hands of the Ottoman Turks in 1453 did not condemn the Orthodoxy that continued to live as a ‘Byzantium after Byzantium’ for the Slavic peoples and strengthen the sentiment of national identity of the Greeks. B. The Problem of Definition The study of the Byzantine theology is an historical science not to be confused with Orthodox theology although the two domains are often intermingling. Since Orthodox religion and theology is still vivid, Byzantine
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theology is an historical discipline concentrated on dogmas and ideas about the divine developed in the areas once governed by the Byzantine state. The Orthodox Theology refers to a tradition that is still living and active while Byzantine Theology refers to a tradition that is historically limited. We could say that the second is a part of the first but there is another crucial distinction: the study of Byzantine theology does not have to draw the same conclusions as the Orthodox theology because the former is not directly a theological or religiously motivated or oriented science. Hans-Georg Beck defined the representatives of the historical science of Byzantine theology as the “theologische Byzantinistik” (Kirche und theologische Literatur im byzantininschen Reich, 1959, 7–23). In reality, the study of Byzantine theology as doctrinal science is further obstructed by the fact that the Byzantines were reluctant to reduce all religious sentiment to dogma and were very sensitive to the mystical aspect of their religion. Thus Beck rightly divides the history of Byzantine dogmas in two parts: “Dogmengeschichte,” the proper history of dogmas and “Askese und Mystik,” ascetism and mysticism (op. cit., 279–368). This double feature of Byzantine theology is shown in the title of Joan Mervyn Hussey’s and T.A. Hart’s, “Byzantine Theological Speculation and Spirituality” in the Cambridge Medieval History (see Bibliography). Yet, Beck’s doctrinal chapter constitutes only a small part of his basic work and it reflects the fact that in practice the historical study of Byzantine theology is of philological character and seems to concern texts of which the more profound understanding is left to the study of the general histories of the Byzantine state and civilization – such as those by Alexander Vasiliev, Louis Bréhier, George Ostrogorsky, John Bagnell Bury, Steven Runciman, André Guillou, Ioannes Karayannopoulos and others. We shall see later the problems that are engendered by the philological ‘take over’ in the study of Byzantine theology. C. Research History (1) Erudition Edward Gibbon has written in the concluding chapter of his monumental historical work: “I have described the triumph of barbarism and religion” (History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire [1776–1788], ed. D. Womersley, 1994, 1068). In this way, he was summing up the Enlightenment’s view on Middle Ages and religion, a position that was already manifest in Montesquieu’s Grandeur et décadence des Romains (1734) and in Voltaire’s Essais sur les mœurs (1756). The merit of the writers of Enlightenment is to have perceived a separate historical entity; but, they failed to distinguish between
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different religious traditions and saw in the medieval religion a common tradition of misplaced faith. That the medieval religiosity is one is an idea that we see in scholars like the Greek Leo Allatius (1586–1669) who, converted to Catholicism, worked for the accomplishment of the reconciliation between the Greek and the Roman Church and to this end he wrote the book De Ecclesiae Occidentalisatque Orientalis perpetua consensione (1648) in which he emphasized the aspects of agreement between the two Churches and minimized their differences. Other western writers tended to see a series of errores graecorum in the Byzantine religion. While Allatius fails as to the consideration of the specificity of Byzantine theology, his work corresponds to the time and place of birth of the modern research on the topic. Other Renaissance scholars have also turned to the study of the Oriental tradition; a list of the names and the tendencies is presented by Beck (“Entwicklung der theologischen Byzantinistik,” Kirche und theologische Literatur im byzantininschen Reich, op. cit., 7ff.). Among them, Aloisius Lippomani (1500–1559), Lorenz Sauer (Surius; 1522–1578), Francesco Torres (Turrianus, 1504–1584), Theodor Peltanus (1511–1584), Pierre Stevart (1547–1624), Petrus Canisius (1521–1597), his nephew Heinrich Canisius (1557–1610), Jacob Spanmüller (Pontanus; 1542–1626), Fronton de Duc (Ducaeus; 1558–1624), Balthasar Cordier (Corderius; 1592–1650), Jakob Goar (1601–1654), Philippe Labbe (1607–1667), Pierre Poussines (Possinus; 1609–1686), Jean Morin (1591–1659) et al. Other names are of greater distinction: Dionysius Petau (Petavius; 1583–1652), an important historian of Dogmas and his pupil Louis Thomassin (1619–1695); Heribert Rosweyde (1569–1629) who is at the origin of the study of the Lives of the Saints; François Combefis (1605–1679), editor of works by Maximus the Confessor. It is a time of ‘intuitive science’, erudition and editing effort. With the names of Casimir Oudin (1638–1717), Eusèbe Renaudot (1648–1720), Jean Hardouin (1646–1729), Michel Lequien (1661–1733), Jean Mabillon (1682–1771), William Beveridge (Beveregius; 1638–1708), William Cave (1637–1713) we pass to the 18th century. Joannes Bollandus (1596–1665), a continuator of the work of Rosweyde is the initiator of the Bollandist tradition of studying the Lives of the Saints. Giovanni Domenico Mansi (1692–1769) from Lucca, Italy, presented an ample collection of the Acts of the Councils (Sacrorum Conciliorum nova et amplissima Collectio, 31 vols., 1759–1798). If another Greek of Italy, Nikolaus Comnenus Papadopoulos (1651–1740) walks on the steps of Allatius as to the erudition and the idea of the unity between the churches of the East and West, we see other Greeks to insist upon the specificity of the Orthodox faith often with a strong
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anti-Latin stand; this is the case of Dositheos, Patriarch of Jerusalem (1641–1707) and his collections of Byzantine Anti-latin writings: Tomos katallagis (1692), Tomos agapis (1698), Tomos haras (1705) published in Jassy, Romania. The first representative of Greek Enlightenment, and also an Orthodox ecclesiastical man, Eugenios Voulgaris (1716–1806), besides his philosophical and other works, hasn’t disdained the study of Byzantine theology: he published the works of the theologian of the 15th c. Joseph Bryennios. His successor to the episcopate of Cherson in Russia, Nikephoros Theotokis (1731–1800) was of the same flair. The 18th century saw also the formation of an anthology of Byzantine mystical writers from the 4th c. and onwards like Gregorios Palamas, Symeon the new theologian, Markos Eugenikos and others; the anthology had the title Philokalia of the Holy Neptic Fathers (Philokalia in brief; 1st ed. 1782 Venice). The editors were St Makarios of Corinth (1731–1805) and St Nikodimos the Hagiorite (1749–1809), zealots who belonged to the movement of kollyvades proclaiming a return to the sources of Orthodox Christianity. Nikodimos, nevertheless, according to some views, was influenced by the legalist spirit of the Catholic church. Philokalia played an important role in the safeguard of the Byzantine religious spirit in Greece, the Slavic countries and elsewhere in the world. (2) Romanticism–Nationalism–Positivism Later, the need for greater syntheses and higher scientific ambitions as to the critical editing was becoming more and more evident. The German Joannes Albertus Fabricius (1668–1736) and his Bibliotheca Graeca (14 vols., 1705–1728) offered much to the knowledge of the Byzantine theological literature. His compatriots contributing to the same field were: Gottfried Christoph Harles (1738–1815), Johann Georg Walch (1693–1775), Johann Rudolf Kiesling (1706–1778), Christian Friedrich Matthäi (1744–1811), Joannes Jacob Reiske (1716–1774), Karl Bernhard Hase (1780–1864), Johann Karl Ludwig Gieseler (1792–1854), Walter Wolfgang (1818–1885), and Konstantin Tischendorf (1815–1874). Wilhelm Gass (1813–1889) presented an edition of the mystic Nicolaos Kabasilas’s On the Love of Christ and the Cardinal Joseph Hergenröther (1824–1890) a study on Patriarch Photius. The liberation of Greece from the Turkish yoke coincided with the rising of Romanticism and in the case of the Greek struggle for freedom caused a strong philhellenic movement. In this light we must see the grand fresco of the Byzantine history, a part of a general history of the Greek Nation, written by the Greek Konstantinos Paparrigopoulos (1815–1891), Historia tou Hellinikou Ethnous, 1860–1876. Paparrigopoulos presented a
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theory about the origins of iconoclasm, seeing in it the struggle of the Greek love for the Forms against the oriental aniconism. He was preceded by the Greek Spyridon Zampelios (1815–1881) who, in his work Asmata Dimotika tis Hellados ekdothenta meta meletis historikis peri mesaionikou hellinismou (1852), applied the Hegelian tripartite model to Greek history making the Byzantine theology an inheritor of Ancient Greek Philosophy and a prelude to Greek nationalism. Other Greek scholars with less breadth of inspiration were Andronikos Demetracopoulos (1825–1872), Joannes Sakkelion (1815–1891), Joannes Valettas (1814–1900), who published the letters of Patriarch Photius and Matthaios Paranikas (1832–1885) editor of an anthology of Byzantine church poetry. In France, the Abbé Jacques Migne (1800–1875), thanks to his organizational skills, published the important series of Byzantine theological literature (Patrologia Cursus Completus. Series Graeco-Latina = Patrologia Graeca, 161 vols. (162), 1857–1866). The exemplary figure of the times is the Italian Cardinal and philologist Angelo Mai (1782–1854), representative of the Italian ecclesiastic Romantic movement. Jean Baptiste Pitra (1812–1889) walked on the steps of Mai (see his Analecta Sacra et Classica Spicilegio Solesmensi Parata, 8 vols., 1876–1888). A lot of historical texts concerning matters of Byzantine theology were published in the German series Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae, 1828–1897. In Germany, Karl Eduard Zachariae von Lingenthal (1812–1894) presented a collection and study of Byzantine laws including or relevant to canon law (Collectio Librorum Juris Graeco-Romani Ineditorum, 1852; Jus GraecoRomanum, 7 vols., 1856–1884). In Greece, his work was continued by the Jurists Georgios A. Rhallès (1804–1883) and Michael Potlès (1812–1863). The Greek Konstantinos Sathas (1842–1914) published a vast editorial work of Orthodox and other sources in his Medieval Library series. The ancient erudition was thus culminating in the development of the modern editing science. This modern editing spirit was simultaneous to the Romantic movement that, in contrast to the Enlightenment’s aversion, had an esteem for the medieval literature and coincided with the rise of nationalist sentiments. The Russians contributed to the study of Byzantine culture and theology that were seen as precursors of the Russian culture and theology. The names of Vasilij Vasil’evski (1838–1899), Alexej Pavlov (1832–1898), and Nikolaj Krasnol’cev (1845–1898) are to be mentioned here. In France, following Pope Leo’s XIII (1810–1904) opening to sciences and the study of religious traditions, the French Assumptionists started researching the oriental traditions and from their labor the journal Échos d’Orient was to come up. Among the scholars distinguished in this field were Jules Pargoire (1872–1905),
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Jean Baptiste Rabois-Bousquet (1864–1911), Louis Petit (1868–1927) also the Catholic Archbishop of Athens, Severien Salaville (1881–1965), and mostly Martin Jugie (1878–1954), the great historian of Dogmas of the Christian oriental churches (Theologia Dogmatica Christianorum Orientalium ab Ecclesia Catholica Dissidentum, 5 vols., Paris, 1926–1935). Together with L. Petit and the Greek scholar from Constantinople Xenophon Sideridès (1851–1929), he published (1928–1930) the Complete Works of the Byzantine anti-unionist leader Georgios Scholarios who under the name Gennadios II became the first Patriarch of Constantinople after the fall of the city in the hands of the Ottomans. Notable contributions to the editing explosion concerning Byzantine theology, are: Frank E. Brightman, Liturgies Eastern and Western, I. Eastern Liturgies, 1896; Heinrich Gelzer, Texte der Notitiae Episcopatum, 1901; Philipp Meyer, Die Haupturkunden für die Geschichte der Athos-Klöster, 1894 (now also available online at: http://books.google.com/ books?id=Rwf2-Dh7Rb0C&dq=%3B+P.+MEYER,+Die+Haupturkunden+ fü); Franz Miklosich and Joseph Müller, Acta et Diplomata Graeca Medii Aevi Sacra et Profana, 6 vols., 1860–1890. (3) From Philologism to Postmodernism It is often said that the proper Byzantine theology has been developed after the Patristic period. The passage from the 19th to the 20th century saw an important rise of the patristic studies. From this tendency, some names of importance for the research on Byzantine theology are: Otto Zöckler, Wilhelm Bousset, Nathanael Bonwetsch, Karl Holl, Friedrich Loofs, Ernst von Dobschütz, Adolf von Harnack, Franz Diekamp, LouisMarie-Olivier Duchesne, Gustave Bardy, Henri Leclerq. The scholarship that inclined to the study of Byzantine theological literature is marked by the edition of the monumental history of Byzantine literature by Karl Krumbacher (Geschichte der byzantinischen Literatur, Munich, 1891, 2nd ed. 1897). In the second edition, Albert Ehrhard was responsible for the chapters on the religious literature where we see the exposition of prominent writers, of the relevant genres and the history of their evolution. It followed an important development in the study of the Byzantine Christian literature, inspired by the “Krumbacher Schule” that marked the scientific activity of scholars like August Heisenberg, Carl de Boor, Philipp Meyer, Johannes Dräseke, where the science of philology had an important part. The study of the Lives of the Saints was developed by the work of Charles de Smedt and mainly by the prolific Hippolyte Delehaye (1859–1940). In Greece, Spyridon Lampros (1851–1919) responded to this call for philological rigor, especially by the publication of the series Neos Hellenomnemon that offered a
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stand for inventory and editing work. A Greek of the diaspora, Athanasios Papadopoulos-Kerameus (1856–1919) accomplished an important editing work with his Analekta Hierosolymitikis Stahyologias, I–V, 1891–1898. Other notable Greek scholars were: Manuel Gedeon (1851–1943), the Archbishop of Athens Chrysostomos (Papadopoulos; 1868–1938), Gregorios Papamichael, Sophronios Eustratiadès, Konstantinos J. Dyobouniotès (Ta mysteria tès anatolikès orthodoxou ekklesias ex apopseos dogmatikis, 1923), Demetrios S. Balanos (Oi ekklesiastikoi byzantinoi syggrafeis, 1951). In Russia, we have the historians Fedor Uspenskij (1845–1928), Chrysanth Loparev (1862–1918), and Aleksandr Aleksandrovic Vasiliev (1867–1953). Supplementary information about the Byzantine theology we find in: A. Bardy, chapters 5–10 in Augustin Fliche and Victor Martin, Histoire de l’Église, IV, 1–2, 1934; and in: Karl Joseph von Hefele, Histoire des Conciles, (contin. and trans. Henri Leclerq, 8 vol, 1907–1921). Information is also available in: Gyula Moravcsik, Byzantinoturcica, I, 2 vols., 1958. A lot of relevant entries are to be found in: Dictionnaire de théologie catholique (ed. Alfred Vacant et al., 15 vols., 1907–1953). See also: Dictionnaire de la Spiritualité, 1932ff; and August Pauly and Georg Wissowa, Real-Enzyklopädie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft, 1893–1980. As for the monastic institutions see: Placido de Meester, De monachico statu iuxta disciplinam byzantinam, 1942. The 20th century brought about a real outburst in the disciplines related to Byzantine theology of which philology was only an introduction. History, of course, continued to have a preponderant place invigorated by new approaches and thematic pluralism. Here, we can give only an indicative image of the literature strictly relevant to theology. Among the notable historians of ideas we find Francis Dvornik (The Photian Schism, Cambridge, 1948; The Idea of Apostolicity in Byzantium and the Legend of the Apostle Andrew, 1958; Byzantium and the Roman Primacy, 1966; Byzantine Missions among the Slavs, 1970) as well as another eminent historian, Sir Steven Runciman (Eastern Schism, 1956; The Great Church in Captivity, 1968; The Byzantine Theocracy, 1977). For general and introductive studies to Byzantine theology, see: Mauricius Gordillo, Compendium theologiae orientalis in commodum auditorum facultatis theologicae concinnatum, 2 vols., 1939; Andrea Palmieri, “La teologia bizantina,” Studi Religiosi 2 (1902): 115–35, 333–51. Venance Grumel, “Les aspects généraux de la théologie Byzantine,” Echos d’Orient 30 (1931): 385–96; Konstantinos Bonis, “Byzantinè Theologia,” Theologia 19 (1941–1948): 171–86, 287–300; J. M. Hussey, The Orthodox Church in the Byzantine Empire, 1986. In sum, the general surveys are never as definitive as we would like them to be due to the dispersion of the related scientific fields and to the difficulty of the subject itself characterized by a mystical aspect that resists analysis.
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The question of the relations of the Church of Constantinople with the Church of Rome is a dominant subject. See: Walter Norden, Das Papsttum und Byzanz. Die Trennung der beiden Mächte und das Problem ihrer Wiedervereiningung bis zum Untergange des byzantinischen Reiches, 1903; Marcel Viller, “La question de l’union des églises entre Grecs et Latins depuis le Concile de Lyon jusqu’à celui de Florence,” Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 16 (1921): 260–305, 515–32, and 18 (1922): 20–60; Anton Michel, Humbert und Kerullarios, 1924–1930; Philip Sherrard, The Greek East and the Latin West, 1959; J. Gill, The Council of Florence, 1959; Kenneth M. Setton, The Papacy and the Levant, 1976–84; On the relations between Byzantine theology and Western ideology, see Ioannes S. Romanides’ Franks, Romans, Feudalism, and Doctrine: An Interplay between Theology and Society, 1981. On the influence of Thomist theology and philosophy in Byzantium, see: Stephanos Papadopoulos, Hellinikai metaphraseis thomistikon ergon. Thomistai kai antithomistai en Byzantio, 1967. The question of ecclesiastical geography is also an issue. See: Raymond Janin, La Géographie ecclésiastique de l’Empire byzantin, 1953; relevant are the subjects dealing with regionalism: John A. Hackett, A History of the Orthodox Church in Cyprus, 1901; Mgr Chrysanthos, Hè Ekklesia tès Trapezountos, 1933; Orest Tafrali, Thessalonique au quatorzième siècle, 1913. We see also regional studies combined with the research on the spreading of Orthodoxy into the Slavic countries: Dimitrije Bogdanovic, Jovan Lestvicnik u vizantijskoi I staroj srpskoi knjizenvosti (John Climacus in Byzantine Literature and the Ancient Serb Literature), 1968, and in connection with heresies: Jacques Jarry, Hérésies et factions dans l’Égypte Byzantine, 1970. The relation to the Islamic world is detailed in studies like: Speros Vryonis, The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamisation from the 11th through the 15th Century, 1971. On the two Byzantine ‘Commonwealths’, following Dmitri Obolensky, The Byzantine Commonwealth: Eastern Europe, 500–1453, 1971, see: for the first commonwealth, in the East: Garth Fowden, Empire to Commonwealth. Consequences of Monotheism in Late Antiquity, 1993; for the second one, in the North: Simon Franklin, Byzantium-Rus-Russia, 2002. See also: Evangelos Chryssos, Hè ekklesiastike politikè tou Ioustinianou, 1969 and Walter Emil Kaegi, Army, Society and Religion in Byzantium, 1982. On the question of the ‘imperial cult’ or ‘imperial religion’ in Byzantium, see: Louis Bréhier and Pierre Battifol, Les Survivances du culte impérial romain, 1920; Franz Joseph Dölger, “Zur antiken und frühchristlichen Auffasung der Herrschergergewalt von Gottes Gnaden,” Antike und Christentum 3 (1932): 117–27); Wilhelm Ensslin, Gottkaiser und Kaiser von Gottes Gnaden, 1943; for the difference between ‘worship’ and ‘adoration’ related to the ‘imperial
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cult’, see Kenneth M. Setton, Christian Attitude Towards the Emperor in the 4th Century, 1941. See also: Gilbert Dagron, Empereur et prêtre: Étude sur le ‘césaropapisme’ byzantin, 1996. Jacques Gouillard translated a brief selection from the Philokalia: Petite philocalie de la prière de cœur, 1953. A full edition in French was begun in 1979 and completed in 1986 (trans. Jacques Touraille). It was also partly translated into English, first by E. Kadloubovsky and G. E. H. Palmer (1951) and later gradually by G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard and Kallistos (Timothy) Ware (4 vols. since 1979). Jacques Gouillard published a study about the liturgical text “Synodicon of Orthodoxy” (“Le synodikon de l’Orthodoxie. Edition et commentaire,” Travaux et mémoires 2 (1967): 1–316). A lot of information about Byzantine religiosity and everyday life we find in: Phaidon Koukoulès, Byzantinon Bios kai Politismos, 8 vols., 1947–1957. The question of ‘philosophical theology’ was debated in: Basil Tatakis, La philosophie Byzantine, 1949 (the first monograph on Byzantine philosophy) and more particularly in: Gerhard Podskalsky, Theologie und Philosophie in Byzanz, 1977; see also, Endre von Ivánka, Plato Christianus, 1964; Georgi Kapriev, Philosophie in Byzanz, 2005. For the relation to ethical philosophy, see: Georges Arabatzis, Éthique du bonheur et orthodoxie à Byzance, 1998. Jacques Gouillard edited and commented on the trial of the philosopher John Italos for impiety in the 11th c.: “Le procès officiel de Jean l’Italien, les Actes et leurs sous-entendus,” Travaux et mémoires 9 (1985): 133–73. On that period see: Lysimaque Oeconomos, La vie religieuse dans l’Empire Byzantin au temps des Comnènes, 1918, and Michael Angold, Church and Society in Byzantium under the Comneni, 1081–1261, 1995. The relations between theology and education are treated in studies such as J. M. Hussey, Church and Learning in the Byzantine Empire, 867–1185, 1937. On the relations between Hellenism and Christianity from an Orthodox point of view, see John Zizioulas, Hellinismos kai Christianismos. Hè synantisi ton dyo kosmon, 2003. Byzantine spiritualism was approached by Irénée Hausherr, La méthode d’oraison hésychaste, Orientalia Christiana, IX, 1927; Hans Urs von Balthasar, Kosmische Liturgie: Das Weltbild Maximus’ des Bekenners, Einsiedeln, 2nd ed. 1961. The Greek Panayotis Chrestou edited the complete works of Gregorios Palamas and inaugurated in Thessaloniki a book series of high scholarly quality (Analekta Vlatadon); The iconoclasm constitutes a separate field of study, see: Edward James Martin, A History of the Iconoclastic Controversy, 1930; and more recently an overview of the literature: Leslie Brubaker, John Haldon, Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era (ca 680–850): The Sources, an annotated survey, with a section on “The Architecture of Iconoclasm: the Buildings” by Robert Ousterhout, 2001. For the philosophical
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foundations of the iconoclastic crisis, see: Marie-José Mondzain, Nicéphore: Discours contre les iconoclastes, 1989. Besides the great heresies of the times of the formation of Dogmas, a more recent heresy like Paulicianism (7th–9th c.) has been studied in: Paul Lemerle, “Histoire des Pauliciens d’Asie Mineure d’après les sources grecques,” Travaux et Mémoires, 5 (1973): 1–144. The Paulician texts were edited in: Charles Astruc, Wanda Wolska-Conus, Jacques Gouillard, Paul Lemerle, Denise Papachryssanthou, Joseph Paramelle, Travaux et mémoires 4 (1970): 2–227; see also: Dmitri Obolensky, The Bogomils, 1948; Nina G. Garsoïan, The Paulician Heresy: A Study of the Origin and Development of Paulicianism in Armenia and the Eastern Provinces of the Byzantine Empire, 1967; Janet and Bernard Hamilton, Christian Dualist Heresies in the Byzantine World, c. 650 – c. 1405, 1998. An outline of the evolution of heresies is Jacques Gouillard’s, “L’hérésie dans l’empire byzantin des origines au XIIe siècle,” Travaux et Mémoires 1 (1965): 299–325. The outcome of the soviet research on Byzantine theology has been bibliographically summed up in sections of the French series Travaux et mémoires. The circle of the Russian theologians exiled in the West after the rise of Communism was very prolific and influential and rightly called the ‘Russian Renaissance’. Interesting figures as to the study of Byzantine theology are: Georges Florovsky (1893–1979; St Gregory Palamas and the Tradition of the Fathers, 1961; Collected Works. Vol. 8: Byzantine Fathers of the Fifth Century; Vol. 9: Byzantine Fathers of the Sixth to Eighth Centuries; Vol. 10: Byzantine Ascetic and Spiritual Fathers, 1972) and Vladimir Lossky (1903–1958), a familiar of the French historian of medieval philosophy Étienne Gilson, who wrote the very influential Essai sur la théologie mystique de l’église de l’orient, 1944. John Meyendorff (1926–1992) was issued from the circle of the Russian exiled; he wrote abundantly on subjects related to Byzantine theology and spiritualism: Imperial Unity and Christian Divisions: The Church 450–680, 1989; St Gregory Palamas and Orthodox Spirituality, 1974; (with Aristeides Papadakis), The Christian East and the Rise of the Papacy: The Church 1071–1453, 1994. To John Meyendorff we owe a summa on Byzantine theology: Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes, 1974. For particular topics, see: Agostino Pertusi, Fine di Bisanzio e fine del mondo. Significato e ruolo storico delle profezie sulla caduta di Constantinopoli, 1988; Gerhard Rottenwöhrer, Unde malum? Herkunft und Gestalt des Bösen nach heterodoxer Lehre von Markion bis zu den Katharen, 1986; Alexander Böhlig, Mysterion und Wahrheit: Gesammelte Beiträge zur spätantiken Religiongeschichte, 1968. On the question of the relations between clerical organization and theology some of the relevant publications are: Hans-Georg Beck, “Kirche und Klerus im
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staatlichen Leben von Byzanz,” Revue des études byzantines 24 (Mélanges V. Grumel, I) (1966): 1–24; Luciana Mortari, Consacrazione episcopale e collegialità. La testimonianza della Chiesa antica, 1969; André Guillou, “L’évêque dans la société méditerranéenne des VI–VII siècles. Un modèle,” Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes 131 (1973): 5–19. Guillou wrote also on the central sentiment of piety (eusebeia) in the Byzantine orthodoxy: “Piété filiale, piété impériale,” Mélanges P. Lévêque 1, 1988, 143–53, offering an approach based on the subjects of mentality and emotions. Separate studies on Byzantine theology we find in the following journal series: Analecta Bollandiana, Brussels, 1882ff.; Acta Sanctorum, ed. Socii J. Bolandi, Antwerpen, 1643ff.; Byzantinoslavica, Prague, 1929ff.; Byzantinische Zeitschrift, Leipzig, 1892ff, Munich, 1950ff.; Byzantion, Brussells, 1924ff.; Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Washington DC, 1941ff.; Ekklesiastikè Aletheia, Constantinople, 1880–1923; Echos d’Orient, Paris-Constantinople, 1897ff.; Epetèris Etaireias Byzantinon Spoudon, Athens, 1924ff.; Neos Hellenomnemon, 1904–1917, 1920–1927; Nea Sion, Jerusalem, 1901ff.; Orientalia Christiana Periodica, Rome, 1935ff.; Revue d’études Byzantines, Paris, 1943ff., etc. From the philologism of the early 20th century that remains a dominant trend in research, and through the outburst of the historical emphasis, we pass to the postmodernism of studies focusing on the peripheral, the decentred, the research on genre literature (Margaret Mullett) and on the relations between knowledge and power in Byzantine theology. See the precursory, Robert Browning, “Enlightenment and Repression in Byzantium in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries,” Past and Present 69 (1975): 3–23, and Paul J. Alexander, “Religious Persecution and Resistance in the Byzantine Empire of the 8th and 9th Centuries: Methods and Justifications,” Speculum 52 (1977): 238–64; Orthodoxie, Christianisme, Histoire, ed. Susanna Elm, Éric Rébillard and Antonella Romano, 2000; Averil Cameron, Christianity and the Rhetoric of the Empire: The Formation of Christian Discourse, 1991; Dion Smythe, “Alexios I and the Heretics,” Alexios I Komnenos, ed. M. Mullett, D. Smythe, 1996, 232–52; Paul Speck, Ich bin’s nicht: Kaiser Konstantin ist es gewesen: Die Legenden vom Einfluss des Teufels, des Juden und des Moslem auf den Ikonoklasmus, 1990; for a different perception of a Cappadocian Father: Gregory of Nazianzus: Images and Reflections, ed. Jostein Bortnes and Thomas Hägg, 2006; and for another basic writer of Byzantine theology: Andrew Louth, St John Damascene: Tradition and Originality in Byzantine Theology, 2002; and also, Byzantine Orthodoxies, ed. Andrew Louth and Augustine Casiday, 2006. In spite of the plurality and abundance of studies, the fragmentation of the Byzantine religious tradition by various scientific disciplines, and in first place by philology, had been so successful that the research often lost track of the specific character of Byzantine spirituality.
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Select Bibliography Albert Ehrhard, “Theologie,” Geschichte der byzantinischen Literatur, ed. Karl Krumbacher 2 vols. (Munich: Beck, 2nd ed. 1897; 1st ed. of 1891, but without the section of Ehrhard; rpt. Burt Franklin Bibliographical Series XIII, New York: Burt Franklin), 37–218; Hans-Georg Beck, Kirche und theologische Literatur im byzantinischen Reich (Munich: Beck, 1959); The Cambridge Medieval History, vol. IV: The Byzantine Empire, Part II: Government, Church and Civilisation, ed. Joan Mervyn Hussey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967; of special interest are the chapters: Emil Herman S.J., “The Secular Church,” 105–34, J. M. Hussey, “Byzantine Monasticism,” 161–84, J.M. Hussey and T.A. Hart, “Byzantine Theological Speculation and Spirituality,” 185–205); John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes (New York and London: Fordham University Press/Mowbrays, 1974); J. M. Hussey, “The Orthodox Church in the Byzantine Empire,” Oxford History of the Christian Church ed. Henry and Owen Chadwick (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986); La théologie byzantine et sa tradition, vol. II, XIIIe–XIXe siècle, ed. Carmelo Giuseppe Conticello and Vassa Conticello (Turnhout: Brepols (Corpus Christianorum), 2002) (two more vols. are expected).
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C Classics and Mythography Although not all Greek and Latin works concern themselves with religion or what later epochs called mythology, myth forms the foundation of classical history and the allusive backcloth to most classical literature. The general study of the classics in the Middle Ages and classical mythology per se, therefore, necessarily overlap. Yet while mythologists and classicists specializing in the Middle Ages both took philological study of European culture as their starting point, their theories and methodologies soon diverged. A. The theory that myth, grammar, and culture share cognate structures, what would later be called structuralism, was a notion born among early nineteenth century German comparative philologists standing at the confluence of historical linguistics and anthropology. Jakob Grimm’s Deutsche Mythologie (2 vols., 1835), which pursued the etiologies of German myths to classical fonts and beyond, transformed a folklore archive into a cultural and linguistic history and source of paradigms for his later philological work, the Geschichte der deutschen Sprache (2 vols., 1848), and Deutsche Grammatik (4 vol., 1819–1837). Alongside other 19th-century scholars such as Franz Bopp in comparative grammar (Vergleichende Grammatik des Sanskrit, Send, Armenischen, Griechischen, Lateinischen, Litauischen, Altslavischen, Gothischen und Deutschen, 3 vol., 1857–1861), and in comparative religion Max Müller (Lectures on the Science of Language, 2 vols., 1862–1865), Anthropological Religion (2 vols., 1890), and James Frazer (The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion, 1892), Grimm helped pioneer an approach to human culture through an analysis of the deep structures that unite culture’s linguistic and psycho-social aspects, structures that reveal themselves at their most naked and unmediated in myth. Further developed in Vladimir Propp’s work on folklore, Morphology of the Folktale (1927), as well as that of that of Annti Aarne and Stith Thompson (The Types of the Folktale: A Classification and Bibliography, 1961), this line of inquiry matured into the myth-based anthropology of Claude LéviStrauss (Anthropologie Structurale, 1958; Mythologiques, I–IV, 1964–1971), and the formalist genre theory of Northrop Frye (The Anatomy of Criticism, 1957).
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Preferring historicism to structuralism, twentieth century medievalists tended not to make distinctions of manner or matter between classical mythology and classical literature. Their scholarly interests ran rather to Rezeptionsgeschichte, that is to the history of rhetoric through the Middle Ages as the conduit through which classical cultural and aesthetic ideals were transmitted to and appropriated by a Christian Europe hungry for sophistication. Ludwig Traube, who coined the terms aetas virgiliana, horatiana, and ovidiana to characterize the 8th–9th, 10th–11th, and 12th–13th centuries respectively (Vorlesungen und Abhandlungen, vol. 2, 1909–1920, 113), popularized the notion that medieval cultural history can be correlated to a canon of classical authors whose particular stylistic influence imprinted an indelible stamp on all aspects of artistic expression in a given age. The cultural homology that Traube found in the medieval Latin inheritance – Europe’s shared romanitas – took shape in and against the climate of racial and cultural division of World Wars I and II, finding oblique expression in Ernst Robert Curtius’s epitome of classical rhetoric in medieval literature European Literature in the Latin Middle Ages (1948). Curtius’s work remains to this day the highwater mark of medieval Geistesgeschichte in which ethics and aesthetics form a unified category accessible entirely through Christianized classicism. The post-war period witnessed a polemicization of medieval source and influence study and the emergence of critical schools of reception. Building on the work of patristic scholars such as Pierre Courcelle (Recherches sur les Confessions de St. Augustin, 1950) and Henri de Lubac (Exégèse médiéval, 1959), D. W. Robertson Jr. argued that Augustinian hermeneutics served as the ineluctable lens through which classical mythology passed into medieval culture: all medieval literature and art taught the distinction cupiditas and caritas, and all classical literature was allegorised tendentiously in the service of Christian morality (“The Doctrine of Charity in Mediaeval Literary Gardens,” Speculum 26 [1950]: 24–49; A Preface to Chaucer, 1963). While detractors chafed at the critical, not to mention cultural reductivism of Robertsonian exegetical historicism, it furnished an acute corrective to wayward interpretations of classical doctrines of love, particularly Ovidian, and their relation to “courtly love” as articulated by such classicizing medievalists of the previous generation as C.S. Lewis (The Allegory Of Love, 1936). If Curtius’ Middle Ages favored a timeless classicism whose aesthetic continuity is extra-historical, and Robertson’s a classicism whose aesthetic is historically contingent, Hans-Robert Jauss offered a compromise. In his 1967 essay “Literaturgeschichte als Provokation der Literaturwissenschaft” (reprinted in Rezeptionsästhetik, ed. Rainer Warning, 1994, 126–62), the medievalist argued that literary historicity exists only at the point of recep-
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tion by the contemporary reader, but that it is possible to derive historically objective local meanings from classical and medieval texts through a system of expectations (Erwartungshorizonte) encoded in the text’s generic, formal and thematic gestures as well as through its aesthetic distance from the source of imitation. With reception theory, Jauss breathed new life into the superannuated study of classical influence in the Middle Ages weakened by the depredations of Marxists and historicists. To be sure, other scholars of classical influence were working independently toward a similar shift from influence to reception in apparent ignorance of Jauss. Thomas Greene’s The Light in Troy (1982), which applies his theory of “dialectical imitation” to late medieval and Renaissance reception of Latin classics, is likewise dedicated to bridging the gap between the historical and aesthetic treatment of literature, while David Quint’s more recent Epic and Empire: Politics and Generic Form from Virgil to Milton (1993) explores the ways in which political ideology is transmitted in myth and encoded in genre. Indeed, Jauss’s theoretical presence among classicists and medievalists grew slowly beginning in the 1980s (J. E. Müller, Literaturwissenschaftliche Rezeptionstheorien und empirische Rezeptionsforschung, 1981; Udo Frings, Antike Rezeption im altsprachlichen Unterricht, 1984; Peter Leberecht Schmidt, “Reception Theory and Classical Scholarship: A Plea for Convergence” Hypatia [1985]: 67–77), eventually achieving a degree of prominence in the work of Charles Martindale who has edited several important collections of essays (Virgil and his Influence, 1984; Ovid Renewed: Ovidian Influences on Literature and Art from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century, 1988; Classics and the Uses of Reception, 2006). The last noteworthy approach to classics and mythology in the Middle Ages is one that has not yet earned a critical cognomen, although somatic theory will suffice provisorily. In The Gods Made Flesh: Metamorphosis and the Pursuit of Paganism (1986), Leonard Barkan traces the reception not of Ovid per se, but of the idea of the metamorphic body as a figural microcosm of larger social, cosmological, and poetic issues present in medieval and Renaissance art and literature. The body, in effect, becomes a metaphor for the connection between social or anthropological evolution of a culture and the classical mythological corpus that both effects and records that change. Barkan’s approach has been refined and extended by Lynn Enterline in The Rhetoric of the Body from Ovid to Shakespeare (2000), Bruce Holsinger in Music, Body, and Desire in Medieval Culture (2001), particularly in the final chapter on Orpheus, and Gregory Heyworth in Desiring Bodies: Ovidian Romance and the Cult of Form (2009).
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B. Bibliography and Transmission Of course, all theoretical work in classical reception in the Middle Ages must be built first on a material knowledge of sources – what texts were available, when, and where – and then, at one remove of abstraction, on a diachronic understanding of the history of manuscript diffusion that defines a textual tradition. Cataloguing the material records of the medieval appropriation of classical literature is a project in many ways more vast and daunting than understanding the cultural and poetic theories guiding that appropriation. Much of the research in the field of classics in the Middle Ages in the past century has been dedicated to the less-than-glamorous disciplines of bibliography and textual transmission. These, in turn, make possible the study of reception. Catalogues of manuscript holdings in classics are an essential instrument for research into influence, reception, and the connections of medieval intellectual life to antiquity. But as Albert Derolez notes (Les catalogues de bibliothèques, 1979), a record of the existence of a classical text at one point in time affords little insight into its history of use, and hence its influence. Thus, while catalogues provide the raw bibliographical repertories, they are only as informative as the collateral data that accompany them. Some of the first bibliographies of classical manuscript holdings to attempt a more ambitiously contextual account are Hans Meier’s two-volume A Bibliography of the Survival of the Classics (1931–33), a project thereafter abandoned, and Max Manitius’s Handschriften antiker Autoren in mitteralterlichen Bibliothekskatalogen (1935). Hilda Buttenwieser’s Master’s thesis “The Distribution of the Manuscripts of Latin Classical Authors in the Middle Ages” (1930) while never published, is a useful resource particularly for the thirteenth century, and is augmented by her subsequent article “Popular Authors of the Middle Ages: The Testimony of the Manuscripts” (Speculum 17 [1942]: 50–55). For Latin manuscripts prior to the ninth century, there is E. A. Lowe’s Codici Latini Antiquiores, vol. 1–12, (1934–1971), supplemented with addenda and corrigenda in 1985 by Bernhard Bischoff and V. Brown (Mittelalterliche Studien 47, 317–66). The next significant bibliographical contribution is a two-volume collection of essays published as La cultura antica nell’Occidente latino dal VII all’XI secolo (1975), a resource rendered nugatory by its extreme scarcity. During the 1980s, the Danish scholar Birger Munk Olsen, the premier bibliographer of classical reception in the Middle Ages, published his four-volume L’étude des auteurs classiques aux XIe et XIIe siècles (1982–1989). Olsen details European manuscript holdings and fragments by author in both public and private collections, important bibliographic material treating each author, and essays on the history of significant collections and col-
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lectors. Paul Oskar Kristeller’s Iter Italicum: A Finding List of Uncatalogued or Incompletely Catalogued Humanistic Manuscripts of the Renaissance in Italian and Other Libraries, vol. 1–6 (1963–1992), while describing mainly late manuscripts, gives a wealth of references to classical texts not found in other catalogues. Finally, there is Bernhard Bischoff’s Manuscripts and Libraries in the Age of Charlemagne (trans. Michael Gorman, 1994), which serves both as a catalogue and as a work of intellectual history. Specialized catalogues of individual libraries abound. Their contribution to bibliography in classical literature of the Middle Ages is narrow, and yet those covering the most important collections deserve mention. Such are Colette Jeudy’s and Yves François Riou’s, Les manuscrits classiques latins de bibliothèques publiques en France (vol. 1, 1989), and Les manuscrits classiques latins de la Bibliothèque Vaticane (ed. Elisabeth Pellegrin, vol. 1–4, 1975–1991). Similarly narrow but important for the study of mythology are the single author manuscript lists for Ovid’s Metamorphoses by Franco Munari (Catalogue of the MSS of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. BICS supplement 4 [1957]); and the supplements by Munari (“Supplemento al catologo dei manoscritti delle ‘Metamorfosi’ ovidiane,” Rivista di filologia e di istruzione classica, 93 [1965]: 288–97; id. “Secondo supplemento al catalogo dei manoscritti delle ‘Metamorfosi’ ovidiane,” Studia florentina A. Ronconi oblata [1970]: 275–80), and Frank Coulson (“Newly Discovered Manuscripts of Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’,” Scriptorium 46 [1992]: 285–88). Also important is Frank Coulson’s and Bruno Roy’s Incipitarium ovidianum: A Finding Guide for Texts in Latin Related to the Study of Ovid in the Middle Ages (2000). For medieval manuscripts of Vergil, see L. Holtz’s “La redécouverte de Virgile aux VIIIe et IXe siècles d’après les manuscrits conservés” (Lectures médiévales de Virgile: Actes du colloque organisé par l’Ecole française de Rome, 1985, 9–30), and his “Les manuscrits carolingiens de Virgile (Xe et XIe siècles),” (La fortuna di Virgilio: Atti del Convegno internazionale, 1986, 127–49); and G. C. Alessio “Medioevo – tradizione manoscritta,” (Enciclopedia virgiliana, vol. 3, 1987, 432–43). Much of the work in classical transmission and textual tradition in the Middle Ages has been undertaken in article form and published diffusely. Several books, however, present the subject in epitome. R. R. Bolgar’s The Classical Heritage and its Beneficiaries: From the Carolingian Age to the End of the Renaissance (1954) is essential, as is his subsequent edited volume Classical Influences on European Culture A.D. 500–1500 (1971). Also seminal are Herbert Hunger’s Geschichte der Textüberlieferung (2 vols., 1961–1964), Leighton Reynold’s and Nigel Wilson’s Scribes and Scholars: A Guide to the Transmission of Greek and Latin Literature (2nd ed. 1974), and Reynold’s later Texts and Transmission: A Survey of the Latin Classics (1983). For the study of textual trans-
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mission in the Middle Ages, three single-author histories deserve mention: Birger Munk Olsen’s “Ovide au Moyen Age (du IXe au XIIe siècle)” (Le Strade del Testo, ed. Guglielmo Cavallo, 1987, 65–96), L. Holtz’s “La survie de Virgile dans le haut moyen âge” (Présence de Virgile: Actes du colloque des 9, 11, et 12 décembre 1976, ed. Raymond Chevallier, 1978, 209–22), and Robert Kaster’s The Tradition of the Text of the Aeneid in the Ninth Century (1990). As bibliographers and textual historians were compiling the material evidence of medieval classical influence and reception, so philologists were recording vernacular borrowings from classical sources. Studies of source, influence, and reception all concern themselves with imitatio in one sense or another, but the object of source study, the earliest intervention in the field, was analogue. Uninflected by theories of intertextuality, classicizing medievalists collected literal, verbatim borrowings in a preliminary effort to demonstrate the habits of medieval classical appropriation. Foremost among these was Edmond Faral whose Recherches sur les sources latines des contes et romans courtois du moyen âge (1913) pioneered investigations into the relationship of the medieval romance to classical models. In general, source study treats medieval popular literature, which is to say genres involved in the invention of a medieval vernacular mythology, namely romance and the fabliau. While source studies modulated relatively early into influence studies as scholars turned their attention from genres to the relationship of individual classical and medieval authors, they endured in work on fabliaux. Thus, Edmond Faral’s “Le Fabliau Latin au Moyen Age” (Romania 50 [1924]: 321–85) was supplemented fifty years later by Peter Dronke’s “The Rise of Medieval Fabliau: Latin and Vernacular Evidence” (Romanische Forschungen 85 [1973]: 275–97), and even today articles on the fabliau and classical influence still appear. C. Reception Medieval culture in Western Europe rests upon the twin pillars of the Bible and classical mythology. Each contributes a discrete aesthetic and ethos. One of the major tasks of medieval scholarship, then, has been to understand the differences and confluences of Christian and pagan mythoi through the literature and art that employ them. The opus is vast. First, the classical sources of mythology are many, the most important of which are Ovid, Vergil, Statius, Homer (or pseudo-Homer), Plato, Varro, Horace, Lucan, Hyginus, Aesop and the late antique authors Boethius, Macrobius, and Martianus Capella. The influence of these canonical authors is in turn mediated by important commentators, Chalcidius or Guillaume de Conches on Plato, Arnulf of Orleans or Alexander Neckam on Ovid, Servius or Bernardus Silvestris on
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Vergil, Remigius or Trivet on Boethius to name but a few, as well as by patristic interpreters and encyclopedists such as Augustine and Isidore of Seville, and christianizing mythographers and allegorizers such as Fulgentius, Lactantius, Claudian, Dracontius, the Vatican mythographers, and Petrus Berchorius. It is not within the scope of this essay to give more than an overview of the most important these. C.1. Ovid Often called collectively the “poet’s Bible,” Ovid’s main mythographic works – Metamorphoses, Ars amatoria, Remedia amoris, Heroides, Fasti – constituted the primary reference manuals for classical myth and Augustan culture in the Middle Ages, acting also as the cultural counterpoise to the Christian Bible. The tension between rival aesthetic and moral systems especially as concerns love, is at the crux of the earliest influence studies. Articulated by Edward Rand (Ovid and His Influence, 1925) and Salvatore Battaglia (“La tradizione di Ovidio nel Medioevo,” Filologia romanza 6 [1959]: 185–224), the dichotomy has endured to the present as manifest in Robert Edward’s The Flight from Desire: Augustine and Ovid to Chaucer (2006). Many early and mid-century studies of Ovid’s medieval Nachleben indulged an actuarial penchant for source-spotting and allusion-counting, a practice that fell into disregard after the publication of Harold Bloom’s Anxiety of Influence (1973) which encouraged critics to search for creative misreadings rather than faithful ventriloquism. Subsequent work in the field has focused therefore on “appropriation” whereby medieval authors consciously recontextualize and culturally reinflect canonical texts rather than forge allegorical harmony from literal discord. John Fyler’s Chaucer and Ovid (1979), a book that treats nearly exclusively Ovid’s amatory writings, represents this trend, as well as that of dual author influence studies. More recently still, Ovidian influence has been considered diachronically in books of collected essays each treating the dialogue of such authors as Chaucer, Gower, Dante, Petrarch with Ovid (Ovid Renewed, ed. Charles Martindale, 1988; The Poetry of Allusion: Virgil and Ovid in Dante’s ‘Commedia,’ ed. Rachel Jacoff and Jeffrey Schnapp, 1991; Desiring Discourse: The Literature of Love, Ovid through Chaucer, ed. James Paxson and Cynthia Gravlee, 1998). The drawback of these essay collections is that they lack a unifying argument that comprehends Ovidian reception as something more than a series of local readings of mythic transformations. The dilemma facing Ovidian commentators and imitators of the Middle Ages turned on how to reconcile his stylistic attractions with his ostensible immorality, or more subtly whether his mores should be understood themselves as a stylistic posture. Early Christians intent on appropriating, or
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merely perpetuating, the sophistication of the classical cultus, what Origen called “plundering the Egyptians,” produced a series of influential allegorizations of the major authors designed to resolve that problem, most prominently of Ovid and Vergil (Jon Whitman, Allegory: The Dynamics of an Ancient and Medieval Technique, 1987). Research into Ovidian commentators and allegorizers falls into two categories: descriptive (historical) and interpretive, the former tracing the various traditions of allegory, and the latter the idea of allegory as a poetic theory or cultural response to paganism. Among the former, Fausto Ghisalberti made seminal early contributions on Arnulf of Orleans (Arnolfo d’Orleans: Un cultore di Ovidio nel secolo XII, 1932) and John of Garland (Integumenta Ovidii: Poemetto Inedito del Secolo XIII, 1933), and Lester Born gives an overview in “Ovid and Allegory” (Speculum 9 [1934]: 362–79), while Jane Chance provides useful, well-documented accounts in chapters one and two of Medieval Mythography (vol. 2, 2000). Among the latter, Jon Whitman’s book (see above) treats medieval allegoresis generally, while Robert Levine (“Exploiting Ovid: Medieval Allegorizations of the Metamorphoses” Medioevo Romanzo XIV [1989]: 197–213), Judson Boyce Allen (“Commentary as Criticism: The Text, Influence, and Literary Theory of the ‘Fulgentius Metaphored’ of John Ridewall” Acta Conventus Neo-Latini Amstelodamensis, ed. P. Tuynman, G. Kuiper, and Eckhard Kessler, 1979, 25–47), and Ralph Hexter (“Medieval Articulations of Ovid’s Metamorphoses: From Lactantian Segmentation to Arnulfian Allegory,” Medievalia 13 [1987]: 63–82) explore issues of poetics and cultural appropriation specific to Ovidian allegoresis. The final important line of inquiry into medieval readings of Ovid has sought to understand popular interpretations through records of Ovid’s corpus and Ovidian commentary as school texts. E. H. Alton’s and D. E. W. Wormell’s “Ovid and the Medieval Schoolroom” (Hermathena 94 and 95 [1960–1961]: 21–38; 67–82), and Ralph Hexter’s Ovid and Medieval Schooling (1986) underscore the primary importance of Ovid’s erotic writing in schools, often interpreted, as Hexter demonstrates, in a frank and literal manner. Gregory Hays gives a brief account of the reception of the most important, late-antique Ovidian commentator as a school text in “Tales out of School: Grammatical Culture in Fulgentius the Mythographer” (Latin Grammar and Rhetoric: From Classical Theory to Medieval Practice, ed. Carol Dana Lanham, 2002, 22–47).
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C.2. Virgil A pagan as near as possible to sainthood as Dantean providence could allow and widely credited in the Middle Ages for prophesying the advent of Christ in the fourth Eclogue, Virgil was never the catalyst of controversy and division that Ovid was. Untainted by problems of irony, political heterodoxy, and moral turpitude, Virgilian influence in the Middle Ages has generated commensurately fewer lines of research, a fact exacerbated first by the overshadowing presence of two works of critical influence, and second, by the lack of a thorough and reliable modern edition of Servius’ commentary. In 1872, Domenico Comparetti published Virgilio nel medioevo which, in its numerous translations and editions, dominated studies of medieval Vergil until Pierre Courcelle’s monumental Lecteurs païens et lecteurs chrétiens de l’Enéide (2 vols., 1984). Both books incline more toward source studies than influence studies and are complementary. Volume one of Courcelle updates Comparetti, compiling Virgilian readings by both patristic and secular authors while volume two provides detailed descriptions and discussions of manuscript illustrations of mythographical themes between the 10th and 15th centuries, the latter serving as a useful prequel to Jean Seznec’s The Survival of the Pagan Gods: The Mythological Tradition and Its Place in Renaissance Humanism and Art (1953). The primary focus of research into the medieval Vergil has been to assess the allegorical interpretations of his major works, particularly the Aeneid and the Eclogues. The Aeneid’s main allegorical interpreters – Fulgentius (6th c.), Bernardus Silvestris (12th c.), and Cristoforo Landino (15th c.) – agree on three salient points: (1) that Vergil followed “Platonic” moral doctrine; (2) that the epic is a Bildungsroman depicting Aeneas’s maturation into pietas or “grace;” (3) that book 6 illustrates a crucial descent to knowledge motif (J. W. Jones, Jr., “The Allegorical Traditions of the Aeneid,” Vergil at 2000: Commemorative Essays on the Poet and His Influence, ed. John D. Bernard, 1986, 107–32; Winthrop Wetherbee, Platonism and Poetry in the Twelfth Century, 1972, 105–06). The Eclogues, by contrast, were read, especially by Servius, as biographical allegory of the author’s political and financial fortunes (James Zetzel, “Servius and Triumviral History in the Eclogues,” Classical Philology 79 [1984]: 139–42; Raymond Starr, “Vergil’s Seventh Eclogue and its Readers,” Classical Philology 90 [1995]: 129–38). While Servius’s biographical conjectures about Vergil were an attempt at an allegorical historicism, non-allegorical readers used the Aeneid, particularly Book 6, as material for medieval legends about Vergil himself as psychopomp, magician (L. virga = magician’s wand), and genius. This latter tradition is taken up by John Spargo in Virgil the Necromancer: Studies in Virgilian Legends (1934), and Jane
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Chance Nitzsche, The Genius Figure in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (1975, esp. 42–64). C.3. Statius Second in influence only to the Ovidian corpus, Statius’ Thebaid and Achilleid served as mythological sourcebooks throughout the Middle Ages (C. Landi, “Stazio nel Medio Evo,” Atti dell’Accademia Padovena 37 [1921]: 201–32). Influence on Dante, Boccaccio, and Chaucer form the central thrust of research into the medieval Statius. Dante is attracted to Statius less poetically than personally, both because of the legend that he converted to Christianity after reading Vergil’s fourth Eclogue and because he may have found his own poetic career echoed in that of Statius (Winthrop Wetherbee, “Dante and the Thebaid of Statius,” Lectura Dantis Newberryana, ed. Paolo Cherchi and Antonio Mastrobuono, vol. 1, 1988, 71–92). Boccaccio’s Thebaid makes a romance of epic, substituting amatory motives (the love of Emilia) for political ones, as does Chaucer’s remaniement of Statius via Boccaccio (David Anderson, Before the Knight’s Tale: Imitation of Classical Epic in Boccaccio’s “Teseida,” 1988). The pseudo-Fulgentian commentary Super Thebaiden, which allegorizes the Thebaid as a psychomachia with Thebes as the soul, ruled by virtue (Laius) and vitiated by carnal desire (Oedipus), may also be of influence on Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale (Boyd Wise, The Influence of Statius on Chaucer, 1967, rpt. of 1911). C.4. Plato The “renaissance” of the twelfth century, as Charles Homer Haskins described it in his classic The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century (1927), was fueled intellectually in large measure by the confluence of Ovidian mythology and Platonic philosophy. Plato’s Timaeus, widely read, provided poets and philosophers with a powerful myth of a rational cosmos, a world of seeming flux superintended by a divinely ordained figure of natural order, what in the Platonising Boethius appears allegorically in the figure of Lady Philosophy, in Alanus Insulis as Nature, and the Romance of the Rose as Raison. Not only did Plato’s rational cosmology of the Timaeus jibe neatly with Biblical genesis, as Thierry of Chartres endeavored to demonstrate in his Heptateuch, but, mediated by the in bono commentary of Arnulf of Orleans on the first book of the Metamorphoses, with Ovidian cosmology and ideology of metamorphosis (Winthrop Wetherbee, Platonism and Poetry in the Twelfth Century, 1973, 11–73). Recent research into medieval Plato, particularly into his influence upon literature and mythography, has failed to discover new lines of inquiry.
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Scholars of the field in the mid- to late 20th century took on the task of distinguishing the various ways in which Plato was used in the service of art, theology and literature – as philosopher, moralist and cosmographer – and with distinguishing among the schools of thought and commentary he provoked – Middle Platonism, neo-Platonism, the School of Chartres. Raymond Klibansky’s overview The Continuity of the Platonic Tradition in the Middle Ages (1939), has been superseded by Stephen Gersh’s Middle Platonism and NeoPlatonism: The Latin Tradition (2 vol., 1986). Of Plato’s readers, St. Augustine is the most influential purveyor of the moral imperative to transcend the worldly for the supersensual that becomes the corner stone of Christian theology (Etienne Gilson, History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages, 1955). Numerous works have treated the commentary on the Timaeus, and the connection between cosmography and myth in the twelfth century, the best of which remain Marie-Dominique Chenu, La théologie comme science au XIIe siecle (1957), and Brian Stock, Myth and Science in the Twelfth Century (1972). C.5. Boethius Writing in the fifteenth century, the Italian humanist Lorenzo Valla commented astutely that Boethius was the “last of the Romans, and first of the scholastics,” accurately placing him between commentator and poetic innovator. Translator and exegete of Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero, theorist of music and arithmetic, and theologian, his single most influential work in the Middle Ages was the Consolation of Philosophy. Second in popularity perhaps only to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the Consolation of Philosophy served as an ideological and mythological counterpoise to the latter (Durant Waite Robertson, A Preface to Chaucer, 1962, 27) for authors such as Jean de Meun, Chaucer, and Petrarch. With more than 400 extant manuscripts of the Consolation of Philosophy alone, and a commentary vaster and more complex still, Boethian scholarship is still in the early stages of sorting out textual history, and editing various commentary traditions as a preliminary step toward authoritative reception study. In the meantime, early studies treating synoptically the life, works and literary influence of Boethius provide a useful general overview. Howard Patch’s The Tradition of Boethius: A Study of his Importance in Medieval Culture (1935), with short chapters on biography and biographical legend, philosophy, translations and influence, is meager. Henry Chadwick’s Boethius: The Consolations of Music, Logic, Theology and Philosophy (1981) is strong on biography, cultural context and and gives the most thorough discussion of Boethian philosophy and logic, omitting the literary influence. Fortunately, the latter is treated thoroughly by Pierre Courcelle La Conso-
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lation de Philosophie dans la tradition littéraire: Antécedents et Posterité de Boèce (1967). The most sophisticated literary and rhetorical interpretation of Boethius’ work in late antique and medieval context, particularly of the Consolation, comes from Seth Lerer (Boethius and Dialogue: Literary Method in the ‘Consolation of Philosophy,’ 1985) who reads Boethius’ dialogical structure as a response to dialogues of Cicero, Augustine and Plato (Timaeus), while making intertextual readings of mythographic technique and motif in Fulgentius (on Aeneas) and Seneca (on Orpheus and Circe). The Latin and vernacular commentary traditions of Boethius – Remigius, Trevet, William of Conches, Alfred – as well as the translations of the Consolation of Philosophy, the most famous of which by Chaucer and Jean de Meun, are a subject too complex for a single author. Overviews of the traditions by Alistair Minnis (The Medieval Boethius: Studies in the Vernacular Translations of the ‘De Consolatione Philosophiae,’ 1987; Chaucer’s ‘Boece’ and the Medieval Traditions of Boethius, 1993) and Maarten Hoenen and Lodi Nauta (Boethius in the Middle Ages: Latin and Vernacular Traditions of the ‘Consolatio Philosophiae,’ 1997) both present the subject in its Hydra-headed enormousness, and correct earlier misconceptions of the commentators (such as Courcelle’s notion that Trevet was an anti-Platonist) was by placing them in the context of medieval scholastic debates. The commentaries of King Alfred are the subject of the ongoing collaborative Alfredian Boethius Project centered in Oxford and directed by Malcolm Godden. D. Mythography Mythography, the systematic collection and critique of a culture’s mythos, begins for Greco-Roman antiquity in Homer, Hesiod, and Pindar, but has its critical origins in Herodotus and Plato who first theorized the relationship of myth to history, literature, and philosophy (Felix Buffière, Les mythes d’Homère et la Pensée Grecque, 1956). In the Middle Ages, Platonic and neo-Platonic interpretation of myth served as the model upon which Christian mythographers systematized classical mythology (Jean Pépin, Mythe et Allegorie: Les origines grecques et les contestations judéo-chrétiennes, 1976; Robert Lamberton, Homer the Theologian: Neoplatonist Allegorical Reading and the Growth of the Epic Tradition, 1986). From Cicero’s De natura deorum, medievals had received the notion that myth was euhemerized history, a theory that flourished in the early medieval mythography of Orosius and Isidore of Seville (Jacques Fontaine, Isidore de Seville et la culture classique dans l’espagne wisigothique, vol. 2., 1959). The long standing connection between astrology and the Olympian pantheon promulgated influentially by Eratosthenes’s Catasterismi and popularized in Latin by Hyginus’s Astronomica, was a mythographic ideology
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opposed by such late antique and early medieval writers as Boethius and Augustine who argued that divine providence and man’s free will can overcome the influence of pagan cosmic deities. The pagan mythographer Macrobius also opposed astrological interpretation of myth after a fashion, arguing for a kind of monotheism whereby all the gods are expressions of the Sun, the cardinal deity. Christian apologists, hungry for classical sophistication, were caught in a desperate quandary: because mythology served as the single frame of reference for classical physics, philosophy, literature, and ethics, Christian apologists wary of irreligion could not simply dismiss it or wholly reinvent it according to a Christian mythos (Gerard Ellspermann, The Attitude of Early Christian Latin Writers Toward Pagan Literature and Learning, 1949, 9). The alternative was to impose a new ideological hermeneutic upon it through allegory. Allegoresis, justified by Biblical precedent, and theorized by patristic writers, became the predominant method of mythography among Christian mythographers beginning with Fulgentius and continuing in the work of the Vatican mythographers (Paule Demats, Fabula: Trois études de mythographie antique et médiévale, 1973; Richard Krill, “The Vatican Mythographers: Their Place in Ancient Mythography,” Manuscripta 23 [1979]: 173–77). Modern research into medieval mythography begins with Thomas Muncker’s annotated edition Mythographi Latini (1681) reprinted and augmented by August van Staveren (1742), that anthologizes Hyginus, Fulgentius, Lactantius Placidus, and Alberic of London. From the late nineteenth century onward, the study of mythography has been shared among the disciplines of art history and philology with the former as the motive force. Aby Warburg and the art historical library and institute he founded at the turn of the twentieth century effectively established iconography as a central modern concern of mythography, a tendency expressed in the work of Fritz Saxl, the Warburg Library’s first curator (Verzeichnis astrologischer und mythologischer illustrierter Handschriften des lateinischen Mittelalters, 2 vols., 1915–1927), and other art historians in Warburg’s circle, among whom Erwin Panofsky (Studies in Iconology, 1939; Meaning in the Visual Arts, 1955). The classic work on the history and iconography of mythography from the Warburg-circle remains Jean Seznec’s La survivance des dieux antiques (= Studies of the Warburg Institute 11, 1940). Scholars of allegory have benefited as well from the iconography of classical myth, particularly the Robertsonians (D. W. Robertson, Preface to Chaucer, 1962; id. and Bernard Huppé, Fruyt and Chaf: Studies in Chaucer’s Allegories, 1963; John Fleming, The Roman de la Rose: A Study in Allegory and Iconography, 1969), and independently Rosemond Tuve (Allegorical Imagery: Some Medieval Books and their Posterity, 1966).
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Theorists of allegoresis, who represent the other main thrust of research into mythography, recognize the importance of the image to mythic narrative, hence Peter Dronke’s notion of the fabula as interchangeably narrative and iconic (Fabula: Explorations into the Uses of Myth in Medieval Platonism, 1974). Purely textual studies of mythography continue to appear, most focusing on the vernacular tradition (Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Reading Myth: Classical Mythology and Its Interpretation in Medieval French Literature, 1997; Jane Chance, The Mythographic Art: Classical Fable and the Rise of the Vernacular in Early France and England, 1990; Jane Chance, The Mythographic Chaucer: The Fabulation of Sexual Politics, 1995). Lacking, however, is a study that combines the art historical and philological approaches to mythography. Jane Chance’s two-volume Medieval Mythography (1994–2000), manages at once to be compendious and superficial, useful for its comprehensive overview of mythographic commentary and for its bibliography, but poor (or wrong) in its interpretation of the sources it covers. Meanwhile, the field awaits the scholar or group of scholars to provide a panoptic view of myth and its medieval reception both in its vastness and minuteness. Select Bibliography Leonard Barkan, The Gods Made Flesh: Metamorphosis and the Pursuit of Paganism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986); Pierre Courcelle, Lecteurs païens et lecteurs chrétiens de L’Enéide, 2 vols. (Paris: Imprimerie Gauthier-Villars, 1984); Ernst Robert Curtius, Europäische Literatur und lateinisches Mittelalter (Bern: A. Francke, 1948); Birger Munk Olsen, L’étude des auteurs classiques latins aux XIe et XIIe siècles (Paris: ed. Du C.N.R.S, Imprimerie Daupeley-Gouverneur, 1982); Jean Pépin, Mythe et allégorie: Les origines grecques et les contestations judéo-chrétiennes (Paris: Editions Montaigne, 1958).
Gregory Heyworth
Codicology and Paleography Introduction: the Beginnings The analysis and history of ancient and medieval writing and book making may be the fields of historical investigation that underwent the most dramatic transformation over the past century. They changed status within the realm of historical studies, passing from ancillary techniques (“sciences auxiliaires de l’histoire” in French; “Hilfsdisziplin” in German) to disciplines of their own. It is a tradition, however, to consider that paleography obtained a
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proper status with the work on ancient Greek writing by the French Benedictine Bernard de Montfaucon (1655–1741), Palaeographia graeca, sive, De Ortu et Progressu Literarum Graecarum: et De variis omnium saeculorum Scriptionis Graecae generibus: itemque de Abbreviationibus & de Notis variarum Artium ac Disciplinarum, Additis Figuris & Schematibus ad fidem manuscriptorum Codicum … 1708 (rpt. [1970]). Whatever the contribution of Montaucon might have been, the interest in, and a certain level of analysis of manuscripts (all medieval) and their writing started as early as the Renaissance, and took much more time to lead to a discipline than the historiographical narrative in the style of the Founding Fathers attributing the origin of paleography to one specific person (in the specific case, to Montfaucon) wants. For practical reasons (principally, the quantity of available studies, the recent expansion of the field, and, consequently, the unavoidable specialization), this essay focuses more on Greek manuscripts and their study in Western scholarship (for a synthetic presentation of manuscript studies, see, for example and recently: The Book Encompassed: Studies in Twentieth-Century Bibliography, ed. Peter Davison, 1992, particularly the following three chapters: Christopher De Hamel, “Medieval Manuscript Studies” [37–45]; Tom Davis, “The Analysis of Handwriting: An Introductory Survey” [57–68]; and John Bidwell, “The Study of Paper as Evidence, Artefact, and Commodity” [(69–82]). With some exceptions, however, it does not consider Latin paleography and codicology (however active the field might have been; for a bibliographic survey, see Leonard E. Boyle [1923–1999], Medieval Latin Palaeograhy: A Bibliograhic Introduction, 1984, and, for an overview of current trends, see for example: Id., Integral Palaeography, 2001, and Classica et Beneventana: Essays Presented to Virginia Brown on the Occasion of her 65th Birthday, ed. Frank Thomas Coulson and Anna Grootjans, 2008; for an instance of specialized study, see Albert Derolez, The Palaeography of Gothic Manuscript Books from the Twelfth to the Early Sixteenth Century, 2003), or any other linguistic area of the Middle Ages. A. Renaissance Collectionism and Knowledge of Manuscripts During the Renaissance, existing collections were further developed and several others were created by individuals often wealthy but also of any rank in society, acting on their own or on behalf of a patron, as well as by all sorts of institutions (civil, religious, or political). Whatever the case, collections were developed or created by transferring a private collection to a civil institution (as it happened, for example, in Venice with Bessarion’s collection [below]), by acquiring entire collections or large group of manuscript (sometimes in loco, for example, from Greeks selling the family collection, as in the case of
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Antônios Eparchos [below], but also by sending agents to the East [e. g., the Greek Janos Laskaris for Lorenzo de’ Medici [below]), by purchasing manuscripts on the market or having them newly copied (intramurally or overseas [for example, Michaêl Apostolês in Creta [below], by copyists hired by a wealthy patron or working independently, alone or in the context of a scriptorium duly organized [see below on copyists and scriptoria]), or simply by seizing entire manuscript collections (by confiscation, peace treatises at the conclusion of a conflict, or any other kind of agreement not necessarily fair). All this happened in Italy and in the trans-alpine world (Andreas Darmarios, for example, in Spain [below]). Much research has been devoted since the 1830s until recently to the search (often presented as a discovery process) and study of manuscripts in the Renaissance with both detailed and synthetic studies. Among the synthetic studies, one could mention the following (chronological order of publication; to allow for contextualization, author’s names are followed [whenever possible] by the years of birth and death at their first mention, except for contemporary scholars): Remigio Sabbadini (1850–1943), La scoperta dei codici latini e greci ne’ secoli XIV e XV, 1905; Robert Ralph Bolgar (1913–1985), The Classical Heritage and its Beneficiaries, 1954; Nigel Guy Wilson, From Byzantium to Italy: Greek Studies in the Italian Renaissance, 1992 (on Greek manuscripts, more specifically); or Paul Oskar Kristeller (1905–1999), “The Search for Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 120 (1976): 307–10. As for detailed studies, many publications have dealt with specific collections (alphabetical order of owners’ name [followed, here as in the whole essay, by the years of birth or death of the collectors in order to allow for historical contextualization; the list is not exhaustive, either for the collectors or for the publications, but aims to be representative of the history of the book and its research; in each section, the selected works are listed in chronological order of publication): Bessarion (1399/1400–1472) Heni Omont (1857–1940), “Inventaire des manuscrits grecs et latins donnés à Saint-Marc de Venise par le Cardinal Bessarion en 1468,” Revue des Bibliothèques 4 (1894): 129–87; Lotte Labowsky (1905–1991), “Manuscripts from Bessarion’s Library Found in Milan,” Medieval and Renaissance Studies 5 (1961): 108–31; Tullia Gasparrini Leporace (1910–1969), and Elpidio Mioni (1911–1991), Cento codici Bessarionei, 1968; Tullia Gasparrini Leporace, “L’ordinamento della bibliotheca Nicena,” Medioevo e Umanesimo 24 (1976): XIII–XX; Lotte Labowsky, Bessarion’s Library and the Biblioteca Marciana: Six Early Inventories, 1979; Concetta Bianca, Da Bisanzio a Roma: Studi sul cardinale Bessarione, 1999 (see especially 43–106: chapter 3: “La formazione della biblioteca latina del Bessarione”); Marino Zorzi,
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“Bessarione e i codici greci,” L’eredità greca e l’ellenismo, ed. Gino Benzoni, 2002, 93–121; Jean Hurault de Boistaillé (†1572): Karl Wilhelm Mueller (1801–1874), “De Boëstallerii bibliotheca greca,” Analecta Bernensia 1 (1839/1840): 2–19 (reproduced in Id., “Der Katalog der griechischen Bibliothek von Boistaillé,” Serapeum 19 [1858]: 161–64, 169–72, and also in Pandôra 20 [1869]: 117–18, 138–40); Henri Omont, “Inventaire des manuscrits de Hurault acquis pour la bibliothèque du roi en 1622,” Anciens inventaires et catalogues de la Bibliothèque nationale, vol. 2, 1909, 404–15; Donald Jackson, “The Greek Manuscripts of Jean Hurault de Boistaillé,” Studi italiani di filologia classica 4th ser., 2 (2004), 209–52; Marie-Pierre Laffitte, “Une acquisition de la Bibliothèque du roi au XVIIIe siècle: Les manuscrits de la famille Hurault,” Bulletin du bibliophile 2008, 42–98; Federico de Montefeltro (1422–1482): Cesare Guasti (1822–1889), “Inventario della Libreria Urbinate compilato nel secolo XV da Frederigo Veterano,” Giornale storico degli archivi toscani 6 (1862): 127–47; 7 (1863): 46–55, and 130–54; Antonio Valenti, Sul trasferimento della biblioteca ducale d’Urbino a Roma: Memorie critiche, 1878; Stanislaus Legrelle, “De ordinibus codicum urbinatum,” Codices Urbinates Latini, ed. Cosimo Stornajolo (1849–1923), vol. 3, 1921, VI*-XXIX*; Fugger family: Paul Lehmann (1884–1954), Eine Geschichte der alten Fuggerbibliotheken, 2 vols., 1956–1960; Johann Jakob Fugger (1516–1585): Brigitte Mondrain, “Copistes et collectionneurs de manuscrits grecs au milieu du XVe siècle: Le cas de Johann Jakob Fugger d’Augsbourg,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 84 (1991–1992): 354–90; Domenico Grimani (1461–1523): Henri Omont, “Notes sur quelques manuscrits grecs de la Bibliothèque archiépiscopale d’Udine provenant du Cardinal D. Grimani,” Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen 12 (1895): 415–16; Theobald Freudenberger (b. 1904), “Die Bibliothek des Cardinals Domenico Grimani,” Historisches Jahrbuch 56 (1936): 15–45; Giovanni Mercati (1866–1957), Codici Latini Pico Grimani Pio e di altra biblioteca ignota del secolo XVI, 1938; Donald F. Jackson, “Grimani Greek Manuscripts in Vienna,” Codices Manuscripti 27/28 (1999): 3–7; Aubrey Diller (1903–1985), Henri Dominique Saffrey, Leendert G. Westerkink (1913–1990), Bibliotheca graeca manuscripta Cardinalis Dominici Grimani (1461–1523), 2003; Diego Hurtado de Mendoza (1503–1575): Gregorio De Andrés, “Dos listas inéditas de manuscritos griegos de Hurtado de Mendoza,” La Ciudad de Dios 174 (1961), 381–96; Id., “La biblioteca de Don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza (1576),” Documentos para la Historia del Monasterio de San Lorenzo el Real de El Escorial, vol. 7, 2, 1964, 235–324; Isodoros of Kiev (between 1380 and 1389–1463): Giovanni Mercati, Scritti d’Isodoro, il cardinale Ruteno e codici a lui appartenuti che si conservano nella Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, 1926; Otto Kresten, Eine Sammlung von Konzilsakten aus dem Besitze des
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Kardinals Isidoros von Kiev, 1976; Ioannês Laskaris (1445–1535): Pierre de Nolhac (1859–1936), “Inventaire des manuscrits de Jean Lascaris,” Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire 6 (1886), 251–74; Léon Dorez (1864–1922), “Un document nouveau sur la bibliothèque de Jean Lascaris,” Revue des Bibliothèques 2 (1892), 280–81; Graham Speake, “Janus Lascaris’ Visit to Mount Athos in 1491,” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 34 (1993), 325–30; Basile Markesinis, “Janos Lascaris, la bibliothèque d’Avramis à Corfou et le Paris. gr. 584,” Scriptorium 54 (2000), 302–306; Nicolao Leoniceno (1428–1524): Daniela Mugnai Carrara, La biblioteca di Nicolò Leoniceno: Tra Aristotele e Galeno: cultura e libri di un medico umanista, 1991; Stefania Fortuna, “A proposito dei manoscritti di Galeno nella biblioteca di Nicolò Leoniceno,” Italia medioevale e umanistica 35 (1992): 431–38.; Ead., “Sui manoscritti greci di Galeno appartenuti a Nicolò Leoniceno e al cardinale Bessarione,” ‘In partibus Clius’: Scritti in onore di Giovanni Pugliese Carratelli, ed. Gianfranco Fiaccadori, 2006, 189–211; Matthias Corvinus (1443–1490): Csaba and Klára Csapodi, Bibliotheca Corviniana, 1967 (in Hungarian; several translations: The Corvinian Library: History and Stock, 1973; Bibliotheca Corviniana: La Bibliothèque du roi Mathias Corvin de Hongrie, 1982); Otto Mazal (1932–2008), Königliche Bücherliebe: Die Bibliothek des Matthias Corvinus, 1991; de’ Medici family: Enea Piccolomini (1844–1910), “Delle condizioni e delle vicende della libreria medicea privata dal 1494 al 1508,” Archivio storico italiano 3rd ser., 19 (1874): 101–29; Id., “Documenti intorno alle vicende della libreria medicea privata dal 1494 al 1508,” ibid., 254–81; Id., “Inventario della libreria medicea privata compilato nel 1495,” ibid. 20 (1874): 51–94; Id., “Richerche intorno alle condizioni alle vicende della libreria medicea privata dal 1498 al 1508,” ibid. 21 (1875), 102–12, 282–96 (the articles in all three issues have been reproduced in 1875 as a monograph with the same title); Francis AmesLewis (b. 1943), “The Inventories of Piero de’ Medici’s Library,” La Bibliofilia 84 (1982): 103–142; Id., The Library and Manuscripts of Piero di Cosimo de’ Medici, 1984; Edmund Boleslav Fryde (1923–1999), Greek Manuscripts in the Private Library of the Medici 1469–1510, 2 vols., 1996; Lorenzo de’ Medici (1449–1492): Enea Piccolomini, “Due documenti relativi ad acquisti di codici fatti da Giovanni Lascaris per conto di Lorenzo de’ Medici,” Rivista di Filologia Classica 2 (1874): 401–23; Karl Konrad Mueller (1854–1903), “Neue Mitteilungen ueber J. Laskaris und die Mediceische Bibliothek,” Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen 1 (1884): 333–413; G. Del Guerraiorgio (1905–1979), “I manoscritti greci di Lorenzo il Magnifico e il rinascimento medico italiano,” Rivista di Storia delle scienze mediche e naturali 43 (1952): 225–34; Donald F. Jackson, “Fabio Vigili’s Inventory of Medici Greek Manuscripts,” Scriptorium 52 (1998), 199–204; Id., “A New Look at an Old
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Book List,” Studi italiani di filologia classica, 3rd ser., 16 (1998): 83–108; Id., “Janus Lascaris on the Island of Corfu in A.D. 1491,” Scriptorium 57 (2003): 137–39; Markesinis, “Janos Laskaris …” (above); Guillaume Pellicier (1498/1499–1568): Richard Foerster (1843–1922), “Die griechischen Handschriften von Guillaume Pellicier,” Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 40 (1885): 453–61; Henri Omont, “Catalogue des manuscrits grecs de Guillaume Pellicier,” Bibliothèque de l’Ecole des Chartes 6 (1885): 45–83 and 594–624; Id., “Catalogue des manuscrits grecs de Guillaume Pélicier, ambassadeur de François Ier à Venise (1539–1542),” Catalogues des manuscrits grecs de Fontainebleau sous François Ier et Henri II, 1889, 393–427; Id., “Inventaire de la bibliothèque de Guillaume Pellicier évêque de Montpellier (1529–1568),” Revue des Bibliothèques 1 (1891): 161–72; Annaclara Cataldi Palau, “Manoscritti greci della collezione di Guillaume Pellicier, Vescovo di Montpellier (ca. 1490–1568): Disiecta membra,” Studi italiani di filologica classica, 3rd ser., 3 (1985): 103–15; Ead., “Les vicissitudes de la collection de manuscrits de Guillaume Pellicier,” Scriptorium 40 (1986): 32–53; Annaclara Palau, “Les copistes de Guillaume Pellicier, évêque de Montpellier,” Scrittura e civiltà 10 (1986): 199–237; Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–1494): Pearl Kibre (1900–1985), The library of Pico della Mirandola, 1936; Mercati, Codici latini Pico … (above); Hermann Walter, “Per la biblioteca di Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: L’inventario anonimo nel cod. Va. lat. 3436, foll. 263r–296v,” Studi Umanistici Piceni 24 (2004): 119–28; Gian Vincenzo Pinelli (1535–1601): Adolfo Rivolta (b. 1876), Contributi a uno studio sulla biblioteca di Gian Vincenzo Pinelli, 1914, and Id., Catalogo dei codici Pinelliani dell’Ambrosiana, Milano, 1933; Angelo Poliziano Ambrogini (1454–1494), more commonly known as Poliziano: Mostra del Poliziano nella Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana: Manoscritti, libri rari, autografi e documenti, ed. Alessandro Perosa (1910–1999), 1954; Augusto Campana (1906–1995), “Contributi alla biblioteca del Poliziano,” Il Poliziano e suo tempo: Atti del IV convegno internazionale di studi sul rinascimento, 1957, 173–229; Ida Maïer, Les manuscrits d’Ange Politien: Catalogue descriptif, avec dix-neuf documents inédits en annexe, 1965; Niccolò Ridolfi (1501–1550): Henri Omont, “Un premier catalogue des manuscrits grecs du Cardinal Ridolfi,” Bibliothèque de l’Ecole des Chartes 49 (1888): 309–24; Giovanni Mercati, “Indici di Mss. Greci del Card. N. Ridolfi,” Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire 30 (1910): 51–55; Roberto Ridolfi (1899–1991), “La biblioteca del cardinale Niccolò Ridolfi (1501–1550),” La Bibliofilia 31 (1929): 173–93; Donald F. Jackson, “Unidentified Medici-Regii Greek Codices,” Scriptorium 54 (2000): 197–208; Royal Library, Paris: Henri Omont, Catalogues des manuscrits grecs de Fontainebleau sous François Ier et Henri II, 1889; Janos Számboki (Johannes Sambucus) (1531–1584): Hans Gerstinger
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(1885–1971), “Johannes Sambucus als Handschriftensammler,” Festschrift der Nationalbibliothek zur Feier des 200 jährigen Bestehens des Gebäudes, 1926, 251–400; Henry (1549–1622) and Thomas (d. 1593 Saville: Mark Sosower (1949–2009), “Greek Manuscripts Acquired by Henry and Thomas (d. 1593) Saville in Padua,” The Bodleian Library Record 19 (2006): 157–184; Henry Scrimgeour (ca. 1505–1572): John Durkan, “Henry Scrimgeour, Fugger Librarian: A Biographical Note,” The Bibliotheck: A Scottish Journal of Bibliography and Allied Topics 3 (1960): 68–70; Id., “Henry Scrimgeour, Renaissance Bookman,” Edinburgh Bibliographical Society Transactions 5 (1978): 1–31; Nicolò Leonico Tomeo (1456–1531): Fabio Vendruscolo, “Manoscritti greci copiati dall’umanista e filosofo Nicolò Leonico Tomeo,” Odoi Dizêsios, Le vie della ricerca: Studi in onore di Francesco Adorno, ed. M. Serena Funghi, 1996, 543–55; Giorgio Valla (1447–1500): Johan Ludvig Heiberg (1854–1928), Beiträge zur Geschichte Georg Vallas und seiner Bibliothek, 1896. No less important, the search of manuscripts, their collection and circulation, and their use among printers and publishers, often in collaboration with scholars and scribes. Although research on Renaissance printers and editions of classical work started early (see, for example, Antoine Augustin Renoir (1765–1853), Annales de l’imprimerie des Aldes, ou Histoire des trois Manuce et de leurs éditions, 1803), the identification of the manuscript source(s) of their editions has only recently become an object of study particularly illustrated by Martin Sicherl (1914–2009), Handschriftliche Vorlagen der Editio princeps des Aristoteles, 1976. The same scholar pursued this type of research and published several studies, which he reproduced later in a volume of collected studies: Id., Griechische Erstausgaben des Aldus Manutius: Druckvorlagen, Stellenwert, kultureller Hintergrund, 1997. Among the many similar publications, one could single out Annaclara Cataldi Palau, Gian Francesco d’Asola e la tipografia aldina: La vita, le edizioni, la biblioteca dell’Asolano, 1998, on the editions by the successor of Aldo Manuzio (1449–1515), Gian Francesco d’Asola (ca. 1498–1557/1559). It is true that the search of manuscripts, collectionism, and the use of the texts found in manuscripts (be it for scholarly studies or for the preparation of printed editions) did not necessarily translate into a specific science. Nevertheless, there was a certain level of practical expertise and knowledge of manuscripts, particularly thanks to the scribes and craftsmen specialized in the business of book (be they local or Greek immigrants) who collaborated to the development or creation of collections. Furthermore, manuscripts were objects of prestige and were used for display of opulence and culture, and thus needed to be properly showcased, something that required to have at least some information on their history, textual interest, and cultural value.
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B. Pre-Montfaucon History In their rediscovery of ancient literature (be it Greek or Latin) through manuscripts – whose circulation, for the Greek ones, increased dramatically in the West after the Fall of Constantinople (29th May 1453) without starting at that moment, however, contrary to an ancient historical interpretation – Humanists, whoever they were, used paleographical and codicological parameters to estimate the value of manuscripts as testimonies of the text(s) they were reading, studying and possibly also editing. In so doing, they followed the philological approach to ancient literary works (including medieval) developed (but not necessarily created) by Poliziano in his Miscellanea, published in two Centuriae (1489 for the first, while the second [achieved between 1493 and 1494] remained unpublished, and was rediscovered only recently and published in 1972: Poliziano, Miscellaneorum centuria secunda, ed. Vittore Branca [1913–2004], and Manlio Pastore Stocchi, 1972 [on this discovery, see Lucia Cesarini Martinelli, and Alessandro Daneloni, “Manoscritti e edizioni,” Pico, Poliziano e l’umanesimo di fine Quattrocento: Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, 4 novembre-31 dicembre 1994, ed. Palolo Vitti, 1994, 308–09]). A sign of this early paleographical and codicological interest can be found in the many critical editions of classical authors by 16th-century humanists: in their triumphalist titles, scholars claimed to have used manuscripts defined as antiquissimi, vetustae antiquitatis, and other paleographicocodicological descriptions supposed to guarantee the quality of the newly published critical editions precisely thanks to the antiquity of the manuscript(s) they were based on (on the humanist meaning of these and similar terms, see Silvia Rizzo, Il lessico filologico degli umanisti, 1973, passim). For a remarkable example, see Conrad Celtis’s discovery of the religious plays and narratives by the 10th-century canoness Hrotsvita of Gandersheim (ca. 935–ca. 1002)in 1493 and his re-edition of her works in 1551. In spite of the subordination of such paleographico-codicological considerations – whatever their value – to the work of critical edition, manuscripts were the object of a more specific interest. They were soon listed and inventoried in more or less systematic ways, with different purposes: private use, heritage, and also consultation by external readers. A fundamental work – though not the first – was by the Swiss polymath Conrad Gesner (1516–1565) often qualified with the title of Father of Bibliography (according to the historiography of the Founding Fathers already evoked, even if such attribution is not necessarily correct) in his Bibliotheca Uniuersalis, siue Catalogus omnium scriptorum locupletissimus, in tribus linguis, Latina, Graeca, & Hebraica extantium & non extantium, veterum & recentiorum in hunc usque diem, doctorum & indoctorum, publicatorum & in Bibliothecis latentium. Opus nouum, & non Bibliothe-
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cis tantum publicis priuatisque instituendis necessarium, sed studiosis omnibus cuiuscunque artis aut scientiae ad studia melius formanda utilissimum, 1545 (with a summary ten years later: Epitome Bibliothecae, 1555). In many cases, the interest in manuscripts at that time was more directly oriented toward the search of texts to be edited and printed, particularly because the printing press was making technical progress and allowed for the reproduction of texts previously known only in manuscript form. The circulation of manuscripts, the printed editions of Latin translations, and commentaries of several classical authors have been studied in the volumes of the Catalogus Translationum et Commentariorum (8 volumes published so far, 1960–2003), originally edited by Paul Oskar Kristeller (1905–1999). The diffusion of ancient scientific works during the century of 1450–1550, for example, has been the object of an inventory by Margaret Bingham Stillwell (1887–1984), The Awakening Interest in Science during the First Century of Printing 1450–1550: An Annotated Checklist of First Editions viewed from the Angle of their Subject Content, 1970. Catalogues of collections and libraries appeared shortly thereafter with such works as Giacomo Filippo Tomasini’s (1595–1655), Bibliothecae Patavinae Manuscriptae publicae et privatae quibus diversi scriptores hactenus incogniti recensentur ac illustrantur, 1639, and Id., Bibliothecae Venetae manuscriptae publicae et privatae quibus diversi scriptores hactenus incogniti recensentur, 1650. Immediately after (1653), the French Jesuit Philippe Labbé (1607–1677) published a list of libraries (and their holdings), together with a list of bibliographies of all kind (Nova bibliotheca mss librorum, sive Specimen antiquarum lectionum latinarum & graecarum in quatuor partes tributarum, cum coronide duplici, poetica et libraria, ac supplementis decem, 1653, with a second edition of the list of libraries in 1657 under the title Novae bibliothecae manuscript. librorum tomus …. In 1664, he published the list of bibliographies as a separate volume, entitled Bibliotheca bibliothecarum curis secundis auctior: Accedit Bibliotheca nummaria …). Published catalogues of manuscripts were not necessarily just lists of codices whose content was cursorily listed, but they began to offer some description of the manuscripts and their texts. Among the catalogues published during the post-Labbé and pre-Montfaucon era, one can list the following examples, with different levels of completion (selection, chronological order of publication [first volume]; for the clarity, the name of the library and city follows the date): 1665, Vienna, Imperial Library: Peter Lambeck (1628–1680), Commentarium de augustissima bibliothecae Caesareae Vindobonensi, 1665–1679; 1676, Leipzig, Library of the Academy: Joachim Feller (1628–1691), Oratio de Bibliotheca Academieae Lipsiensis Paulina: in so-
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lemni XIX. Philosophiae Baccalaureorum renonciatione d. XV. April. Anno Aer. Chri. M.DC.LXXVI. habita, cui duplex subjunctus est catalogus Alter Manuscriptorum membranaceorum, alter manuscriptorum chartaceorum, in eadem bibliotheca extantium; 1690, Vienna, Imperial Library: Daniel De Nessel (1644–1700), Breviarium et Supplementum Commentariorum Lambecianorum sive Catalogus aut Recensio specialis Codicum Manuscriptorum Graecorum, necnon Linguarum Orientalium Augustissimae Bibliothecae Caesareae Vindobonensis, cum locupletissimis Indicibus et selectissimis Additamentis. Partes I–V; 1697, England and Ireland: Edward Bernard (1638–1696), Catalogi codicum manuscriptorum Angliae et Hiberniae in unum collecti, cum indice alphabetico. Characteristically, during the three decades covered by the publication of these catalogues, a reflection started on the impact of available manuscripts on the reading of the texts they contain. Two (almost contemporary) scholars played a fundamental role in these new developments: the Frenchmen Jean Mabillon (1632–1707) and Richard Simon (1638–1712). A Benedictine monk of the Congregation of Saint-Maur, Jean Mabillon formulated first rules for a critical evaluation of manuscripts as testimonies of the texts they contain in his edition of the life of St Bernard (1091–1153) (Sancti Bernardi … Opera omnia …, 9 vols., 1667) and in the Acta Sanctorum Ordinis S. Benedicti to the publication of which he collaborated (several volumes, by century: 1st c.: 1668; 2nd c.: 1669; 3rd c. [2 vols.]: 1672; 4th c. [2 vols.]: 1677–1680; 5th c.: 1685; 6th c. [2 vols.]: 1701). Also, on the basis of his examination of charts and archival documents related to the history of the Church (some of which of discussed authenticity) he laid down the basis of diplomatics in his 1681 treatise De re diplomatica whose title deserves to be quoted in full, as it makes explicit the work performed by Mabillon: De re diplomatica libri VI, in quibus quidquid ad veterum instrumentorum antiquitatem, materiam, scripturam, et stilum; quidquid ad sigilla, monogrammata, subscriptiones, ac notas chronologicas; quidquid inde ad antiquariam, historicam forensemque disciplinam pertinet, explicatur et ilustratur. Accedunt commentarius de antiquis regum Francorum palatiis; veterum scripturarum varia specimina, tabulis LX comprehensa; nova ducentorum, et amplius, monumentorum collectio (with a supplement in 1704 and several re-editions from 1709). Typically, Mabillon traveled to explore library and archive collections for his further works – and in some cases also to acquire manuscripts for the royal collection of France (Flanders, 1672; Switzerland and Germany, 1683; Italy, 1685–1686), reporting the results of his travels in different works: (Flanders) Iter Burgundicum, 1685; (Germany) Iter germanicum anni 1683, s.l.n.d., and also Libri Germanicum or Itererarium Germanicum, 1685 (in the 5th vol. of the Analecta, with a reproduction in 1717 by Johann Albertus Fabricius [1668–1736] under the title Io. Mabillonii
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Iter Germanicum et Io. Launoii De Scholis celebribus a Carolo M. et post Carolum M. in Occidente instauratis liber …); (Italy): Iter italicum litterarium … annis 1685 et 1686, 1687 (with a reproduction of the first part of the 1st vol. as Museum italicum, seu Collectio veterum scriptorum ex bibliothecis italicis, 2 vols., 1687–1689). His major work was his Vetera analecta (Veterum analectorum tomus I[-IV] complectens varia fragmenta et epistolia scriptorum ecclesiasticorum, tam prosa, quam metro, hactenus inedita. Cum adnotationibus et aliquot disquisitionibus, 4 vols., 1675–1685). Richard Simon, studying the text of the Old and New Testament, was less prolific, but not less influential, as he laid down the basis of textual criticism in five seminal studies (in French) published first in Paris and then in Rotterdam because of the opposition of his religious order with a final volume in Paris again: Histoire critique du Vieux Testament, 1678; Histoire critique du texte du Nouveau Testament où l’on établit la vérité des actes sur lesquels la religion chrétienne est fondée, 1689 (rpt.1968); Histoire critique des versions du Nouveau Testament où l’on fait connaître quel a été l’usage de la lecture des Livres sacrés dans les principales Eglises du monde …, 1690; Histoire critique des principaux commentateurs du Nouveau Testament depuis le commencement du christianisme jusqu’à notre temps, avec une Dissertation critique sur les principaux actes manuscrits qui ont été cités dans les trois parties de cet ouvrage …, 1693; Nouvelles observations sur le texte et les versions du Nouveau Testament, 1695. C. The Montfaucon Era Bernard Montfaucon (above) was a contemporary of both Mabillon and Simon, though slightly younger. As early as 1702 he published a Diarium Italicum, sive Monumentorum Veterum, Bibliothecarum, Musaeorum, etc. Notitiae singulares in Itinerario Italico Collectae; adiectis Schematibus ac figuris (rpt. [1968] and 1982) in which he related a travel he made to Italy (1698–1701), collecting information on antiquities, libraries, and any other curiosity worth of notice. With this travel, he confirmed Mabillon’s paradigm for collecting information on library collections and manuscripts. In Italy, he gathered the information that enabled him to publish his 1708 Palaeographia greca, in which he formalized the study of ancient writing, particularly Greek. The antiquarian component present in Montfaucon’s travel to Italy (and dating back to the Renaissance, if not earlier) shaped the work of Johann Albertus Fabricius , whose monumental Bibliotheca Graeca (14 vols. in the original ed.: Bibliotheca Graeca, sive notitia scriptorum veterum graecorum quorumcunque monumenta integra, aut fragmenta exita exstant: tum plerorumque e MSS. ac deperditis, 1705–1728) is a sum of all available information on ancient Greek literature, including data coming from the manuscripts that had been
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brought to the attention of the scholarly community of that time thanks to printed catalogues, or were available in any other form. Catalogues of manuscripts continued to be published, in different styles and with different levels of achievement (chronological order of publication): 1715, Paris: Bernard Montfaucon, Bibliotheca Coisliana, olim Segueriana; 1734, London: David Casley (1681/82–1754), A Catalogue of the Manuscripts of the King’s Library: An Appendix to the Catalogue of the Cottonian Library: Together with an Account of the Books Burnt or Damaged by a Late Fire: One Hundred and Fifty Specimens of the Manner of Writing in Different Ages, from the Third to the Fifteenth Century, in Copper-plates: and Some Observations upon Mss, in a Preface; 1739–1744, Paris: Catalogus codicum manuscriptorum Bibliothecae regiae …; 1740, Venice: Antonio Maria Zanetti (1706–1778), and Antonio Bongiovanni (b. 1712), Graeca D. Marci Bibliotheca codicum manu scriptorum per titulos digesta …. In 1739, Bernard Montfaucon, capitalizing on his personal knowledge of collections and available catalogues, published a general inventory of manuscripts, returning, in a certain way, to the tradition of Gesner (although he no longer proceeded by authors and works, but by libraries) and to the simple listing of manuscripts, not necessarily with any kind of paleographical or codicological information: Bibliotheca bibliothecarum manuscriptorum nova: ubi, quae innumeris pene manuscriptorum bibliothecis continentur, ad quodvis literaturae genus spectantia & notatu digna, describuntur et indicantur, 1739 (rpt. 1982). Publication of catalogues was for a long time the major goal of manuscript studies as the following examples show: 1749, Turin: Joseph Pasini (1687–1770), Antonio Rivautella (1708–1753), and Francesco Berta (1719–1787), Codices manuscripti Bibliothecae regii taurinensis athenaei, per linguas digesti: & binas in partes distributi, in quatrum prima Hebraei, & Graeci, in altera Latini, italici, & Gallici, recensuerunt, & animadversionibus illustrarunt … insertis parvis quibusdam opusculis hactenus ineditis, praeter characterum specimina, & varia codicum ornamenta partim aere, partim ligno incisa, 2 vols.; 1759–1763, London: A catalogue of the Harleian Collection of manuscripts purchased by authority of Parliament for the use of the publick, and preserved in the British Museum; 1764, Paris, Collegium Claromontani (Collège de Clermont): Catalogus manuscriptorum codicum Collegii Claromontani quem excipit catalogus mss. domus professae parisiensis, 1764. 1764–1770, Florence: Angelo Maria Bandini (1726–1803), Catalogus codicum manuscriptorum Bibliothecae Mediceae Laurentianae varia continens opera Graecorum Patrum …, 3 vols. (rpt.: Catalogus codicum manuscriptorum Bibliothecae Mediceae Laurentianae. Accedunt supplementa tria ab Enrico Rostagno et Niccola [sic] Festa congesta necnon additamentum ex inventariis Bibliothecae Laurentianae
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depromptum, ed. Fridolf Kudlien, 1961); 1769, Madrid: Joannes Iriarte (1701–1771), Regiae bibliothecae matritensis codices graeci ms. …; 1780, Vienna: Peter Lambeck, Commentariorum de Augustissima Bibliotheca Caesareae Vindobonensi, liber sextus, ed. Adam Franciscus Kollar (1718–1783), 1780; and 1784, Venice, Nani family: Iohannes L. Mingarelli (1722–1793), Graeci codices manu scripti apud Nanios patricios Venetos asservati, 1784. More careful exploration of collections and increased interest in manuscripts brought to light texts previously unknown and sometimes – if nof often – incorrectly identified and unduly considered as discoveries. The titles of such editions were carefully written so as to make clear that these were first editions based on manuscripts newly located in library collections, such as Johannes Stephanus Bernard (1718–1793), Synesius de Febribus, Que nunc primum ex codice MS. Bibliothecae Lugduno Batavae edidit, vertit, notisque illustravit –. Accedit Viatici Constantino Africano interprete lib. VII. Pars, 1749. Almost fifty years later, the same author edited another medieval work from manuscripts as the title makes clear (with a major difference, however: the ed. was based on several manuscripts cursorily discussed in the Praefatio [vii-xxii], and no longer just one as in the 1749 work): Theophanis Nonni Epitome de Curatione Morborum Graece ac Latine ope codicum manuscriptorum recensuit notasque adiecit, 2 vols., 1794–1795. Also, collections of anecdota were published, for example by the French scholar Jean-Baptiste-Gaspard d’Ansse de Villoison (1750–1805), who studied first in Paris and explored the holdings of the Bibliothèque royale, before sojourning in Venice, where he frequented the Marciana library, befriended with the curator of manuscripts, and published a wealth of previously unknown and unpublished texts: Anecdota graeca e Regia Parisiensi et e Veneta S. Marci Bibliothecis deprompta, 2 vols., 1781. A similar case is provided by the German scholar Christian Friedrich Matthaei (1744–1811), who was a professor at the imperial university in Moscow and explored – and exploited – systematically the holdings of the Synodial (that is, Patriarchal) library. Among the results of his investigations, he published a critical edition of the New Testament in no less than 12 volumes: Nouum Testamentum XII tomis distinctum Graece et Latin textum denuo recensuit, varias lectiones nunquam antea vulgatas ex centum codicibus mss. variarum bibliothecarum … summa diligentia et fide collegit et vulgauit, lectionaria Ecclesiae Graecae primo accurate euoluit singulasque lectiones sedulo indicauit, plerorumque codicum specimena aere expressa exhibuit, priorum editorum … sententias examinauit, editiones etiam alias … inspexit, scholia Graeca maximam partem inedita addidit, commentarios Graecos … notauit … animadversiones criticas adiecti et edidit …, 12 vols., 1782–1788. The title is pretty different from the modest – almost
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anonymous – one of d’ansse De Villoison: Matthaei claims, indeed, to include in his edition variant readings never previously published and compiled from a hundred of manuscripts preserved in different libraries. Also, he provided tables reproducing pages of the codices he used in the preparation of the edition. Later on (1805), Matthaei published a catalogue of the manuscripts in the Synodial collection (Accurata codicum Graecorum mss. bibliothecarum Mosquensium Sanctissimae Synodi notitia et recensio, 2 vols., 1805) and, shortly after (1808), he edited a collection of medical fragments extracted from a manuscript in the Moscow collection: XXI Veterum et Clarorum Medicorum Graecorum Varia Opuscula. Prima nunc impensis Anastasii, Nicolai, Zoës, et Micahëlis, fratrum Zosimadarum Ioanninorum, de litteris graecis intra et extra patrima suam optime meritorum ex Oribasii codice mosquensi graece edidit, interpretationem latinam Io. Baptistae Rasarii item suas animadversiones et Indicem vacabulorum adjecit, 1808. More careful inspection of library holdings in many European libraries and editorial activity made it possible to renew the encyclopedias of ancient works available until then, with, among others, a new edition of Fabricius’s Bibliotheca greca that updated the original information of the author and included also new analytical chapters based on data compiled from manuscripts and from the scholarly literature available at that time: Johann Albertus Fabricius, Bibliotheca graeca sive notitia scriptorum veterum graecorum quorumcumque monumenta integra aut fragmenta edita exstant tum plerorumque e mss. ac deperditis ad auctore recognita. Editio nova variorum curis emendatior atque auctior curante Gottlieb Christophoro Harles. Accedunt Iohannis Alberti Fabricii et Christophi Augusti Heumanni (1681–1763) supplementa inedita, 5 vols., 1790–1807 (rpt. 1966–1970). Similarly, the genre of specialized encyclopedias was renewed (among other reasons thanks to a better knowledge of manuscript evidence) as shown by the scientific encyclopedias by the Swiss physician Albrecht von Haller (1708–1777), in which ancient works are abundantly mentioned and referred to (chronological order of publication): Bibliotheca botanica, 2 vols., 1771–1772; Bibliotheca anatomica, 1774; Bibliotheca chirurgica, 2 vols., 1774–1775; Bibliothecae medicinae practicae, 4 vols., 1776–1788. C. Travels, Catalogues, Ecdotics The troubled period of the late 18th and early 19th century affected many libraries as several private or institutional collections (among others those of the religious communities in France) changed owners. As a consequence, the circulation of books on the market increased dramatically. The English bibliographer Thomas Frognall Dibdin (1776–1847), for example, toured
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Europe to acquire books on this new market, and authored an Introduction to the Knowledge of Rare and Valuable Editions of the Greek and Latin Classics (1802) (on him and his activity, see Edward John O’Dwyer, Thomas Frognal Dibdin: Bibliographer & Bibliomaniac Extraordinary, 1967), while the Frenchman JacquesCharles Brunet (1780–1867) wrote his famous Manuel du libraire et de l’amateur de livres (1810), typically illustrating the renewed interest in books in the post-Napoleonic era. Awareness of the interest of the information contained in manuscripts was rising, sometimes in a community different from that of library curators, classical scholars, and book collectors. An example is provided by the English botanist John Sibthorp (1758–1796) who described the flora of Greece. In order to take advantage of historical resources before beginning his field work, he stopped in Vienna on his way to Greece in 1786 where he examined two illustrated copies of the herbal extracted from Dioscorides (1st c. C.E.), De materia medica, which was the most important botanical work produced in antiquity. One of these two copies is the early 6th-century manuscript now at the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, medicus graecus 1, and the other the 7th-century manuscript now in Naples. Sibthorp also visited Mount Athos in 1787 where he inspected a codex of Dioscorides, which might be the mid-11th-century copy in the collection of the Megisti Lavra Monastery. Perhaps such awareness (or classicizing assumption, instead) contributed to the subsequent development of travels to visit libraries and personally inspect manuscript collections and single codices on the model of Mabillon and Montfaucon. A pioneer in the early 19th century was the German scholar Friedrich Reinhold Dietz (1804–1836) of Königsberg. In preparing critical editions of classical medical texts, he traveled throughout Germany, Italy, Spain, France, and Britain systematically searching for codices. The titles of his editions make it clear: Galeni de dissectione musculorum et de consuetudine libri: Ad fidem codicum manuscriptorum alterum secundum, primum alterum graece edidit, 1832; Analecta medica ex libris mss., 1833; Apollonii Citiensis, Stephani, Palladii, Theophili, Meletii, Damasci, Ioannis aliorum Scholia in Hippocratem et Galenum e codicibus mss. Vindobonens. Monacens. Florentin. Mediolanens. Escorialens. etc., 2 vols., 1834 (rpt. 1966); Severi Iatrosophistae De clysteribus liber: Ad Fidem Codicis Manuscripti unici Florentini primum Graece edidit, 1836. Whatever the rationale of this renewed interest, manuscript studies began to develop greatly, even though traditional cataloguing continued at the same time, with catalogues by libraries such as Ignatius Hardt (1749–1811), Catalogus codicum manuscriptorum graecorum Bibliothecae Regiae Bavaricae, 5 vols., 1806–1812, and also more comprehensive catalogues by
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areas as Gustav Friedrich Haenel (1792–1878), Catalogi Librorum Manuscriptorum qui in Bibliothecis Galliae, Helvetiae, Belgii, Britanniae M., Hispaniae, Lusitaniae asserrantur, 1830 (rpt. 1976). The several European countries where manuscripts began to be studied more properly, approached such study differently – among others on the basis of their own scholarly tradition(s) – and gradually developed differentiated orientations (almost methodological schools) that have had (and probably still have) a long-term impact on the discipline. One such orientation is the search and analysis of manuscripts aimed at (and subordinated to) the critical edition of texts. This was particularly the case in Germany as the example of Dietz suggested. Editorial activity was prosperous then, particularly because scholars launched large-scale programs, pre-industrial printing allowed for audacious endeavours, and scholars and librarians took the risk of creating publishing companies. One of these vast edition and publishing projects was the Medicorum Graecorum opera quae exstant directed by the physician and classical scholar Karl Gottlob Kühn (1754–1840). Whereas the initial project included the works of Hippocrates, Dioscorides, Galen, Aretaeus, Oribasius, Aetius, and Paul of Egina in 28 volumes, only the volumes on the first four appeared between 1821 and 1833. Kühn himself edited Hippocrates (3 vols., [nos. 21–23 of the Corpus], 1825–1827), Galen (20 vols., [nos. 1–20], 1821–1833), and Aretaeus (1 vol., [no. 24], 1828). Dioscorides (2 vols., [nos. 25–26], 1829–1830, including the two treatises On Venoms and On Poisons ascribed to Dioscorides), was edited by the botanist and classical scholar Kurt Sprengel (1766–1833). While Kühn mainly reproduced the text of previous editions (for Galen, see vol. 1 [1821], IX–XIII, where Kühn explains that he reproduced the edition of René Chartier [1572–1654] published in Paris, in part posthumously, from 1639 to 1679, and that he collated the manuscripts that he could find, together with the corrections and conjectures by Joseph Scaliger [1540–1609] and Janus Cornarius [1500–1558]; on the Aretaeus edition, see Carolus Hude, Aretaeus, 1958, X), Sprengel collected variant readings from codices on the basis of a personal inspection of manuscripts (enumerated and briefly described in the preface) or through collations reported in existing printed editions as the title page explicitly mentions. Editorial activity, which was by no means limited to medical and scientific treatises but covered the whole range of classical texts, was theorized at that time by the German classical philologist Karl Lachmann (1793–1851). In his many critical editions, he applied rules aiming to be objective in the selection of the manuscripts to be used as sources and in the choice of their possible variant readings (his method has been studied in detail by Sebas-
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tiano Timpanaro [1923–2000], La genesi del metodo di Lachmann, 1963 [several reprints]; English trans.: The Genesis of Lachmann’s Method, Glenn W. Most [ed. and trans.], 2005, which includes an analysis of Timpanaro’s contribution to the history of ecdotics). Lachmann, however, did not formulate an explicit theory of ecdotics, something that did slightly later the Danish philologist Jean-Nicolas Madvig (1804–1886) in his edition of Cicero, De finibus (1839). Another approach to manuscript studies was the systematic cataloguing of large collections formed by the acquisition en bloc of earlier collections over the centuries. This was particularly the case in the United Kingdom, where such libraries as the British Museum (now British Library) in London, and the Bodleian at Oxford required continued effort. At the British Museum, many such collections were merged, and the immense collection resulting from these successive accretions was gradually catalogued further, starting with Samuel Ayscough (1745–1804), A Catalogue of the Manuscripts Preserved in the British Museum, hitherto undescribed, Consisting of Five Thousand Volumes, including the Collections of Sir Hans Sloane, Bart., the Rev. Thomas Birch, D.D. and about Five Hundred Volumes Bequeathed, Presented, or Purchased at Various Times, 2 vols., 1782. This first work was followed by a series of others: Joseph Planta (1744–1827), A Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Cottonian Library deposited in the British Museum, 1802; Robert Nares (1753–1829), A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols., 1808–1812; Josiah Forshall (1795–1863), Catalogue of Manuscripts in the British Museum, New Ser., vol. 1, part 1: The Arundel Manuscripts, 1834; vol. 1, part 2: The Burney Manuscripts, 1840; Frederic Madden (1801–1873), and Edward-Augustus Bond (1815–1898), Index to the Additional Manuscripts with those of the Egerton Collection preserved in the British Museum and Acquired in the Years 1783–1835, 1849. Then, the recent acquisitions were listed in periodical publications, following an irregular calendar: List of Additions made to the Collections in the British Museum in the Year 1831, 1833; List [2] … 1833, 1835; List [3] … 1834, 1837; List [4] … 1835, 1839; List [5] … 1836–1840, 1843; Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1841–1845, 1850; Catalogue [2] … 1846–1847, 1864; Catalogue [3] … 1848–1853, 1868; Catalogue [4] … 1854–1875, 3 vols., 1875–1880; Catalogue [5] … 1876–1881, 1882; Catalogue [6] … 1882–1887, 1889; Catalogue [7] … 1888–1893, 1894; Catalogue [8] … 1894–1899, 1901; Catalogue [9] … 1900–1905, 1907; Catalogue [10] …, 1906–1910, 1912; Catalogue [11] … 1911–1915, 1925; British Museum, Catalogue of Additions to the Mss, 1916–1920, 1933; British Museum, Catalogue [2] … 1921–1925, 1950. The strategy at the Bodleian Library was slightly different: its several collections were catalogued one by one in a somewhat summary form by
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three generations of classical scholars, starting with Thomas Gaisford (1779–1855), Codices manuscripti et impressi, cum notis manuscriptis, olim d’Orvilliani, qui in Bibliotheca Bodleiana apud Oxonienses adservantur, 1806, and Catalogus sive notitia manuscriptorum qui a Cel. E.D. Clarke comparati in Bibliotheca Bodleiana adservantur, vol. 1, 1812. He was followed by Henry O. Coxe (1811–1881), who worked on most of the collections of Greek manuscripts and also on some Latin codices: Catalogi Codicum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecae Bodleianae, Pars Prima Recensionem Codicum Graecorum Continens, 1853; Catalogi Codicum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecae Bodleianae Pars Tertia Codices Graecos et Latinos Canonicianos Complectens, 1854. Then, all the still uncatalogued collections and items were systematically included in a comprehensive short-title catalogue, whose publication extended from the end of the 19th century to well into the 20th: Falconer Madan (1851–1935), A Summary Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford which have not hitherto been catalogued in the Quarto Ser. with References to the Oriental and Other Manuscripts, vol. 3: Collections Received during the 18th Century, Nos 8717–16669, 1895; vol. 4: Collections Received during the First Half of the 19th Century, Nos. 16670–24330, 1897; vol. 5: Collections Received during the Second Half of the 19th Century and Miscellaneous Manuscripts Acquired between 1695 and 1890, Nos 24331–31000, 1905. This monumental work was further completed going backward in time by Madan in collaboration with Herbert H. E. Craster (1879–1959): vol. 2, 1st part: Collections Received before 1600 and Miscellaneous Mss acquired during the First Half of the 17th Century, Nos 1–3490, 1922; vol. 2, 2nd part: Collections and Miscellaneous Mss acquired during the Second Half of the 17th Century, Nos 3491–8716, 1937. Once the whole catalogue of the collections and items acquired in the past was completed, Madan and Craster covered the current acquisitions: vol. 6: Accessions 1890–1915, Nos. 31001–37299, 1924. The libraries of the several colleges oxonienses were catalogued altogether by Henry O. Coxe, Catalogus codicum MSS. qui in collegiis aulisque Oxoniensibus hodie adservantur, 2 vols., 1852. However, the catalogue of a single library was published shortly after: George William Kitchin (1827–1912), Catalogus Codicum MSS. qui in Bibliotheca Aedis Christi apud Oxonienses adservantur, 1867. At Cambridge, Oxford’s first strategy was followed for the University Library (Henry Richards Luard [1825–1891], A Catalogue of the Manuscripts preserved in the Library of the University of Cambridge, 5 vols., 1856–1867), whereas Oxford’s second strategy was adopted for the many colleges. It was the merit of Montague Rhodes James (1826–1936) to catalogue almost all from 1895 to 1913: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts others than Oriental in the Library of King’s College, 1895; A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in
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the Library of Sidney Sussex College, 1895; A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Peterhouse, 1899; The Western Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College. A Descriptive Catalogue, 4 vols., 1900–1904; The Western Manuscripts in the Library of Emmanuel College, 1904; A Descriptive Catalogue of the Western Manuscripts in the Library of Queen’s College, 1905; A Descriptive Catalogue of the Western Manuscripts in the Library of Christ’s College, 1905; A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Pembroke College, 1905; A Descriptive Catalogue of the Western Manuscripts in the Library of Clare College, 1905; A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Gonville and Caius College, 2 vols., 1907–1908 (with a Supplement in 1914); A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the College Library of Magdalene College, 1909; A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Corpus Christi College, 1912; A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of St John’s College, 1913. A more analytical approach was preferred in France. Nevertheless, printed editions of classical and medieval texts, which were not necessarily prepared on the basis of an exhaustive census of manuscripts and a first codicological and paleographical analysis contrary to what was happening in Germany at the same time, continued to be published. An example of this editorial practice is the Patrologiae (Greek and Latin) by the Maurist JacquesPaul Migne (1800–1875) (on the whole enterprise, see R. Howard Bloch, God’s Plagiarist: Being an Account of the Fabulous Industry and Irregular Commerce of the Abbé Migne, 1994). The edition of the complete work of Hippocrates in 10 vols. (1839–1861) by the French scholar Emile Littré (1801–1880) indicates a substantially different orientation (that is, the direct examination of manuscripts), which Charles Daremberg (1817–1872) followed. He visited several libraries in Europe, searching for medical manuscripts in order to publish a Bibliothèque des médecins grecs et latins (see his prospectus: Bibliothèque des médecins grecs et latins, publiée avec le concours de médecins érudits de la France et de l’étranger: Prospectus et spécimen, 1847). Although he could not publish his Bibliothèque, Daremberg made groundbreaking work, with an accurate description of manuscripts that he published in the reports of his research travels: “Rapport adressé à M. le Ministre de l’Instruction Publique par … chargé d’une mission médico-littéraire en Allemagne,” Journal général de l’instruction publique 14.33 (1845): 193–96, and 14.34 (1845): 198–202 (also printed as a booklet under the same title, 1845); “Résumé d’un voyage médico-littéraire en Angleterre lu à l’Académie des inscriptions et belle-lettres, dans la séance du 6 octobre,” Gazette médicale de Paris 4 novembre 1848; Notices et extraits des manuscrits médicaux d’Angleterre, 4 fascicles, 1851–1852 (with a new ed. under the title Notices et extraits des manuscrits médicaux grecs, latins et français, des principales bibliothèques de l’Europe, 1st part: Manuscrits grecs d’Angle-
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terre suivis d’un fragment de Gilles de Corbeil et de scolies inédites sur Hippocrate, 1853). Such method was adopted also by a Greek ophthalmologist interested in the history of medicine and doing research in Paris: Georges A. Costomiris (1849–1902) (sometimes also spelled Kostomoiris). He browsed, indeed, the collections of the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris, and compiled also information from printed catalogues of collections worldwide. On this basis, he published a series of inventories of Greek medical manuscripts (“Études sur les écrits inédits des anciens médecins grecs et ceux dont le texte original est perdu, mais qui existent en latin ou en arabe. Première série: Hippocrate, Cratevas, Aelius Promotus, Galien,” Revue des Etudes Grecques 2 [1889]: 343–83; “Études sur les écrits inédits des anciens médecins grecs. Deuxième série: L’Anonyme de Daremberg, Métrodora, Aétius,” Revue des études grecques 3 [1890]: 145–79; “Études sur les écrits inédits des anciens médecins grecs. Troisième série: Alexandre (Sophiste et Roi), Timothée, Léon le Philosophe, Théophane Nonnos, les Ephodes,” Revue des Etudes Grecques, 4 [1891]: 97–110; “Études sur les écrits inédits des anciens médecins grecs. Quatrième série: Hippiatriques et auteurs du XIe siècle: Psellus, Siméon Seth, Damnastès,” Revue des Etudes Grecques 5 [1892]: 61–72; “Études sur les écrits inédits des anciens médecins grecs. Cinquième série: XIIe–XIVe siècles. Jean Tzetzès. Nicolas Myrepsus. Jean Actuarius,” Revue des Etudes Grecques 10 [1897]: 405–45). During the same period, a curator of ancient manuscripts at the Bibliothèque nationale, Henri Auguste Omont, opted for a different strategy, closer to that of the British Museum. He published, indeed, many summary catalogues of manuscript collections of different size (chronological order): Inventaire sommaire des manuscrits du supplément grec de la Bibliothèque nationale, 1883; “Inventaire sommaire des manuscrits grecs des Bibliothèques Mazarine, de l’Arsenal et de Sainte-Geneviève à Paris,” Mélanges Graux: Recueil de travaux d’érudition classique dédié à la mémoire de Charles Graux, maître de conférences á l’Ecole pratique des hautes études et à la Faculté des lettres de Paris, bibliothécaire à la Bibliothèque de l’Université; né à Vervins le 23 novembre 1852, mort à Paris le 13 janvier 1882, 1884, 305–20; Catalogue des manuscrits grecs de la bibliothèque royale de Bruxelles et des autres bibliothèques publiques de Belgique, 1885; “Catalogue des manuscrits grecs des Bibliothèques de Suisse: Bâle, Berne, Einsiedeln, Genève, Saint-Gall, Schaffouse et Zurich,” Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen 3 (1886): 385–452; and his monumental Inventaire sommaire des manuscrits grecs de la Bibliothèque nationale et des autres bibliothèques de Paris et des Départements, 4 vols., 1886–1898. A similar activity took place across Europe, with some individuals emerging as major catalographers (alphabetical order of country names; within
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each section, chronological order; selection): Denmark: Charles Graux (1852–1882), Notices sommaires des manuscrits grecs de la grande Bibliothèque royale de Copenhague, 1879; Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean: Athanasios Papadopoulos-Kerameus (1856–1912), Ekthesis peri tôn en tê bibliothêkê tês Palaias Phôkaias ellênikôn cheirografôn, 1876; Id., Katalogos tôn cheirografôn tês en Smurnê bibliothêkês tês Euaggelikês Scholês, 1877; Id., Katalogos tôn en tais bibliothêkais tês nêsou Lesbou ellênikôn cheirografôn, 1888; Id., Ierosolumitikê Bibliothêkê, êtoi Katalogos tôn en tais bibliothêkais tou agiou apostolikou te kai katholikou orthodoxou patriarchikou thronou tôn Ierosolumôn kai pasês Palestinês apokeimenôn ellênikôn kôdikôn, 5 vols., 1891–1915; Iôannês (1815–1891) and Alkibiadês Sakkelion, Katalogos tôn cheirografôn tês bibliothêkês Ellados, 1892; Spyridon P. Lambros (1851–1919), Catalogue of the Greek Manuscripts on Mount Athos, 2 vols., 1895–1900; Athanasios Papadopoulos-Kerameus, Katalogos tôn ellênikôn cheirografôn tês Mêleais bibliothêkais, 1901; Sophrônios Eustratiadês, Katalogos tôn en tê monê Vlateôn (Tsaous-monastêri) apokeimenôn kôdikôn, 1918; Id., Katalogos tôn kôdikôn tês monês Batopediou, 1921; Sophrônios Eustratiadês, and Arkadios of Batopedi, Catalogue of the Greek Manuscripts in the Library of the Monastery of Vatopedi on Mount Athos, 1924; Spyridon Lauriotês, and Sophrônios Eustratiadês, Catalogue of the Greek Manuscripts in the Library of the Laura on Mount Athos, with Notices from Other Libraries, 1925; Italy: Giuseppe Valentinelli (1805–1874), Bibliotheca manuscripta ad S. Marci Venetiarum, 6 vols., 1868–1873; Emilio Martini (1852–1940), Catalogo di Manoscritti greci esistenti nelle Biblioteche italiane, 2 vols., 1893–1902; Vittorio Puntoni (1859–1926), “Indice dei codici greci della Biblioteca Estense di Modena,” Studi italiani di filologia classica 4 (1896), 379–536; Emilio Martini (1852–1940), and Domenico Bassi (1859–1942), Catalogus codicum graecorum Bibliothecae Ambrosianae, 1906; Seymour de Ricci (1881–1942), “Liste sommaire des manuscrits grecs de la Bibliotheca Barberina,” Revue des Bibliothèques 17 (1907): 81–125); the Netherlands: Jacobus Geel (1789–1862), Catalogus librorum manuscriptorium qui inde ab anno 1741 Bibliothecae Lugduno-Batavae accesserunt, vol. 1: Codices graeci, vol. 2: Codices latini; vol. 3: Libri recentiores, 1852; Philip Christian Molhuijsen (1870–1944), Codices Scaligerani (praeter Orientales), 1910; Portugal and Spain: Emmanuel Miller (1810–1886), Catalogue des manuscrits grecs de la Bibliothèque de l’Escurial, 1848; Charles Graux, “Rapport sur une mission en Espagne,” Archives des Missions scientifiques et littéraires, 3e série, 5 (1879): 111–36; Charles Graux, and Albert Martin (1844–1912), Notices sommaires des manuscrits grecs d’Espagne et de Portugal, 1892, and Rudolf Beer (1863–1913), Handschriftenschätze Spaniens: Bericht über eine im Auftrage der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften in den Jahren 1886–1888 durchgeführte Forschungsreise, 1894; Vatican City: Henry M. Ste-
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venson (1818–1898), Codices manuscripti palatini graeci bibliothecae Vaticanae, 1885; Id., Codices manuscripti graeci Reginae Suecorum et Pii PP. II Bibliothecae Vaticanae, 1888; Cosimo Stornajolo, Codices Urbinates Graeci Bibliothecae Vaticanae, Rome, 1895. D. Fresh Activity However Herculean it might have been, the task of cataloguing these and many other collections contributed to the development of a specific paleographical and codicological approach. This dynamic relationship is particularly illustrated by the development of investigations on the history of libraries and collections, and such cataloguer as Henri Omont, curator of manuscripts at the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris and author of the catalogues mentioned above. If he worked on collections at the origin of the Bibliothèque nationale (“Un premier catalogue des manuscrits grecs …” [above], and Catalogues des manuscrits grecs … [above]), he also investigated other, non-French collections, for example: “Inventaire des manuscrits grecs et latins donnés à Saint-Marc …” (above) and “Notes sur quelques manuscrits grecs …” (above). In so doing, he was not a pioneer, however, as this type of historical investigation had started before him. To the examples above, one could add among others: Richard Foerster, De Antiquitatibus et Libris Manuscriptis Constantinopolitanis Commentatio, 1877, and Karl von Christ (b. 1878), “Zur Geschichte der griechischen Handschriften der Palatina, “Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen 36 (1919): 3–34; 49–66. Significantly, new journals on the history of libraries and archives were created during the second half of the 19th century, such as the Giornale storico degli archivi toscani 1 (1857), Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen 1 (1884), and Revue des Bibliothèques 1 (1891). In one case at least, this new type of inquiry did not grow out of intellectual curiosity, but was probably linked to contemporary circumstances: the collection of manuscripts formed by Guillaume Pellicier, which was acquired in 1764 by the Dutch book collector Gerard Meerman (1722–1771) after several other intermediary passages and in 1824 by the famous British collector Thomas Phillipps (1792–1872), was purchased by Germany after Phillipps’s death (on the history of the collection, see recently Jos van Heel, “From Venice and Naples to Paris, The Hague, London, Oxford, Berlin …: The Odyssey of the Manuscript Collection of Gerard and Johan Meerman,” Book on the Move: Tracking Copies through Collections and the Book Trade, ed. Robin Myers, Michael Harris, and Giles Mandelbrote, 2007, 87–111). On the occasion of their acquisition by Germany, the manuscripts were catalogued by Wilhem Studemund (1843–1889), and Leopold Cohn (1856–1915), Verzeich-
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niss der griechischen Handschriften der Königlichen Bibliothek zu Berlin, 1st part: Codices ex Bibliotheca Meermanniana Phillippici Graeci nunc Berolinenses, 1890. During the same period, paleography was developing. In 1866, the specialist of primary sources (Urkunden) (manuscripts and archives) Wilhelm Wattenbach (1819–1897) published his Beiträge zur lateinischen Paläographie, 1866 (2nd ed. 1872; 3rd ed. 1878; 4th rev. ed. 1886 [rpt. 1971]), followed in 1867 by: Anleitung zur griechischen Palaeographie, 1867 (2nd ed. 1877; 3rd ed. 1895 [rpt. 1971]), and, four years later, by a more general work: Das Schriftwesen im Mittelalter, 1871 (2nd rev. ed. 1875; 3rd rev. ed. 1896; 4th ed. 1958). This initial impetus was taken over by Viktor Emil Gardthausen (1843–1928), who started with Griechische Palaeographie, 1879, and also catalogued two collections: Catalogus codicum graecorum sinaiticorum, 1886; and Katalog der griechischen Handschriften der Universitätsbibliothek zu Leipzig, 1898. Between Gardthausen’s initial work and his catalogues, Theodor Birt (1852–1933) authored a more comprehensive work on the history of ancient book: Das antike Buchwesen in seinem Verhältniss zur Literatur, mit Beiträgen zur Textgeschichte des Theokrit, Catull, Properz und anderen Autoren, 1882, followed, in 1907, by Die Buchrolle in der Kunst: Archäologisch-antiquarische Untersuchungen zum antiken Buchwesen. Ten years after Das antike Buchwesen, the classical philologist, editor of texts, and theoretician of textual criticism Friedrich Blass (1843–1907) wrote the chapter “Palaeographie, Buchwesen und Handschriftenkunde,” of the Handbuch der klassischen Altertums-Wissenschaft, vol. 1: Einleitende und Hilfsdisziplinen, 2nd ed., ed. Iwan von Müler (1830–1917), 1892, 297–355. Shortly after, the English scholar Edward Maunde Thompson (1840–1929) authored a similar manual: Handbook of Greek and Latin Palaeography, 1894 (2nd rev. ed. 1903; 3rd ed. 1906; rpt. 1966, 1975; Greek trans. 1973). Complementary, cataloguers and paleographers reproduced pages of manuscripts whose writing illustrated particularly the history of paleography. In London, a group of scholars (mainly curators of the British Museum) founded in 1873 a Palaeographical Society, which was funded by private subscriptions, and launched an important initiative: the Facsimiles of Manuscripts and Inscriptions, with a first series edited by Edward August Bond, and Edward Maunde Thompson, 3 vols., 1873–1883. In 1894, the Society was dissolved and a New Palaeographical Society was created later (1903), which started again the publication of facsimiles. In the meantime, several similar publications followed (chronological order): Wilhelm Wattenbach, Schrifttafeln zur Geschichte der griechischen Schrift und zum Studium der griechischen Palaeographie, 2 vols., 1876–1877 (the subsequent editions have a different title: Scripturae graecae specimina in usu scholarum, 1883, with two re-editions in 1897 and
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1936); Id., Exempla codicum Latinorum litteris maiusculis scriptorum et supplementum, 1876; Wilhelm Wattenbach, and Adolf van Velsen (1832–1900), Exempla codicum graecorum litteris minusculis scriptorum, 1878; the Palaeographical Society (in London): Facsimiles of Manuscripts and Inscriptions, 2nd ser., I, ed. Edward August Bond, Edward Maunde Thompson, and George Frederic Warner (1845–1936), 2 vols., 1884–1894; Catalogue of Ancient Manuscripts in the British Museum, part 1: Greek, 1881; part 2: Latin, 1884; Girolamo Vitelli (1849–1935), and Cesare Paoli (1840–1902), Collezione fiorentina di facsimili paleografici greci e latini, 1884–1897; Henri Omont, Facsimilés de manuscrits grecs des XVe et XIVe siècles reproduits en photographie d’après les originaux de la Bibliothèque Nationale, 1887; Id., Facsimilés des manuscrits grecs datés de la Bibliothèque Nationale du IXe au XIVe siècle, 1891 (shortly followed by “Les manuscrits grecs datés des XVe et XVIe siècles de la Bibliothèque nationale et des autres bibliothèques de France,” Revue des Bibliothèques 2 [1892]: 1–32); Charles Graux and Albert Martin, Facsimilés de manuscrits grecs d’Espagne gravés d’après les photographies de Ch. Graux, avec transcription et notices par Albert Martin, 1891, 2 vols. (1: Texte; 2: Planches); Henri Omont, Facsimilés des plus ancients manuscrits grecs en onciale et en minuscule de la Bibliothèque Nationale du IVe au XIIe siècle, 1892. As paleographical studies were quickly developing, it became necessary to sum up contemporary production. It was the merit of the German philologist Wilhelm Weinberger (1866–1932), who first authored Adnotationes ad graecos Italiae codices spectantes, 1897, to compile a bibliography of current research on the model of the bibliographies that had been developing since the early 19th century by Theodor Johann Chrisitan Enslin (1787–1851), Samuel Fridrich Wilhelm Hoffmann (1803–1873), Wilhelm Engelmann (1808–1878), Emil von Preuss (b. 1845), and Rudolf Klussmann (1846–1925). Weinberger started in 1898 with a report covering the production of twenty five years (1874–1896) (“Bericht über Paläographie und Handschriftenkunde,” Jahresbericht über die Fortschritte der klassischen Altertumswissenschft begründet von C. Bursian 98 [1898]: 187–310), and continued until the issue 236 (1932): 85–113 of the same Jahresbericht with a report covering the years 1926–1930. More specialized studies started to appear, such as on abbreviations (Thomas William Allen [1862–1950], Notes on Abbreviations in Greek Manuscripts with Eleven Pages of Facsimiles by Photolithography, 1889 [rpt. 1967]; and Grigori Filimonovich Tseretelli [1870–1938], De compendiis scripturae codicum graecorum praecipue Petropolitanorum et Mosquensium anni nota instructorum, 1896), on the paleography of Greek papyri (Frederic George Kenyon [1863–1952], The Palaeography of Greek Papyri, 1899 [rpt. 1970]), on specific
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manuscripts (Thomas William Allen, Notes on Greek Manuscripts in Italian Libraries, 1890), and also on the illustration of manuscripts with both the analysis of some codices (François Lenormant [1837–1883], “Peintures d’un manuscrit de Nicandre,” Gazette archéologique. Recueil de monuments pour servir à la connaissance et à l’histoire de l’art antique 1 [1875]: 125–27; Id., “Pan Nomios et la naissance des serpents: Peintures d’un manuscrit de Nicandre,” Gazette archéologique. Recueil de monuments pour servir à la connaissance et à l’histoire de l’art antique 1 (1875): 69–72; and Edouard de Chanot, “Miniatures d’un manuscrit de Nicandre,” Gazette archéologique. Recueil de monuments pour servir à la connaissance et à l’histoire de l’art antique 2 [1876]: 87–89) and a first inventory and analysis of illustrated manuscripts in a library (Henri Bordier [1817–1888], Description des peintures et autres ornements dans les manuscrits grecs de la Bibliothèque nationale, 1883). The decades at the turn of the century were characterized by special projects, particularly selective inventories of manuscripts (chronological order of publication) (Patristic, Latin) Bibliotheca Patrum Latinorum Britannica, ed. Henry Schenkl (1859–1919), 13 vols., 1890–1908, and the Bibliotheca Patrum Latinorum Hispaniensis, ed. Wilhelm August von Hartel (1839–1907) (who was also a papyrologist and edited in 1895 the volume Die Wiener Genesis, on the illustrated ms. Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, theol. gr. 31, perhaps of the 6th c.), and Zacharias Garcia, originally published as 5 issues of the Sitzungsberiche der philosophisch-historische Classe der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften (111, issue 1; 112, 1 and 2; 113, 1; 169, 2) and further reproduced in 2 vols. (1887–1915); (astrology, Greek) Catalogus Codicum Astrologorum Graecorum, 20 vols., 1898–1953, originally edited by Franz Cumont (1868–1947); (Fathers of the Church, Latin) Wilhelm Weinberger, Catalogus catalogorum: Verzeichnis der Bibliotheken, die ältere Handschriften lateinischer Kirchenschriftsteller enthalten, 1902; (medicine, Greek) Die Handschriften der antiken Ärzte, 1st part: Hippokrates und Galenos; 2nd part: Die übrigen griechische Ärzte auser Hippokrates und Galenos, ed. Hermann Diels (1848–1922), 1905, 1906, with a supplement in 1908: Bericht über den Stand des interakademischen Corpus Medicorum Antiquorum und Erster Nachtrag zu den in den Abhandlungen 1905 and 1906 veröffentlichten Katalogen: Die Handschriften der antiken Ärzte. I. und II. Teil (parts 1 and 2 have been reproduced as a vol. under the title Die Handschriften der antiken Ärzte: Griechische Abteilung in 1906, and this vol. has been reprinted with the 1908 supplement in 1970 with a preface by Friedolf Kudlien). Pursuing the enterprise of facsimiles started by the Paleographical Society in London, scholars reproduced manuscripts of exceptional significance (be it for paleographical, codicological, textual, or artistic reasons) such as the
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Clarkianus 39 of the Bodleian Library containing Plato, Phaedrus, in the hand of Arethas of Caesarea (ca. 850–944): Thomas William Allen, Codex Oxoniensis Clarkianus 39 Phototypice editus, 2 vols., 1898–1899; Allen also reproduced the 11th–12th-century Venice copy of Aristophanes containing seven of his plays: Facsimile of the Codex Venetus Marcianus 474, 1902; and a group of scholars contributed to a facsimile of the so-called Dioscorides of Vienna, that is, the early 6th-century codex medicus graecus 1 of the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, lavishly illustrated with plant representations; the volume was edited by Josef von Karabacek (1845–1918) and included exhaustive studies by Anton von Premerstein (1869–1935) on the history of Dioscorides’s text and its manuscripts; Karl Wessely (1960–1930) on the paleography of codex Vindobonensis; and Josef Mantuani (1860–1933) on its illustration: De codicis Diosuridei Aniciae Iulianae, nunc Vindobonensis Med. Gr. 1 historia, forma, scriptura, picturis, 1906, 2 vols. Somewhat later and on the basis of the Viennese Dioscorides, the historian of science Charles Singer (1876–1960) sketched the first attempt for a modern history of botanical illustration in manuscripts: “The herbal in antiquity and its transmission to later ages,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 47 (1927): 1–52. In these years, major paleographical publications came out, particularly in the German world, such as (chronological order of publication): Viktor Emil Gardthausen, Sammlungen und Catalogue griechischer Handschriften, 1903 (a list of published catalogues of manuscripts); Wilhelm Schubart (1873–1960), Das Buch bei den Griechen und Römern: Eine Studie aus der berliner Papyrussammlung, 1907 (2nd ed. 1921); Viktor Emil Gardthausen, Geschichte der griechischen Tachygraphie, 1st part, 1906; Marie Vogel, and Viktor Emil Gardthausen, Die griechischen Schreiber des Mittelalters und der Renaissance, 1909 (Greek manuscripts signed by their copyists, listed in alphabetical order of copyists’ name; rpt. 1966); Wilhelm Weinberger, Beiträge zur Handschriftenkunde, 2 vols., 1908–1909 (vol. 1: Bibliotheca corvina). Another fundamental contribution of these years was the study of watermarks in paper (for a synthesis on the history of studies on watermarks, see Jean Irigoin (1920–2006), “La datation par les filigranes du papier,” Codicologica 5 [1980]: 9–36). Much research on paper history was done in the 19th century, among others the inventory and reproduction of watermarks. See, for example, the work by the brothers Aurelio (1830–1902) and Augusto Zonghi on Fabriano paper making (Aurelio Zonghi, Documenti storici fabrianesi, 1880, and The Ancient Papers of Fabriano Exhibited at the General Italian Exhibition Held at Turin, 1884; see also the album of watermarks published in 1953, Zonghi’s watermarks) (on their work, see recently: Giancarlo Castagnari, L’opera dei fratelli Zonghi: L’era del segno nella storia della carta, 2003), and
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Francisco de Asís de Bofarull y Sans (1843–1936) (La heráldica en la filigrana del papel, 1901 [Engl. trans. Heraldic Watermarks or La Heráldica en la filigrana del papel, 1956], and Animales en las marcas del papel, 1910 [Engl. trans. Animals in Watermarks, 1959]). After some precursory studies, the Russian scholar Nikolai Petrovitch Likhachev (1862–1936) published in 1899 a dictionary (in Russian) La signification paléographique des filigranes du papier, 3 vols.: 1. Liste numérique; 2. Listes alphabétique et numérique; 3. Album, 1899 (Engl. trans.: Likhachev’s Watermarks: An English-language version, 1994). As Likhatscheff puts it (see also his review of the catalogue by Briquet [below] in Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen 25 (1908): 265–67), he transferred to the study of manuscripts a method already applied by scholars for the analysis of early printed books and incisions from the early 19th century. Whatever the explanation and the claim for priority, in 1907 Charles-Moïse Briquet (1839–1918) published another dictionary. Briquet started working on the history of paper (Recherches sur les premiers papiers employés en Occident et en Orient du Xe au XIVe siècle, 1886) and shifted quickly to the inventory of watermarks in dated archival documents (Papiers et filigranes des archives de Gênes de 1154 à 1700, 1888). Then, he published his dictionary: Les filigranes: Dictionnaire historique des marques du papier dès leur apparition vers 1282 jusqu’en 1600, 4 vols., 1907, with a second edition in 1923 (and several reprints) that has been the major reference after the method of dating manuscripts by means of their watermarks had been accepted. Paleographical publications increased dramatically. Thomas William Allen took over the task of reviewing current production started by Weinberger: “Greek Palaeography (and Textual Criticism),” The Year’s Work in Classical Studies, 1911, 127–32 (pursued until 1934, 69–74). Almost every year, indeed, new publications of all types came out, often followed shortly by a new, revised edition (chronological order of publication): Franz Steffens (1853–1930), Lateinische Paläographie: Hundert Tafeln in Lichtdruck mit Transcription nebst Erläuterungen und einer systematischen Darstellung der Entwicklung der lateinischen Schrift, 4 vols., 1903 (2nd rev. ed. [125 tables], 1909; supplement in 1910; French trans. 1910; rpt. 1964); The New Palaeographical Society, Facsimiles of Ancient Manuscripts and Inscriptions, 1st ser., ed. Edward Maunde Thompson, George Frederic Warner, Frederic George Kenyon, and Julius Parnell Gilson (1868–1929), 10 parts constituting 2 vols., 1903–1912; Franz Steffens, Proben aus handschriftlichen lateinischen Schriftstellern: 24 Tafeln in Lichtdruck zur ersten Einführung in die Paläographie für Philologen und Historiker, 1909; Scato Gogko de Vries (1861–1937), Album palaeographicum: Tabulae LIX selectae ex cunctis iam editis tomis codicum graecorum et latinorum photogrphice depictorum, 1909; Pio Pietro Franchi de’Cavalieri
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(1869–1960), and Hans Lietzmann (1875–1942), Specimina codicum graecorum Vaticanorum, 1910 (2nd ed. 1929); Wilhelm Schubart, Papyri Graecae Berolinenses, 1911; the second edition of Viktor Emil Gardthausen’s manual of paleography published the same year (1911) is in two volumes each of which with a separate title: Das Buchwesen im Altertum und im byzantinischen Mittelalter, and Die Schrift, Unterschriften und Chronologie im Altertum und im byzantinischen Mittelalter (rpt. 1978) (with an index of the manuscripts quoted by Beate Noack, Indices zu Viktor Gardthausen, Griechische Palaeograhie, 2Leipzig 1911/1913, 1983); Edward Maunde Thompson, An Introduction to Greek and Latin Palaeography, 1912 (rpt. 1973); Franz Steffens, Proben aus griechischen Handschriften und Urkunden: 24 Tafeln im Lichtdruck zur ersten Einführung in die griechische Paläographie für Philologen und Historiker, 1912; The New Palaeographical Society, Facsimiles of Ancient Manuscripts and Inscriptions, 2nd ser., I, ed. Edward Maunde Thompson, George Frederic Warner, Frederic George Kenyon, Julius Parnell Gilson, John Alexander Herbert (1862–1948), and Harold Idris Bell (b. 1879), 13 parts constituting 2 vols., 1913–1930. The circle of paleographers and codicologists was enlarged with Russian scholars. The collections of the Synodial library had already been studied by Matthaei (above). Since then, the holdings in Greek manuscript in the country increased, among others with the leaves of the so-called codex Sinaitius (a 4th-century copy of the Bible originally at the Monastery of Saint Catherine in the Sinai on which see recently: Scot McKendrick, In a Monastery Library: Preserving Codex Sinaiticus and the Greek Written Heritage, 2006) brought from the Sinai by Constantine Tischendorf (1815–1874) in three campaigns (1844, 1853 and 1859), and the many other manuscripts and fragments he brought to Russia (see Eduard von Muralt [1808–1895], Catalogue des manuscrits grecs de la Bibliothèque impériale publique, 1864). Tischendorf specialized in editing vetero- and neo-testamentary texts from ancient manuscripts (including the codex Sinaiticus), which he submitted to a certain paleographical and historical analysis (the titles of his works are particularly significant and deserve to be quoted almost all in full although they may seem repetitive): Monumenta sacra inedita, sive reliquiae antiquissimae textus Novi Testamenti Graeci ex novem plus mille annorum codicibus per Europam dispersis, 1846; Codex Friderico-Augustanus, sive Fragmenta Veteris Testamenti e codice graeco omnium qui in Europa supersunt facile antiquissimo in Oriente detexit, in patriam attulit, ad modum codicis edidit, 1846; Evangelium Palatinum ineditum, sive Reliquiae textus Evangeliorum Latini ante Hieronymum versi, ex Codice Palatino Purpureo quarti vel quiti P. Chr. Saeculi nunc primum eruit atque edidit, 1847; Codex amiatinus: Noveum Testamentum latine interprete Hieronymo, ex celeberrimo codice amiatino omnium et antiquissimum et praestantissimo nunc primum
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edidit, 1850; Codex Claromontanus, sive Epistulae Pauli omnes Graece et Latine ex codice Parisiensi celeberrimo nomine Claromontani plerumque dicto, sexti ut videtur post Christum saeculi, nunc primum edidit, 1852; Fragmenta sacra palimpsesta, sive Fragmenta cum Novi tun Veteris Testamenti ex quinque codicibus Graecis palimpsestis antiquissimis nuperrime in Oriente repertis: Addita sunt fragmenta Psalmorum papyracea et fragmenta evangelistariorum palimpsesta, item fragmentum Codicis FridericoAugustani nunc primum eruit atque edidit, 1855; Fragmenta evangelii Lucae et libri Genesis ex tribus codicibus Grecis quinti, sexti, octavi saeculi, uno palimpsesto ex Libya in Museum Britannicum advecto, altero celeberrimo Cottoniano ex flammis erepto, tertio ex Oriente nuperrime Oxonium perlato; addita sunt et Novi et Veteris Testamenti fragmenta similia nuperrime in codicum sex antiquissimorum reliquiis inventa nunc primum eruit atque edidit, 1857; Fragmenta Origenianae Octateuchi editionis cum fragmentis Evangeliorum Graecis palimpsestis ex codice Leidensi folioque Petropolitano quarti vel quinti, Guelferbytano Codice quinti, Sangallensi octavi fere saeculi eruti atque edidit, 1860; Notitia editionis codicis bibliorum Sinaitici auspiciis Imperatoris Alexandri II susceptae; accedit catalogus codicum nuper ex oriente Petropolin perlatorum …, 1860; Bibliorum codex sinaiticus petropolitanus auspiciis augustissimis imperatoris Alexandri II ex tenebris protraxit in Europam transtulit ad iuvandas atque illustrandas sacras litteras edidit, 1862; Novum Testamentum Sinaiticum sive Novum Testamentum cum epistula Barnabae et fragmentis pastoris, ex codice sinaitico auspiciis Alexandrii II descripsit, 1863; Epistulae Pauli et Catholicae fere integrae ex libro Porphyrii Episcopi palimpsesto saeculi octavi et noni nuper ex Oriente allato rara textus antiquitate insigni eruit atque edidit, 1865; Appendix codicum celeberrimorum Sinaitici, Vaticani, Alexandrini, cum imitatione ipsorum antiqua manuscriptorum, s.l.n.d.; Apocalypsis et Actus Apostolorum cum quarti Maccabaeorum libri fragmento; item quattuor Evangeliorum reliquiae ex duobus codicibus palimpsestis octavi fere et sexti saeculi, altero Porphyrii Episcopi, altero Guelferbytano eruit atque edidit, 1869; Codex Laudensis, sive Actus Apostolorum graece et latine ex codice olim Laudiano iam Bodleiano sexti fere saeculi; addita sunt nonnulla ex celebri codice Prophetarum Marchaliano Vaticano eruit atque edidit, 1870. The Russian scholars of the early 20th century had a special interest in paleography and codicology, rather than in text edition, and published tables of manuscripts: Grigori Filimonovich Tseretelli (who had authored a book on abbreviations from manuscripts in St. Peterburg and Moscow [above]), and Sergei Ivanovich Sobolevski (1864–1963), Exempla codicum graecorum litteris minusculis scriptorum annorumque notis instructorum, 1st part: Codices Mosquenses; 2nd part: Codices Petropolitani, 1911–1913; Id., Exempla codicum Graecorum litteris uncialibus scriptorum, 1913; and Vladimir Nikolaevich Bene sevi ˇ cˇ (1874–1943), Monumenta Sinaitica archaeologica et palaeographica, 2 vols., 1912–1925.
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At this time, too, and linked with Tischendorf also, is the so-called Archimedes Palimpsest, that is a 10th-century copy of Archimedes that was re-used in the 12th century to copy a liturgical text. Tischendorf saw it in Constantinople in the 1840s and brought a page to Russia. The Danish editor of scientific texts, Johan Ludvig Heiberg, saw it again in 1906, photographed it, and published its text 1910–1915. The manuscript disappeared then and resurfaced only recently on the antiquarian market (below). With the progress of research, paleography and codicology took new directions. For example, the paleographer Thomas William Allen investigated the origin of Greek minuscule writing (“The Origin of the Greek Minuscule Hand,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 40 [1920]: 1–12), while the classical philologist Paul Maas (1880–1964), author of a synthesis on Greek paleography (“Griechische Paläographie”) in the third edition of the Einleitung in die Altertumswissenschaft, ed. by Alfred Gercke (1860–1922) und Eduard Norden (1868–1941) (vol. I, 9, 1927, 69–81) (as did also Wilhelm Schubart, Griechische Palaeographie, 1925), revisited Lachmann’s principles for the analysis of textual tradition (Paul Maas, Textkritik, 1927 [several re-editions]; Italian trans. 1952; Engl. trans. 1958). Also the Canadian classical scholar Margareth H. Thomson compiled a specialized catalogue of manuscripts containing texts on botany (“Catalogue des manuscrits grecs de Paris contenant des traités anonymes de botanique,” Revue des Etudes Grecques 46 [1933]: 334–48). Work that was already traditional was pursued, contributing to consolidating the realm, objectives, and methods of paleography and codicology, although the two disciplines were still at the edge of the more established field of Classical Studies (chronological order of publication): Wilhelm Weinberger compiled a list the collections of ancient manuscripts (Wegweiser durch die Sammlungen altphilologischer Handschriften, 1930); Alejo Revilla (1892–1951) started cataloguing the collection of the Escorial, in Spain, which had remained rather unknown until then (Catálogo des Codices Griegos de la Biblioteca de El Escorial, vol. 1, 1936). Collections of tables of different types were published: scribes identified in the manuscripts of a library (Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek) by Josef Bick (1880–1952), Die Schreiber der Wiener griechischen Handschriften, 1920; dated manuscripts of a determined period (9th c. and 10th c.), for example, by the Louvain paleographers Louis Théophile Lefort (1879–1959), and Joseph Cochez (1884–1956), Palaeographisch album van gedagteekende grieksche minuskelhandchriften uit de IXe en Xe eeuw, met enkele specimina van handschriften uit de XIe–XVIe eeuw-Album paleographicum codicum graecorum minusculis litteris saec. IX et X certo tempore scriptorum, 1932–1934, and also a more general album by Joseph Cochez, Paleographisch
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album, 1935; as well as a study on earlier Greek writing by the Italian papyrologist Medea Norsa (1877–1952), La scrittura letteraria greca dal secolo IV A.C. all’VIII D.C., 1939 (followed after World War II by her volume Papiri greci delle collezioni italiane: Scritture documentarie dal III secolo a.C. al secolo VIII d. C., 1946). During these years, the geography of manuscript studies underwent an important change: in Europe, the Vatican Library started emerging as a major research center not only thanks to its collection of an exceptional antiquity and its tradition of scholarship illustrated by such erudites as, in the 19th century, Angelo Mai (1782–1854) (who was first [1813] a doctor of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan before moving to the Vatican [1819]) (see, for example, his Picturae antiquissimae bellum Iliacum repraesentantes nunc primum ex Homeri codice non sine descriptionibus editae, 1819 [reproduction of manuscript Ambrosianus F 205 inf.]; Catalogo de’ papiri egiziani della Biblioteca Vaticana e notizia più estesa di uno d’essi, con breve discorso e con susseguenti riflessioni, 1825; and Scriptorum veterum nova collectio e vaticanis codicibus, 10 vols., 1825–1838) and, from the early 20th century, by Franz Ehrle (1845–1934) (author, among others, of a history of the Vatican library: Historia bibliothecae romanorum pontificum, tum Bonifatianae tum Avenionensis, 2 vols., 1890; and of a collection of paleographical tables: Specimina codicum Latinorum Vaticanorum [in collaboration with Paul Liebaert, d. 1915], 1912), and Giovanni Mercati, for example, but also thanks to its catalogues, which took advantage of the progress made in codicology over the past decades and transformed earlier practice. The best example was by Givoanni Mercati, and Pio Pietro Franchi de’ Cavalieri, Codices Vaticani Graeci, vol. 1: Codices 1–329, 1923, where watermarks of paper manuscripts, for example, were identified, though not systematically. The other major change in the geography of our studies was the appearance of America in the field. Thanks to the economic development of the continent, some successful businessmen who generated exceptional fortunes started acquiring manuscripts on the European market. One of them was John Pierpont Morgan Jr. (1867–1943) who acquired, for example, the 10th-century Dioscorides manuscript owned by the Phillipps library in Cheltenham (U.K.) (shelfmark 21975 in the Phillipps collection; M652 in the Morgan Library, New York, N.Y., U.S.A.). In collaboration with the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris, particularly Henri Omont, a sepia facsimile of the manuscript was produced: Pedanii Dioscuridis Anazarbei, De Materia Medica Libri VII. Accedunt Nicandri et Eutecnii, Opuscula Medica. Codex Constantinopolitanus saeculo X exaratus et picturis illustratus, olim Manuelis Eugenici, Caroli Rinuccini Florentini, Thomae Phillipps Angli, nunc inter Thesauros Pierpont Morgan Bibliothecae asservatus, 2 vols., 1935. The same year, Seymour de Ricci
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(1881–1942) (who had previously published the catalogue of several collections in Europe: A Hand-List of a Collection of Books and Manuscripts Belonging to the Right Hon. Lord Amherst of Hackney at Didlington Hall, Norfolk, 1906; Liste sommaire des manuscrits grecs de la Bibliotheca Barberina, 1907; Catalogue d’une collection de miniatures gothiques et persanes appartenant à Léonce Rosenberg, 1913; Les Manuscrits de la collection Henry Yates Thompson, 1926; and also English Collectors of Books and Manuscripts, 1530–1930, and their Marks of Ownership, 1930) started publishing, in collaboration with William Jerome Wilson (b. 1884), a Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada, made up of three volumes (1935–1940). Also, exhibitions of manuscripts were organized, such as: The Pierpont Morgan Library: Exhibition of Illuminated Manuscripts Held at the New-York Public Library, introduction by Charles Rufus Morey (1877–1955), catalogue of the manuscripts by Belle da Costa Greene (1882–1950), and Meta Philippine Harrsen (b. 1891), 1933–1934. Academic research on manuscripts was also starting in America thanks to a translatio eruditorum. A pioneer was the English-born Biblical scholar Kirsopp Lake (1872–1946). A professor at the University of Leiden (1904–1913), he then moved to Cambridge, MA, Harvard University (1914). His research activity was devoted to neo-testamentary literature, particularly through Greek manuscripts. He explored the collection of several libraries in the Levant (Mount Athos, Sinai, and Turkey), and published extensively on this topic (including on the codex Sinaiticus above) while still in Europe: The Text of the New Testament, 1900 (several re-editions); Texts from Mt Athos, 1902; Codex 1 of the Gospels and its Allies, 1902; Facsimiles of the Athos Fragments of Codex H of the Pauline Epistles Photographed and Deciphered, 1905; Facsimiles of the Athos Fragments of the Shepherd of Hermas Photographed and Transcribed, 1907; Codex Sinaiticus Petropolitanus: the New Testament, the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas Preserved in the Imperial Library of St. Peterburg now Reproduced in Facsimile from Photographs with a Description and Introduction to the History of the Codex, 1911 (in collaboration with Helen Courthrope Forman Lake, his first wife). After he moved to America, Lake pursued the research activity started in Europe: Codex Sinaiticus Petropolitanus et Friderico-Augustanus Lipsiensis: The Old Testament Preserved in the Public Library of Petrograd, in the Library of the Society of Ancient Literature in Petrograd, and in the Library of the University of Leipzig, now Reproduced in Facsimile from Photographs, with a Description and Introduction to the History of the Codex, 1922, in collaboration with Helen Lake; and, in collaboration with Silva Tipple New (b. 1898), further on Silva Lake (his second wife and a professor at Bryn Mawr College): Six Collations of New Testatment Manuscripts, 1932; The Byzantine Text of the Gospels, 1940; and Family 13 (the Ferrar group): the Text according to Mark with a collation of Codex 28 of the Gospels, 1941.
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Of a definitely more paleographical inspiration was the collection of tables of minuscule manuscripts published in collaboration with Silva Lake (Dated Greek Minuscule Manuscripts to the Year 1200, 9 fascicles, 1934–1939 [with a 10th fascicle of index, 1945]), in which the Lakes included the description of the ruling of the manuscripts, as well as the article “The Scribe Ephraim,” Journal of Biblical Literature 62 (1943): 263–68. Paleographical studies in the United States were further pursued by Alexander Turyn (1900–1981). Originally from Poland, Turyn earned a Ph.D. degree in Warsaw (1923), left his country for the United States for political reasons, and became a professor of Classics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he opened the way for the study of the textual tradition of classical texts. In Poland, he published some preliminary works of this type: De Aelii Aristidis codice Varsoviensi atque de Andrea Taranowski et Theodosio Zygomala, 1929; De codicibus Pindaricis, 1932; and Symbolae ad recensionem Pindaricam pertinentes, 1934. As soon as he was stabilized in America, he published the first of his studies on the manuscript tradition of the Greek playwright: The Manuscript Tradition of the Tragedies of Aeschylys, 1943. After World War II, he pursued and expanded his activity, with significant contributions to the field of dated manuscripts (below). A similar case is that of the historian of art Kurt Weitzmann (1904–1993). He started his career in Germany, publishing a fundamental work on Byzantine book illustration (Die byzantinische Buchmalerei des 9. und 10. Jahrhunderts, 1935 [rpt. 1996]). Due to the political climate in his homeland, he emigrated to America where he pursued his intense activities, concretized immediately after World War II by Illustrations in Roll and Codex: A Study of the Origin and Method of Text Illustration, 1947 (several translations). Illustration was entering the agenda of paleographers and codicologists. Such interest came out of several lines of investigation: cataloguing of collections with such a work as Henri Omont, Miniatures des plus anciens manuscrits grecs de la Bibliothèque nationale du VIe au XIVe siècle, 1929; history of art: Hans Gerstinger (1885–1971), Die griechische Buchmalerei, 1926; and analysis of scientific viz naturalist manuscripts, particularly of Dioscorides, De materia medica: Henri Omont collected material (Etudes et notes sur les manuscrits de Dioscoride) left unpublished and currently preserved at the Bibliothèque nationale de France as Papiers Henri Omont, XLI (Parisinus Nouvelles acquisitions françaises, 13052); Eulogios Kourilas authored a work very similar to that of Omont, which was for a long time the only major study on the Athos copy of Dioscorides (Dioskorideioi meletai kai o Lauriôtikos Dioskoridês, 1935), and also Paul Buberl (1885–1942) wrote an essay on the Viennese Dioscorides: “Die antiken Grundlagen der Miniaturen des Wiener Dioskurideskodex,” Jahr-
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buch des Deutschen Archaologischen Instituts 51 [1936]: 114–36; then in analyzing Viennese illustrated manuscripts, he focused on both the Dioscorides and the so-called Wiener Genesis: Beschreibendes Verzeichnis der illuminierten Handschriften in Österreich, N. F. IV, vol. 1: Der Wiener Dioskurides und die Wiener Genesis, 1937. E. Second Beginning In the 1920s-1930s, the French archivist and paleographer Félix Grat (1898–1940), a graduate from the Ecole des Chartes who spent some time at the Ecole française in Rome where he discovered still unknown manuscripts of Tacitus and taught paleography in Paris and Nancy upon his return, wished to take advantage of the progress of photographic techniques to create a collection of images that would gather copies of manuscripts in collections across the world. Such collection would be an ideal library that would save scholars from the obligation to travel all over the world to inspect personally the codices they wouldbe interested in, and would also allow to compare manuscripts preserved in different institutions. In 1937 he succeeded in convincing the French Minister of scientific research to create the so-called Institut de recherche et d’histoire des textes. World War II interrupted the initiative and Grat died in the hostilities. After 1945, the project was taken up again and the Institute started creating a collection of microfilms of manuscripts open to the scientific community that made it possible to access codices from all over the world in an easy and inexpensive way. This was not an isolated initiative. The papyrologist Bernhard Abraham van Groningen (1894–1987), who had published, among other philological works, De papyro oxyrrynchita 1380 before World War II (in 1912), authored a Short Manual of Greek Palaeography, 1940 (2nd rev. ed. 1955; 3rd rev. ed. 1963; 4th ed. 1967), and, in 1946, a group of Belgian scholars – Camille Gaspar (1876–1960), Frédéric Lyna (1888–1979) who was then the Director of the Bibliothèque royale in Brussels, and François Masai (1909–1979) – founded Scriptorium. According to its title, it was to be an International Review of Manuscripts Studies. However, its object was more precise as the editorial of the issue no. 1 (1946–1946) explains (III–IV): … L’objet de Scriptorium n’est pas défini de façon adéquate par le terme de “paléographie,” à moins d’entendre par là l’étude des manuscrits sous tous leurs aspects. En effet, ce ne sont pas les écritures mais les manuscrits mêmes qui constitutent l’objet premier, le centre de nos études. De là, à côté des recherches de paléographie proprement dite, des études consacrées à l’enluminure des manuscrits, à leur décoration, à leur reliure, à leur histoire aussi et à l’histoire des bibliothèques et des scriptoriums qui nous les ont donnés …
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Since then, Scriptorium has been hosted by the so-called Cabinet des manuscrits at the Bibliothèque royale in Brussels, which preserves a significant collection dating back to the Dukes of Burgundy. Scriptorium is published in two issues per year, including the so-called Bulletin codicologique, which lists and reviews current production. This was the sign of a fresh start, characterized by a group of works that played a fundamental role in the history of codicology and paleography, mentioned here not in strict chronological order, but from a conceptual viewpoint. The French classical philologist and editor of many classical and less classical texts Alphonse Dain (1896–1924) published in 1949 a small book entitled Les manuscrits (1949; 2nd rev. ed.: 1964; 3rd ed.: 1975) in which he proposed the term codicology to identify the study of manuscripts as a discipline of its own (there have been discussions to know who was the author of the term, Alphone Dain or the historian Charles Samaran [1879–1982]. It seems, however, that Dain actually created codicology, while Samaran suggested codicography). The difference of perspective in manuscript studies between the period in discussion here and the previous one is best illustrated by the two volumes by Paul Henry (1906–1984) on Plotinus (études plotiniennes) published with an interval of 10 years, before and after World War II. Whereas the first volume deals with the textual tradition (Les états du texte de Plotin, 1938) and is of a Lachmannian nature, the second is about the manuscripts (Les manuscrits des Ennéades, 1948) and takes advantage of the codicological analysis of the manuscripts, including the identification of watermarks. In the context of this new approach, the systematic heuristic of manuscripts became a fundamental issue. Coming after Labbé, Montfaucon, and Gardthausen, the French Marcel Richard (1907–1976) doing research at the Institut de recherche et d’histoire des textes where he created the Greek section, published as early as 1948 a new list of libraries holding Greek manuscripts, together with their catalogue(s): Répertoire des bibliothèques et des catalogues de manuscrits grecs, 1948, followed by a second edition in 1958 and a Supplément 1 (1958–1963) in 1964 (it was not followed by any other supplement, but by a 3rd ed. by Jean-Marie Olivier in 1995 [below]). Another fundamental work in these years was by the French Classical philologist Jean Irigoin (1920–2006): Histoire du texte de Pindare, 1952. A student of Alphonse Dain (whom he followed as director of the Greek section in the so-called Collection des Universités de France and also as Directeur d’études at the Ecole pratique des hautes études, IVe section), he did not limit his approach to Pindar’s tradition to textual analysis as was often the case before, but integrated the data resulting from the codicological analysis of manu-
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scripts, which he carefully described. Complementary, Joseph Mogenet (1913–1980) transformed the way to analyze the transmission of texts in his volume Autolycus de Pitane: Histoire du texte suivie de l’édition des traités de la sphère en mouvement et des levers et des couchers, 1950. Instead of analyzing the transmission of a text as a mechanic phenomenon in a Lachmannian way, he proposed more realistically to consider it as a human endeavour. He tried to conceptualize the human dimension of the act of copying, and succeeded in translating such theoretical analysis in parameters that can account for, and precisely measure (in an objective way), the impact (or interference) of human intervention in the tradition of texts. At that time, manuscript cataloguing had become a key issue, with a double set of requirements: on the one hand, it was tempting to integrate all the new developments of codicology into catalogues and, on the other hand, it was indispensable to do it in a handy way. The rules applied in the catalogues of the Vatican library by Mercati and Franchi de’ Cavalieri (above) did not seem to be universally applicable. Coming after Karel Adriaan de Meyier, Bibliotheca Universitatis Leidensis, Codices manuscripti, vol. 6: Codices Vossiani graeci et miscellanei, 1955 (who published earlier a history of the collection of Paul [1568–1614], and Alexandre [d. 1672] Petau: Paul en Alexandre Petau en de geschiedenis van hun handschriften, voornamelijk op grond van de Petahaundschriften in de Universiteitsbibliothek te Leiden, 1947), the Austrian scholar Herbert Hunger (1914–2000), who had directed the papyrus collection of the National Library of Austria and was a Professor of Byzantine studies at the University of Vienna, tried to solve this contradiction. In his endeavour of cataloguing the Greek holdings of the National Library in Vienna for which the only available catalogue at that time was by Lambeck in the revised edition by Kollar, he created, indeed, a model that integrated the recent acquisitions of codicology and, at the same time, did it in a simplified, synthetic form, without abandoning, however, the necessary precision and exactness. Together with a concise, though detailed, analysis of the texts, his catalogue of the Viennese collections of Greek manuscripts contributed to creating and diffusing a standard format that has been widely adopted since, even though it has often been modified on a case-by-case basis according to individual or institutional exigencies, local peculiarities of collections, or any other parameter: Herbert Hunger, Katalog der griechischen Handschriften der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek, vol. 1: Codices Historici, Codices Philolophici et Philologici, 1961; vol. 2: Codices Juridici, Codices Medici, 1969; vol. 3: Codices Theologici, in 3 parts, 1976–1992; vol. 4: Supplementum graecum, 1994. Hunger did not limit his academic production to this catalogue, but also published extensively on paleography and codicology
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(below), including “Antikes und mittelalterliches Buch- und Schriftwesen,” Geschichte der Textüberlieferung der antiken und mittelalterlichen Literature, vol. 1, 1961, 25–247. The field of book illustration was also consolidating. Again, the illustrated manuscripts of Dioscorides drew the attention. Two studies on the Napolitan codex came out the same year: Miranda Anichini, “Il Dioscoride di Napoli,” Rendiconti della classe di scienze morali, storiche e filologiche dell’Accademia nazionale dei Lincei, ser. 8, 11 (1956), 77–104, and Ranucio BianchiBandinelli (1900–1975), “Il Dioscoride Napoletano,” La Parola del Passato 11 (1956): 48–51. Shortly after, entries on Dioscorides were included in two histories of ancient and Byzantine art: Carlo Bertelli, “Dioscuride,” Enciclopedia dell’Arte Antica, vol. 3 (1960), 127–31, and Herbert Hunger, “Dioskurides,” Reallexikon zur byzantinischen Kunst, vol. 1 (1966), 1191–96. Then Elpidio Mioni discovered a new copy: “Un ignoto Dioscoride miniato (Il codice graeco 194 del Seminario di Padova),” Libri e stampatori in Padova: Miscellanea di studi storici in onore di Mons. G. Bellini, 1959, 345–76, and Id., “Un nuovo erbario greco di Dioscoride,” Rassegna Medica-Convivium Sanitatis 36 (1959): 169–84. As early as high-quality photo and printing techniques made it possible, a facsimile of the Viennese manuscript of Dioscorides was published, which was a milestone in the history of facsimile production: Dioskurides Codex Vindobonensis Med. Gr. 1 der. Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek, with a volume of commentary by Hans Gerstinger, 1970. The reproduction and study of Dioscorides’s manuscripts was to be pursued during the last decades of the 20th century. F. Two Established Disciplines Paleography and codicology developed in an unprecedented way in the following decades. This increase was consecrated in 1974 when the first conference on Greek paleography was organized in Paris in collaboration by the Hellenist Jacques Bompaire (1924–2009) and Jean Irigoin: La paléographie grecque et byzantine, Paris, 21–25 octobre 1974, 1977. This first initiative has been followed by other conferences that have contributed to create a tradition: 1983, Germany, Berlin and Wolfenbüttel; 1988, Italy, Erice; 1993, United Kingdom, Oxford; 1998, Italy, Cremona; 2003, Greece, Drama; the most recent one was held in Spain, Madrid, and Salamanca, 2008. Proceedings have not been published for all the editions of the conference: Paleografia e codicologia greca: Atti del II Colloquio internazionale (Berlin-Wolfenbüttel, 17–21 ottobre 1983), ed. Dieter Harlfinger, and Giancarlo Prato, in collaboration with Marco D’Agostino, and Alberto Doda, 2 vols., 1991; I manoscritti greci tra riflessione e dibattito: Atti del V Colloquio Internazionale di Paleografia Greca (Cremona,
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4–10 ottobre 1998), ed. Giancarlo Prato, 3 vols., 2000; Actes du VIe Colloque International de Paléographie Grecque (Drama, 21–27 septembre 2003), ed. Basile Atsalos and Niki Tsironi, 3 vols., 2008. Other paleographical conferences have been organized, of a thematic nature: Scritture, libri e testi nelle aree provinciali di Bisanzio: Atti del seminario di Erice (18–25 settembre 1988), ed. Guglielmo Cavallo, Giuseppe De Gregorio, and Marilena Maniaci, 2 vols., 1991, and Ancient and Medieval Book Materials and Techniques (Erice, 15–25 september 1992), ed. Marilena Maniaci, and Paola F. Munafò, 1993. The new developments of paleography and codicology resulted not only from the ground-breaking work in the immediate after-war period, but also from the personal involvement of individuals who devoted their scientific activity to manuscript studies, often capitalizing on a local tradition or new initiatives. At the Vatican Library, for example, Mgr. Paul Canart, originally a scriptor in the historical tradition of the library, catalogued the Greek manuscripts in the Archivio di San Pietro (Catalogue des manuscrits grecs de l’Archivio di San Pietro, 1966), edited, completed, and compiled the index of the catalogue left unachieved by Ciro Giannelli (1905–1959) (Codices Vaticani graeci, Codices 1684–1744, 1961), and compiled the catalogue of the Vaticani graeci 1745–1962 (2 vols., 1970–1973). He also started a research activity on Greek copyists which gradually led him to other paleographical and codicological topics, and taught these disciplines at the Scuola Vaticana di Paleografia Diplomatica e Archivistica. Some of his many – and fundamental – contributions are listed below, under the several sections they are related to, and several of them have been recently republished in a volume of collected studies: Etudes de paléographie et de codicologie, which Paul Canart himself edited in collaboration with Maria Lusia Agati, and Marco D’Agostino, 2 vols., 2008. In Rome, at the University, Guglielmo Cavallo had a polymorph career and activity. Successively a professor of textual tradition, Latin and then Greek paleography, he started publishing on paleography (Ricerche sulla maiuscola biblica, 1967, for example) and shifted rapidly toward a dynamic analysis of writing (“Struttura e articolazione della minuscola beneventana libraria tra i secoli X–XII,” Studi Medievali, 3rd ser., 11 [1970]: 343–68) and a cultural analysis of calligraphy (for instance, “Fenomenologia ‘libraria’ della maiuscola greca: stile, canone, mimesi grafica,” Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies of the University of London 19 [1972]: 131–40), book production (“La genesi dei rotoli liturgici alla luce del fenomeno storico-librario in Occidente ed Oriente,” Miscellanea in memoria di Giorgio Cencetti, 1973, 213–29), and book consumption (“Libri di medicina: gli usi di un sapere,” Maladie et société à Byzance, ed. Evelyne Patlagean, 1993, 43–56). Initially more focused on
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southern Italy (“Manoscritti italo-greci e trasmissione della cultura classica,” Magna Grecia bizantina e tradizione classica: Atti del decimosettimo Convegno di studi sulla Magna Grecia, Taranto, 9–14 ottobre 1977, 1978, 193–233) and the West (“La produzione di manoscritti greci in Occidente tra età tardoantica ed alto medioeve: Note ed ipotesi,” Scrittura e Civiltà 1 [1977]: 111–31), he gradually expanded the scope of his investigations, and included other areas and periods. He teaches Greek paleography at Rome University “La Sapienza,” Faculty of Letters and Philosophy, Department of Studies on Medieval Societies and Cultures (Dipartimento di studi sulle società e culture del medioevo), whose two units (paleography and medieval history) study jointly Western and Eastern medieval societies with a particular focus on the problems linked with writing culture (“… due sezioni di Paleografia e di Storia Medievale, che congiuntamente affrontano lo studio delle società medievali nel mondo occidentale e orientale con particolare attenzione alle problematiche connesse con la civiltà della scrittura …). In Berlin, the Belgian classical philologist Paul Moraux (1919–1985) created in 1965 the so-called Aristoteles Archiv at the Freie Universität, which is “dedicated to the exploration of the history of how the Corpus Aristotelicum has been handed down through time.” It has “a unique microfilm collection of all Greek Aristotle manuscripts as well as approximately 1,000 additional manuscripts with late antique and Byzantine commentaries on Aristotle’s treatise.” A researcher at the center, Dieter Harlfinger, investigated the textual history of Aristotle treatise De lineis insecabilibus (Die Textgeschichte des Pseudo-Aristotelischen Schrift peri atomôn grammôn; Ein kodikologischkulturgeschichtlicher Beitrag zur Klärung der Überlieferungsverhältnisse im Corpus Aristotelicum, 1971) and was able to identify the hand of a great number of the manuscripts containing the text. Other collaborators of the center worked on a similar endeavour (Jürgen Wiesner and Ulrich Victor, “Griechische Schreiber der Renaissance,” Rivista di Studi Bizantini e Neoellenici, new ser. 8–9 [1971–1972]: 51–66). Harlfinger also collaborated to the catalogue of the Aristoteles Graecus project: Die griechischen Manuskripte des Aristoteles, ed. Paul Moraux, vol. 1, 1976, for the preparation of which he personally analyzed many of the codices in-situ. Dieter Harlfinger further moved to the University of Hamburg, where he contributed to the organization of TeuchosCenter for Manuscript and Text Research (Teuchos-Zentrum für Handschriften und Textforschung) devoted to the application of information technologies to philological research, with a special focus on textual tradition, codicology, and variant readings in manuscripts. In Vienna, where there was not only a cluster of institutions with collections of Byzantine manuscripts (the National Library of Austria) and a strong
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interest in Byzantine studies (the Academy and the University), but also a rich tradition of pre-paleographical and pre-codicological studies dating back to Peter Lambeck that was then brilliantly illustrated by Herbert Hunger (above), Ernst Gamillscheg developed an expertise in codicology and paleography, particularly the identification of hands of Greek copyists similar to that of Dieter Harlfinger. They quickly joined their efforts for a program on Greek copyists aimed to list all the manuscripts that have been signed by one or more copyist(s) or that are unsigned but can be attributed to known copyists (or even to anonymous ones whose hand can be recognized in several items). To this end, both Gamillscheg and Harlfinger surveyed the major collections in Europe and published as early as 1978 a specimen of the catalogue they were preparing: Ernst Gamillscheg, and Dieter Harlfinger, “Specimen eines Repertoriums der griechischen Kopisten,” Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 27 (1978): 293–322. Since then, they have published three volumes of the Repertorium der griechischen Kopisten 800–1600, vol. 1: United Kingdom, 1981; vol. 2: France, 1989; vol. 3: Rome, including the Vatican Library, 1997. Characteristically, each volume contains three parts: A. List of copyists; B: Paleographical analysis (by Herbert Hunger); C: Tables. Studies were further boosted by an unexpected discovery: in 1975, indeed, the monks of Saint Catherine monastery in the Sinai discovered in a wall 12 leaves and forty fragments of the codex Sinaiticus (for a report, see, for example: Linos Politis, “Nouveaux manuscrits grecs découverts au Mont Sinaï: Rapport préliminaire,” Scriptorium 34 [1980]: 5–10), which had been dismembered and whose leaves are now in Leipzig, London, and Saint Petersburg (above). During this period color-printing technique made further progress, allowing for unprecedented development of manuscript reproduction. A spectacular realization was the 1970 facsimile of the Dioscorides of Vienna already mentioned, published by the Austrian company ADEVA, which was a pioneer in this sector and recently celebrated 60 years of activity. Since then, many new publishing houses specialized in this type of production have been created, particularly in recent years in Italy (in the north; for example, Directa in Brescia; Franco Cosimo Panini, in Modena; Ozzano Emilia, in Bologna; or Trident Editore, in Castel San Pietro) and Spain (among others, AyN and Testimonio in Madrid, Moleiro in Barcelona, and Patrimonio in Valencia). This development resulted not only from technical improvements and reduced costs, but also from the interest in manuscripts outside the world of specialists. From the late 1980s, indeed, the antiquarian market of art grew in an exceptional way, particularly in auctions in London and New York. Impres-
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sionist painting was especially sought after and some works were sold for record prices that ended up on the front page of newspapers worldwide. The book market – among others Western and Arabic manuscripts – benefitted from this dynamic. Auction houses hired the services of specialists from the academia or had in-house experts who moved later on to the academia, as did Christopher De Hamel who had been for years with Sotheby’s. Some auctions and manuscripts were largely publicized in the news, such as the Archimedes palimpsest studied in the early 20th century by Heiberg, and recently re-emerged on the market as the “property from a French private collection” (for the auction catalogue, see: Christie’s New York, The Archimedes Palimpsest, Thursday 19 October 1998, with a thorough analysis by Nigel Guy Wilson). The codex was acquired by a private collector, and submitted to a highly technologized treatment that brought its first text to light. The whole story has generated a strong interest in the media, and led also to the publication of a popular book (William Noel, and Reviel Netz, The Archimedes Codex: How a Medieval Prayer Book is Revealing the True Genius of Antiquity’s Greatest Scientist, 2007). The interest in manuscripts generated by this activity and its report in the news offered an opportunity for books of introduction, coffeetable volumes lavishly illustrated, and even novels of historical inspiration that had been preceded by such a masterpiece as the Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco (1980), which was built on a library and manuscript story. Not all items offered on auction attracted the attention of the lay audience. This is the case, for example, of the Galen codex sold by Christie’s in London (Christie’s London, Valuable Manuscripts and printed Books, Wednesday 7 June 2006 … King Street … London, 2006), which is now at the Beinecke Library of Yale University and appears to be a key piece in the medieval transmission of Galen’s text. In earlier years, interest in manuscript and ancient book outside the academia was limited to the world of collectors, with such specialized antiquarians as Hans Peter Kraus (1907–1988) in New York, who has been one of the most important for several decades (Kraus published an autobiography: A Rare Saga: The Autobiography of H. P. Kraus, 1978; when Kraus’s business closed, the collection was sold: Sotheby’s, The Inventory of H. P. Kraus. Property of Sotheby’s, New York: Sotheby’s, Thursday & Friday, December 4 & 5, 2003); large antiquarian companies as Bernard Quaritch and Maggs Bros. in London, or smaller individual booksellers like Alan G. Thomas in London also (see, for example, his catalogues, Fine Books: Catalogue Twenty-Nine 1972, 1972, and Fine Books: Catalogue Thirty-Four 1975, 1975, which include manuscripts), and, among many others, Heribert Tenschert in Bibermühle (Switzerland). This without mentioning the major auctioneers Christie’s and Sotheby’s worldwide.
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The 20th-century book market was largely dominated by the dispersal of Thomas Phillipps’ collection (for the catalogue of the collection, see Catalogus librorum manuscriptorum in bibliotheca D. Thomae Phillipps Bart. A.D. 1837–1871, 4 parts, 1837–1871 [rpt.: The Phillipps Manuscripts: Catalogus librorum manuscriptorum in biblioteca D. Thomae Phillips, BT: impressum typis Medio-Montanis 1837–1871, ed. Alan Noel Latimer Munby, [2001]) (for some catalogues of the dispersal of Phillipps’s manuscripts, see [selection]: William Robinson Ltd., A Selection of Precious Manuscripts, Historic Documents, and Rare Books, the Majority from the Renowned collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps, Br (1792–1872), 1950; Sotheby & Co, Bibliotheca Phillippica, Catalogue of French, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, Yugoslav and Slavonic Manuscripts from the Celebrated Collection Formed by Sir Thomas Phillipps, Br. (1792–1872), New Ser., Sixth Part: comprising … which will be sold by Sotheby & Co, Days of Sale, Monday, 15th June, 1970; Tuesday, 16th June, 1970; Sotheby & Co, Bibliotheca Phillippica, Medieval Manuscripts, new ser., 6th part: Catalogue of Manuscripts on Papyrus, Vellum and Paper of the 7th century to the 18th century from the celebrated collection formed by Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792–1872) The Property of the Trustees of the Robinson Trust, Day of Sale: Tuesday, 30th November 1971; Sotheby & Co, Bibliotheca Phillippica, Catalogue of French, Spanish and Greek Manuscripts and English Charters From the Celebrated Collection formed by Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bt. (1792–1872). The Property of the Trustees of the Robinson Trust, new ser., 9th part: Monday, 25th June 1973 and Tuesday, 26th June 1973; Sotheby & Co, Bibliotheca Phillippica, new ser., 4th part: Catalogue of Italian, French, Greek, Russian, Polish and Lithuanian Manuscripts From the Celebrated Collection formed by Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bt. (1792–1872). The Property of the Trustees of the Robinson Trust, Tuesday, 8th July, 1975; Sotheby’s, Bibliotheca Phillippica, new ser., 16th part: Catalogue of French, Spanish, Greek and Serbo-Croat Manuscripts with a few Slavonic and Portuguese From the Celebrated Collection formed by Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bt. (1792–1872). The Property of the Trustees of the Robinson Trust. [London: Sotheby’s], Monday, 29th June, 1976, and Tuesday, 26th June, 1976; Sotheby’s, Bibliotheca Phillippica, new ser., 18th part: Catalogue of Pritned Books on Science, Medicine and Botany with a Few Botanical Drawings From the Celebrated Collection formed by Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bt. (1792–1872) and from other sources. The Property of the Trustees of the Robinson Trust, Monday, 29th November, 1976; Sotheby’s, Bibliotheca Phillippica, new ser., 19th part: Catalogue of English, French, Greek & Icelandic Manuscripts From the celebrated collection formed by Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bt. (1792–1872). The Property of the Trustees of the Robinson Trust. [London: Sotheby’s], Monday, 27th June, 1977, Tuesday, 28th June, 1977.
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G. Major Trends of Research: Codicology After codicology had emerged as a discipline of its own, the number of publications rapidly increased according to a typical pattern, from introductory to more specialized works. A list follows, which is far from being complete and includes, instead, some representative works on a series of topics ordered according to the process of production of manuscripts (after introductory works) (within each section, works are listed in chronological order of publication): (definition of the field and introduction) Robert Devreesse (1894–1978), Introduction à l’étude des manuscrits grecs, 1954; Léon Gilissen, Prolégomènes à la codicologie, 1977; Denis Trémault, Archéologie du livre médiéval, 1987; Jacques Lemaire, Introduction à la codicologie, 1989; Marilena Maniaci, Archeologia del manoscritto: Metodi, problemi, bibliografia recente, 2002; (terminology, English, Renaissance to modern) Peter Beal, A Dictionary of English Manuscript Terminology, 1450–2000, 2008; (terminology, French) Denis Muzerelle, Vocabulaire codicologique du français, 1985; (terminology, Italian) Marilena Maniaci, Terminologia del libro manoscritto, 1996; (terminology, Spanish) Pilar Ostos, Maria Luisa Pardo, and Elena E. Rodríguez, Vocabulario de codicología, 1997; (bibliography, general) Laurel Nichols Braswell, Western Manuscripts from Classical Antiquity to the Renaissance: A Handbook, 1981; (bibliography, Greek manuscripts) Paul Canart, Paleografia e codicologia greca: Una rassegna bibliografica, 1991; (current work) Id., “Nouvelles recherches et nouveaux instruments de travail dans le domaine de la codicologie,” Scrittura e civiltà 3 (1979): 267–307; analytical bibliography of current production in Byzantinische Zeitschrift, 3rd part: Bibliographische Notizen, Sections 2 A, a: Allgemeine Darstellungen; b: Kataloge, Tafel- und Facsimile Ausgaben, …; c: Kopisten, …, and Scriptorium, Bulletin codicologique; (terminology, Greek, Byzantium) Basile Atsalos, La terminologie du livre-manuscrit à l’époque byzantine, 1971; (bibliography on manuscripts, Vatican library) Paul Canart, and Vittorio Peri (1932–2005), Sussidi bibliografici per i manoscriti greci della bibiotheca Vaticana, 1970; Massimo Ceresa, Bibliografia dei fondi manoscritti della Biblioteca Vaticana (1991–2000), 2005; (form of the book: roll) William A. Johnson, Bookrolls and Scribes in Oxyrhynchus, 2004; (transition from roll to codex) Colin Henderson Roberts, The Birth of the Codex, 1983; Alain Blanchard, Les débuts du codex, 1989; (medium: parchment) Julien Leroy (1916–1987), “La description codicologique des manuscrits grecs de parchemin,” La paléographie grecque et byzantine (above), 27–41; (medium: paper, production) Dard Hunter, Papermaking: The History and Technique of an Ancient Craft, 1978; Jonathan M. Bloom, Paper Before Print: The History and Impact of Paper in the Islamic World, 2001; (medium: paper, diffusion) Jean Irigoin, “Les premiers manuscrits grecs écrits sur papier et le problème du
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bombycin,” Scriptorium 4 (1950): 194–204; Id., “Les débuts de l’emploi du papier à Byzance,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 46 (1953): 314–19; Id., “Papiers orientaux et papiers occidentaux,” La paléographie grecque et byzantine (above), 45–54; Id., “Les types de formes utilisés dans l’Orient méditerranéen (Syrie, Égypte) du XIe au XIVe siécle,” Papiergeschichte 13 (1963): 18–21; MarieThérèse Le Léannec-Bavavéas, Les papiers non filigranés médiévaux de la Perse à l’Espagne: Bibliographie 1950–1995, 1998; Ead., “Les papiers non filigranés médiévaux dans les manuscrits grecs de la Bibliothéque Nationale de France,” Scriptorium 53 (1999): 275–324; (watermarks, methods) Jean Irigoin, “La datation par les filigranes …” (above); Dieter Harlfinger, “Zur Datierung von Handschriften mit Hilfe von Wasserzeichen,” Kodikologie und Textüberlieferung, ed. Dieter Harlfinger, 1980, 144–69; Monique Zerdoun Bat- Yehouda, Les papiers filigranés médiévaux: Essai de méthodologie descriptive, 1989; (watermarks, dictionaries) Vladimir A. Mo sin, ˇ and Seid M. e e Tralji c, ´ Vodeni znakovi XIII. i XIV vijeka – Filigranes des XIII et XIV siècles, 2 vols., 1957; Monumenta chartae papyraceae historiam illustrantia, or Collection of Works and Documents Illustrating the History of Paper, ed. E. J. Labarre, 14 vols. and a Supplement, 1950–1994 (includes the albums by the Zonghi brothers, Bofarull y Sans, Likhachev, and Briquet [above]); Dieter and Joanna Harlfinger, Wasserzeichen aus griechischen Handschriften, 2 vols., 1974–1980; the several volumes by Gerhard Piccard among which: Die Kronenwasserzeichen, 1961; Die Ochsenkopfwasserzeichen, 3 vols., 1966; Die Turmwasserzeichen, 1970; Wasserzeichen Waage, 1978; Wasserzeichen Anker, 1978; Wasserzeichen Horn, 1979; Wasserzeichen Schlüssel, 1979; Wasserzeichen Werkzeug und Waffen, 2 vols., 1980; Wasserzeichen Fabeltiere: Greif-Drache-Einhorn, 1980; Mark L. Sosower, Signa officinarum chartariarum in codicibus graecis saeculo sexto decimo fabricatis in bibliothecis Hispaniae, 2004; (ruling) Julien Leroy, Les types de réglures des manuscrits grecs, 1976; Id., “Quelques systèmes de réglure des manuscrits grecs,” Studia codicologica 1977, 291–312; Jacques-Hubert Sautel, Répertoire de réglures dans les manuscrits grecs sur parchemin, 1995; (layout) Henri-Jean Martin, Mise en page et mise en texte du livre manuscrit, 1990; (ink) Monique Zerdoun Bat-Yehouda, Les encres noires au Moyen Âge (jusqu’à 1600), 1983; Carlo-Maria Mazzucchi, “Inchiostri bizantini del XII secolo,” Rivista di Studi Bizantini e Neogreci, new ser. 42 (2005): 15–62; (writing, concept) Colette Sirat, Jean Irigoin, and Emmanuel Poulle, L’écriture: Le Cerveau, l’oeil et la main, 1990; (writing, origin) Peter Damerow, The Origins of Writing as a Problem of Historical Epistemology, 2006; (writing, general history) Khosro Khazai, Naissance et évolution de l’écriture, 1985; Donald Jackson, The Story of Writing, 1981 (Italian trans.: La scrittura nei secoli, 1988); (writing, semantics) Stanley Morison, Politics and Script: Aspects of Authority and Freedom in the Devel-
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opment of Graeco-Latin Script from the Sixth-Century BC, 1972; Jack Goody, The Logic of Writing and the Organization of Society, 1986; Id., The Interface Between the Written and the Oral, 1987; (paleography, terminology) André Bataille, Pour une terminologie en paléographie grecque, 1954; (paleography, manuals) Elpidio Mioni, Pat Easterling, and Carol Handley, Greek Scripts: An Illustrated Introduction, 2001; Stan Knight, Historical Scripts from Classical Times to the Renaissance, 2003; Guglielmo Cavallo, Il calamo e il papiro: La scrittura greca dell’età ellenistica ai primi secoli di Bisanzio, 2005; (paleography, tables) Colin Henderson Roberts, Greek Literary Hands, 350 B.C.–A.D. 400, 1956; Alexander Turyn, Codices graeci Vaticani saeculis XIII et XIV scripti annorumque notis instructi, 1964; Martin Wittek, Album de paléographie grecque: Spécimens d’écritures livresques du IIIe siècle avant J.C. au XVIIIe siècle, conservés dans des collections belges, 1967; Tullia Gasparrini Leporace, and Elpidio Mioni, Cento codici bessarionei: Catalogo di mostra, 1968; Athanasios D. Komines, Facsimiles of Dated Patmian Codices, 1970 (originally published in Greek in 1968); Richard Seider, Paläographie der griechischen Papyri, vol. 1: Tafeln, 2 parts, 1967–1970; Enrica Follieri (1926–1999), Codices graeci Bibliothecae Vaticanae temporum locorumque ordine digesti commentariis et transciptionibus instructi, 1969; Eric Gardner Turner (1911–1983), Greek Manuscripts of the Ancient World, 1971 (2nd rev. ed. 1987); Alexander Turyn, Dated Greek Manuscripts of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries in the Libraries of Italy, 2 vols., 1972; Nigel Guy Wilson, Medieval Greek Bookhands: Examples Selected from Greek Manuscripts in Oxford Libraries, 2 fascicles, 1973; Dieter Harlfinger, Specimina griechischer Kopisten der Renaissance, vol. 1: Griechen des 15. Jahrhunderts, 1974; Elpidio Mioni, and Mariarosa Formentin, I codici greci in minuscola dei sec. IX e X della Biblioteca Marciana, 1975; Agamemnôn Tselikas, Deka aiônes ellênikês grafês (9os-19os ai.), 1977 (collection of the Benaki Museum, Athens); Silvio Bernardinello, Autografi greci e greco-latini in Occidente, 1979; Alexander Turyn, Dated Greek Manuscripts of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries in the Libraries of Great Britain, 1980; Ruth Barbour, Greek Literary Hands A-D. 400–1600, 1981; Dieter Harlfinger, Dieter Roderich Reinsch, Josef A. M. Sonderkamp, and Gian-Carlo Prato, Specimina Sinaitica: Die datierten griechischen Handschriften des Katharinin-Klosters auf dem Berge Sinai. 9. bis 12. Jahrhundert, 1983; Guglielmo Cavallo, and Herwig Maehler, Greek Bookhands of the Early Byzantine Period A.D. 300–800, 1987; (dated manuscripts) Turyn, Codices graeci Vaticani saeculis XIII et XIV scripti … (above); Id., Dated Greek Manuscripts … Italy … (above); Id., Dated Greek Manuscripts … Great Britain (above); Manuscrits grecs datés des XIIIe et XIVe siècles conservés dans les bibliothèques publiques de France, 2 vols, 1989–2005; (paleography, evolution of writing) Jean Irigoin, “Structure et évolution des écritures livresques de l’époque byzantine,” Polychronion Fest-
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schrift für Franz Dölger, 1966, 253–65; (paleography, majuscule) Guglielmo Cavallo, Ricerche sulla maiuscola biblica, 1967; Jean Irigoin, “L’onciale grecque de type copte,” Jahrbuch der Östereichischen Byzantinischen Gesellschaft 8 (1959): 29–51; Guglielmo Cavallo, “Funzione e strutture della maiuscola greca tra i secoli VIII–XI,” La paléographie grecque et byzantine (above), 95–110; (paleography, minuscule) Herbert Hunger, Studien zur griechischen Paläeographie, 1954, 22–32: “Die Perlschrift, eine Stilrichtung der griechischen Buchschrift des 11. Jahrhunderts”; Enrica Follieri, “La minuscola libraria dei secoli IX e X,” La Paléographie grecque et byzantine (above), 139–65; Herbert Hunger, “Minuskel und Auszeichnungsschriften im 10.–12. Jahrhundert,” ibid., 201–20; Jean Irigoin, “Une écriture du Xe siècle: la minuscule bouletée,” ibid., 191–99; Cyril Mango, “L’origine de la minuscule,” ibid., 175–80; Silvio Bernardinello, “Nuovi manoscritti in minuscola ‘bouletée’ dalle biblioteche di Firenze, Ochrida, Padova, Venezia, Wolfenbüttel,” Miscellanea codicologica François Masai dicata, 1979, ed. Pierre Cockshaw (1938–2008), Monique-Cécile Garand, and Pierre Jodogne, 2 vols., 1979, vol. 1, 105–13; Julien Leroy, “Les manuscrits grecs en minuscule des IXe et Xe siècles de la Marcienne,” Jahrbuch der österreichischen Byzantinistik 27 (1978): 25–48; Maria Luisa Agati, “La congiunzione kai nella minuscola libraria greca,” Scrittura e Civiltà 8 (1984), 69–81; (majuscule letters in minuscule writing) Enrica Follieri, “La reintroduzione di lettere semioncali nei piu antichi manoscritti greci in minuscola,” Bulletino dell’Archivio paleografico italiano, 3rd ser., 1 (1962): 15–36; R. Valentini, “La reintroduzione dell’onciale e la datazione dei manoscritti greci in minuscola,” Scritti in onore di Carlo Diano, 1975, 455–70; Herbert Hunger, “Epigraphische Auszeichnungsmajuskel: Beitrag zu einem bisher kaum beachteten Kapitel der griechischen Paläographie,” Jahrbuch der Östereichischen Byzantinischen Gesellschaft 26 (1977): 193–200; (paleography, areas) (Athos) Boris L. Fonki c, ˇ “Biblioteka Lauri su. Afanasii na Afone v. X–XIII vv.,” Palestinskij Sbornik 17 (1967), 168–69; Id., “La production des livres grecs et les bibliothèques de l’Athos aux Xe-XIIIe ss.: Quelques résultats et perspectives de la recherche,” Bolletino della Badia Greca di Grottaferrata n. s. 49–50 (1995–1996): 35–61; (Cyprus) Jean Darrouzes, “Manuscrits originaires de Chypre à la Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris,” Revue des Etudes Byzantines 8 (1950): 162–96; Id., “Autres manuscrits originaires de Chypre,” Revue des Etudes Byzantines 15 (1957): 131–68; Paul Canart, “Un style d’écriture livresque dans les manuscrits chypriotes du XIVe siècle: la chypriote ‘bouclée’,” La paléographie grecque et byzantine (above), 303–21; Id., “Les écritures livresques chypriotes du milieu du XIe siècle au milieu du XIIIe et le style Palestino-Chypriote ‘epsilon,’” Scrittura e Civiltà 5 (1981): 17–76; (Grecia) Giancarlo Prato, “Manoscritti greci in Grecia,” Scrit-
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ture, libri e testi … (above), 3–24; Id., “Scritture e libri in Grecia tra IX e XIV secolo,” Bisanzio fuori di Bisanzio, ed. Guglielmo Cavallo, 1991, 48–65; (Italy, Southern) Robert Devreesse, Les manuscrits grecs de l’Italie méridionale (histoire, classement, paléographie), 1955; Julien Leroy, “Les manuscrits grecs d’Italie,” Codicologica 2 (1978): 52–71; Id., “Le Parisinus gr. 1477 et la détermination de l’origine des manuscrits italo-grecs d’après la forme des initiales,” Scriptorium 22 (1978): 191–212; Paul Canart, “Le livre grec en Italie méridionale sous les règnes Normands et Souabe: aspects matériels et sociaux,” Scrittura e Civiltà 2 (1978): 103–62; André Grabar (1896–1990), Les manuscrits grecs enluminés de provenance italienne (IXe–XIe siècles), 1972; Guglielmo Cavallo, “Scritture italo-greche librarie e documentarie,” Bisanzio e l’Italia: Raccolta di studi in memoria di Agostino Pertusi, 1982, 29–38; Giancarlo Prato, “Attività scrittoria in Calabria tra IX e X secolo: Qualche riflessione,” Jahrbuch der österreichischen Byzantinistik 36 (1986): 219–228; Annaclara Cataldi Palau, “Manoscritti greco-latini dell’Italia meridionale: Un nuovo Salterio vergato da Romano di Ullano,” Nuove ricerche sui manoscritti greci dell’Ambrosiana: Atti del Convegno, Milano, 5–6 giugno 2003, 2004, 37–78; (Reggio di Calabria) Paul Canart, and Julien Leroy, “Les manuscrits en style de Reggio: Etude paléographique et codicologique,” La paléographie grecque et byzantine (above), 241–61; (West) Guglielmo Cavallo, “La produzione di manoscritti greci in occidente tra età tardo antica e alto medioevo: Note ed ipotesi,” Scrittura e Civiltà 1 (1977), 111–31; (paleography, periods) (9th c.) Boris L. Fonki c, ˇ “Sulla datazione dei codici greci in minuscola del secolo IX,” Byzantina Mediterranea: Festschrift für Johannes Koder zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Klaus Belke, Ewald Kislinger, Andreas Külzer, and Maria A. Stassinopoulou, 2007, 175–81; (1071–1261) Boris L. Fonki c, ˇ “Les manuscrits à Byzance (1071–1261),” XVe Congrès international d’études byzantines, Rapports et co-rapports: II Langue, Littérature, Philologie, 3: Les conditions matérielles, sociales et économiques de la production culturelle à Byzance, 1976, 26–35; (1204–1261) Giancarlo Prato, “La produzione libraria in area greco-orientale nel periodo del regno latino di Costantinopoli (1204–1261),” Scrittura e Civiltà 5 (1981): 105–147; (Palaeologan period) Id., “I manoscritti greci dei secoli XIII e XIV: Note paleografiche,” Paleografia e codicologia: Atti … (above), 131–149; Id., “Scritture arcaizzanti della prima età dei paleologi e i loro modelli,” Scrittura e Civiltà 3 (1979), 151–193; (paleography, tachygraphy) Sofia Torallas Tovar, and Klaas A. Worp, To the Origins of Greek Stenography: P. Monts. Roca 1, 2006; (paleography, styles) Paul Canart, “Le problème du style d’écriture dit en as de pique dans les manuscrits italo-grecs, “Atti del 4o congresso storicocalabrese, 1969, 53–69; Dieter Harlfinger, “Zu griechischen Kopisten und Schriftstilen des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts,” La paléographie grecque et byzantine,
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(above), 326–62; (colophon) Thérèse Glorieux-De Gand, Formules de copiste: Les colophons des manuscrits datés, 1991; (binding) Elisabeth Baras, Jean Irigoin, and Jean Vezin. La reliure médiévale: Trois conférences d’initiation, 1981; Legature bizantine vaticane e marciane: Storia dei materiali e delle tecniche di manifattura, ed. Assunta Di Febo, 1989; Heinz Petersen, Bucheinbände, 1991; Philippa J.M. Marks, Bookbinding: History and Techniques, 1998; Anthony Hobson, Renaissance Book Collecting: Jean Grolier and Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, their Books and Bindings, 1999; Annaclara Cataldi Palau, “Legature costantinopolitane del monastero di Prodromo Petra tra i manoscritti di Giovanni di Ragusa (+ 1443),” Codices Manuscripti 37/38 (2001): 11–50; La reliure médiévale: Pour une description normalisée, ed. Guy Lanoë, 2008; Nikê Tsirônê, To biblio sto Buzantio: Buzantinê kai metabuzantinê bibliodesia. Praktika diethnous sunedriou, Athêna 13–16 oktôbriou 2005, 2008; (trade) Jean Irigoin, “Les ambassadeurs à Venise et le commerce des manuscrits grecs dans les années 1540–1550,” Venezia centro di Mediazione tra Oriente e Occidente (secoli XV– XVI) Aspetti e problemi, ed. Hans Georg Beck (1910–1999) et al., 2 vols., 1977, vol. 2, 399–415; Paul Canart, “Jean Nathanaël et le commerce des manuscrits grecs à Venise au XVIe siècle,” ibid., vol. 2, 419–38; Ellês Giôtopoulou-Sisilianou, Antônios o Eparchos enas kerkuraios oumanistês tou IST’ aiôna, 1978 (owners and readers) Giovanna Derenzini, “Demetrio Triclinio e il codice marciano greco 264,” Scrittura e Civiltà 3 (1979): 223–41; (manuscripts and printing) Griechische Handschriften und Aldinen, ed. Dieter Harlfinger, Joanna Harlfinger, Josef A. M. Sonderkamp, and Martin Sicherl, 1978. H. Major Trends of Research: Copyists and Scriptoria (signed manuscripts and identification of hands, general works) Alphonse Dain, “Copistes grecs de la Renaissance,” Bulletin de l’Association Guillaume Budé n. s. 3 (1963): 361–363; Christos G. Patrinelis, “Ellênnes kôdikografoi tôn chronôn tês Annagennêseôs,” Epetêris Mesaiônikou Archeiou 8–9 (1958–1959): 63–124; Paul Canart, “Scribes grecs de la Renaissance,” Scriptorium 17 (1963): 56–82; Karl Antoon de Meyier, “Scribes grecs de la Renaissance,” Scriptorium 18 (1964): 258–66; Jürgen Wiesner, and Ulrich Victor, “Griechische Schreiber der Renaissance,” Rivista di Studi Bizantini e Neoellenici n. s. 8–9 (1971–1972): 51–66; Carla Casetti Brach, “Copisti greci del Medioevo e del Rinascimento: Aggiunte ai repertori di Vogel-Gardthausen, Patrinelis, Canart, De Meyier e Wiesner-Victor,” Epetêris Etarireias Buzantinôn Spoudôn 42 (1975): 234–52; Ernst Gamillscheg, and Dieter Harlfinger, “Specimen eines Repertoriums …” (above); Martin Sicherl, “Parerga zu griechischen Kopisten der Renaissance,” Studi in onore di Aristide
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Colonna, 1982, 265–81; Gamillscheg and Harlfinger, Repertorium … (above). (copyists: signed manuscripts and identification of hands, individual copyists) (Anonymus Dioscoridis) Daniele Arnesano, “Il ‘Copista del Dioscoride’: Un anonimo salentino del secolo XIII,” Bolletino dei Classici, 3rd ser., 24 (2003): 29–55; (Anonymus Harvardianus) Philippe Hoffman, “Un mystérieux collaborateur d’Alde Manuce: L’Anonymus Harvardianus,” and “Autres données relatives à un mystérieux collaborateur d’Alde,” Mélanges de l’Ecole française de Rome: Moyen Age, Temps Modernes 97 (1985): 45–143, and 98 (1986): 673–708 respectively; (Apostolês Michaêl) Martin Wittek, “Manuscrits et codicoloqie. 4: Pour une étude du scriptorium de Michel Apostolès et consorts,” Scriptorium 7 (1953): 290–97; Id., “Michel Apostolès et la survie des textes classiques grecs,” Ph.D. thesis University of Brussels, 1963; (Apostolês, Michaêl and Aristoboulos) Paul Canart, “Note sur l’écriture de Michel et Aristobule Apostolès et sur quelques manuscrits attribuables à ce dernier,” Un esemplare autografo di Arsenio e il Florilegio di Stobeo, ed. Anna Lucia Di Lello-Finuoli, 1971, 87–101; (Bessarion) Henri D. Saffrey, “Recherches sur quelques autographes du Cardinal Bessarion et leur caractère autobiographique,” Mélanges Eugène Tisserant, vol. 3, 1964, 263–97; Elpidio Mioni, “Bessarione scriba e alcuni suoi collaboratori,” Miscellanea marciana di studi bessarionei, 1976, 263–318; (Dêmêtrios Damilas) Paul Canart, “Démétrius Damilas alias le Librarius Florentius,” Rivista di Studi bizantini e neoel1enici, new ser. 14–16 (1977–1979): 281–347; (Andreas Darmarios) Otto Kresten, “Der Schreiber und Handschriftenhändler Andreas Darmarios: Eine biographische Skizze,” Griechische Kodikologie …, ed. Harlfinger (above), 406–19; Id., “Die Handschriften des A. Darmarios im Jahre 1564,” Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 24 (1975): 147–93; (Nicolas de la Torre) Karl Antoon de Meyier, “Les manuscrits grecs de Leyde écrits par Nicolas de la Torre,” Scriptorium 5 (1951): 46–59; Gregorio De Andrés, El Cretense Nicolas de la Torre, copista griego de Felipe II, 1969; Mark Sosower, “The Greek Manuscripts Written by Nicholas Turrianos in the Library of Diego de Covarrubias (1577), Bishop of Segovia,” Codices Manuscripti 41 (2002): 13–30; (Glynzounios) Martin Sicherl, “Manuel Glynzounios als Schreiber griechischer Handschriften,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 49 (1956): 34–54; Paul Canart, “Nouveaux manuscrits copiés par Emmanuel Glynzounios,” Epetêris Etaireias Buzantinôn Spoudôn 39–40 (1972–1973): 527–544; (Geôrgios and Manouêl Grêgoropoulos) Elenê Kakoulidi, “Duo neoi kôdikes tôn krêtikôn bibliografôn Geôrgiou kai Manouêl Manousou Grêgoropoulou,” Ellênika 21 (1968): 178–79; (Iôannês of Korônê) David Speranzi, “Un nuovo codice di ‘Giovanni di Corone’: lo Strabone Laur. Plut. 28.40,” Medievo e
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Rinascimento 16 (2005): 61–80; (Andronikos Kallistos) Robert B. Todd, “Baltasar Meliavacca, Andronicus Callistus, and the Greek Aristotellian Commentators in Fifteenth-Century Italy,” Italia medioevale e umanistica 37 (1994): 67–75; (Kônstantinos Laskaris) Teresa Martinez Manzano, Konstantinos Laskaris: Humanist, Philologe, Lehrer, Kopist, 1994; Ead., “Un nuevo manuscrito de Constantino Láscaris en la Biblioteca universitaria de Gotinga,” Erytheia 21 (2000): 131–36; (Michaêl Louloudês) Antonio Bravo García, and Inmaculada Peréz Martin, “Un nuevo manuscrito copiado por Miguel Luludes: el Escurialensis . III. 11,” ‘Opôra: Studi in onore di Mgr Paul Canart per il LXX compleanno, 1998, 227–234; (Manouêl Malaxos) Giuseppe De Gregorio, Il copista greco Manouel Malaxos: Studio biografico e paleografico-codicologico, 1991; (Theodôros Meliteniôtês) Régine Leurquin, “Un manuscrit autographe de la Tribiblos astronomique de Théodore Méliténiote: le Vaticanus graecus 792,” Scriptorium 45 (1991): 145–62; (Moschos family) Graham Speake, and Francis Vian, “The So-Called D Manuscript of Apollonius,” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 14 (1973): 301–18; Graham Speake, “The Scribal Habits of Demetrius Moschus,” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 15 (1974): 113–33; (Markos Mousouros) Martin Sicherl, “Musuros Handschriften,” Serta Turyniana: Studies in Greek Literature and Paleography in Honor of Alexander Turyn, ed. John Heller, 1974, 564–608; (Iôannês Onorios a Maglia) Maria Luisa Agati, Paul Canart, and Carlo Federici, “Giovanni Onorio da Maglie instaurator librorum graecorum à la fin du Moyen âge,” Scriptorium 50 (1996), 363–69; (Petros Krêtikos) Ernst Gamillscheg, “Beobachtungen zur Kopistentätigkeit des Petros Kretikos,” Jahrbuch der österreichischen Byzantinistik 24 (1975): 137–45; Jean Irigoin, “Deux copistes d’Apollonios de Rhodes au début du XVe siècle: Pierre le Crétois et Georges Chrysokokkès,” Rodônia: Timê ston M. I. Manousaka, 2 vols., 1994, vol. 1, 147–55; (Maximos Planoudês) André Allard, “L’Ambrosianus Et 157 sup., un manuscrit autographe de Maxime Planude,” Scriptorium 33 (1979): 219–34; Mariarosa Formentin, “La grafia di Massimo Planude,” Jahrbuch der österreichischen Byzantinistik 32 (1982): 87–96; (Emmanouêl Probatarês) Paul Canart, “Les manuscrits copiés par Emmanuel Provataris (1546–7570 environ),” Mélanges Eugène Tisserant, vol. 6, 1964, 173–287; (Kônstantinos Resinos) Paul Canart, “Constantin Rhésinos, théologien populaire et copiste de manuscrits,” Studi di bibliografia in onore di Tammaro De Marinis, 2 vols., 1964, vol. 1, 241–71; (Iôannês Seberos) Paul Canart, “Un copiste expansif: Jean Sévère de Lacédémone,” Studia codicologica, ed. Kurt Treu, 1977, 117–39; (Zacharias Skordulês) Ernst Gamillscheg, “Scordyliana,” Codices manuscripti 3 (1977): 17–22; (Nikolaos Sofianos) William A. Pettas, “Nikolaos Sophianos and Greek Printing in Rome,” The Library,
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5th ser., 29 (1974): 206–13; (Geôrgios Tribizias, Andronikos Kallistos, Geôrgios Ermônumos) Aubrey Diller, “Three Greek Scribes Working for Bessarion: Trivizias, Callistus, Hermonymus,” Italia medioevale e umanistica 10 (1967): 403–10; (Dêmêtrios Tribolês) Alexandre Oleroff, “Démétrius Trivolis, copiste et bibliophile,” Scriptorium 4 (1950): 260–63; (scriptoria, general) Jean Irigoin, “Pour une étude des centres de copie byzantins, II. Quelques groupes de manuscrits,” Scriptorium 13 (1959): 177–209; (scriptoria and libraries) Jean Irigoin, “Centres de copie et bibliothèques,” Byzantine Books and Bookmen, 1975, 17–27; Horst Blanck, “Scriptoria e biblioteche nel mondo classico,” La città e la parola scritta, ed. Giovanni Pugliese Carratelli (1911–2010), 1997, 3–61; Francis Newton, The Scriptorium and Library at Monte Cassino 1058–1105, 1999; (scriptoria) (monastery of Dousikou) Photios Ar. Demetrakopoulou, “To kôdikografiko ergastêrio tês monês Dousikon ton 16o aiôna kai o bibliografos Kallistos,” Epetêris Etaireias Buzantinôn Spoudôn 50 (1999–2000), 403–47; (Iôannikios) Nigel Guy Wilson, “A Mysterious Byzantine Scriptorium,” Scrittura e civiltà 7 (1983): 161–76; Id., “New Light on Burgundio of Pisa,” Studi italiani di filologia classica, 3rd ser., 4 (1986): 113–18; Id., “Ioannikios and Burgundio: a Survey of the Problem,” Scritture, libri e testi … (above), 447–55; (scriptorium of Paleologina) Inmaculada Pérez Martín, “Irene Cumno y el ‘Taller de la Paleologuina’,” Scrittura e civiltà 19 (1995): 223–34; (Guillaume Pellicier) Annaclara Palau, “Les copistes de Guillaume Pellicier …” (above). I. Major Trends of Research: Codicology and Textual Tradition (general studies) Dieter Harlfinger, Griechische Kodikologie und Textüberlieferung, 1980; Guglielmo Cavallo, Dalla parte del libro: Storie di trasmissione dei classici, 2002; (general studies, areas, Southern Italy) Jean Irigoin, “L’Italie méridionale et la tradition des textes antiques,” Jahrbuch der österreichischen Byzantinistik 18 (1969): 37–55; Vittorio Peri, “Birgilios = sapientissimus: Riflessi culturali latino-greci nell’agiographia bizantina,” Italia medioevale e umanistica 19 (1976): 1–40; Giovanna Derenzini, “All’origine della tradizione di opere scientifiche classiche: vicende di testi e di codici tra Bisanzio e Palermo,” Physis 18 (1976): 87–103; Paul Canart, “Le livre grec en Italie méridionale sous les règnes Normand et Souabe: aspects matériels et sociaux,” Scrittura e Civiltà 2 (1978): 103–162; Guglielmo Cavallo, “La trasmissione scritta della cultura graeca in Calabria e in Sicilia tra i secoli X–XV: Consistenza, tipologia, funzione,” Scrittura e civiltà 4 (1980): 157–245; Id., “La cultura italo-greca nella procuzione libraria,” I bizantini in Italia, 1982, 495–612; Id., “Mezzogiorno svevo e cultura greca: Materiale per una messa
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a punto,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 84–85 (1991–1992): 430–40; (general studies, periods, Renaissance) Paul L. Rose, “Humanist Culture and Renaissance Mathematics: The Italian Libraries of the Quattrocento,” Studies in the Renaissance 20 (1973): 46–105; (studies on specific authors) (Aristotle) Harlfinger, Die Textgeschichte … (above); Aristoteles graecus: Die Griechischen Manuskripte … (above); (Autolycus of Pitane) Mogenet, Autolycus de Pitane … (above); (Dioscorides) Antonio Giuliano, “Il codice di Dioscuride a Vienna in una notizia di Giovanni Tortelli,” La parola del passato 23 (1968): 52–54; Pan. G. Kritikos, and Stella Athanassoula, “Oi en Elladi euriskomenoi farmakeutikoi kôdikes: Athônikoi kôdikes tou Dioskoridou,” Archeia tês farmakeutikês 4 (1972): 41–69; (Euripides) Alexander Turyn, The Byzantine Manuscript Tradition of the Tragedies of Euripides, 1957; (Jambichus) Martin Sicherl, Die Handschriften, Ausgaben und Übersetzungen von Jamblichos De Mysteriis: Eine kritisch-historische Studie,1957; (Lucian) Jürgen Coenen, Lukian Zeus tragodos: Überlieferungsgeschichte, Text und Kommentar, 1977; (Marc Aurelius) Charles Astruc, “Un fragment de manuscrit grec (extraits de Marc-Aurèle et d’Elien) conservé à la Bibliothèque Mazarine dans la Collection Faugère,” Serta Turyniana … (above), 525–46; (Musaeus) Paolo Eleuteri, Storia della tradizione manoscritta di Museo, 1981; (Strabo) Aubrey Diller, The Textual Tradition of Strabo’s Geography, 1975; (Theognis) Douglas C. C. Young, “A Codicological inventory of Theognis manuscripts,” Scriptorium 7 (1953): 3–36; (Theophrast) John J. Keaney, “The Early Tradition of Theophrastus’ Historia Plantarum,” Hermes 96 (1968): 293–98; Benedict Einarson, “The Manuscripts of Theophrastus’ Historia Plantarum,” Classical Philology 71 (1976): 67–76; (Xenophon) Michele Bandini, “Senofonte nella prima età paleologa: il testo di Memor. IV 3, 7–8 nel codice Urb. gr. 95,” Nea Rômê 3 (2006): 305–16. J. Major Trends of Research: Illustration (introductions) Maurits Smeyers, La miniature, 1974; Michelle P. Brown, Understanding Illuminated Manuscripts: A Guide to Technical Terms, 1994; (inventory of reproductions) Sever J. Voicu, and Serenella D’Alisera, I.M.A.G.E.S.: Index in Manuscriptorum Graecorum Edita specimina, 1981; (general studies) Kurt Weitzmann, Ancient book Illumination, 1959; Victor Lazarev (1897–1976), Storia della pittura bizantina, 1967; Hans Belting, Das illuminierte Buch in der spätbyzantinischen Gesellschaft, 1970; Kurt Weitzmann, Studies in Classical and Byzantine Manuscripts Illumination, ed. Herbert Kessler, 1971: (126–150) “The Classical Heritage in the Art of Constantinople”; (176–223) “The Character and Intellectual Origins of the Macedonian Renaissance”; Kurt Weitzmann, The Place of Book Illumination in Byzan-
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tine Art, 1975; Christopher De Hamel, A History of Illuminated Manuscripts, 1986 (Italian trans. Manoscritti miniati, 1987); Giulia Bologna, Manoscritti e miniature: Il libro prima di Gutenberg, 1988 (Engl. trans.: Illuminated Manuscripts: The Book Before Gutenberg, 1988); (analysis by time period) (1261–1667) John Lowden, “Manuscript Illumination in Byzantium 1261–1667,” Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261–1557), ed. Helen C. Evans, 2004, 259–69; (manuscripts by places of preservation) (America) Illuminated Greek Manuscripts in American Collections: An Exhibition in Honor of Kurt Weitzmann, ed. Gary Vikan, 1973; (Athens) Catalogue of the Illuminated Byzantine Manuscripts of the National Library of Greece, 3 vols., 1978–1997; (Athos) Oi thêsauroi tou Agiou Orous, 1st ser.: Eikonografêmena cheirografa, 4 vols., 1973–1991; (London, British Library) Janet Backhouse, The Illuminated Page: Ten Centuries of Manuscript Painting in the British Library, 1997; (Oxford) Irmgard Hutter, Corpus der byzantinischen Miniaturhandschriften, vols. 1–3: Oxford, Bodleian Library, 1977–1982; vol. 4: Oxford, Christ Church, 1993; vol. 5: Oxford, College Libraries, 1997; (Sinai) Kurt Weitzmann, and George Galavaris (d. 2003), The Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai: The Illuminated Manuscripts, 1990; (relation illustration and text) Kurt Weitzmann, Problems in the Relation between Text and Illustration, 1982; (illustration, studies, topics) (Arabic world) Kurt Weitzmann, “The Greek Sources of Islamic Scientific Illustrations,” Archaeologia Orientalia in Memoriam E. Herzfeld, 1952, 244–66; (Athos) George Galavaris, “Aspects of Book Illumination on Mt. Athos,” Diethnes Sumposio Buzantinê Makedonia 324–1430 m. Ch., Thessalonikê 29–31 Oktôbriou 1992, 1995, 91–103; (Beatus de Liébana) John Williams, The Illustrated Beatus: A Corpus of the Illustrations of the Commentary on the Apocalypse, 5 vols., 1994–2003; and the facsimiles of several manuscripts: Beato de Liébana: Códice de Fernando I y Doña Sancha, 2 vols., 1994; Beato de Liébana: Códice del Monasterio de San Andrés de Arroyo, Palencia, 2 vols., 1999; Beato de Liébana: Códice del Monasterio de San Pedro de Cardeña, 2 vols., 2000; Beato de Liébana de Girona, 2 vols., 2003; Beato de Liébana: Códice del Monasterio de Santo Domingo de Silos, 2 vols., 2004; (botany) Giulia Orofino, “Gli erbari di età sveva,” Gli erbari medievali tra scienza, simbolo, magia: Testi del VII Colloquio Medievale, 1994, 325–46; (Dioscorides) Otto Mazal, Pflanzen, Wurzeln, Säfte, Samen: Antike Heilkunst: Miniaturen des Wiener Dioskurides, 1981; Alain Touwaide, “Un recueil grec de pharmacologie du Xe siecle illustré au XIVe siècle: le Vaticanus gr. 284,” Scriptorium 39 (1985): 13–56; Id., “Les manuscrits grecs illustrés du traité Peri ulês iatrikês de Dioscoride,” Proceedings of the XXX International Congress of the History of Medicine, Dusseldorf 1986, 1988, 1148–51; Salvatore Lilla, Guglielmo Cavallo, Giulia Orofino, and Carlo Bertelli, Dioskurides, Codex Neapolitanus, Napoli, Biblioteca nazionale, Ms. Ex Vindob. gr. 1: Vollständige Faksimile-Ausgabe in Original-
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format, Graz and Rome, 1988; Otto Mazal, Der Wiener Dioskurides: Codex medicus graecus 1 der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek, 2 vols., 1998 (a small size reproduction of codex Vindobonensis medicus graecus 1); Mauro Ciancaspro, Guglielmo Cavallo, and Alain Touwaide, Dioscurides, De materia medica: Codex Neapolitanus graecus 1 of the National Library of Naples, Athens, 1999; Alain Touwaide, “The Salamanca Dioscorides (Salamanca, University Library. 2659),” Erytheia 24 (2003): 125–58; (Gregory Nazianzenus) George Galavaris, The Illustrations of the Liturgical Homilies of Gregory Nazianzeus, 1969; (hippiatric) Stavros Lazaris, “Les rapports entre l’illustration et le texte de l’Epitome, manuel byzantin d’hippiatrie,” Archives internationales d’histoire des sciences, 49 (1999): 281–301; (Hraban Maur) Diane O. Le Berrurier, The Pictorial Sources of Mythological and Scientific Illustrations in Hrabanus Maurus’ ‘De rerum naturis’, 1978; Marianne Reuter, Metodi illustrativi nel Medioevo: Testo e immagine nel codice 132 di Montecassino ‘Liber Rabani de originibus rerum’, 1993; (Italy, southern) Irmgard Hutter, “La décoration et la mise en page des manuscrits grecs de l’Italie méridionale: Quelques observations,” Histoire et culture dans l’Italie byzantine: Acquis et nouvelles recherches, ed. André Jacob, Jean-Marie Martin, and Ghislaine Noyé, 2006, 69–93; (Antônios Malakês) Robrt S. Nelson, “The Manuscripts of Antonios Malakes and the Collecting and Appreciation of Illuminated Books in Early Palaeogan Period,” Jahrbuch der österreichischen Byzantinistik 36 (1986): 229–54; (mythology) Kurt Weitzmann, Greek Mythology in Byzantine Art, 1951; (Nicander) Stavros Lazaris, “A Propos du Nicandre de Paris (Suppl. gr. 247): son illustration et son modèle,” Scriptorium 59 (2005): 221–27; (Octateuchs) Kurt Weitzmann, and Massimo Bernabò, with the collaboration of Rita Tarasconi, The Byzantine Octateuchs, 1999; (Physiologus) Stavros Lazaris, “Le Physiologus grec et son illustration: Quelques considérations à propos d’un nouveau témoin illustré (Dujcev. ˇ gr. 297),” Bestiaires médiévaux: Nouvelles perspectives sur les manuscrits et les traditions textuelles, ed. Baudouin van den Abeele, 2005, 141–318; (Regimen sanitatis) Giulia Orofino, “L’iconografia del Regimen Sanitatis in un manoscritto angioino (Napoli, Bibl. Naz., XIII C 37),” Studi Medievali 3rd ser., 31 (1990): 775–87; (Sacra parallela) Kurt Weitzmann, The Miniatures of the Sacra parallela, Parisinus graecus 923, 1979; (Septuagint) Kurt Weitzmann, The Illustrations in the Manuscripts of the Septuagint, 1941; (Vangel) Saveria Rito, “Un Vangelo di età comnena dal monastero del Prodromo di Petra e Constantinopoli: l’Angel. gr. 123,” Nuovi Annali della Scuola Speciale per Archivisti e Bibliotecari 20 (2006): 5–17; (Virgil) David H. Wright, The Roman Virgil and the Origins of Medieval Book Design, 2001; (Zoology) Jean Théodoridès, “Remarques sur l’iconographie zoologique dans certains manuscrits médicaux byzantins et étude des miniatures zoologiques du
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codex Vaticanus graecus 284,” Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinischen Gesellschaft 10 (1961): 21–29; Id., “Intérêt scientifique des miniatures zoologiques d’un manuscrit byzantin de la ‘Matière médicale’ de Dioscoride (Cod. M 652 Pierpont Morgan Library, New-York),” Acta Biologica Debrecina 7–8 (1969–70): 265–72; Zoltan Kadar, Survivals of Greek zoological illuminations in Byzantin manuscripts, 1978. K. Major Trends of Research: Collections and Libraries For several collections, see above. Furthermore, see: (bibliography) Paul Oskar Kristeller, Latin Manuscript Books Before 1600: A List of Printed Catalogues and Unpublished Inventories of Extant Collections, 4th rev. and enlarged ed. by Sigfrid Krämer, 1993; (general) Konstantinos Sp. Staikos, Libraries from Antiquity to the Renaissance and Major Humanist and Monastery Libraries (3000 BC-AD 1600), 1997; Id., The History of the Library in Western Civilization, 3 vols. published so far, 2004–2007; (ancient libraries in Byzantium) (Constantinople, Thessalonika and Asia Minor) Otto Volk, “Die byzantinischen Klosterbibliotheken von Konstantinopel, Thessalonike und Kleinasien,” Ph.D. thesis, University of Munich, 1954; (Constantinople) Kônstantinou Manafê, Ai en Kônstantinoupolei bibliothêkai autokratorikai kai patriarchikê kai peri tôn en autais cheirografôn mechri tês alôseôs (1453): Meletê filologikê, 1972; (Constantinople, Prodromos) Elenê D. Kakoulidê, “Ê bibliothêkê tês Monês Prodromou Petras stên Kônstantinoupolê,” Ellênika 21 (1968): 3–39; (El Escorial) Gregorio de Andrés, Catalogo de los codices desaparecidos de la Real Biblioteca de El Escurial, 1968; Id., Documentos para la Historia del Monasterio de San Lorenzo el Real del Escorial, vol. 7, 1964; (Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana) Cesare Pasini, “Giovanni Donato Ferrari e i manoscritti greci dell’Ambrosiana (con note su Francesco Bernardino e Ottavio Ferrari e sui manoscritti di Ottaviano Ferrari all’Ambrosiana),” Nea Rômê 1 (2004): 351–86; Id., “Giovanni Santa Maura e la Biblioteca Ambrosiana,” Rivista di Studi Bizantini e Neoellenici n. s. 42 (2005): 223–70; (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France) Simone Balayé, La Bibliothèque Nationale des origines à 1800, 1988; (Salamanca, University) Teresa Martínez Manzano, “El Salm. 2659 de Dioscórides y la historia del fondo griego de la Biblioteca de Salamanca procedente del Colegio de San Bartolomé,” Helmantica 44 (1998): 309–27; (Vatican Library) Robert Devreesse, “Pour l’histoire des manuscrits du fonds Vatican grec,” Collectanea Vaticana in honorem Anselmi M. Card. Albareda a Bibliotheca Apostolica edita, 315–36; Id., Le fonds grec de la Bibliothèque Vaticane des origines à Paul V, 1965; Jeanne Bignami Odier (1902–1989) and José Ruysschaert, La Bibliothèque vaticane de Sixte IV à Pie XI: Recherches sur l’histoire des collections de manuscrits, 1973; Salvatore Lilla, I manoscritti vaticani
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greci: Lineamenti di una storia del fondo, 2004; (collections and collectors) (Augsburg) Donald F. Jackson, “Augsburg Greek Manuscript Acquisitions 1545–1600,” Codices Manuscripti 29 (2000): 1–10; Id., “Augsburg Greek Manuscript Acquisitions 1600–1633,” Codices Manuscripti 30 (2000): 27–34; (Johannes Cuno) Martin Sicherl, Johannes Cuno, ein Wegbereiter des Griechischen in Deutschland, 1978; (John Moore [1646–1714]) Donald F. Jackson, “The Greek Manuscripts of John Moore and Etienne Baluze,” Codices Manuscripti 56/57 (2006): 29–42; (Ziskind collection) Bernard M. W. Knox, “The Ziskind Collection of Greek Manuscripts,” The Yale University Library Gazette 32 (1957): 39–56. L. Major Trends of Research: Cataloguing and Catalogues (guidelines for the catalographic description of manuscripts) Guide pour l’élaboration d’une notice de manuscrit, 1977; Viviana Jemolo, and Mirella Morelli, Guida ad una descrizione catalografica uniforme del manoscritto, 1984; Richtlinien Handschriftenkatalogisierung, 4th ed., 1985 (published by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft); Pieter F. J. Obbema, “Varia Bibliographica: Towards a Uniform Inventory of Surviving Medieval Manuscripts,” Quaerendo 17 (1987): 284–88; Armando Petrucci, La descrizione del manoscritto: storia, problemi, modelli, 2nd rev. ed., 2001; (computerized description of manuscripts) The Use of Computers in Cataloging Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts: Papers from the International Workshop in Munich, 10–12 August 1989, ed. Menso Folkerts, and Andreas Kühne, 1990; Bibliographic Access to Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts: A Survey of Computerized Data Bases and Information Services, ed. Wesley M. Stevens, 1991; Metodologie informatiche per il censimento e la documentazione dei manoscritti ed. Antonio Maria Adorisio, 1993; (new locations of manuscripts) Guy Fink-Errera, “A propos des bibliothèques d’Espagne: Tables de concordance,” Scriptorium, 13 (1959): 89–118; (cataloguing of manuscripts, overview) cataloguing of manuscripts remained a major enterprise during the last decades of the 20th century. Periodic notices about new catalogues or cataloguing enterprises were published such as: Jean Irigoin, “Trois catalogues de manuscrits grecs,” Revue des Etudes Grecques 74 (1961): 275–291; Id., “Les manuscrits grecs, I,” Revue des Etudes Grecques 83 (1970): 500–29, and “Les manuscrits grecs, II,” Revue des Etudes Grecques 85 (1972): 543–71; or Renate Schipke, “Die Katalogisierung mittelalterlicher Handschriften in der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik,” Scriptorium 37 (1983): 275–85. It became necessary to publish toward the end of the 20th century a “new Richard”: Jean-Marie Olivier, Répertoire des bibliothèques et des catalogues de manuscrits grecs de Marcel Richard. Troisième édition entièrement refondue, 1995.
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(catalogues) among the many catalogues, notes or any other form of list of Greek manuscripts published during the second half of the 20th century, one could quote the following items, significant from some viewpoint, be it the methods, the novelty, the richness of the collection catalogued, or any other remarkable feature (chronological order of publication): Valentinus Capocci (1901–1969), Codices Barberiniani graeci, vol. 1: 1–163, 1958; Charles Astruc, and Marie-Lousie Concasty, Bibliothèque nationale, Catalogue des manuscrits grecs, 3rd part: Le Supplément grec, vol. 3: nos 901–1371, 1960 (with a preface by Alphonse Dain); Ruth Barbour, “Summary Description of the Greek Manuscripts from the Library at Holkham Hall,” The Bodleian Library Record 6 (1960): 591–613; Elpidio Mioni, Bibliothecae Divi Marci Venetiarum codices graeci manuscripti, 3 vols. in 4 parts, 1960–1972; William H. Bond, Supplement to the Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada originated by Christopher U. Faye, 1962; Samuel Arthur Joseph Moorat, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts on Medicine and Science in the Wellcome Historical Medical Library, vol. 1: MSS. written before 1650 AD, 1962; Gino Pierleoni (1875–1951), Catalogus codicum graecorum Bibliothecae nationalis Neopolitanae, vol. 1, 1962; Linos Politês, “Ta cheirografa tou Agiou Orous,” Nea Estia 74 (1963): 116–27; Antonio Tovar (1911–1994), Catalogus codicum graecorum universitatis salamantinae, 1: Collectio Universitatis antiqua, 1963; Karel Adriaan de Meyier, and Elfriede Hulshoff Pol, Bibliotheca Universitatis Leidensis, Codices manuscripti, vol. 8: Codices bibliothecae publicae graeci, 1965; Nikos A. Bees (1887–1958), Les manuscrits des Météores, Catalogue descriptif des manuscrits conservés dans les monastères des Météores, vol. 1: Les manuscrits du monastère de Transfiguration, 1967; Martin Wittek, “Les manuscrits grecs de la Bibliothèque Royale Albert Ier: nouvelles acquisitions (1974–1978),” Miscellanea Codicologica F. Masai Dicata (above), 551–57; Elpidius Mioni, Bibliothecae Divi Marci Venetiarum codices Graeci Manuscripti, vol. 1: Thesaurus Antiquus, Codices 1–209; vol. 2: Thesaurus Antiquus, Codices 300–625, 1981–1985; JeanMarie Olivier, and Marie-Aude Monegier du Sorbier, Catalogue des manuscrits grecs de Tchécoslovaquie, 1983; Nikos A. Bees, Les manuscrits des Météores. Catalogue descriptif des manuscrits conservés dans les monastères des Météores, vol. 2: Les manuscrits du monastère de Barlaam, 1984; Salvatore Lilla, Codices Vaticani Graeci: codices 2162–2254 (Codices Columnenses), 1985; Demetrios Z. Sofianos, Les manuscrits des Météores,Catalogue descriptif des manuscrits conservés dans les monastères des Météores, vol. 3: Les manuscrits du monastère de Saint-Etienne, 1986; Athanasiou Kominê, Patmiakê bibliothêkê êtoi neos katalogos tôn cheirografôn kôdikôn tês ieras monês agiou Iôannou tou theologou Patmou, vol. 1: Kôdikôn 1–101, 1988; Joseph Mogenet, Codices Barberiniani Graeci, vol. 2: Codices 164–281, ed. Julien Leroy, and Paul Canart, 1989; Demetrios Z. Sofianos,
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Les manuscrits des Météores, Catalogue descriptif des manuscrits conservés dans les monastères des Météores, vol. 4: Les manuscrits du monastère de Sainte-Trinité (Hagia Triada), 2 vols., 1993; Angel Escobar Chico, Codices Caesaraugustani Graeci: Catálogo de los manuscritos griegos de la biblioteca capitular de La Seo Zaragoza, 1993; Panagiôtê Sôtêroudê, Iera Monê Ibêrôn, Katalogos ellênikôn cheirografôn, vol. 1: 1–100, 1998; Scot Mckendrick, The British Library: A Summary Catalogue of Greek Manuscripts, 1999; Annette von Stockhausen, “Katalog der griechischen Handschriften im Besitz der Thüringer Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Jena,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 94 (2001): 684–701; Marina Molin Pradel, Katalog der griechischen Handschriften der Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg, 2002; Catálogo de Manuscritos de la Biblioteca Universitaria de Salamanca, vol. 2: Manuscritos 1680–2777, 2002; Nadia Kavrus-Hoffmann, “Catalogue of Greek Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Collections of the United States of America, Part I: Columbia University: Rare Book and Manuscript Library,” Manuscripta 49 (2005): 165–245; Id., “Part II: The New York Public Library,” Manuscripta 50 (2006): 21–76; Erich Lambertz, Katalog der griechischen Handschriften des Athosklosters Vatopedi, vol. 1: Codices 1–102, 2006; Mark Sosower, A Descriptive Catalogue of Greek Manuscripts at St John’s College, Oxford, 2007; Matoula Kouroupou, and Paul Géhin, Catalogue des manuscrits conservés dans la Bibliothèque du Patriarcat Oecuménique: Les Manuscrits du monastère de la Panaghia de Chalki, 2 vols., 2008; R. Varteni Chétanian, Catalogue des fragments et manuscrits grecs du Matenadaran d’Erevan, 2008. (thematic catalogues of manuscripts) (medicine, Hippocrates, Latin) Pearl Kibre, “Hippocrates latinus: Repertorium of Hippocratic Writings in the Latin Middle Ages,” Traditio 31 (1975): 99–126; 32 (1976): 257–92; 33 (1977): 253–95; 34 (1978): 193–266; 35 (1979): 273–302; 36 (1980): 347–92; 37 (1981): 267–89; 38 (1982): 165–92 (published as a monograph: Hippocrates latinus: Repertorium of Hippocratic Writings in the Latin Middle Ages, rev. ed. 1985); (medicine, illustrated manuscripts) Loren MacKinney (1891–1963), Medical Illustrations in Medieval Manuscripts, 1965; (medicine, Latin) Richard J. Durling (1932–1999), “Corrigenda and Addenda to Diels’ Galenica. I. Codices Vaticani,” Traditio 23 (1967): 461–76; Id., “Corrigenda and Addenda to Diels’ Galenica. II. Codices Miscellanei,” Traditio 37 (1981): 373–81; Id., “Corrigenda and addenda to Diel’s Galenica,” Traditio 23 (1967): 461–76; (medicine, Greek, area of Venice) Mariarosa Formentin, I codici graeci di medicina nelle tre Venezie, 1978; (humanistic manuscripts) Paul Oskar Kristeller, Iter Italicum: A Finding List of Uncatalogued or Incompletely Catalogued Humanistic Manuscripts of the Renaissance in Italian and Other Libraries, vol. 1: Italy, Agrigento to Novara, 1963; vol. 2: Italy, Orvieto to Volterra Vatican City, 1967; vol. 3: Alia itinera I: Australia to Germany, 1983; vol. 4: Alia Itinera II: Great
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Britain to Spain, 1989; vol. 5,1: Alia itinera III and Italy III: Sweden to Yugoslavia, Utopia, Supplement to Italy (A-F), 1990; vol. 5,2: Alia itinera III and Italy III: Sweden to Yugoslavia, Utopia, Supplement to Italy (A-F). Index and Addenda. Compiled by Mrs. Judith Wardman and her assistants in collaboration with the author, 1993; vol. 6: Italy and Alia Itinera IV: Supplement to Italy (G-V), Supplement to Vatican and Austria to Spain, 1992; vol. 7: A cumulative index to volumes I–VI of Paul Oskar Kristeller’s Iter Italicum accedunt alia itinera, 1997; (humanistic manuscripts, medicine) Richard J. Durling, “A Guide to the Medical Manuscripts mentioned in Kristeller’s ‘Iter italicum’ III,” Traditio 41 (1985): 341–65; Id., “A Guide to the Medical Manuscripts mentioned in Kristeller’s ‘Iter italicum’ I–II,” Traditio 44 (1988): 485–536; Id., “A Guide to the Medical Manuscripts mentioned in Kristeller’s ‘Iter italicum’ IV,” Traditio 46 (1991): 347–79; Id., “A Guide to the Medical Manuscripts mentioned in Kristeller’s ‘Iter italicum’ V–VI,” Traditio 48 (1993): 253–316. (computerization of catalogues) heuristic of manuscripts has been greatly improved by the use of computerized methods of recording, storing, and retrieving information. The so-called Greek Index Project, originally located at the Pontifical Institute of Medieaeval Studies in Toronto, aimed to cataloguing all the manuscripts of all Greek authors from Antiquity to the end of Byzantium: Robert E. Sinkewicz, and Walter H. Hayes, Manuscript Listings for the Authored Works of the Palaeologan Period, 1989; Robert E. Sinkewicz, Manuscript Listings for the Authors of Classical and Late Antiquity, 1990; Id., Manuscript Listings for the Authors of the Patristic and Byzantine, 1992. In 1993, the Project was transferred to the Institut de Recherche et d’Histoire des Textes of the French CNRS (see below). M. Current Organization of Research Besides the manuscript departments in such libraries as (alphabetical order of name) the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana in Vatican City, the Biblioteca del Real Monasterio at San Lorenzo de El Escorial, the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence, the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice, the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, the Bodleian Library in Oxford, the British Library in London, the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek in Vienna, the Universiteitsbibliothek in Leiden, and the University Library in Cambridge, and individuals all over the world, the major research centers and documentation repositories, and the schools specialized in paleography and codicology include (alphabetical order of countries) (Austria) the Kommission für Byzantinistik of the Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaft in Vienna; (Belgium) the Cabinet des manuscrits at the Bibliothèque royale, which is also the head-quarter of Scriptorium, and the Société des Bollandistes,
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“dedicated to the critical study of hagiography,” in Brussels; at the Flemishspeaking University of Louvain, the Series Graeca of the Corpus Christianorum; (Canada) Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies in Toronto; (France) the Centre d’Histoire et Civilisation de Byzance of the Collège de France, the Institut de Recheches et d’Histoire des Textes of the French CNRS, and the Ecole des Chartes in Paris; (Germany) the Aristoteles Archiv at the Freie Universität Berlin, and the Teuchos Center at the University of Hamburg; (Greece) the Center for History and Paleography of the Morfôtikê Idruma tês Ethnikês Trapezês Ellados (Cultural Foundation of the National Bank of Greece) in Athens, directed by Agamemnon Tselikas; (Italy and Vatican City) the Scuola Vaticana di Paleografia, Diplomatica e Archivistica in Vatican City; the Scuola Speciale per Archivisti e Bibliotecari, and, at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, the Department of Studies on Medieval Societies and Cultures (Dipartimento di studi sulle società e culture del medioevo), unit of paleography, both at the University “La Sapienza,” in Rome, and the Monastery of Cassino, and the University of Cassino. In the United States, several libraries have extensive holdings in manuscripts (not necessarily Greek; for an ongoing catalogue of Greek manuscripts, see Kavrus-Hoffmann, “Catalogue of Greek Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Collections of the United States of America …” [above]), complemented with large filmotheques of microfilms and substantial collections of secondary literature. Among the prominent collections, one could quote the following (alphabetical order of cities) (Chicago, Illinois) Newberry Library; (Collegeville, Minnesota) Hill Monastic Library (specialized in “creation and preservation of manuscript images”); (New Haven, Connecticut, Yale University) Beinecke Library; (New York, New York) Columbia University and the Morgan Library; (Notre Dame, Indiana) Notre Dame University, which owns a large collection of microfilms of manuscripts of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milano (see Gabriel L. Astrik (1907–2005), A Summary Catalogue of Microfilms of One Thousand Scientific Manuscripts in The Ambrosian Library, Milan, 1968); (Saint Louis, Missouri) Vatican Film Library at Saint Louis University, which holds an extensive collection of microfilm reproductions of manuscripts of the Vatican Library; (Washington, District of Columbia) Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies whose library (149,000 volumes) is complemented by a unique collection of images, including of manuscripts. Many of these research centers offer competitive grants and support for research. Besides the many collections published by the several research centers and institutions above, the major journals in the field are (alphabetical order of titles) Codices Manuscripti, Zeitschrift für Handschriftenkunde, started in 1975,
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with a series of supplements beginning in 2009; Manuscripta, from 1957 edited by the Vatican Film Library; Scripta-An International Journal of Codicology and Palaeography, launched in 2008; Scriptorium (above); Scrittura e Civiltà, 1977–2001, which was a major journal for the cultural dimension of book history. There is also now a magazine devoted to manuscript studies aiming at a wider audience: Alumina: Pagine illuminate. Publication started in 2003 and is quarterly. Lavishly illustrated articles usually deal with a specific manuscript, a collection or also a spectacular restoration, and are authored by specialists of the argument. Each issue contains a presentation of a publishing company specialized in facsimiles and/or an antiquarian bookseller. A group of scholars specialized in Greek paleography and codicology have formed in 1981 the so-called “Comité International de Paléographie Grecque (CIPG)”. In 1953, a “Comité international de paléographie” was founded, which changed its name in 1985 and became the “Comité international de paléographie latine.” Members of the CIPG are 20 maximum; new members are elected by current members upon nomination by one of them. The Comité has taken over the task of overseeing the series of conferences started in 1974 and held every five years (above). There is also an Association Paléographique Internationale: Culture, Ecriture, Société (APICES), open to “everyone interested in the scholarly study of the history of writing …, books and documents, both in their physical aspects and in their contents, the persons and institutions connected with making, using and keeping books.” N. Recent and New Directions of Research and Ideas In recent years, some new initiatives have been developed, which capitalize on the activity of the last decades and go beyond, opening new avenues for productive research. Some of these new directions and ideas are listed here (alphabetical order of major themes; within the sections, chronological order of publication): (comparative studies and material for comparative studies) Recherches de codicologie comparée: La composition du codex au Moyen Âge, en Orient et en Occident, ed. Philippe Hoffmann, 1998; Adam Gacek, The Arabic Manuscript Tradition: A Glossary of Technical Terms and Bibliography, 2001 with a Supplement, 2008; Karel van der Toorn, Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible, 2007; (computerization of paleographical analysis) Peter A. Stokes, “Palaeography and Image-Processing: Some Solutions and Problems,” Digital Medievalist 3 (2007–2008), available online at: http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/journal/3/stokes; (computerized modelization of stemmatic relationships) Caroline Macé, Thomas Schmidt, and Jean-François Weiler, “Le classement des manuscrits par la statistique et la phylogénétique: Les cas de Grégoire de Nazianze et de Basile
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le Minime,” Revue d’Histoire des Textes 31 (2001): 243–76; Philippe Baret, Marc Dubuisson, Anne-Catherine Lantin, and Caroline Macé, “Experimental Phylogenetic Analysis of a Greek Manuscript Tradition,” Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences 89 (2003): 117–24; Marc Dubuisson, and Caroline Macé, “Handling a Large Manuscript Tradition with a Computer,” Caroline Macé, and Philippe Baret, “Why Phylogenetic Methods Work: The Theory of Evolution and Textual Criticism,” and Philippe V. Baret, Caroline Macé, Peter Robinson et al., “Testing Methods on an Artificially Created Textual Tradition,” The Evolution of Texts: Confronting Stemmatological and Genetical Methods. Proceedings of the International Workshop held in Louvain-laNeuve on September 1–2, 2004, ed. Caroline Macé, Philippe Baret, and Andrea Bozzi, 2006, 25–37, 89–108, and 255–283 respectively; (digital reconstruction of manuscripts) virtual reconstruction of the Codex Sinaitius (above) whose folios are currently preserved at Saint Catherine Monastery in the Sinai, Leipzig (University Library), London (British Library), and Moscow (National Library of Russia): http://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en; (digital reproduction of manuscripts on CD) Historia plantarum: Erbe, oro e medicina nei codici medievali, 3 vols., 2002; reproduction on CD-ROM of manuscript Rome, Biblioteca Casanatense, 459, with a volume of commentary edited by Vera Segre Rutz, and a volume with the transcription and Italian trans. of the text; (digital reproduction of manuscripts online) several models of presentation and delivery of digital images are currently developed; here are some examples: Codices Electronici Sangallenses (CESG): http://www.cesg. unifr.ch: digital reproduction of the manuscripts in the Stiftsbibliothek of St. Gallen; Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text & Image (SCETI): http://sceti. library.upenn.edu/ljs: digital catalogue and reproduction of the private collection of Lawrence J. Schoenberg; the digitization, Web site and on-line consulation of the manuscripts is made in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Teuchos Repository of the Teuchos Center, University of Hamburg and Aristotle Archiv, Freie Universität Berlin; the Repository will offer a digital version of selected manuscripts, together with all the relevant information on such codices; as of July 2009, a catalographic description and digital reproduction of manuscript Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Hamilton 512 is available: http:// beta.teuchos.uni-hamburg.de/teuchosclient2/home.seam; the Turkish Ministry of Culture has launched a large project to digitize manuscripts (in Turkish and/or Arabic) currently preserved in libraries in Turkey, as well as in libraries across the world (for example, the Vatican Library): https:// www.yazmalar.gov.tr/index.php?dill=eng. Access is upon registration; images need to be ordered and are delivered via email for a very small fee; (early
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medieval book) Harry Y. Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts, 1995; Dorothy Verkerk, Early Medieval Bible Illumination and the Ashburnam Pentateuch, 2004; Anthony Grafton, and Megan Williams, Christianity and the Transformation of the Book: Origen, Eusebius, and the Library of Caesarea, 2006; Megan Halle Williams, The Monk and the Book: Jerome and the Making of Christian Scholarship, 2006; (fragments of manuscripts in bindings) Franca Petrucci Nardelli, Legatura e scrittura: Testi celati, messagi velati, annunci palesi, 2007; (gender) Katrin Graf, Bildnisse schreibender Frauen im Mittelalter 9. bis Anfang 13. Jahrhundert, 2002; Cynthia J. Cyrus, The Scribes for Women’s Convents in Late Medieval Germany, 2009; (laboratory analysis of manuscripts) Nikolaos Poulakakis, Agamamnon Tselikas, Ianis Bitsakis, Moysis Mylonas, and Petros Lymberakis, “Does the Molecular Analysis Shed Light on the Origin of the Ancient Greek Manuscripts?” Journal of Archaeological Science 34 (2007): 675–80; Nikolaos Poulakakis, Agamenon Tselikas, Ianis Bitsakis, Moysis Mylonas, Petros Lymberakis, “Ancient DNA and the Genetic Signature of Ancient Greek Manuscripts,” Journal of Archaeological Science 34 (2007): 675–80; (margins) Howard J. Jackson, Marginalia: Readers Writing in Books, 2001; Camille Michael, Images dans les marges: Aux limites de l’art médiéval, 1997; Maurizio Fiorilla, Marginalia figurati nei codici di Petrarca, 2004; Scientia in margine: Etudes sur les marginalia dans les manuscrits scientifiques du moyen âge à la Renaissance, ed. Danielle Jacquart, and Charles Burnett, 2005; Kathleen McNamée, Annotations in Greek and Latin texts from Egypt, 2007; (mathematical modelization of manuscript destruction/preservation) Sharon Larimer, and Florence Eliza Glaze, “How Science Survived: Medieval Manuscripts as Fossils”, and John L. Cisne, “How Science Survived: Medieval Manuscripts’ “Demography” and Classical Texts’ Extinction,” Science 307 (2005): 1208–1209 and 1305–1307 respectively; (online catalogues of manuscripts) the Greek Index Project originally located at the Pontifical Institute of Medieaeval Studies in Toronto and managed by Robert E. Sinkewicz (above) has been transferred in 1993 to the Institut de Recherche et d’Histoire des Textes of the French CNRS and transformed into the database PINAKES: Textes et manuscrits grecs, which has been recently (September 2008) made available on-line (http://pinakes.irht.cnrs.fr); (palimpsests) Rinascimento Virtuale: Digitale Palimpsestforchung, Rediscovering written records of a hidden European cultural heritage, 2002; Dieter Harlfinger, “Palimpsest,” Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, vol. 6, 2003, 837; Dieter Harlfinger, Carl Wolfram Brunschön, and Maria Vasiloudi, “Die griechischen medizinischen Palimpseste (mit Beispielen ihrer digitalen Lektüre),” Ärzte und ihre Interpreten: Medizinische Fachtexte der Antike als Forschungsgegenstand der Klas-
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sischen Philologie, 2006, 143–64; El palimpsesto grecolatino como fenómeno librario y textual, ed. Angel Escobar Chico, 2006; (reconstruction [virtual] of dispersed libraries) reconstruction of the library of Matthias Corvinus (1443–1490), king of Hungary (1458), duke of Austria (1486), and king of Bohemia (1468); the project Bibliotheca Corviniana Digitalis (BCD) aims to listing and digitizing the volumes of the library: http://www.corvina.oszk.hu; (scientific manuscripts) Linda Ehrsam Voigts, and Patricia Deery Kurtz, Electronic Thorndike Kibre (eTK) and Electronic Voigts Kurtz (eVK), 20 August 2004; Alain Touwaide, “Byzantine Medical Manuscripts: Toward a New Catalogue,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 101 (2008): 199–208; id., “Byzantine Medical Manuscripts: Towards a New Catalogue, with a Specimen for an Annotated Checklist of Manuscripts Based on an Index of Diels’ Catalogue,” Byzantion 79 [2009]: 435–595; (themes in illustrations) Janet Backhouse, Medieval Rural Life in the Luttrell Psalter, 2000; Ead., Medieval Birds in the Shelborne Missal, 2001; Sophie Page, Astrology in Medieval Manuscripts, 2002; Alixe Bovey, Monsters and Grotesques in Medieval Manuscripts, 2002; Pamela Porter, Courtly Love in Medieval Manuscripts, 2003; Justin Clegg, The Medieval Church in Manuscripts, 2003; (medical miracles) Deirdre Jackson, Marvelous to Behold: Miracles in Medieval Manuscripts, 2007; (medicine) Peter Murray Jones, Medieval Medicine in Illuminated Manuscripts, 1998; (writing in bilingual context) Paolo Radiciotti, “Il problema del digrafismo nei rapporti fra scrittura latina e greca nel medioevo,” Nea Rômê 3 (2006): 5–55. Select Bibliography Leonard E. Boyle, Medieval Latin Palaeograhy: A Bibliograhic Introduction (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984); Charles-Moïse Briquet, Les filigranes: Dictionnaire historique des marques du papier dès leur apparition vers 1282 jusqu’en 16002, 4 vols. (Leizpig: Karl W. Hiersemann, 1923); Paul Canart, Paleografia e codicologia greca: Una rassegna bibliografica (Vatican City: Scuola Vaticana di Paleografia, Diplomatica e Archivistica, 1991); Alphonse Dain, Les manuscrits3 (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1975); Dieter Harlfinger, Griechische Kodikologie und Textüberlieferung (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1980); I manoscritti greci tra riflessione e dibattito: Atti del V Colloquio Internazionale di Paleografia Greca (Cremona, 1998), ed. Giancarlo Prato, 3 vols. (Florence: Gonelli, 2000); Jean Irigoin, “La datation par les filigranes du papier,” Codicologica 5 (1980): 9–36; Repertorium der griechischen Kopisten 800–1600 (Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften), 3 parts published so far; part 1: Ernst Gamillscheg, Dieter Harlfinger, and Herbert Hunger (vol. 2), Handschriften aus Bibliotheken Grossbritaniens, 3 vols., 1981; part 2: Id., Handschriften aus Bibliotheken Frankreichs und Nachträge zu den Bibliotheken Grossbritaniens, 3 vols., 1989; part 3: Ernst Gamillscheg, and Herbert Hunger (vol. 2), in collaboration with Dieter Harlfinger, and Paolo Eleuteri, Handschriften aus Biblioheken Roms mit dem Vatikan, 3 vols., 1997.
Alain Touwaide
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Communication in Medieval Studies A. Definition All human interaction, including transportation, labor, art, currency, sales, religious services, and literature can be defined as communication because they connect people. A narrow definition, however, would limit communication to an exchange via human language, either through spoken words in some kind of syntactical sequence so as to create signs, images, and actions, or gestures with the purpose of establishing meaning relevant for both sides. Even performance, including dance, posture, and other body movements, can serve the purpose of communication. Communication has been of central importance for all human societies throughout time (Christof Bäumle, “Kommunikation/Kommunikationswissenschaft,” Theologische Realenzyklopädie, vol. XIX, 1990, 384–402), and so also in the Middle Ages, insofar as it establishes structure, community, and institutions, such as the court, or the Catholic Church (Peter Strohschneider, “Institutionalität,” Literarische Kommunikation und soziale Interaktion, ed. id., Beate Kellner, and Ludger Lieb, 2001, 1–26). Communication as practiced in the Middle Ages has been preserved through manuscripts, but also in a more abstract fashion through illustrations, paintings, sculptures, tapestry, and other objects. Wherever we turn, we observe the preeminence of human language as the crucial instrument to establish, maintain, and protect the social community predicated on a firm set of rules, values, morals, ethics, and ideals (or, of course, to destroy it, depending on the individual strategies and interests, see Convaincre et persuader: Communication et propagande aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles, ed. Martin Aurell, 2007). Laws, common rules regarding human interaction, contracts, but also literary documents, chronicles, and gnomic texts encapsulate the petrified oral communication carried out in the past. Medieval documents provide a rich panoply of references to communication, either oral (dialogue), written (letters), or a combination thereof, such as through messengers who delivered oral reports and letters (Albrecht Classen, “Female Epistolary Literature from Antiquity to the Present,” Studia Neophilologica 60 [1988]: 3–13; Martin Camargo, The Middle English Verse Love Epistle, 1991; Gespräche – Boten – Briefe, ed. Horst Wenzel, 1997; see also the entries on letters and letter collections in this Handbook). But as we know from our own time, communication has always been prone to failure or to suffer from numerous shortcomings, which has continually led to countless conflicts throughout history. In fact, good communication might well be defined as the basic approach to combat violence, both on a personal and a public level (William T. H. Jack-
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son, “Problems of Communication in the Romances of Chrétien de Troyes,” Medieval Literature and Folklore Studies, ed. Jerome Mandel and Bruce A. Rosenberg, 1970, 39–50; Albrecht Classen, “Kommunikation: Mittelalter,” Europäische Mentalitätsgeschichte, ed. Peter Dinzelbacher, 1993, 370–90; 2nd ed. 2008, 424–47). B. Oral Communication It is generally assumed, and has often been documented for individual cases, that the early Middle Ages were characterized by orality because only a small percentage of people were literate. Only the high Middle Ages, but especially the late Middle Ages, witness the growth of literacy, both within the world of the cities and also at the courts (Eric A. Havelock, Origins of Western Literacy, 1976; Michael Thomas Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record, 1979; Franz Bäuml, “Varieties and Consequences of Medieval Literacy and Illiteracy,” Speculum 55 [1980]: 237–65; John Miles Foley, Oral-Formulaic Theory and Research, 1985). We can identify oral communication as it took place in the past only through indirect sources, but research on “oral poetry” has unearthed numerous approaches to this fascinating and fruitful field of investigations (Michael Curschmann, “Oral Poetry in Mediaeval English, French, and German Literature: Some Notes on Recent Research,” Speculum 42 [1967]: 36–52; D. H. Green, Medieval Listening and Reading, 1994). Political and military operations throughout the Middle Ages were determined, as in other periods, by communicative approaches, both successful and unsuccessful, either establishing a harmonious community or leading to violence and disruption (Word, Image, Number: Communication in the Middle Ages, ed. John J. Contreni and Santa Casciani, 2002). Functioning communication has always been fundamental for peace, whereas the opposite resulted in war (Albrecht Hagenlocher, Der guote vride, 1992; Stefan Hohmann, Friedenskonzepte, 1992; Peace and Negotiation, ed. Diane Wolfethal, 2000; Writing War: Medieval Literary Responses to Warfare, ed. Corinne J. Saunders et al., 2004). Moreover, communication determines the relationship between representatives of many different social groups, such as between men and women, old people and young people, parents and children, rulers and their subjects, merchants and their customers, lords and their farmers, priests and their flock, local authorities and criminals, teachers and students, architects and masons, doctors and their patients, etc. (Sophia Menach, The Vox Dei, 1990; Dialoge: sprachliche Kommunikation in und zwischen Texten im deutschen Mittelalter, ed. Nikolaus Henkel et al., 2003). All these documents reflect specific forms of communication and also constituted elements of the general communication process that experi-
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enced a dramatic paradigm shift in the 12th century when a sudden increase of literacy at various social levels occurred (Peter Dinzelbacher, Europa im Hochmittelalter 1050–1250, 2003). In this sense, most, if not practically all, fields within the Humanities dealing with the Middle Ages have been concerned with the question of communication because everything pertaining to humans can be translated into a signal, which in turn translates into a basic communicative element (Kommunikation und Alltag in Spätmittelalter und Früher Neuzeit, ed. Helmut Hundsbichler, 1991). C. Religious Communication Mystical visions, prayers, and other religious texts reflect the attempt by individuals to establish communication with the divine (Peter Dinzelbacher, Mittelalterliche Frauenmystik, 1992; Volksreligion im hohen und späten Mittelalter, ed. id. and Dieter R. Bauer, 1990; Karl A. Keller, Communication avec l’ultime, 1987; Margarete Hubrath, Schreiben und Erinnern, 1996; Amy Hollywood, The Soul as Virgin Wife, 1995), whereas sermons and penitentiaries represent the practical efforts by clerics to communicate with their flock (G. R. Oust, Literature and Pulpit in Medieval England, 1933; Michel Zink, La prédication en langue romane avant 1300, 1976; Franco Morenzoni, “Les prédicateurs et leurs langues à la fin du moyen âge,” Zwischen Babel und Pfingsten, ed. Peter von Moos, 2008, 501–17). The vast number of medieval sermons informs us in most impressive terms how the authoritative institution of the Church struggled hard to reach out to its parishes and to offer instruction, guidance, information, education, and teaching, not to mention the most important function, spiritual support (Aaron Gurevich, Historical Anthropology of the Middle Ages, orig. 1981, Engl. trans. 1992; D. L. d’Avray, The Preaching of the Friars, 1985; Daniel R. Lesnick, Preaching in Medieval Florence, 1989; De ore Domini, ed. Thomas L. Amos et al., 1989). D. Military Communication On the other hand, numerous accounts of military conflicts and a plethora of other violent interactions provide insights into the enormous difficulties characterizing human interaction and communication throughout time, and so in the Middle Ages (Roger D. Sell, Literature as Communication, 2000; Violence in Medieval Courtly Literature, ed. Albrecht Classen, 2004). In this sense, medieval knighthood can be described both as an expression of successful communication within the social group for the purpose of defense and self-identification, or self-representation, and also as the result of failed communication with the outside world, such as in the case of the Crusades (Sir Charles William Chadwick Oman, The Art of War in the Middle Ages, 1953;
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José María Gárate Córdoba, Espiritu e milicia en la España medieval, 1967; Maurice Hugh Keen, Chivalry, 1984). For instance, only those military operations in the Crusades achieved their goals and intentions if there was internal organization and efficient communication among the members of the mostly diverse armies. A peaceful crusade, organized by Frederick II, on the other hand, was possible because of his outstanding communicative skills that allowed him to reach out to the Sultan, Al-Kamil, with whom he negotiated a long-term armistice and the return of the demilitarized Jerusalem to the Christians (Ulrich Müller, “Friedrich II.,” Herrscher, Helden, Heilige, ed. id. and Werner Wunderlich, 1996, 197–212), though this led to severe conflicts with the papacy (John Phillip Lomax, “Frederick II,” Medieval Christian Perceptions of Islam, ed. John Victor Tolan, 1996, 175–97). One of many communicative systems within the world of knighthood was the use of coats of arms, shields, and other elements signaling personal identity and social status in a world where weapons speak the loudest and traditional communication with words takes a back-seat. Heraldry, in other words, was also an extremely important vehicle for non-verbal communication (see, for instance, Gustav A. Seyler, Geschichte der Heraldik, 1885; Evan John Jones, Medieval Heraldry, 1983; Giacomo C. Bascapè and Marcello Del Piazzo, Insegne e simboli, 1983; Stephen Friar, A New Dictionary of Heraldry, 1987; Michel Pastoureau, Les armoiries, 1998; Waltraud Gut, Schwarz auf weiß, 2000; and Ludwig Biewer, Wappen als Träger von Kommunikation im Mittelalter, 2003). Vol. 11 of the journal Das Mittelalter, ed. by the “Deutsche Mediaevistenverband” (2006), was dedicated to the idea of coats of arms as vehicles for communication (Wappen als Zeichen) (see further the entry on “Heraldry” by Heiko Hartmann in this Handbook). E. Symbolic Communication Especially the early Middle Ages, a time characterized by wide-spread illiteracy, witnessed the emergence of a whole apparatus of ritual symbols, as Geoffrey Koziol (Begging Pardon and Favor, 1992), Klaus Schreiner (“Texte, Bilder, Rituale,” Bilder, Texte, Rituale, ed. id. and G. Signori, 2000, 1–15) and Gerd Althoff (Die Macht der Rituale, 2003; id., Inszenierte Herrschaft, 2003), among others, have demonstrated. Symbolic communication implies the use of gestures, objects, clothing, and performance because words prove to be incapable of relaying the complex set of information within a political, religious, but also amatory context. It also substitutes for the writing process that became more widespread not until the 12th century (Gabriele Raudszus, Die Zeichensprache der Kleidung, 1985). The considerable body of heroic epics, byzantine bridal quest narratives, religious tales, and charms indicate the
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predominance of oral cultures in the early period. This might explain the interest of the Church in these text genres because they served well as communicative channels to address their flock, to utilize their communicative strategies, and to establish a common, because symbolic language (Giselle de Nie, “Text, Symbol and ‘Oral Culture’ in the Sixth-Century Church,” Mediaevistik 9 [1996]: 115–33; Albrecht Classen, Verzweiflung und Hoffnung, 2002, 1–52). By the 11th century, however, as Patrick Geary underscores, a new interest in written documents emerged among the learned, which profoundly transformed the nature and performance of communication (Phantoms of Remembrance: Memory and Oblivion at the End of the First Millennium, 1994; see also Brian Stock, The Implications of Literacy, 1983; M. T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record, 1993; Communicatie in de Middeleeuwen, ed. Marco Mostert, 1995). In most cases, however, communication operates with numerous different elements, incorporating oral, written, symbolic, and deictic elements (Werner Faulstich, Medien und Öffentlichkeit im Mittelalter 800–1400, 1996). C. Stephen Jaeger has explained this paradigm shift as the result of the disappearance of charismatic teachers at the cathedral schools and their substitution through the written book and disputational learning (Envy of Angels, 1994). F. Types of Communication As Verena Epp has outlined, communication includes: 1. written documents, such as contracts, and correspondence; 2. embassies; 3. oaths; 4. gifts and tributes; 5. hostages; 6. marriage between dynasties; 7. personal contacts between the contract partners, along with festive means (“Rituale Frühmittelalterlicher ‘Amicitia’,” Formen und Funktionen öffentlicher Kommunikation im Mittelalter, ed. Gerd Althoff, 2001, 11–24). In the same volume, Matthias Becher (“Cum lacrimis et gemitu,” 25–52) examined the communicative function of shedding of tears by victors or the defeated as symbolic language, which finds its perhaps best expression in the heroic epic Diu Klage (Albrecht Classen, “Trauer müssen sie tragen,” Ostbairische Grenzmarken 41 [1995]: 51–68). Klaus Schreiner studied the nature of the ritual performance of walking with bare feet that signaled the person’s willingness to submit him/ herself under the Church’s authority in order to gain penance (“Nudis pedibus: Barfüssigkeit als religiöses und politisches Ritual,” ibid., 53–124). According to Gerd Althoff, in an article also included in this volume (“Die Veränderbarkeit von Ritualen im Mittelalter,” [2001, 157–76]), religious rituals might have been performed unchangeably throughout times, whereas rituals in the political arena underwent countless transformations and were constantly adapted to the demands of the respective circumstances. He em-
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phasizes that the semi-oral world of medieval society heavily relied on both the ritual/performance and on the written record to certify the validity of the intended purposes (see also Michael Richter, Sprache und Gesellschaft im Mittelalter, 1979; Michel Banniard, Viva voce, 1992; and the contributions to Vox intexta, ed. A. N. Doane and Carol Braun Pasternack, 1991; Enrico Artifoni, “Sull’eloquenza politica nel Duecento italiano,” Quaderni medievali 35 [1993]: 174–75). Similar observations have already been developed by Dietmar Peil in his Die Gebärde bei Chrétien, Hartmann und Wolfram (1975), by the contributors to Höfische Literatur, Hofgesellschaft, höfische Lebensformen um 1200 (ed. Gert Kaiser and Jan-Dirk Müller, 1986), Harald Haferland (Höfische Interaktion, 1989), Martin Schubert (Zur Theorie des Gebarens im Mittelalter, 1991), and Jan-Dirk Müller (Spielregeln für den Untergang, 1998). We also need to consider negative types of communication, especially in cases of lying, deception, cheating, falsifying, and misrepresentation, as Umberto Eco argued in his Theory of Semiotics (1976) and, together with Constantino Marmo, in his On the Medieval Theory of Signs (1989 [orig. 1972]), which are discussed both in the Latin exempla literature and in the wide range of short verse and prose narratives in the vernacular. More profoundly, many late-antique and medieval theologians, beginning with St. Augustine, examined the meaning of lying in its theological and communicative significance (Gregor Müller, Die Wahrhaftigkeitspflicht und die Problematik der Lüge, 1962; Arno Baruzzi, Philosophie der Lüge, 1996). G. Ritual and Gesture as Communication Sociolinguists, such as Adam Kendon, have explicitly underscored that all bodily actions that serve to convey meaning are communicative, such as gestures and ritual. Adam Kendon identifies gesture as the “visible action as utterance” (Gesture, 2004). Marc Bloch already emphasized that feudal society was highly ritualized and relied more on gestures and spoken words than on the written record (La société féodale, 1939). But Jean-Claude Schmitt has warned us not to distinguish schematically the “gestural” culture” from the “literate” culture, though the communicative codes of gestures could easily change from one social group to another, but they played the most significant role within the monastic communities, as perhaps best reflected by Hugh of Saint-Victor’s Institutio novitiorum (Schmitt, “The Rationale of Gestures in the West,” A Cultural History of Gesture, ed. Jan Bremmer and Herman Roodenburg, 1991, 57–70). Following these approaches, recent scholarship has deepened our understanding of gesture and ritual in medieval literature. For instance, parallel approaches inform the studies by Corinna Dörrich (Poetik des Rituals, 2002) and Christiane Witthöft (Ritual
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und Text, 2004), the former placing the emphasis on the performance of political actions, whereas the latter focusing on the mode of symbolic communication as reflected in German historiographical writing and literature from the late Middle Ages. But Will Hasty also deserves to be mentioned for his collection of articles in the volume Art of Arms that deals with aggression and dominance in medieval German courtly literature (2002), indirectly media for communication as well. One of the most powerful examples of misunderstood ritual, or at least of how to respond to the ritual, can be found in Chrétien de Troyes’s Perceval and in Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival, respectively, which leads to a collapse of the communicative community (Jesse M. Gellrich, Discourse and Dominion in the Fourteenth Century, 1995; Albrecht Classen, Verzweiflung und Hoffnung, 2002). Very important for all societies, and so in the Middle Ages, was the ability to command the language or code of gestures, as most courtly romances, but also courtly love poems, and other genres demonstrate in multiple fashion (for Middle High German literature, see Martin J. Schubert, Zur Theorie des Gebarens im Mittelalter, 1991; for Middle English and Italian literature, see John Anthony Burrow, Gestures and Looks in Medieval Narrative, 2002). H. Public Communication One remarkable example, carefully studied first by Heinrich Fichtenau (Lebensordnungen des 10. Jahrhunderts, 1984; but see also his Mensch und Schrift im Mittelalter, 1946), then by Klaus Schreiner, was the function of the kiss on the mouth as a public sign of a peaceful relationship (“Er küsse mich mit dem Kuß seines Mundes,” Höfische Repräsentation, ed. Hedda Ragotzky and Horst Wenzel, 1990, 89–132). Along the same lines, Horst Fuhrmann analyzed the symbolic functions of greetings at public events in the Middle Ages (“‘Willkommen und Abschied’,” Mittelalter: Annäherungen an eine fremde Zeit, ed. Wilfried Hartmann, 1993, 111–39). Most remarkably, as Gustav Ehrismann had discovered in a lengthy article (“Duzen und Ihrzen im Mittelalter,” Zeitschrift für deutsche Wortforschung 1 [1901]: 117–49; 2 [1902]: 118–59; 5 [1903–1904]: 127–76, 177–220), in Old High German literature the use of the second person singular “du” (you) was common even among members of different social ranks, whereas in Middle High German literature the difference was expressed with the second person plural “Ihr” (you) for the lord and “du” for the lower-ranking subject, and by the late Middle Ages with “Euer Gnaden” (Your Honor) (see now Thomas Behrmann, “Zum Wandel der öffentlichen Anrede im Spätmittelalter,” Formen und Funktionen, 2001, 291–317). In this regard, ambassadors and legates determined much of public communication, connecting the various kingdoms
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and the papacy, cities and the empire (see Wilhelm Janssen, Die päpstlichen Legaten vom Schisma Anaklets II. bis zum Tode Coelestius II. (1130–1198), 1961; Johannes Bachmann, Die päpstlichen Legaten in Deutschland und Skandinavien (1125–1159), 1965 (orig. 1913); Donald E. Queller, The Office of Ambassador in the Middle Ages, 1967; Hans Ollendiek, Die päpstlichen Legaten, 1976; Theodor Schieffer, Die päpstlichen Legaten, 1976, Christina Lutter, Politische Kommunikation an der Wende vom Mittelalter zur Neuzeit, 1998, etc.). Interestingly, even the process of canonizing a holy person served exceedingly well for the establishment of intense communication channels, see Christian Krötzl, “Fama sanctitatis: Die Akten der spätmittelalterlichen Kanonisationsprozesse als Quelle zu Kommunikation und Informationsvermittlung in der mittelalterlichen Gesellschaft” (Procès de Canonisation au Moyen Âge: Aspectsjuridiques et religieux, ed. Gabor Klaniczay, 2004, 223–44). I. Communication as Strategy Political performance also served, quite naturally, the purpose of propaganda, which heavily relied on, or was determined by, the skillful use of communicative strategies, as Donald A. Bullough (Games People Payed, 1974), Janet L. Nelson (“Ritual and Reality in the Early Medieval Ordines,” ed. Derek Baker, The Materials, Sources and Methods of Ecclesiastical History, 1975, 41–51), and David A. Warner (“Henry II at Magdeburg,” Early Medieval Europe 3 [1994]: 135–66) have demonstrated (see also Convaincre et persuader: Communication et propagande aux XII et XIIIe siècles, ed. Martin Aurell, 2007). Jean Claude Schmitt confirmed these observations in his study La raison des gestes dans l’occident médiéval (1989), whereas Jeffrey Chipps Smith argued that tapestries could also function for the same purpose (“Portable Propaganda: Tapestries as Princely Metaphors at the Courts of Philip the Good and Charles the Bold,” Art Journal 48 [1989]: 123–29). See also the excellent collection of articles ed. by Martin Aurell, Convaincre et persuader: Communication et propagande aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles (2007), that focus on propaganda, communication, collection of information, transmission and alteration of memory, and visual aspects of propaganda in the high Middle Ages. By the same token, throughout the Middle Ages numerous efforts to bridge conflicts failed for many different reasons, hence leading to a collapse of the communicative efforts and internal harmony, as Gerd Althoff (“Demonstration und Inszenierung,” Spielregeln der Politik im Mittelalters, 1997 [1989], 229–57) and Werner Goetz, “Canossa als deditio?,” Studien zur Geschichte des Mittelalters: Jürgen Petersohn zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Matthias Thumser et al., 2000, 92–99) have pointed out. Ceremonies, such as a ruler’s official entry
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into a city (adventus ceremony; see Gerrit Jasper Schenk, “Enter the Emperor: Charles IV and Siena Between Politics, Diplomacy, and Ritual [1355 and 1368],” Renaissance Studies: Journal of the Society for Renaissance Studies 20.2 [2006]: 161–79), or religious processions, also belonged to the vast field of symbolic communication (Karl Leyser, Communication and Power, 1990; Zeremoniell als höfische Ästhetik in Spätmittelalter und Früher Neuzeit, ed. Jörg Jochen Berns and Thomas Rahn, 1995; Gerrit Jasper Schenk, Zeremoniell und Politik, 2003). According to Adam J. Kosto (Making Agreements in Medieval Catalonia, 2001), we could also identify commercial contacts as important elements of mercantile, and furthermore as cultural and political communication. J. Honor and Gift Giving Honor, once compromised or damaged, could not be easily recovered, leading to profound conflicts in the political communication, as the contributors to Verletzte Ehre: Ehrkonflikte in Gesellschaften des Mittelalters und der Frühen Neuzeit (ed. Klaus Schreiner and Gerd Schwerhoff, 1995) demonstrated (see also George Fenwick Jones, Honor in German Literature, 1959). The extent to which gifts were accepted or rejected indicated the social status of the respective other and the degree to which open communication dominated their relationship (William C. McDonald, “‘Too softly a gift of treasure’,” Euphorion 78 [1984]: 1–16; Knut Görich, “Geld und ‘Honor’,” Formen und Funktionen öffentlicher Kommunikation, 2001, 177–200). In fact, the courtly world fully acknowledged the value of gifts as a political gesture, as a communicative instrument, and as a symbol of legal, religious, and economic commitment (contract), mostly requiring some kind of reciprocity both in terms of value and also in terms of self-imposed modesty (Harald Haferland, Höfische Interaktion, 1988, 150–59). The Irish knight Gandin in Gottfried von Strasbourg’s Tristan, for instance, inordinately demands Isolde as the reward for his playing music, thereby painfully betraying the basic courtly values of the communicative gift-giving principle (Hugo Bekker, Gottfried von Strassburg’s ‘Tristan’, 1987, 191–92). The same conflict, or breakdown of symbolic communication also occurs in the Saga and in Sir Tristrem, but not in Eilhart of Oberg’s Tristrant, though we observe it again in the various Lancelot romances (Rosemary Norah Combridge, Das Recht im ‘Tristan’ Gottfrieds von Straßburg, 1964, 123ff.; see also Irmgard Gephart, Geben und Nehmen im “Nibelungenlied” und in Wolframs von Eschenbach “Parzival,” 1994). Valentin Groebner, responding to the seminal anthropological work done by Marcel Mauss and Claude Lévi-Strauss, emphasized the political nature of gift-giving, which was always a highly ambivalent and multivalent operation (Gefährliche Geschenke, 2000; see also Medieval Transformations: Texts,
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Power, and Gifts in Context, ed. Esther Cohen and Mayke B. de Jong, 2001). Nevertheless, gift-giving was fundamental and crucial for medieval society because, as we might add, gifts have always served either as media of communication or could have easily been misconstrued as instruments of blackmail, extortion, or simple political and personal demands on the receiver. Laws certainly regulated most medieval societies, but only gift-giving, on a symbolic level, when predicated on altruistic, loving motifs, made human coexistence truly possible because this process relied on voluntariness and mutual respect, as the Italian cleric Thomasin von Zerclaere emphasized, who wrote his didactic treatise Der Welsche Gast in Middle High German in 1215, addressing a wide range of values, strategies, and principles of human coexistence (Haferland, 1988, 150–59). This meta-language, determined by communicative symbolism, made it possible for all public figures on the pan-European stage and considerably beyond, as Janet Nelson has underscored (“Government and Rulers,” The New Cambridge Medieval History, vol. III, 1999, 95–129), to understand each other within the world of curialitas (Curialitas, ed. Josef Fleckenstein, 1990). Its components consisted, as we have seen above, of symbols, rituals, and rules, all determining either the behavior of members of social units (family, tribe, kingdom) or of the heads of political territories, as William I. Miller (Bloodtaking and Peacemaking, 1990) has illustrated with respect to the Icelandic sagas, whether we think of strategies of persuasion or harmonious peacemaking, of aggressive exchanges or bloody warfare (Lars Lönnroth, “Rhetorical Persuasion in the Sagas,” Scandinavian Studies 42 [1970]: 71–98; Volker Roloff, Reden und Schweigen, 1973; Ulrich Baltzer, “Strategien der Persuasion,” ZfdA 121 [1991]: 119–39). K. Purpose and Effectiveness of Communication On another level, as social historians have pointed out, the exchange of emotions could also serve the global purpose of communication, such as anger, sorrow, happiness, and moodiness (Dietmar Rieger, “‘E trait sos meillors omes ab un consel’,” Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie 114.4 [2001]: 628–50; Anger’s Past, ed. Barbara H. Rosenwein, 1998). Most recently, Irmgard Gephart (Der Zorn der Nibelungen, 2005) emphasized the communicative function of gestures of wrath, hatred, love, and lament within a heroic society, such as the one portrayed in the Nibelungenlied (ca. 1200). Similar observations could be made with respect to Beowulf, the Chanson de Roland (also the Rolandslied), and El Cid, wherever the protagonists resort to symbolic gestures and mimicry to communicate their inner emotions and to exchange their ideas and values with their compatriots (see, for instance, A Cultural History
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of Gesture, ed. Jan N. Bremer and Herman Roodenburg, 1993; Horst Wenzel, Hören und Sehen, Schrift und Bild, 1995, 138–42). Insults and damage to honor could only be overcome through public penance, gifts, negotiations, and contracts, as Gerd Althoff indicated (Spielregeln der Politik im Mittelalter, 1997), all of which intimately pertained to symbolic communication, most powerfully represented by the deditio, the public submission under the Church or a worldly lord (Timothy Reuter, “‘Velle sibi fieri in forma hac,’” Formen und Funktionen, 2001, 201–25). Robert Jütte rightly identified this type of public communication as the semiotics of the ruling class, whether we turn to the royalty and the courts, or to the political situation in medieval cities (“Funktion und Zeichen: Zur Semiotik herrschaftlicher Kommunikation in der Stadtgeschichte,” Anzeiger des germanischen Nationalmuseums: und Berichte aus dem Forschungsinstitut für Realienkunde, 1993, 13–21; see also Karl-Heinz Spiess, “Kommunikationsformen im Hochadel und am Königshof,” Formen und Funktionen, 2001, 261–90). Words often proved to be not enough to establish peaceful relationships, hence political communication had to be utilized to overcome profound conflicts and to force an opposing group or individual to accept the other’s submission, outreach, or implied messages. This problem emerged as a critical aspect especially in 14th-century philosophy with its deep “nominalist climate,” when all human signs and all communicative efforts were increasingly cast in deep ambivalence and ambiguity, as powerfully reflected in the narrative works by Boccaccio, Juan Ruiz, and Geoffrey Chaucer (N. S. Thompson, Chaucer, Boccaccio, and the Debate of Love, 1996, 49). The need to probe the relevance and meaning of human communication might have, however, already gained in urgency and poignancy since the 13th century, as Cesare Vasoli has argued (“La ‘crisi’ linguistica trecentesca,” Conciliarismo, stati nazionali, inizi dell’Umanesimo, 1990, 245–63; see also Holly Wallace Boucher, “Nominalism: The Difference for Chaucer and Boccaccio,” The Chaucer Review 20 [1985/1986]: 213–20), if we don’t have to accept that people have always lied, have always resorted to deceptive strategies, and so have deliberately undermined the premises of the communication process for their own purposes (Hans-Jürgen Bachorski, “Lügende Worte, verstellte Körper, falsche Schrift,” Gespräche–Boten–Briefe, ed. Horst Wenzel, 1997, 344–64). In fact, as Karen K. Jambeck has recently suggested (“‘De parler bon’ eloquence’: Words of Love in the Lais of Marie de France,” Words of Love and Love of Words, ed. Albrecht Classen, 2007), the entire discourse of courtly love, both in Latin and in the various vernaculars, was predicated on eloquence, hence on successful communication, as it is perhaps best illustrated by the most theoretical, yet also highly ironic, text, Andreas Capellanus’s
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De amore (Don A. Monson, Andreas Capellanus, 2005; Bonnie Wheeler, “The ‘Sic et Non’ of Andreas’s De Amore,” Words of Love and Love of Words in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, ed. Albrecht Classen, 2008, 149–68). L. Literature and Communication As we have learned only recently, particularly medieval literary texts provide intriguing insights into the wide range of communicative efforts among people, whether we think of the numerous dialogues, speeches, discussions, debates, but also letters (Christine Wand-Wittkowksi, Briefe im Mittelalter, 2000), gift exchanges, aggressive exchanges that determine much of medieval heroic poetry, courtly romance, courtly love poetry, and didactic treatises (Albrecht Classen, Verzweiflung und Hoffnung, 2002; Corinna Dörrich, Poetik des Rituals, 2002; Christiane Witthöft, Ritual und Text, 2004). We might even want to go so far as to identify some of the greatest accomplishments of 12th- and 13th-century literature as having created new forums for the establishment of communicative communities (Paul Zumthor, La poésie et la voix dans la civilisation médiévale, 1984; C. Stephen Jaeger, The Origins of Courtliness, 1985; for a survey, see Marco Mostert, “Lezen, schrijven en geletterdheid,” Tijdschrift voor sociale geschiedenis 28, 2 [2002]: 203–21). By contrast, late-medieval literature, though still predicated on the understanding of the profound relevance of human communication, indicates a growing realization how easily this community could break apart. For instance, Boccaccio’s Decameron (ca. 1350), Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (ca. 1395–1400), Heinrich Wittenwiler’s Ring (ca. 1400), and Christine de Pizan’s La Cité de dames (1405) illustrate the drastic consequences if people fail to establish harmonious, constructive relationships through communicative operations (for a detailed study of Boccaccio’s Decameron, now see Ursula Kocher, Boccaccio und die deutsche Novellistik, 2005). Powerful echoes of this thematic interest (Albrecht Classen, “Wort und Gemeinschaft: Sprachliche Apokalypse in Heinrich Wittenwilers Ring,” Jahrbuch der Oswald von Wolkenstein Gesellschaft 8 [1994/1995]: 141–57; Wim Blockmans, “The Feeling of Being Oneself,” Showing Status: Representation of Social Positions in the Late Middle Ages, ed. Wim Blockmans and Antheun Janse, 1999, 1–16; Speaking in the Medieval World, ed. Jean E. Godsall-Myers, 2003; Peter Dinzelbacher, Europa im Hochmittelalter, 1050–1250, 2003; Elizabeth C. Zegura, “True Stories and Alternative Discourses,” Discourses on Love, Marriage, and Transgression, ed. Albrecht Classen, 2004, 351–68). The danger might be, however, that the term “communication” could be used in such generic contexts that every exchange between literary figures can become the topic of scholarly investigations (Kommunikation und Alltag in Spätmittelalter und Früher Neuzeit,
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ed. Helmut Hundsbichler, 1991; Andreas Urscheler, Kommunikation in Wolframs ‘Parzival,’ 2002), thereby watering down the critical issue of communication in epistemological, logical, and social terms. On the other hand, numerous medieval epics, romances, and poems reflect a profound concern with communication and its fragility, which could lead to catastrophic consequences (Albrecht Classen, “What Could the Burgundians Have Done to Avoid the Catastrophe? The Breakdown of the Communicative Community in the Nibelungenlied,” Neophilologus LXXXV, 4 [2001]: 565–87; id., Verzweiflung und Hoffnung, 2002). As the pan-European narrative Apollonius of Tyre indicates, for instance, the degree to which communication is practiced among individuals and social units represents the well-being of the community at large (Discourses on Love, Marriage, and Transgression in Medieval and Early Modern Literature, ed. Albrecht Classen, 2004). But many texts, such as Marie de France’s Lais (ca. 1150–1160), Ulrich von Liechtenstein’s Frauendienst (13th c.), and Juan Ruiz’s Libro de buen amor (14th c.) offer powerful insights into the complex, numerous, and fertile attempts at establishing communication within the literary universe (Sandra Linden, Kundschafter der Kommunikation, 2004), providing a fictional basis for the critical examination of how people ought to communicate with each other (see also Joy Hambuechen Potter, Five Frames for the Decameron, 1982). In most cases, however, as we can observe especially in late-medieval texts, this communication tends to fail, or at least reveals its problems, because of unequal power distribution, gender-specific language codes, vested interests, and material competition, whether we think of the anonymous Historia septem sapientum, Boccaccio’s Decameron, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, or Heinrich Wittenwiler’s Ring (Marilyn Migiel, A Rhetoric of the Decameron, 2003, ch. 6). Neither the Lexikon des Mittelalters nor the Dictionary of the Middle Ages offers an entry on the topic of “communication,” and older historiography, though already investigating many aspects of the history of intellectualism, science, urban life, and popular religious movements (Charles Homer Haskins, The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century, 1927; Friedrich Heer, Mittelalter, 1961), had not yet focused on this issue. Although difficult to pinpoint, research on human interaction in the Middle Ages began approximately in the early 1980s, particularly emphasizing political relations between rulers and their subjects, everyday life, and epistolarity (Giles Constable, Letters and Letter Collections, 1976; Richard C. Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence, 1980; Janet Gurkin Altman, Epistolarity, 1982; Jean-Claude Schmitt, La raison des gestes dans l’occident médiévale, 1990; see also the entries on “Letters” and “Letter Collections in this Handbook). Percy Ernst Schramm coined the
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metaphor of the “political drama” for the public events determining medieval society (Herrschaftszeichen und Staatssymbolik, 1954–1956; see also his Kaiser, Könige, Päpste, 4 vols., 1968–1971). Research on communication in the Middle Ages, however, did not really begin until Sophia Menache published her seminal study on The Vox Dei: Communication in the Middles Ages (1990; see also Karl J. Leyser, Communication and Power in Medieval Europe, ed. Timothy Reuter, 1994; La circulation des nouvelles au Moyen Age, 1994; Kommunikationspraxis und Korrespondenzwesen im Mittelalter und in der Renaissance, ed. Heinz-Dieter Heimann et al., 1998). The considerable impact of political correspondence is powerfully demonstrated by Christina Antenhofer’s monograph on the diplomatic exchanges involving the wedding of Paula de Gonzaga and Leonhard von Görz (Briefe zwischen Süd und Nord, 2007). Select Bibliography On the Medieval Theory of Signs, ed. Umberto Eco and Constantino Marmo (Amsterdam and Philadelphia: J. Benjamins, 1989); New Approaches to Medieval Communication, ed. Marco Mostert (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999); Hans-Werner Goetz, Moderne Mediävistik, 1999; Formen und Funktionen öffentlicher Kommunikation im Mittelalter, ed. Gerd Althoff (Stuttgart: Jan Thorbecke, 2001); Albrecht Classen, Verzweiflung und Hoffnung: Die Suche nach der kommunikativen Gemeinschaft in der deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters (Frankfurt a. M.: Peter Lang, 2002); Convaincre et persuader: Communication et propagande aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles, ed. Martin Aurell (Poitiers: Université de Poitiers-centre d’études supérieures de civilisation médiévale, 2007); J. A. Burrow, Gestures and Looks in Medieval Narrative (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Zwischen Babel und Pfingsten: Sprachdifferenzen und Gesprächsverständigung in der Vormoderne (8.–16. Jh.), ed. Peter von Moos (Vienna and Berlin: LIT, 2008).
Albrecht Classen
Computer-Based Medieval Research (with an Emphasis on Middle High German) A. Introduction For centuries people have dreamt of getting support in mathematics from elaborate machines and not only by an abacus, that is “a calculation tool, often constructed as a wooden frame with beads sliding on wires” (Wikipedia), which are used, for example, in China until today. For example Raimundus Lullus Ars magna (ca. 1300/ 1305), Giordano Bruno De lampade combinatoria lulliana (1587), and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Ars combinatoria
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(1666) wrote about such elaborate mathematical machines, and Jonathan Swift (Gulliver’s Travels 1726: III, 5: “The Academy of Lagado;” see Jan Christoph Meister, 2005) even delineated a ‘literary engine’ which would be capable “to write books […] without the least assistance from genius or study” – a satire. Roughly 200 years later, in the 1930s, the first electronic devices or machines were developed which could be used with some kind of programming software for calculating (Konrad Zuse 1910–1995, Louis Couffignal 1902–1966, Howard Aiken 1900–1973, George Stibitz 1904–1995): Soon the military, especially in the United States during World War II, realized how useful such electronic devices, i. e., mainframe machines of impressive size, were for military purposes. The first academic disciplines which benefitted from the new technology were, of course, natural sciences of all kinds; in the 1960s the humanities began to explore the new technique, and so did very soon medievalists. In the 1980s the epoch of microcomputers began, of so-called ‘personal’ computers (Apple, PCs), and it became more and more common to use them on individual writing desks. Personal computers and word processing software are nowadays indispensable tools for nearly most people who are professional writers. Probably no academic book, article, or even a student’s paper is anymore written without using IT – and of course this is also the case in Medieval Studies. We can assume that colleagues who use a typewriter today or even write their manuscripts by hand are now a very rare species. Publishers nearly all over the world expect to get the texts from their academic authors as electronic files, and often the authors are even responsible for the lay-out. It is therefore not only impossible, but no longer neccessary to outline the importance of IT tools for writing all kind of texts. At the moment Microsoft’s Word for Windows is nearly omnipresent although it is not an perfect writing software for academic writers; some saw Wordperfect for Windows as superior. I myself, for example, prefer Nota Bene (and here still one of the later DOS-versions, not that for Windows); it dates back to old CP/M-times, but it was very creatively conceived for academic writers and adapted for DOS and Windows, especially in the humanities. A software, originally conceived for mainframe machines and later adapted for DOS, called TUSTEP (Tübinger System von Textverarbeitungsprogrammen, ‘Tübingen System of Text-Processing Programs’), is probably the most powerful software for texts, but unfortunately also extremely difficult to handle. It is no WYSIWYG program, but otherwise one can use it for nearly every purpose to produce and retrieve words: for writing the most tricky texts (for example for all natural sciences, for maths, and linguistics), but also for comparing several texts, to produce at least half-automatically an edi-
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torial apparatus, or concordances; it was conceived by Wilhelm Ott (University of Tübingen: Classical studies [!]), and various times used for editions of old German texts (and here Paul Sappler, Tübingen, should be mentioned as an oustanding specialist; see: Wilhelm Ott, “Möglichkeiten und Grenzen von Programmsystemen für wissenschaftliche Textverarbeitung,” Maschinelle Verarbeitung altdeutscher Texte, ed. Kurt Gärtner, Paul Sappler, and Michael Trauth, 1991, 129–39). But in the philologies word-processing was not the origin of applying IT: In the beginning there was the analysis of huge amounts of linguistic material to collect word indexes and word concordances. The following paragraphs will outline the evolution (and revolution!) of computer-based research in medieval philologies, mainly based on my own experience and competence as a medievalist of German Studies. B. Concordances, Indexes Two theologians, Roberto Busa and Bonifatius Fischer, were the forerunners for computer-based word indexes and concordances. Father Busa, professor at the Papal Gregorian University of Rome, started in 1949 to analyze the complete works of Thomas of Aquin with the help of indexes and concordances; the project was supported by IBM with millions of dollars, and finally the Index Thomasticus comprised altogether 57 volumes. Bonifatius Fischer (Vetus Latina Institut at the Benedictine Monastery of Beuron, Germany) conceived a concordance of the complete Bible (Vulgata), which was published in 1977: Novae concordantiae Bibliorum sacrorum iuxta vulgatam versionem critice editam, 5 vols., 1977. Both projects, naturally, took decades to complete. The first medievalist in German Studies who produced a computer index was Harald Schuller at the University of Ann Arbor (A Word Index to the ‘Nibelungenklage’. Based on K. Lachmann’s Edition, 1966). The decisive protagonist in this field was the British medievalist Roy A. Wisbey (Cambridge, later London): Between 1967 and 1976 he published concordances for the following works: Wiener Genesis (1967), Vorauer and Strassburg Alexander (1968), Latin and Early Middle High German Speculum ecclesiae (1968), Konrad’s Rolandslied (1969), Middle High German Biblical Epics (David A. Wells, Vorauer Bücher Moses; Roy A. Wisbey, Altdeutsche Exodus; Brian O. Murdoch, Anegenge, Microfiche, 1976). In 1968, he founded a series for concordances: Compendia (see: Kurt Gärtner, “Concordances and Indices to Middle High German,” Computer and Humanities 14 [1980], 39–45; Roy A. Wisbey, “Computer und Philologie in Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft,” Maschinelle Verarbeitung altdeutscher Texte IV, ed. Kurt Gärtner, Paul Sappler, Michael Trauth,
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1991, 346–61; Kurt Gärtner and Peter Kühn, 1998 [see bibliography]). Together with Roberto Busa he was a co-founder of the Association for Literary and Lingistic Computing (ALLC) in 1973, which later became a founding chapter of the important Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO), which has ACLL’s journal LLC (Literary and Linguistic Computing: Journal for Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, 1986 sqq.) as its main print publication. The first German computer-index for later German texts (18th to 20th centuries) was published in 1968 by Helmut Schanze (Index zu Novalis Heinrich von Ofterdingen). During the following three decades dozens of computerbased indexes and concordances of medieval German texts were presented: A list which comprises most of these books (not all!) can be found in Kurt Gärtner and Peter Kühn (1998, 719–21, 735–39). They applied different methods: plain alphabetization of word-forms; with or without parsing, lemmatisation and/or segregation of homographs; some with a ranking list of frequencies, an index of rhymes, or a reverse index of the graphic forms. Many editors can be named (for details see Gärtner and Kühn, 1998): Robert R. Anderson et al. (Die Heidin, 1981; Heinrich von Mügeln, Der meide kranz, 1981; Ackermann aus Böhmen, 1973/1974); Erika Bauer (Heinrich Haller, 1982, 1984); Franz H. Bäuml and Eva-Maria Fallone (Nibelungenlied, 1976); Roy A. Boggs (Hartmann von Aue 1979); Ernst Brenner and Klaus Ridder (Vocabularius optimus 1990); Harald Bühler (Frauenlob, 1985); Udo von der Burg (Stricker, Karl der Große, 1974); Siegfried Christoph (Stricker, Werke, 1997); Hans Eggers (Latin and Old High German Isidor 1960); Ulrich Goebel (Moriz von Craon, 1975); Dagmar Gottschall (Lucidarius, 1975); Clifton Hall (Parzival, 1990; Tristan, 1992); Clifton Hall and Samuel Coleman (Walther von der Vogelweide, 1995); Olga Janssen (Schweizer Minnesänger,1984); Thomas Klein, Joachim Bumke et al. (Hessisch-thüringische Epen um 1200); Jean L.C. Putmans (Herzog Ernst, 1980); Margot Schmidt (Rudolf von Biberach); Masahiro Shimbo (Otfrid, 1990); Hirohiko Soejima (Stricker, 1988, Helmbrecht, 1990); Paul Sappler (Kaufringer, 1974); Katrin Woesner (Albrecht, Jüngerer Titurel, 2003). For years there was a productive teamwork of conceiving concordances between the universities of Maryland, College Park (George F. Jones et al.), and Salzburg (Ingrid Bennewitz, Hans-Dieter and Heike Mück, Ulrich Müller, Franz Viktor Spechtler et al.): Oswald von Wolkenstein (1974), Mönch von Salzburg (religious songs, 1975), lyric manuscript B Weingarten and Stuttgart (1978), lyric manuscript A Heidelberg (1979), Hugo von Montfort (1981), Neidhart, Berlin Ms. c (1984). The quality of all these indexes and concordances is different, and it depends above all of the quality of the edition which was used (Franz Viktor
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Spechtler, “Textedition–Textcorpus–EDV: Zum Problem der philologischen Grundlagen für die linguistische Datenverarbeitung,” Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing, Bulletin 4 [1976]: 95–96). Four of the College Park, MD, Salzburg concordances are based on the authentic texts of important manuscripts lyrical mss. A very special case are three indexes by Klaus M. Schmidt (Ulrich von Lichtenstein, 1981; Ulrich von Zatzikhoven, 1993; Kudrun, 1994): They present not only word lists, but also semantic glossaries, and this method became the basis of the MHDBDB (Mittelhochdeutsche Begriffsdatenbank, ‘Middle High German Conceptual Data Base’), which since 2002 has been installed at the University of Salzburg (see below). All these printed indexes and concordances are books which can simply be used and which present a lot of information, at least for philologists, but they represent a former epoch of computing. The present state of art is much more effective, more elegant – and costs much less to publish: medieval texts, stored in computer databases, which can be analyzed by any word-searching or concordance program (early examples: TUSTEP [see above], OCP = Oxford Concordance Program; Wordcruncher). A combination of book and computer data-base was created by Hermann Reichert (Nibelungenlied, MS B, 2 vol., 2006). C. Conferences Possibilities and methods of literary and linguistic computing have been presented and discussed at an increasing number of conferences. For old German texts the first was organized by Winfried Lenders and Hugo Moser at Mannheim (Maschinelle Verarbeitung altdeutscher Texte I, 1971, published 1978 [!]; see also Winfried Lenders, “Lexigraphische Arbeiten zu Texten der älteren deutschen Literatur mit Hilfe von Datenverarbeitungsanlagen,” Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 90 [1971]: 321–36; Untersuchungen zur automatischen Indizierung mittelhochdeutscher Texte, ed. Winfried Lenders, HansDieter Lutz, and Ruth Römer, 1969, 2nd ed. 1973). More conferences of the same kind followed, for example: Maschinelle Verarbeitung altdeutscher Texte II (Mannheim 1973; published in 1978: ed. Winfried Lenders and Hugo Moser); III (Tübingen 1977; published in 1980: ed. Paul Sappler and Erich Strassner); IV (Trier 1988, published 1991: ed. Kurt Gärtner, Paul Sappler, and Michael Trauth); V (Würzburg 1997, published in 2001, ed. Stephan Moser); Mediävistik und neue Medien (Bamberg 2001, published in 2004, ed. Klaus van Eickels, Ruth Weichselbaumer, and Ingrid Bennewitz). See also, for example, Data Bases in the Humanities and Social Sciences (conference Grinnell, Iowa 1987), ed. Thomas F. Moberg, 1987; Historische Edition und Computer: Möglichkeiten und Probleme interdisziplinärer Textverarbei-
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tung und Textbearbeitung (conference Graz 1989), ed. Anton Schwob et al., 1989. D. CD-ROMs, Internet/World Wide Web Indexes and concordances were only the beginning. To produce them it was necessary to transform printed texts into computer-readable texts. Most of them were just used for a special project, but there were also plans to publish them on CD-ROMs, and very soon in the new World Wide Web, making them directly accessible – and mostly gratuitous. PCs, the Internet, and the World Wide Web introduced possibilities to present and to analyze large amounts of data, home-pages which could be linked, and which made projects accessible without publishing them as printed and mostly expensive books. They revolutionized research in all disciplines, and so also in Medieval Studies. Nearly monthly there are new plans, concepts, and projects world-wide, and things change so rapidly that it is nearly impossible to overview even the IT-sites of an individual academic field. Some people prophesied the exitus of printed books, the end of the so-called ‘Gutenberg galaxy’ (Marshall McLuhan), but that seems to be an exaggeration created by technical enthusiasm. Even if there are academic journals, monographs, and articles published in the World Wide Web, large projects and sample of data which can only be presented by IT, the new technology as well as printing on paper will probably coexist according to specific intentions. Robert Darnton (“The New Age of the Book,” New York Times Review of Books, March 18th, 1999 [http://www.nybooks.com/articles/546]) wrote about reading texts on a screen: “The world of learning is chanching so rapidly that no one can predict what it will look like ten years from now. But I believe it will remain within the Gutenberg galaxy – though the galaxy will expand, thanks to a new source of energy, the electronic book, which will act as a supplement to, not a substitute for, Gutenberg’s great machine.” And Darnton quotes William H. Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft: “Reading off the screen is still vastly inferior to reading off a paper. Even I, who have these expensive screens and fancy myself as a pioneer of this Web Lifestyle, when it comes to something about four of five pages, I print it out and I like to have it to carry around with me and annotate. And it’s quite a hurdle for technology to match that level of usability.” Academic texts until today must be written according to the rules, and there is no fundamental difference in academic rules and standards if the texts will be published on paper or on screen. One can present texts and data of enormous size in the WWW, much faster and less expensive than printed books, but they must have sufficient quality. Furthermore, there is always
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the problem of their volatile character. Websites appear and disappear, and a text, printed on paper and/or bound as a book, is probably much more lasting (and it might be that in hundreds or thousands of years only texts survive that are written on parchment manuscripts or in stone, but not printed on paper or published by electronical methods). But there is also the opposite opinion: “People worry about the problems of digital preservation, and wether the e-texts of today will still be readable ten years from now. We all know some standard horror stories to illustrate this, but again, can we really believe that this will be other than a transient problem?” (David Pearson: “Digitisation: do we have a strategy,” Ariadne, 30 [2001] [http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue30/digilib/]; see also Susanne Dobratz and Inka Tappenbeck, “Thesen zur Zukunft der digitalen Langzeitarchivierung in Deutschland,” Bibliothek, 26 [2002]: III: 257–61). E. Travelling in the WWW It is until today possible to be more or less informed about what is presented on CD-ROMs (and also what has been printed on paper). But the enormous amount of material which can be found in the WWW makes special reference tools a necessity. Two of them should be mentioned here as examples, both with a focus on German Medieval Studies. Ruth Weichselbaumer published in 2005 a monograph (Mittelalter virtuell: Mediävistik im Internet) about Medieval Studies and IT, presenting and discussing many websites and IT tools. It is an excellent guide book through the regions of the WWW; there is a short and legible description of the many websites which are enlisted. Another guide tool can be found within the WWW itself: Mediaevum (www.mediaevum.de). It is kind of a IT-‘portal,’ i. e., it assembles information and presents it with a classified system of links. One can, for example, look for the names, addresses and bibliographies of medievalists of the German-speaking universities; for a list of medieval manuscripts which are at the moment accessible as a digitalized version in the WWW; for links to databases about the Middle Ages; for a conference calendar etc. The presented material is, of course, sometimes incomplete. Regarding digitalized medieval manuscripts and information about manuscripts there should be added the medieval section of the website of the University Library of Salzburg (www.ubs.sbg.ac.at/sosa/webseite/sosa.htm; conceived by Beatrix Koll) and the famous Wolkenstein-MS of the University Library of Innsbruck – at the moment it is nearly ingeniously hidden, and the easiest way to visit is via Wikipedia (Oswald von Wolkenstein: links). For many more ‘guides,’ see Ruth Weichselbaumer, Mittelalter virtuell (2005); there is also a good, but of course subjective overview published by Sonja Glauch,
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one of the protagonists of the above mentioned mediaevum: “Neue Medien, alte Texte? Überlegungen zum Ertrag digitaler Ressourcen für die Altgermanistik,” Literatur und Literaturwissenschaft auf dem Weg zu den neuen Medien, ed. Michael Stolz, Lucas Marco Gisi, and Jan Loop, 2007; also: www.germanistik.ch/autorin.php?id=Sonja_Glauch). Further Mediävistik – Das deutschsprachige Mittelalter, a homepage at the University Bayreuth should be mentioned, conceived in cooperation with the University of Regensburg (http://www.aedph.uni-bayreuth.de/media evistik.htm): It is a mailing list for medievalists, which is extensively used for questions and discussions (in German). Also very useful is a bibliographical searching machine (bibliographical ‘portal’) which is presented by the university library of Karlsruhe, the Karlsruher Virtuelle Katalog (KVK: ‘Karlsruhe virtual catalogue’: http://www.ubka.uni-karlsruhe.de/ kvk.html). There one can search for a book in dozens of scientific libraries all over the world, including the US (Library of Congress), UK (British Library), France (Bibliothèque National), and elsewhere in Europe; the various library catalogues to be searched through with one single [!] command can be selected specifically; the KVK can be used for books in general, as far as they are listed in electronic catalogues, but it is extremely helpful also for medieval studies. F. Electronic Texts, Editions, Editorial Databases Texts of all kinds have been increasingly stored and presented in the WWW (sometimes also on CD-ROMs). Numerous websites present texts, also medieval ones of various languages, and very often gratuitous (see the list of links to medieval Latin and German texts in: texte.mediaevum.de/index.htm; for medieval English, French and other Romance languages, see Ruth Weichselbaumer, Mittelalter virtuell, 2005, 67–70). But there is one problem: they can only be as good as the editions on which they are based, and therefore one should look for editorial information before downloading them and using them. Of course also older editions may be presented in the WWW (and as mentioned above, now all new ones have been written and published with the help of IT). Followers of the so-called New Philology have been advising strongly to publish future editions not as printed books, but with the help of computers and online (see, above all, Bernard Cerquiglini, Eloge de la variance: Histoire critique de la philologie, 1989; regarding the ‘New Philology,’ see “The New Philology” Speculum 65 [1990]: 1–208). But until today no completely electronic edition has been published, and many scholars suppose that such an edition would not be useful and not practical; above all, German medieval-
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ists have argued against this ‘new wave’ and stressed that much of it is not really ‘new’ at all (Karl Stackmann, “Die Edition – Königsweg der Philologie?,” Probleme und Methoden mittelalterlicher deutscher Texte, ed. Rolf Bergmann et al.,1993, 1–18; Ingrid Bennewitz, “Alte ‘Neue’ Philologie?,” Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 116 [1997], Sonderheft: Philologie als Textwissenschaft, 46–61; Rüdiger Schnell, “Was ist neu an der ‘New Philology’?” Alte und neue Philologie, Beihefte zu ‘editio,’ 1997, 61–95). It might be a perspective for the future to combine for editions a printed book and presentation of additional material in the WWW; Wernfried Hofmeister’s new edition of the songs of Hugo von Montfort (2005) is a first example. But the best possibilities to display medieval texts would be to combine the presentation of digitalized manuscripts or incunabula, transcriptions, editions, and – perhaps – translations all in one project online. Ulrich Müller (“Mittelalterliche Codices und Computer: Projektskizze einer integrierten Video- und Datenbank,” Jahrbuch der Universität Salzburg 1983–1985, 1987, 163–68; id., “Mittelhochdeutsche Texte im Aktenköfferchen,” Maschinelle Verarbeitung altdeutscher Texte: Beiträge zum Vierten Internationalen Symposion 1988, ed. Kurt Gärtner et al., 1991, 96–103) proposed such a design, applying the possibilites of hypertexts. Such projects are beeing been carried out at several universities, for example: (a) the Princton University (The Princeton Charrette Project, i. e., Chrétien de Troyes, Lancelot, le Chevalier de la charette, conceived by Karl D. Uitti 1994 sqq.: http://www.princeton.edu/ lancelot/ss/); (b) the University of Birmingham, UK (The Canterbury Tales project: CD-ROMs, and on-line: www.canterburytalesproject.org); (c) the Florida Gulf Coast University (Roy A. Boggs 1991 sqq.: The Hartmann von Aue (Knowledge Based) Portal: www.fgcu.edu/rboggs/Hartmann; or: www.HvA.uni-trier.de; see: Roy A. Boggs, “The Hartmann von Aue (Knowledge Based) Portal. An Introduction and Description,” cristallîn wort. Hartmann Studien 1 [2007]: 13–32); and (d) the Universities of Basel and Bern (Michael Stolz, Parzival-Projekt). Michael Stolz, who refers to the Chaucer project as one of his prototypes, presented the latest plans of this ambitious project at the conference Graz 2008 (see below): Selected sections of Wolfram’s Parzival are presented in the WWW – digitalized manuscripts, parallel transcriptions, variants of the other manuscripts (www.parzival.unibe.ch); the full Parzival manuscript of the Bavarian State Library Munich cgm 19 (CD-ROM 2008, and on-line: http://mdz10.bib-bvb.de/ db/bsb00002134/images/index.html). A complete printed edition of the four most important manuscripts will follow, presented in parallel columns. All these projects are, naturally, works in progress (Roy A. Boggs 2007 [see above], 13: “never be perfect, never be finished, and always without boundaries […], an imperfect tool for better scholarship”);
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but ‘work in progress’ also means that they can continually and easily be augmented and actualized. G. Databases About the Middle Ages The same must be said about nearly all databases. Meanwhile there are numerous databases that store and present all kinds of information on Medieval Studies. Just some philological ones (German Studies) might be mentioned here: (a) Handschriftencensus (www.handschriftencensus.de), an online digital archive of dates about medieval German manuscripts and early printings; this international project is situated at the University of Marburg; (b) Mittelhochdeutsche Wörterbücher im Verbund (‘Collected Middle High German Dictionaries’: germazope.uni-trier.de/Projects/MWV), a database which presents the two major dictionaries of Middle High German (Lexer, and Benecke/Müller/Zarncke) and additional material; it is also available on CDROM; and (c) the Middle High German Conceptual Data Base (‘Mittelhochdeutsche Begriffsdaten-Bank’: mhdbdb.sbg.ac.at), conceived by Klaus M. Schmidt and Horst Peter Pütz (Bowling Green State University and University of Kiel), and since 2002 located at the University of Salzburg: It is the largest database of MHG language (about 250 works, roughly 8 million words at the moment [April 2010]). All the word material can be searched for word-forms, parts of words, or any compounds of letters, everything in various combinations, and partly further for “Begriffsfelder.” It is by far the largest ‘intelligent’ medieval database and is much more powerful, for example, than the above mentioned TUSTEP (see Klaus Schmidt and Horst Peter Pütz, “Die Mittelhochdeutsche Begriffsdatenbank,” Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum 130 [2001]: 493–95; Margarete Springeth, “Die Mittelhochdeutsche Begriffsdatenbank (MHDBDB: http://mhdbdb.sbg.ac.at) “[= “Computer und Film als Medien der Erinnerung,” I], Literatur als Erinnerung: Winfried Woesler zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Bodo Plachta, Tübingen 2004, 52–58). The most recent information about various MHG databases was presented at a conference in Graz (Austria), September 2008, among others by Klaus Klein (Handschriftencensus) and Margarete Springeth (MHDBDB), and can be read in the proceedings (Wege zum Text: Grazer germanistisches Kolloquium über die Verfügbarkeit mediävistischer Editionen im 21. Jahrhundert, (Beihefte zu ‘editio’), ed. Wernfried and Andrea Hofmeister, 2009). The MHDBDB is linked with an on-line collection of medieval miniatures and paintings depicting every-day life in the late Middle Ages and early modern times, a project of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (‘Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften’), and established in Krems (Lower Austria): REALonline: www.imreal.oeaw.ac. at/realonline.
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IT is nowadays indispensable to write and publish any texts; and it will be more and more applied to analyze and evaluate them – also in Medieval Studies where they were used rather early. An online catalogue is currently created at the UCLA for the location and identification of digitized medieval manuscripts: http://manuscripts.cmrs.ucla.edu. Select Bibliography Kurt Gärtner and Peter Kühn, “Indices und Konkordanzen zu historischen Texten des Deutschen: Bestandsaufnahme, Typen, Herstellungsprobleme, Benutzungsmöglichkeiten,” Sprachgeschichte: Ein Handbuch zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und ihrer Erforschung, ed. Werner Besch et. al. (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 2nd ed. 1998), I, 715–42; Kurt Gärtner, “Texte im Netz – Perspektiven Digitaler Bibliotheken” (paper at the Internationale Conference of Manuscript Editors 2003), online: http://www.dfg.de/forschungsfoerderung/wissenschaftliche_infrastruktur/lis/ veroeffentlich ungen/dokumentationen/download/vortrag_gaertner.pdf; Jan Christoph Meister, “Projekt Computerphilologie: Über Geschichte, Verfahren und Theorie rechnergestützter Literaturwissenschaft,” Literarität und Digitalität: Zur Zukunft der Literatur, ed. Harro Segeberg and Simone Winko (Munich: Fink, 2005), online: http://www.jcmeister.de/downloads/texts/jcm-project-cp.html; Maschinelle Verarbeitung altdeutscher Texte I–V (conferences 1971–1997), ed. various (Berlin and Tübingen: Schmidt and Niemeyer, 1977–2001); Mediävistik und Neue Medien (conference Bamberg, 2001), ed. Klaus van Eikels, Ruth Weichselbaumer and Ingrid Bennewitz (Ostfildern: Thorbecke, 2004); Ulrich Müller, “Medieval German Lyric Poetry and Computers: A Project at the University of Salzburg: With the prospect of a computer-based integration of facsimile, transcription and concordance,” Data Bases in the Humanities and Social Scienes, ed Thomas F. Moberg (Osprey, FL: Paradigm, 1987), 329–36; Wege zum Text: Grazer germanistisches Kolloquium über die Verfügbarkeit mediävistischer Editionen im 21. Jahrhundert (conference Graz, September 2008), Beihefte zu ‘editio,’ ed. Andrea and Wernfried Hofmeister (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2009); Ruth Weichselbaumer, Mittelalter virtuell: Mediävistik im Internet (Stuttgart: Hirzel, 2005). All Web sites which are mentioned in the article above were last accessed in October 2008.
Ulrich Müller
Conversion A. Definition In the year 300, Christianity was only one of many religions in the Roman world, a sect occasionally persecuted by the emperors. By 1000, however, Christian churches dotted the map from Iceland to western China. More-
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over, throughout a string of lands running from the Atlantic to the River Volga and Asia Minor, Christianity was the established religion. Together these Christian states represented Christendom: a self-conscious Christian community that abutted still pagan territories to the north and east (especially in the Baltic region) and the dominions of Islam stretching from Spain to Syria (which hosted a significant Christian population down to the modern period). Although always a mystery to most medieval western Christians, a Christian state also existed throughout the Middle Ages in Ethiopia. The seven centuries between the conversion of Constantine, the first Roman emperor to legalize Christian worship, and the turn of the millennium when, in the words of a contemporary, Europe was “decked white” in a flurry of church-building are usually conceived as the conversion of Europe. The main stages in this conversion can be quickly sketched, beginning of course with Constantine’s Edict of Milan (313) that granted Christians the right to free public assembly. Increasing imperial patronage of the Christian Church followed, with the outlawing of the sacrifices of traditional GrecoRoman paganism in 395. In 438, the Codex Theodosianus proclaimed the Roman Empire a formally Christian state, establishing an intimate identification between romanitas and Christianity that was reiterated in the Codex Iustinianus in 529. Justinian’s Code provided the legal foundation for Rome’s continuation in the Eastern Mediterranean, “Byzantium” (the empire ruled from Constantinople whose inhabitants never ceased to call themselves Romans until the final demise of their state in 1453) and sealed the formal Christian (‘Orthodox’) identity of the eastern, Greek-speaking half of medieval Christendom (see Cyril Mango, Byzantium: The Empire of New Rome, 1980; and Averil Cameron, The Byzantines, 2007). In the East, Byzantium exported Christianity to Ethiopia during the 4th century; periodically sponsored Christian communities in the Caucasus (where an Armenian Christian state had existed since the early 4th century) against Persian domination until that empire’s collapse in 651; and brought the southern and eastern Slavs into the medieval Christian orbit. The conversion of the Slavs to Orthodoxy took place notably through the missionary endeavors of Ss Cyril (827–869) and Methodius (826–885), the baptism of the Bulgar khan, ca. 865, and the adoption of Christianity by the rulers (later tsars) of Kiev from 988 and later Moscow, and giving birth to what Dimitri Obolensky called the ‘Byzantine Commonwealth’ (The Byzantine Commonwealth: Eastern Europe, 500–1453, 1971). Church leaders in Orthodox Slav lands acknowledged the pre-eminence of the bishop of Constantinople as Ecumenical patriarch and drew heavily on Byzantine theology and spirituality translated from Greek, but developed a liturgy in “Old Church” Slavonic. On
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the other side of the ledger, Christological disputes between 431 and 553 splintered the Eastern Church into a complex array of mutually-hostile hierarchies, that included the Syriac- and Coptic-speaking churches that inhabited the Islamic Caliphate from its rise in 632, central Asia and southern India, whose later medieval developments are admirably covered by Gilbert Dagron, Pierre Riché and André Vauché (Histoire du Christianisme des origines à nos jours, 4, Évêques, moines et empereurs (610–1054), ed. id., 1993). A different story unfolded in western Europe where the bishops of Rome, the See of St Peter, Prince of the Apostles, developed a distinctive claim to direct jurisdictional authority over all Christian peoples. Following the disintegration of Roman authority, symbolized in the abdication of the last Roman emperor of the West, Romulus Augustulus, in 476, Rome’s western territories fell under the sway of Germanic military leaders (“barbarians” to the Romans) who were either Arian Christians (heretics in “Catholic” Roman eyes for Christological reasons) – as with the Goths in Italy, Spain and southern Gaul, the Burgundians in the Rhone valley, Sueves in Galicia and the Vandals in North Africa – or pagans – such as the Franks in northern Gaul and Anglo-Saxons in lowland Britain. In the eyes of early medieval Catholic Churchmen, therefore, conversion signified as much the persuasion of Arians to adopt Catholic Christianity as it did the baptism of pagans. The latter often took place first, beginning with St Patrick’s mission to Ireland during the 5th century (see David Dumville, Saint Patrick, AD 493–1993, 1993; Kathleen Hughes, The Church in Early Irish Society, 1966 [1980]) and followed by the all-important conversion and baptism of Clovis, king of the Franks, around 500, which inaugurated a long tradition of Frankish leadership of western Europe, in tandem with the papacy from 754 (Clovis: Histoire et mémoire, ed. Michel Rouche, 1997; John Michael Wallace-Hadrill, The Frankish Church, 1983; La christianisation des pays entre Loire et Rhin, ed. Pierre Riché, 1976). In 597, Pope Gregory I (“the Great”) sent a Roman mission to England which succeeded in converting Ethelbert, king of Kent (Robert Mayr-Harting, The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England, 1972; St Augustine and the Conversion of England, ed. Richard Gameson, 1999). Despite Walter Ullmann’s long-standing thesis to the contrary (The Growth of Papal Government, 1955; id., A Short History of the Papacy, 1972 [2003]), Gregory’s mission should be considered an act of spiritual devotion rather than political strategy according to Robert Markus, Gregory the Great and His World (1997). With competition for converts between the native British church, Roman and Irish missionaries, all of Britain’s Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were formally Christian by 700. By this time Anglo-Saxon missionaries were actively baptizing their German cousins on the Continent, where the Irish
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were also actively promoting a new monastic revival among the old GalloRoman Christians further south. Further north still, Catholic Christianity reached Scandinavia from the 9th century, initiating the gradual foundation of bishoprics and monasteries, as well as the introduction of literacy that had been typical of Christianity’s advance elsewhere in western Europe (see Birgit and Peter Sawyer and Ian Wood, The Christianization of Scandinavia, 1987). Poland and Hungary formally entered the Catholic fold in 963 and 1001 respectively. The Baltic states proved more resistant, but with the conversion of Lithuania in 1386 the final piece in the jigsaw of medieval Christendom fitted into place. The first Germanic kingdom to adopt Catholic Christianity in place of Arianism was Visigothic Spain in 589. The Arian elites of that country possibly deduced the dangers that could flow from allowing religion to divide them from their catholic subjects. In 533, Justinian, emperor of Byzantium, manipulated Arian persecution of Catholics in Vandal Africa to justify the liquidation of that kingdom; a similar fate eventually befell the powerful Ostrogothic state in Italy in 554. Conversely, the kings of the Franks (and subsequently of France) derived prestige throughout the medieval period from the fact that they had converted directly to Catholicism, with no intervening period spent in heresy. The Lombards oscillated between paganism, Arianism, and Catholicism throughout their independent existence in Italy. Arianism was finally extinguished as an organized competitor to the Catholic Church with Charlemagne’s conquest of the Lombard kingdom in 774 and incorporation of it into his greater Catholic, Frankish empire that dominated Continental north western Europe. Of course, the baptism of kings is only one aspect of the formation of Christendom. Equally important was the evangelization of the countryside. From the start, Christianity was a city-based religion; scattered communities of illiterate village-peasants fitted ill with the traditional Christian paradigm of city-based congregations under the oversight of a literate bishop and clergy. Outreach by bishops such as St Martin of Tours (ca. 316–ca. 397) to the peasantry began under the Christian emperors of the 4th century, as is documented through the destruction of sacred groves and rural shrines and temples in contemporary saints’ Lives from Gaul (see Clare Stancliffe, St Martin and his Hagiographer, 1983). Thanks in part to similar sources, Frank Trombley (Hellenic Religion and Christianization, c. 370–529, 1993) charts the resilience of non-Christian traditions in Asia Minor as late as the 6th century. Such activities remained the standard practice of missionaries in German and Scandinavian lands down to the turn of the millennium. Folk customs, including “magic,” were labeled as sacrilegious superstition by Church auth-
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orities throughout the Middle Ages but, according to Valerie Flint (The Rise of Magic in Early Medieval Europe, 1991) never ceased to inform the lives of a significant proportion of the population of Christendom. Even if the memory of pre-Christian gods had vanished, their functions were often subsumed in the spectacular multiplicity of popular medieval saints’ cults. Another important conversion that took place during late antiquity and the early Middle Ages was the Christianization of space, time and communal history, according to norms that were perceived to be consistent with biblical revelation and Christian teaching. As shown by Robert Markus (The End of Ancient Christianity, 1990) this can be observed in the creation of the Christian liturgical year, beginning with the celebration of Advent, Christmas and Epiphany and culminating in Lent and the great celebrations of Easter and Whitsun (Pentecost). Modelled on the life of Christ, the Christian year was also punctuated by the feasts of the martyrs and saints, some local others Europe- and Mediterranean-wide. Corresponding to this was the overlaying of an old pagan landscape with a new Christian topography. Emperors raised basilicas that housed dazzling mosaics of Christ, the saints and the heavenly city to steal the glory of the old pagan temples. Bishops dedicated shrines to the memory of martyrs in various corners of early medieval cities: where a city possessed the body of no martyr of its own, relics brought from elsewhere ensured that it was nonetheless connected to the great Christian network that recast the sacred geography (pagan springs, groves and oracles) of the pre-Christian era. States depicted Christian themes on coins, ivory diptychs and other objects imbued with official significance, where emperors and kings projected an image of themselves as ruling with the authority of Christ. In church, prayers for Christian rulers were an integral part of the Sunday liturgy. The result was by the 6th century a society on the way to becoming completely transformed in its own imagination of itself. The metamorphosis was most striking perhaps in the city of Rome where the popes deployed the relics of Ss Peter and Paul to create a Christian city designed to eclipse the memory of pagan Rome with its myth of Romulus and Remus. This is documented by Richard Krautheimer, Rome: Profile of a City (1980); id., Three Christian Capitals: Topography and Politics (1983). B. History of Research The emergence of medieval Europe as a formally Christian society clearly demands explanation. It has long been accepted that the so-called conversion of Constantine (306–337) launched Christianity as a formerly persecuted religion on its way to becoming within less than a century the sole permitted religion in the Mediterranean world and an essential element of Roman
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political and cultural identity. Continuing a tradition epitomized by A. H. M. Jones, Constantine and the Conversion of Europe (1948), Ramsay MacMullen’s words have much justification for the medievalist as well: “Nothing counts more than the year 312” (Christianizing the Roman Empire, 1984, 102). Outwardly, the only hiccup in this steady process was the pagan revival pursued by Julian the Apostate during his brief reign (360–361). Since the 1970s, however, historians of early medieval Europe have increasingly recognized the indispensability of a deeper understanding of late antiquity as the cultural matrix for Europe’s conversion. Peter Brown (The World of Late Anitiquity, 1971; The Rise of Western Christendom, 1996 [2003]), places the formal acceptance of Christianity by the Roman Empire’s barbarian successor states in the context of late antique developments, and demonstrates that the nature of the Christianity medieval people were converted to was hierarchical, bishop-dominated and culturally Roman, thanks at least in part to the Church’s experience in the Empire. Robin Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians (1986) remains the classic treatment of relations between pagans and Christians in the empire up to Constantine’s death; Peter Brown, Authority and the Sacred: Aspects of the Christianisation of the Roman World (1995) and R. A. Markus, End of Ancient Christianity (1990) have brought to the fore the tensions that Christianization provoked in the Roman world. Averil Cameron, Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire: The Development of Christian Discourse (1991) investigates how words themselves were converted in the late antique world as Christians created literary discourses and developed a totalizing Christian worldview. The various contributors to Kenneth Mills and Anthony Grafton, Conversion in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages: Seeing and Believing (2003) have underscored the social and political tensions between church and empire that accompanied the public expansion of Christianity in the Roman world and Neil McLynn’s concluding essay especially is an invaluable roadmap of possibilities for future research into the social ramifications of changed religious loyalties in late antiquity. Judith Herrin, The Formation of Christendom (1987) serves as the handbook for the growing awareness of distinctive eastern (“Orthodox”) and western (“Catholic”) Christian identities from the 5th down to the 9th centuries. It is helpful to seek some definitional clarification, given that the meaning a scholar of the middle ages attaches to the word “conversion” will inexorably bear upon his or her appreciation of it as a socio-historical phenomenon. There are perhaps three principal ways in which medieval conversion has been conceived and each implies its own chronology and view of medieval society. These are, broadly, conversion as a (1) personal and inward experience, (2) historico-political narrative, and (3) ongoing sociological pro-
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cess. Conversion as a personal experience of changed religious conviction is embodied above all in the “Damascus Road” model provided by St Paul’s conversion in the Acts of the Apostles – the text of primordial importance for all Church history. Although Acts provides other models of conversion as well, conversion as conceived of as a dramatic change in an individual’s religious conviction was entrenched in 20th-century English-language scholarship by Arthur Darby Nock’s Conversion: The Old and the New in Religion from Alexander the Great to Augustine of Hippo (1938). Nock famously defined conversion as “the reorientation of the soul of an individual, his deliberate turning from indifference or an earlier form of piety to another, […] a consciousness that […] the old was wrong and the new is right” (7) and his focus on the individual’s psychological motivations for conversion from one religion to another owed its methodology to the American psychologist William James’s turn-of-the-century study, Varieties of Religious Experience (1902). As Fletcher, The Conversion of Europe (1997), points out (see below), the problematic nature of representing medieval conversion in these terms is compounded by the fact that, for the entire period from Constantine to Luther (†1546), the sources for the history of personal conversion from inside the mind of the convert are lacking, with exceptions in only an extremely limited number of cases. Among these, however, are the towering figures of Ss Augustine of Hippo (ca. 354–430) and Anselm of Canterbury (†1109), modern biographies of whose Christian calling provide superb historical analysis: Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo (1967; 1998), and Richard Southern, St Anselm and his Biographer: A Study of Monastic Life and Thought, 1059–c.1130 (1961). In a similarly individual-orientated perspective, Karl Morrison, Understanding Conversion (1990) also studies the language used to describe conversion to discern the religious experience of monastic converts during the 11th and 12th centuries in the context of an outwardly-converted Christian society. The second way in which scholars have imagined conversion is as part of a quasi-political historical narrative leading to the formation of Christendom with its individual national kingdoms. This conception of conversion focuses on peoples rather than individuals and often takes its cue from the sources themselves, e. g., Bede’s 8th-century History of the English Church and People (731) or Paul the Deacon’s History of the Lombards, although the objectivity of these texts has been problematized by Walter Goffart, The Narrators of Barbarian History (AD 550–800) (1988). The underlying model for conversion is “top-down,” with the entry of a previously pagan or heretic people group following upon the baptism of a powerful king and his retainers. Conversion as national narrative is the favored domain of most traditional scholarship
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on medieval conversion, e. g. Ferdinand Lot, La fin du monde antique et le début du Moyen Âge (1927) and Christopher Dawson, The Making of Europe: An Introduction to the History of European Unity (1932; 2003). Such works entwine “Church” and “State” as normative categories for the consideration of the whole of medieval history, constructing the Christian Middle Ages as a concerted dance between political and ecclesiastical interests and typically focus on the conversion of the various Germanic kingdoms between the collapse of Rome’s authority in the West, ca. 378–476, and the flowering of the Frankish empire under Charlemagne (774–814). On the contrary, Peter Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity, 200–1000 (1996; 2003) proposes as an important revisionist view of early medieval Christian societies that considers as much the cultural as the political dynamics of Europe’s conversion; in place of a single grand narrative, the second edition presents the Mediterranean and north-western Europe as a devolved network of regional “micro-Christendoms.” Within a longer chronological purview, the most accessible and comprehensive recent contribution in English to this strand of medieval conversion history is Richard Fletcher, The Conversion of Europe: From Paganism to Christianity, 371–1386 (1997). Jacques Brosse, Histoire de la Chrétienté d’Orient et d’Occident: De la conversion des barbares au sac de Constantinople (1995) and relevant volumes of Desclée’s Histoire du Christianisme des origines à nos jours are noteworthy in French. In German, Lutz von Padberg, Die Christianisierung Europas im Mittelalter (1998) provides an invaluable pocket-sized overview of the expansion of Christianity throughout the Roman and medieval periods, including diachronic discussions of important themes and translations of selected sources; Peter Thrams, Die Christianisierung des Römerreiches und heidnischer Widerstand (1992) restricts himself to the Roman period. Marina Montesano, La Cristianizzazione dell’Italia nel Medioevo (1997) is the handbook for this change in Italy, with Augusto Fraschetti, La Conversione: Da Roma pagana a Roma cristiana (1999) concentrating on the dynamics of Constantine’s conversion. Articles in Guyda Armstrong and Ian Wood, Christianizing Peoples and Converting Individuals (2000) suggest the possibility of revisionist perspectives, with those by Wood and Pohl containing important considerations for students of the Anglo-Saxons and Lombards respectively. The conversion of Europe as narrative has been contested by different historiographical traditions. Among Roman Catholic historians (e. g., Dawson), the early medieval conversion period is portrayed as the Church’s heroic age – an “age of saints,” as Henri-Iréné Marrou put it in his Nouvelle Histoire de l’église: Des origines à saint Grégoire le Grand (vol. 2, 1963, 247–48) – during which disciplined Benedictine monks overcame the uncouth barbar-
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ism of the continent’s un-Romanized peoples to lay the foundations for the achievements of European civilization that followed. The obvious flaw in a narrative history of conversion is the teleology it often involves, particularly in triumphalist accounts that assume the inevitability of Christianity’s winning out over competitors. Apart from representing a late flowering of the esteem in which 19th-century romanticism held the Middle Ages (consider especially the Neo-Gothic craze of Victorian Britain), however, such a perspective was, of course, also a reaction to the overwhelmingly negative view of a period cast during the Enlightenment as the “Dark Ages” – a view expressed especially in Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776), which considered the rise of Christianity as a cause for Rome’s disintegration. Since the 1970s, Peter Brown has led the critique of Gibbon, presenting the triumph of the Church not as the result of Christianity’s inherent superiority or divine favor, but of the Church’s willingness to negotiate and ability to adapt creatively to different cultural environments. Brown’s many publications emphasize early medieval continuities with antiquity (hence, the widespread rise of “late antiquity” as a term that sometimes replaces “early Middle Ages”). They also highlight the extent to which Christianity shared its adaptability with other religions in the dynamic circumstances of a period that saw not only the consolidation of Christianity, but also the formalization of Talmudic Judaism and the birth of Islam in the Persian-dominated Near East, territory that was Rome’s, if not north western Europe’s, next door neighbor (see Brown, The World of Late Anitiquity, 1971; id., Rise of Western Christendom, 1996 [2003]). Brown’s thesis has been extremely successful and supplied a new narrative for the origins of Christendom that was especially creative during the 1990s and early years of this millennium, as reflected in the various volumes of the Transformation of the Roman World series published by Brill (Leiden, The Netherlands). Even when they do not deal with conversion itself, these volumes often dramatically shift notions concerning the cultural setting of late Roman and early medieval societies in which the expansion of Christianity took place. Nevertheless, whereas such a perspective encourages a view of the adoption of Christianity by Rome and its successors as dynamic and culturally creative, recently Christianization has been once again viewed as an outright negative because culturally destructive phenomenon (see Raymond Van Dam, Becoming Christian: The Conversion of Roman Cappadocia, 2003, 3). This probably reflects a post-colonial critique of Christian mission in general, which, as Antony Grafton and Kenneth Mills expressed it, could signify “an unyielding conquest […] the takeover of human identity, imagination and consciousness” (Conversion: Old Worlds and New, 2003, ix). Since the
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late 1990s, moreover, the Brownian narrative has itself been challenged by historians reasserting the magnitude of Roman political and social collapse during the 5th century and the real cultural regression that ensued in north western Europe: e. g. Andre Giardini, “L’esplosione di tardo antico,” Studi Storici 40 (1999): 157–80; Bryan Ward-Perkins, The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization (2005); Peter Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire (2006). Recently, a more popular way of conceiving of conversion is as less a linear narrative than an on-going process of negotiation between various competing parties, with the study of which prioritizing sociological and anthropological theories. Whereas the focus of narrative histories of conversion was top-down, conversion as process aims to view the phenomenon from the bottom up. Exemplary studies of this sort from the early medieval period are James Russell, The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity: A Sociohistorical Approach to Religious Transformation (1994); Carole Cusack, Conversion Among the Germanic Peoples (1998); and especially The Cross Goes North: Processes of Conversion in Northern Europe, ed. Martin Carver (2003). These studies portray conversion as a dialectical process between the representatives of Christianity and the recipients of the new religion, stressing the changes that Christianity itself underwent to appeal to early medieval converts, particularly convert rulers. According to Carver, “the Age of conversion was […] an age of ideological diversity and political experiment” (12). Other studies of this kind, with differing degrees of emphasis are Nicholas Higham, The Convert Kings: Power and Religious Affiliation in Early Anglo-Saxon England (1997); and Barbara Yorke, The Conversion of Britain: Religion, Politics and Society in Britain, c. 600–800 (2006), both treating Anglo-Saxon England. Rather than taking the Christian identity of medieval society for granted, scholars have also re-examined the depth of commitment to Christianity by the vast majority of the members of medieval society who existed outside the orders of the Church. This has reminded historians to consider conversion an on-going process throughout the Middle Ages in which Europe never completely succeeded in living up to its claims to be a uniformly Christian society. Conceived as process, the conversion of medieval Europe has no historical endpoint other than the end of the Middle Ages themselves, with relations between the various parties to religious change constantly transforming as each renegotiated their place in Christian society, as shown in the relationship between the Church and military aristocracies in Guerriers et moines: Conversion et sainteté aristocratiques dans l’Occident médiéval (IXe–XIIe siècle), ed. Michel Lauwers (2002). This perspective has been employed by historians to great effect in diversifying historical accounts of conversion to concentrate upon more than just the baptism of rulers or the organization
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of an established Church. From this point of view, every aspect of medieval society can be considered from the perspective of conversion, understood as the Christian’s unending spiritual pursuit of God, including the written word: Michel Zink, Poésie et conversion au Moyen Âge (2003) who argues that medieval Latin poetry was not completely “converted” before Dante. Conversion as process also foregrounds the aporetic character of medieval Europe’s Christian identity, as can be seen regarding women, Jews and other marginalized groups. Nicole Bériou and François-Olivier Touati, Voluntate Dei Leprosus: Les lépreux entre conversion et exclusion aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles (1991), examine the religious experience of lepers. Recent studies also stress the medieval rather than modern meaning of the Latin word conversio, placing Christians themselves – saints and heretics alike – in the category of those who fitted awkwardly within the strictures of Christian society. Accepting medieval Latin terminology on its own terms, historians have also investigated the meaning of conversio to medieval people themselves, drawing attention to the factors that led certain individuals in a nominally Christian society to seek a deeper sense of personal religious vocation, as well as the often destabilizing social consequences of such a choice. Conversion in this sense is inseparable from the study of monasticism, especially monastic reform, sainthood, popular religion and heresy. Far from imagining the European Middle Ages as synonymous with Christendom, modern studies of conversion have therefore tended to highlight the diversity of medieval religious experience – including that of women (see below), Jews, Muslims and other non-Christian minorities – along with the inherent tension between the claims of a Christian society and the convert’s call to the renunciation of social bonds with its implicit condemnation of the Christian credentials of society at large. Taking the ideal of renunciation implicit in the ideal of conversion seriously, John van Engen has argued that such individuals considered personal conversion to Christianity paradoxically to require exile from and condemnation of wider medieval Christian society: “Conversion and conformity in the early fifteenth century, “(Conversion: Old Worlds and New, ed. Anthony Grafton and Kenneth Mills, 2003, 30–65). C. Issues in Conversion History C.1. Theological Considerations In the immediate post-imperial setting (ca. 400–600) many of Germanic warrior societies (Visigoths in the Iberian peninsula and southern Gaul, Ostrogoths in Italy, Vandals in north Africa, etc.) were at least nominally Christianized before their formal entry into Roman territories. This requires
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engagement with patristic theology since the Christology to which these Germanic peoples converted was Arian, which maintained in opposition to the Orthodox, or Catholic, Nicene Christology the ontological subordination of Jesus as Word of God to God the Father. The authoritative guide to these developments is Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition, 1, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100–600) (1971). Theological considerations reappear regarding the different positions held by Rome and Constantinople on matters such as images, the filioque clause, papal primacy and permissible liturgical languages (that is, whether as Rome insisted, God could be formally worshiped in a language other than Hebrew, Greek or Latin). This is especially true during the competition between both of these patriarchal sees for influence in Central and Eastern Europe, especially the Balkans. The sharpening of the Catholic-Orthodox divide during the High Middle Ages demands familiarity with the late antique ecclesiastical context that set eastern (Greek) and western (Latin) Christianity on their separate trajectories, on which see Herrin, Formation of Christendom (1987). C.2. Conversion as Acculturation (Christianization) Most modern studies increasingly take the view that the conversion of the barbarians really represented a process of acculturation, rather than religious conversion per se, and consequently prefer the term ‘Christianization’ to ‘conversion.’ Roman Christianity promised the possibility of belonging, through the diplomatic recognition that a converting barbarian king received from the Roman emperor who still existed in Constantinople, to a Mediterranean-wide political network with its roots in the unimpeachable legitimacy of Greco-Roman antiquity and of access to sophisticated Roman culture, especially reading and writing, with the obvious advantages inherent in both for effective government and tax collection. Given the cultural prestige attached to bishops as representatives of literate Roman culture with a history of pretensions to universal authority, the fact that more than religious factors were at play in this conversion seems obvious. It has been argued that the greatest attraction for pagan kings in conversion to Christianity was the religion’s association with Roman culture. It is worth noting that the attraction of similar incentives involving access to what is deemed to be a more universal and prestigious cultural system still seems to be at play in conversions to Christianity among modern peoples: Conversion to Christianity: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives on a Great Transformation, ed. Robert Hefner (1993), the introduction to which by Hefner is the best account available of the theoretical history of conversion and conversion as an anthropological-historical phenomenon. The conversion of the Franks is paradig-
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matic of the problems for the historian of Europe’s conversion. Clovis received baptism from a leading representative of the former Roman provincial order and the conversion is recorded for posterity in the writings of another representative of that order several decades after the event. This reflects the early medieval situation in general. Historians can seldom assess the religious experience of the vast majority of early medieval people other than through the writings of those supportive of Christianity, owing to a lack of sources from non-Christian agents. C.3. Diplomacy and “Native” Christians Despite the tales of the missionaries themselves, Ian Wood (Christianizing Peoples and Converting Individuals, ed. Guyda Armstrong and Ian Wood, 2000, 27–36) has shown that early medieval missionaries to the AngloSaxons probably did not arrive among peoples who had had no exposure to Christian symbols or teachings. This seems to be a model capable of extension to other sectors of early medieval conversion where cross-cultural contact in frontier zones arguably played a much greater role in preparing pagan societies for Christianization than has heretofore been recognized. Christian influence among pagan societies was often the by-product of diplomacy aimed at other ends. Telescoping several centuries to the politics of conversion along the 13th- and 14th-century Baltic coast, the rulers of Lithuania were certainly familiar with at least the outwards demands of Christianization (such as the destruction of non-Christian temples and the erection of churches) several decades before their final acceptance of Catholicism through marriage to the heir to throne of Poland (see Fletcher, The Conversion of Europe, 1997). C.4. Women The important role played by the wives of early medieval rulers in their husbands’ is often noted in historical accounts. This disguises, however, the general scarcity and brevity of sources dealing directly with women throughout the conversion process in early medieval Europe. As demonstrated by Cordula Nolte and Ruth Mazo Karras in Varieties of Religious Conversion in the Middle Ages (ed. James Muldoon, 1997, 91–99 and 100–14), this throws into relief, with its preponderance of monks, bishops and kings, not only the male-dominated interests of the early medieval sources, but also those of much modern historiography. The most extensive treatment of women in the early medieval conversion process is Cordula Nolte, Conversio und Christianitas: Frauen in der Christianisierung vom 5. bis 8. Jahrhundert (1995). In other periods, finding new ways of approaching taciturn sources has achieved
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startling effects, with Valerie Flint deploying a close and subtle reading of male sermonizing in the context of high medieval art, symbolism, and science to argue for women’s resistance to conversion – or at least conversion to the Crusades, if not to Christianity – in 13th-century England and France: “Conversion and Compromise in Thirteenth-Century England,” in Kenneth Mills and Anthony Grafton, Conversion: Old Worlds and New (2003, 1–29). C.5. The Means of Conversion The Christianization of the barbarians also raises important questions about the means employed to promote conversion. Language arose as an especially important issue during the 9th century when both Frankish and Byzantine missionaries competed for influence in central Europe. The willingness of the Greek Church to permit native liturgies is usually seen as affording Byzantium a distinct advantage in this field over the Papacy with its insistence on the use of Latin. The place of the vernacular in the Christianization process of lands that fell under papal authority is therefore an important issue. As Bruno Dumézil has argued in his Les Racines chrétiennes de l’Europe: Conversion et liberté dans les royaumes barbares, Ve–VIIIe siècles (2005) the use of force to impose conversion must also be considered, especially from the time of Charlemagne’s baptism of the Saxons at sword-point during the early 800s (see also Famille, violence et christianisation au Moyen Âge: Mélanges offerts à Michel Rouche, ed. Martin Aurell and Thomas Deswarte, 2005). High medieval theology and canon law generally eschewed violence as a means for obtaining baptism, but sanctioned it for punishing those who had converted and relapsed, as was often claimed in the case of Jews, see Guyda Armstrong and Ian Wood, Christianizing Peoples (2000). Dual monastic-military orders such as the Teutonic Knights were also crucial for the Christianization of the Baltic from Pomerania to Lithuania, and demonstrate what later medieval conversion techniques owed to the ideology of the Crusades. C.6. Medieval European Conversion in a Global Context Traditionally focused upon the experience of the western barbarian kingdoms during the early medieval period (ca. 500–1000), only recently has scholarship broadened its horizons to include eastern and central Europe, including Russia and the Caucasus, extending the conversion period itself up to the symbolic conversion of Lithuania to Catholicism in 1386 – the last state in Europe to do so. A horizon as broad as western China is necessary for understanding what was historically distinctive about the conversion of the various kingdoms of north-western Europe to Roman, Latin-language Christianity, but also for how the medieval Christendom to which it gave rise con-
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sidered Jews and Muslims both within and outside its porous frontiers. Such a viewpoint also has the great advantage of relativizing western Europe’s Catholic Christian identity by affording equal room historically for Christianity’s growth and implantation in Byzantium, including especially medieval Bulgaria and Russia, Armenia and the Caucasus (Die Christianisierung des Kaukasus, ed. Werner Seibt, 2002), Coptic Ethiopia (Stephen Kaplan, The Monastic Holy Man and the Christianization of Early Solomonic Ethiopia, 1984) and the significant, if politically disenfranchised communities, of Syriac and Coptic Christians throughout the Near East, Central Asia and India. Throughout the Middle Ages, Catholic Europe was just one among many Christian societies. Guyda Armstrong and Ian Wood, Christianizing Peoples (2000) is again a good place to get a sense of the cultural and linguistic breadth of medieval conversion experiences in both the early, high and late medieval periods. Chronologically and geographically, Anthony Grafton and Kenneth Mills, Conversion: Old Worlds and New (2003) bridges the gap between conversion in high medieval Christian Europe and experiences in early modern Asia and the Americas, as well as modern Africa. D. Sources Important sources include theological treatises; chronicles, histories and annals; law codes; saints’ Lives; sermons, letters, penitentiaries. Almost all sources for the period were produced by parties favorable to the mission and subsequently transmitted by through the Christian monastic tradition. The lack of sources providing reliable evidence for pre-Christian religion is characteristic of the early medieval period. Consequently, very little is known about Europe’s pre-Christian religions at all. For a thorough introduction to the primary sources for conversion in the early medieval period, see Ian Wood, “Christianization and the Dissemination of Christian Learning,” (New Cambridge Medieval History, I, c. 500–700, ed. Paul Fouracre, 2005, 710–34); On Saints’ Lives especially, see Ian Wood, The Missionary Life: Saints and the Evangelization of Europe, 400–1050 (2001). E. Questions for Future Research Future research will continue to probe what Christianity meant to the societies that received it and develop awareness of how the conversion process shaped both medieval Christianity and the medieval Church. Considerable interest still surrounds groups who were marginalized in Christian society. Above all, perhaps, it is important not to overlook the broader historical context of Europe’s early medieval Christianization. The rise and spread of Islam from the 640s across the Near East and the southern shore of the Medi-
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terranean (including Spain) provides a crucial and compelling comparison for Europe’s experience of Christianization. The 9th-century conversion of the Khanate of Khazaria on the Black Sea to Judaism should not be overlooked either. Questions for future research concern why monotheism itself flourished in the early medieval period, how they differed historically between them and what both similarities and differences in the historical experience of monotheism meant to contemporaries. It is fitting to end with Zink’s comment: “Pourquoi la conversion? Parce que c’est au Moyen Âge ce vers quoi doit tendre toute vie.” F. Modern Congresses A string of favorable anniversaries in recent years (viz., 1000th anniversary of the acceptance of orthodoxy from Byzantium by Kievan Rus’ in 1988; the 1400th anniversary of the arrival of the Roman monk St Augustine at Canterbury in 1997; 1500th anniversary of the baptism of Clovis 1999–2005) has seen a proliferation of international conferences and congresses dedicated to the subject of conversion. The proceedings of many of these have been published and provide a useful starting point for revisionist accounts of many aspects of the traditional conversion narratives, for example: Conversion and Christianity in the North Sea World (ed. Barbara Crawford, 1998); and The Legacy of Saints Cyril and Methodius to Kiev and Moscow (ed. Anthony-Emil Tachiaos, 1992). Select Bibliography Ian Wood, “Christianization and the Dissemination of Christian Learning,” New Cambridge Medieval History, I, c. 500–700, ed. P. Fouracre (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 710–34; Peter Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity, 200–1000 (1996; Oxford: Blackwell, 2003); Jacques Brosse, Histoire de la chrétienté d’Orient et d’Occident: De la conversion des barbares au sac de Constantinople (Paris: Albin Michel, 1995); Lutz von Padberg, Die Christianisierung Europas im Mittelalter (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1998); Marina Montesano, La cristianizzazione dell’Italia nel Medioevo (Rome: Laterza, 1997).
Matthew J. Dal Santo
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Cornish Literature A. Definition Cornish is one of the Celtic languages of the British Isles, specifically one of the so-called p-Celtic group, its closest relatives being Welsh in Britain, and more closely Breton in present-day Brittany. South-West Brythonic, the common ancestor of Cornish and Breton, separated from the ancestor of Welsh in the 6th century. In some early documents (especially glosses) it can be unclear whether the language is Cornish or Breton, but the distinction becomes clear from the later eleventh to the mid-12th century. Cornish was spoken broadly in the area of modern Cornwall, but retreated gradually and survived longest as a spoken language in the far west of the duchy. Very little survives of the earliest stage of the language (a manumission document of the late 10th or early 11th century with a list of names, and a Vocabularium Cornicum from about 1100 with around a thousand Cornish words), but after 1200 the second stage of the recorded language, Middle Cornish, began to develop a literary tradition which had a florescence in the drama of the 14th century. By the late 16th century the language underwent further changes, but was by now under considerable pressure from English. Late Cornish, its final stage as a spoken community language, shows a small amount of (not always very) literary survivals, mostly short pieces, and it is usually assumed that Cornish died out as a language of spoken intercourse even in the far western region in the 18th century, the final surrender to English assisted by the absence of a tradition of printed material, and especially of a Bible and an authorized liturgy in Cornish, although the existence of a now-lost Middle Cornish Bible has been postulated (Charles Penglase, “La Bible en moyen-cornique,” Etudes Celtiques 33 [1997]: 233–43; against this Malte W. Tschirschky, “The Medieval Cornish Bible,” Cornish Studies 11 [2003]: 308–16). See Mathew Spriggs, “Where Cornish was Spoken and When: A Provisional Synthesis” (Cornish Studies 11 [2003]: 228–69). The importance of the Cornish language and its literature for Medieval Studies lies in the existence of a number of works in Middle Cornish, most notably Biblical and other dramas, which provide evidence of a tradition different from medieval drama in English, sometimes with unusual material, which was performed in a different way, and which in some respects matches more closely continental forms. This has been a focus of comparative and contrastive scholarship.
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B. Medieval Literature The earliest text with a claim to be seen as literature is probably the Charter Fragment, forty-one lines of Cornish verse probably from the late 14th century, and written on the back of a charter dated 1340 relating to the parish of St Stephen in Brannel, containing two different speeches, perhaps from a play. The earliest full work is a strophic Passion-poem (first published as Mount Calvary, but referred to now as Pascon agan Arluth, “The Passion of Our Lord”). The major medieval work, however, is the so-called Ordinalia, a threeday cycle of strophic verse-plays on the Creation, the Passion and the Resurrection related to (and including material from) the poem, and probably with a provenance in a single literary center. The Passion-poem and plays were probably written in the 14th century, and have been linked with Glasney College, a college of secular canons with a constitution based on the Chapter of Exeter cathedral, established near Penryn in 1265 by Bishop Walter Bronescombe and dissolved in 1545. Glasney was not the only secular college in Cornwall – other similar establishments were known at various times at different locations – but there are strong links through place-names in the plays between the college at Penryn (near Falmouth) and the Ordinalia, which not only drew upon the Passion-poem but which was also known to the writer of a later Cornish Creation-drama. There is some indication that there may originally have also been a nativity play, and two modern versions have been supplied by modern writers: Ken George, Iuventus Christi/Flogholeth Krist (2006), in Cornish and English; and Alan Kent, Nativitas Christi (2006), in English, both imitating the style of the other plays. The Glasney appropriations included the church of St Just in Penwith, near one of the surviving playing-places or rounds where the plays were performed. J. A. C. Vincent, “The Glasney Cartulary” (Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall 6 [1878–81]: 213–58); James Whetter, The History of Glasney College (1988). Later than the Ordinalia is a two-day verse drama cycle centered upon the life of a Breton saint, Meriadoc, the Cornish version of whose name, Meriasek, gives the title Beunans Meriasek, “Life of Meriasek.” It also includes material on St Sylvester and the conversion of Constantine, plus a legend of the Virgin known from the Golden Legend. Camborne was the center of Meriasek’s cult, but the probable time of composition (late 15th century; the manuscript is dated 1504) coincides with the move of Provost John Nans of Glasney to Meriasek’s church at Camborne. Few dramatized saints’ lives have survived in Britain in English, and none of non-biblical saints. The world of Cornish Studies was surprised in 2001 when the discovery was announced of a mid-16th century manuscript donated to the National Library of Wales containing the fragmentary text in late medieval Cornish, probably of the later
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15th century, of two hitherto unknown verse plays or parts of a cycle (Graham C. G. Thomas, “Two Middle Cornish Plays: A Note,” The National Library of Wales Journal 32 [2001]: 121–22). The manuscript contains 3308 lines, increasing the Middle Cornish corpus by about twenty percent. Of the two pieces, the first is on the life of another non-biblical saint, St Kea, also known from Breton sources and the patron of Kea parish in Cornwall, and his (successful) conflict over land-claims with Teudar, a local king who appears also in Meriasek (see W. H. Pascoe, Teudar: A King of Cornwall, 1985); the other, based largely on Geoffrey of Monmouth, is concerned with King Arthur’s (disputed) tribute payments to the Roman emperor Lucius, with Guenevere and Modred, and the battle with the latter. The work clearly contains contemporary historical allusions and is of course also linguistically valuable. The manuscript has now been published as Bewnans Ke/Bywnans Ke, “The Life of Kea.” The last major work in Cornish was composed probably around the middle of the 16th century; the first play survives of another two-day biblical verse cycle, known as Gwreans an Bys; the manuscript, dated 1611, has the English title The Creacion of the World. It draws to a certain extent upon the Ordinalia (using mainly the role of God, in fact: Paula Neuss, “Memorial Reconstruction in a Cornish Miracle Play,” Comparative Drama 5 [1971]: 129–37), but is essentially a different work, again with unusual biblical motifs. William Jordan, to whom it was once ascribed, was probably the copyist. The basic form of the medieval Cornish drama is stanzaic rhymed verse, with stanzas of varying lengths and lines usually of seven syllables (sometimes shorter) and repeated rhymes (the Passion-poem is in regular 8-line stanzas). There are, however, a great many differences from the medieval English drama-cycles. The Cornish plays were performed in a circular plenan-gwary (‘playing place’), which had various stations around the edge where the most important characters were based, with the action taking place in the central area; the manuscripts of the Ordinalia and of Meriasek contain diagrams of this staging in the round. The content of the plays differ from that of the English dramas not only in the dramatization of the lives of non-biblical saints, but in the inclusion of unusual material within the biblical context not found in the English cycles (though they are known on the continent), such as the motif of the Holy Rood and the extended dramatization of the story of David and Bathsheba in the Ordinalia, or the death of Cain in Gwreans an bys. There is little post-Reformation material in Cornish. One curiosity is a collection of sermons (identified as Cornish only in 1949) known as the Tregear Homilies, from the name of the presumed translator, John Tregear, a clericus who cannot otherwise be identified. The translation is of the first twelve ser-
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mons in a collection of thirteen published in 1555 by Edmund Bonner, John Harpsfield and Henry Pendleton, from the Catholic side in a period of heated religious conflict. The material in the thirteenth Cornish piece, which may not be a sermon, however, is distinct from the rest of the manuscript and has aroused interest. It is not a translation or the same as the thirteenth sermon in the original collection, and has been evaluated by D. H. Frost (“Sacrament an Alter: A Tudor Cornish Patristic Catena,” Cornish Studies 11 [2003]: 291–307) as a collection of patristic quotations, providing evidence of ongoing Catholicism in Cornwall. An oration in Cornish was reputedly held at Valladolid in 1600, and Nicholas Roscarrock, a 16th-century Catholic scholar and collector of the lives of British saints, referred in a letter in 1607 to a (lost) Cornish life known to him of a (female) St Columba, and there may very well have been others. C. Editions The following standard editions contain texts and translation unless otherwise stated. C.1. Early Cornish: M. Förster, “Die Freilassungsurkunden des BodminEvangeliars,” A Grammatical Miscellany Presented to Otto Jespersen, ed. N. Bøgholm (1939), 77–99; Eugene van Tassel Graves, “The Old Cornish Vocabulary” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia, 1962; Ann Arbor, Mich: University Microfilms, 1962). C.2. Middle Cornish: Lauran Toorians, The Middle Cornish Charter Endorsement: The Making of a Marriage in Medieval Cornwall (1991); Whitley Stokes, “The Passion. A Middle Cornish Poem,” Transactions of the Philological Society (1860–1), Appendix, 1–100; Edwin Norris, The Ancient Cornish Drama, 2. vol. (1859, rpt. 1968); Phyllis Pier Harris, “Origo Mundi: First Play of the Cornish Mystery Cycle, The Ordinalia: A New Edition” (Ph.D. diss., University of Washington, 1964; Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1964); Markham Harris, The Cornish Ordinalia: A Medieval Dramatic Trilogy (1969) (prose translation only); Whitley Stokes, The Life of St Meriasek, Bishop and Confessor: A Cornish Drama (1872); Markham Harris, The Life of Meriasek: A Medieval Cornish Miracle Play (1977) (prose translation only); Myrna Combellack-Harris, “A Critical Edition of Beunans Meriasek” (Ph.D. diss., Exeter, 1985); Bewnans Ke: The Life of St Kea, ed. Graham C. G. Thomas and Nicholas J. A. Williams (2007); Bywnans Ke, ed. Ken George (2006) (original text, translation, version in Kernewek Kemmyn); Whitley Stokes, Gwreans an bys: The Creation of the World (1864); Paula Neuss, “The Creation of the World” (Ph.D. diss.,
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Toronto, 1970; 1983); Christopher Bice, The Tregear Manuscript: Homeliyes XIII in Cornysche (1969): rpt. as The Tregear Homilies by Ray Edwards (1994). Following the Cornish language revival in the 20th century, editions in Unified Cornish of some of the texts have been produced with translations: R. Morton Nance and A. S. D. Smith, Passyon agan Arluth, ed. E. G. R. Hooper (1972);, The Cornish Ordinalia, Second Play: Chris’s Passion, ed. R. Morton Nance, A. S. D. Smith and Graham Sandercock (1982); The Cornish Ordinalia, Third Play: Resurrection, ed. id. (1984); The Cornish Ordinalia, First Play: The Creation of the World, ed. and trans. R. Morton Nance and A. S. D. Smith, new ed. Ray Chubb, Richard Jenkin and Graham Sandercock (2001); R. Morton Nance and A. S. D. Smith, Gwryans an bys (1959), rev. E. G. R. Hooper (1985). Separate translations have since appeared of Gwyreans an bys, Beunans Meriasek, and of the Ordinalia, the latter using modern Cornish dialect. Donald R. Rawe, The Creation of the World (Gwryans an bys) (1978); Myrna Combellack-Harris, The Camborne Play: A Verse Translation of Beunans Meriasek (1988); Alan Kent, Ordinalia: The Cornish Mystery Play Cycle (2005). See also the anthology Looking at the Mermaid: A Reader in Cornish Literature 900–1900, ed. Alan M. Kent and Tim Saunders (2000). D. History of Research The first scholarly work on Cornish was being carried out at precisely the time Cornish was ceasing to be used as a community language, with 17th- and 18th-century scholars showing an interest in and collecting the early material (“gathering the fragments”), and thus consciously preserving a knowledge of the language and such written material as they could before it was too late. Special mention must be made of William Scawen, vice-warden of the Stannaries, whose studies of the language and of some of the medieval texts, his Antiquities Cornubrittanic, were published long after his death and even then not in the full form (Matthew Spriggs, “William Scawen (1600–1689): A Neglected Cornish Patriot and Father of the Cornish Language Revival,” Cornish Studies 13 [2005]: 98–125); of John Keigwin of Mousehole, (1641–1716), who translated the medieval Biblical texts; and of Edward Lhuyd (1659/60–1709), a Welsh-speaker and Oxford antiquary who printed a grammar with a long preface in Cornish (Entries on Scawen and Keigwin by Matthew Spriggs in the Oxford DNB, vol. 49 (2004), 195–56, and 31, 39; entry on Lhuyd by Brynley F. Roberts in vol. 33, 710–12). The lawyer and antiquary Daines Barrington (1727–1800) published in the journal Archaeologia (3 [1777]: 278–84), a piece “On the Expiration of the Cornish Language,” on the alleged last speaker of the language, Dolly Pentreath (who died in that year), though there are other claimants, and it is never entirely
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clear when a language ceases to be a living one; see also his “On Some Additional Information Relative to the Continuance of the Cornish Language” (Archaeologia 5 [1779]: 81–86). The Boson family of Newlyn (Nicholas, Thomas and John) wrote and preserved works in Cornish in the 17th and early 18th centuries (Oliver J. Padel, The Cornish Writings of the Boson Family (1973), including the folktale John of Chyanhor, which has elements in common (service rewarded with ‘points of wisdom’) with material as early as the 11th-century German-Latin Ruodlieb (Brian Murdoch, “Is John of Chyanhor really a Cornish Ruodlieb?” Cornish Studies 4 [1996]: 45–63). Other antiquaries concerned with the preservation and study of Cornish include William Gwavas (1676–1741), Thomas Tonkin (1678–1742), William Borlase (1696–1772) and Henry Ustick (1720–1769). The earliest scholarly productions in the 19th century were of (Keigwin’s) texts and translations of the medieval works, most notably those edited by Davies Gilbert, Mount Calvary […] Interpreted in the English Tongue […] by John Keigwin (1826) and The Creation of the World with Noah’s Flood, written in Cornish in the Year 1611 by Wm. Jordan, with an English Translation by John Keigwin (1827). Edwin Norris’s two-volume Ancient Cornish Drama, appeared in 1859, and new versions of the Passion-poem and of the later Creation-play, plus the drama of Meriasek were published towards the end of the century by the Celtic scholar Whitley Stokes. The early editions by Gilbert (original name Giddy, 1767–1839) are more usually cited with opprobrium than applause because in the preface to Gwreans an bys in 1826 he seemed to welcome the demise of the Cornish language. Notwithstanding the outrage expressed by Cornish language enthusiasts ever since, Gilbert praised the excellence of the original language, but as a Member of Parliament and an early technocrat he knew that separation and provinciality was bad for Cornwall. Gilbert did not glory in the death of Cornish, but he was concerned for the development of Cornwall, and his editions, if flawed, were still the first. Even Matthew Arnold voiced the opinion that Cornwall was the better for adopting English and for becoming one with the rest of the country. The 19th century also saw the publication of dictionaries by Robert Williams, Lexicon Cornu-Britannicum (1865) and by Fred. W. P. Jago, An English-Cornish Dictionary (1887, rpt. 1984). Norris’ edition of the Ordinalia included a grammar and vocabulary of about 300 pages, but there was really no convenient scholarly grammar of medieval Cornish until the early 20th century, and for some time this was only available in Welsh: Henry Lewis, Llawlyfr Cernyweg Canol (1923, 2nd ed. 1946, rpt. 1980). It was translated into German by Stefan Zimmer (with an updated bibliography by Andrew Hawke) as Handbuch des Mittelkornischen (1990).
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In the early years of the 20th century a book by Henry Jenner, A Handbook of the Cornish Language (1904), sparked off a renewed interest in the language which led to a revival of Cornish on the basis of Middle Cornish, because that stage of the language contained fewer English borrowings and a larger (though necessarily not complete) lexicon than Late Cornish, which had, however, undergone distinctive sound-changes. Jenner (1848–1934) himself, and then in particular Robert Morton Nance (1873–1959), established a “Unified Cornish” which was used for teaching the revived language and for new writing. Other orthographic and grammatical systems for revived Cornish have since been developed, not without considerable controversy, and the future of this development remains unclear. The existence of (various) revived forms, incidentally, accounts for variations in the titles given to some of the Cornish works. The publication of Jenner’s Handbook was of considerable importance to the development of scholarship, even though Jenner was himself not convinced of the literary value of some of the early texts. Once the language revival established itself under the forceful hand of Nance, a Federation of Old Cornwall Societies came into being in the 1920s and a journal, Old Cornwall, was begun in 1925, followed by the establishment of a gorsedd with bards in 1928. The journal included material of general antiquarian interest and also more preserved fragments of the language, sometimes little more than a sentence. Other journals appeared later at intervals, devoted largely to promoting the revived language (see Henry and Katharine Jenner, ed. Derek R. Williams, 2004; Derek Williams, “Robert Morton Nance,” An Baner Kernewek/The Cornish Banner 88 [May 1997]: 14–18; Brian Murdoch, entry on Nance in the Oxford DNB, vol. 40 [2004], 137–38). The efforts of Nance and his collaborator A. S. D. Smith (1883–1950) led to new writing in Cornish, but also to the re-editing and translating of many of the medieval texts. However debatable the linguistic principles of these new editions may be, this meant that the texts were again disseminated and examined closely, and some errors in the older editions were corrected. The publication for language teaching purposes of individual episodes from the medieval plays may, however, have been detrimental to the perception of the unity in the cycles in terms of literary scholarship. E. Recent Research Even for some years after the Second World War, medieval Cornish literature was often (though not always) regarded as an insignificant subsidiary to the English drama-cycles. Gradually, however, it came to be viewed both as a literary area in its own right and appreciated for its literary and especially dramatic value. The full-scale studies by Robert Longsworth, The Cornish
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Ordinalia: Religion and Dramaturgy (1967) and by Jane Bakere, The Cornish Ordinalia: A Critical Study (1980) provided detailed analyses of the principal dramas in the Ordinalia, and already in 1955 F. E. Halliday had published a selection from the Ordinalia in English focussing upon the unusual Holy Rood material: The Legend of the Rood (1955). However, once again extracting the episodes from the cycle as such did not help in the evaluation of the unity of the integrated trilogy, which critics from Bakere onwards have tried to stress (see in this case: Brian Murdoch, “Legends of the Holy Rood in Cornish Drama,” Studia Celtica Japonica 9 [1997]: 19–34). The coherence of other plays, initially seen as disparate in their apparently varied themes within a single cycle has also been asserted (R. T. Meyer, “The Middle Cornish Play Beunans Meriasek,” Comparative Drama 3 [1969]: 54–64; Brian Murdoch, “The Holy Hostage: de filio mulieris in the Middle Cornish Play Beunans Meriasek,” Medium Aevum 58 [1989]: 258–73). Cornwall in the Middle Ages has an interest for literary studies which goes beyond the material that is actually extant, and there are major European motifs that are linked with Cornwall. One such is the Tristan-material, on which see O. J. Padel, “The Cornish Background of the Tristan Stories” (Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies 1 [1981]: 53–81). Important figures of Cornish origin, such as John Trevisa of Oxford, for example, have also been the object of study: David C. Fowler, John Trevisa (1993). Within the context of the surviving literature, evidence from outside written material as such is also of importance. Thus Evelyn Newlyn, “Between the Pit and the Pedestal: Images of Eve and Mary in Medieval Cornish Drama” (New Images of Medieval Women, ed. Edelgard DuBruck, 1989, 121–64; and also in the Cornish material in the relevant volume of the Records of Early English Drama) examines church windows portraying the saga of Adam and the Rood as reflected in the plays. Full-scale overviews of the literature were rare for a long period after Jenner’s language-based introduction. Surveys were provided by P. Berresford Ellis, The Cornish Language and its Literature (1974) and Brian Murdoch, Cornish Literature (1993). It is important as far as the perception of Cornish drama is concerned that a chapter on Cornish had already been included in a reference work on the medieval drama in England: Brian Murdoch, “The Cornish Drama” (Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Theatre, ed. Richard Beadle, 1993, 211–39). The Passion-poem has received less attention. Brian Murdoch established its chronological precedence (“Pascon agan Arluth: the Literary Position of the Cornish Poem of the Passion,” Studi Medievali 22 [1981]: 822–36) and compared it with other Gospel-narratives (“Various Gospels,” Studi Medievali 26 [1995]: 777–96), and he has been particularly
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concerned to link the Cornish plays with a broader European tradition, while stressing their differences from the English plays (Brian Murdoch, “Dos piezas dramáticas en verso del Génesis, una germana y una celta, de finales de la Edad Media,” Acta Poetica 16 [1995]: 349–68). Interest was shown from an early stage in the special nature of performance of the Cornish material, from Richard Southern, The Medieval Theatre in the Round (1957) onwards; George F. Wellwarth, “Methods of Production in the Medieval Cornish Drama” (Speech Monographs 24 [1957]: 212–28); Raymond Williams, Drama in Performance (1972); Neville Denny, “Arena Staging and Dramatic Quality in the Cornish Passion Play,” in his Medieval Drama (1973, 124–53). Some modern performances have also taken place. Textual work on smaller pieces, such as the Charter Fragment (in Toorians’s edition) are also important, but it has to be stressed that all the work done on medieval Cornish literature before the turn of the millennium was rendered incomplete by the discovery of Bewnans Ke, which had and still has implications for literary and linguistic research. In language studies based on the early material, detailed work (and computer technology) has been carried out by Kenneth J. George, “The Phonological History of Cornish” (Ph.D. diss., Université de Brest, 1984); id., “A Computer Model of Sound Changes in Cornish,” Association for Literary and Language Computing Journal 4 (1983): 39–48. On Cornish and English, see Martyn F. Wakelin, Language and History in Cornwall (1975). A separate issue has been the thorough investigation of Cornish elements in place-names, most notably by Oliver J. Padel, Cornish Place-Name Elements (1985); and id., A Popular Dictionary of Cornish Place-Names (1988). See also W. M. N. Picken, A Medieval Cornish Miscellany, ed. O. J. Padel (2000). F. Current Conditions Work continues (especially in the context of Bewnans Ke) on the Cornish language. Much energy – sadly – has been expended upon conflicts within the proponents of different forms of revived Cornish, but the interest thus generated in the language has proved fruitful insofar as more detailed attention has necessarily been paid to the earlier stages of the language, with a focus on the medieval period (for those in favor of “Unified Cornish” or amended versions of it), or on the last stage (for those who wished to see a revived language based upon Cornish in the 17th century). Dictionaries, grammars and original writings have been produced in all the forms. Nance’s Unified Cornish held sway for a long period, and has more recently been amended by N. J. A. Williams. Kenneth J. George developed a phonemic “common Cornish” (Kernewek Kemmyn), while Richard Gendall
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based his revived modern Cornish (Kernuack) on the final stage of the language (see Neil Kennedy, “Fatel era ny a keel? Revived Cornish: Taking Stock,” Cornish Studies 10 [2002]: 283–302). Scholarly editions of some of the medieval texts remain in forms that are hard to access (Beunans Meriasek) or are still desiderata (the Tregear Homilies). There has, on the other hand, been a steady increase in the study of aspects of the medieval works, again with an emphasis on the drama. The individuality and special value of these works on the one hand, and their internal coherence on the other, have continued to be the focus of study, and the Cornish medieval plays are increasingly included in surveys and comparative studies. In parallel with the attempts to stress the value of the medieval Cornish material and also to afford it a place within the broad scheme of medieval writings, attempts have also been made to seek for a continuity between medieval Cornish writings and new constructions of Cornish identity in Anglo-Cornish (or Cornu-English) from the end of the middle ages, notably by Alan M. Kent, The Literature of Cornwall: Continuity, Identity, Difference, 1000–2000 (2000). The application of new approaches and of new theoretical areas to the study of Cornish (Bernard Deacon, “From ‘Cornish Studies’ to ‘Critical Cornish Studies’: Reflections on Methodology,” Cornish Studies 12 [2004]: 13–29) and to individual aspects of the medieval plays (Paul Manning, “Staging the State and the Hypostatisation of Violence in the Medieval Cornish Drama,” Cornish Studies 13 [2005]: 126–69) has been marked. In terms of performance, an invaluable sourcebook was provided by the Records of Early English Drama volume, the Cornish section of which includes sections on both the Cornish and the English drama in Cornwall, edited by Sally L. Joyce and Evelyn S. Newlyn (1999). Other relevant material now available includes Nicholas Roscarrock’s Lives of the Saints: Cornwall and Devon, ed. Nicholas Orme (1992; see also as a reference text Nicholas Orme, The Saints of Cornwall, 2000). Studies of medieval Cornish literature and of the language continue to appear in mainstream literary and drama-history journals, journals concerned with medieval studies and with Celtic studies as a whole (there is interest in the area in Japan, for example), and most notably in Cornish Studies under the editorship of Philip Payton, Director of the Institute of Cornish Studies of the University of Exeter, as well as in more localized magazines, such as An Baner Kernewek/The Cornish Banner. Cornish Studies are available at the University of Exeter, which has a Cornwall campus not far from Glasney.
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Select Bibliography Jane A. Bakere, The Cornish Ordinalia: A Critical Study (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1980 2nd ed. 2009); P. Berresford Ellis, The Cornish Language and its Literature (London and Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974); Crysten Fudge, The Life of Cornish (Redruth: Truran, 1982); Henry Jenner, A Handbook of the Cornish Language (London: Nutt, 1904); Alan M. Kent, The Literature of Cornwall: Continuity, Identity, Difference 1000–2000 (Bristol: Redcliffe, 2000); Robert Longsworth, The Cornish Ordinalia: Religion and Dramaturgy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967); Brian Murdoch, Cornish Literature (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 1993); Brian Murdoch, “The Cornish Drama,” Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Theatre, ed. Richard Beadle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 211–39; P. A. S. Pool, The Death of Cornish 1600–1800 (1975; Saltash: Cornish Language Board, 2nd ed. 1982); Records of Early English Drama: Dorset, ed. Rosalind Conklin Hays and C. E. McGee; and op. cit. Cornwall, ed. Sally L. Joyce and Evelyn S. Newlyn (Toronto: Brepols and University of Toronto Press, 1999); Lauran Toorians, “Passie, lief en leed; de oudste poëzie van het Keltische Cornwall,” Kruispunt 129 (March 1990): 3–55.
Brian Murdoch
Crusades Historiography A. Introduction Dating nearly to the inception of the crusading movement, we can trace a large number of trends and shifts in the way scholars and historians have analyzed and understood the crusades. Not surprisingly, there have been nearly as many disagreements over issues concerning the crusading movement, as there have been crusades historians. Yet what is perhaps the most important recent dispute among crusades scholars is also fundamental to this study of crusades historiography. B. Definition While historians have differed over what qualifies as a crusade, such a qualification is necessary in determining the proper scope of crusades historiography. The issue is an important one for historians because with the expansion of the crusading movement comes the corresponding expansion of sources available for study. Yet the very issue of defining a crusade has, until recently, been one of the areas of greatest disagreement among crusades scholars. Historians have essentially divided into two camps on the issue, those known as traditionalists and those known as pluralists.
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Traditionalists have emphasized the well-known and often popularized crusading efforts in the East, which took place from the end of the eleventh to the end of the thirteenth centuries, as the embodiment of the crusading movement. In this case, the purpose of a crusade is either to assist eastern Christians or to liberate Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulcher. Among the most notable of the traditionalists is the German historian Hans Eberhard Mayer. In his work The Crusades, first published in German in 1965 and in English in 1972, Mayer defined a crusade as having Christian domination over the Holy Sepulcher as its goal. This narrow definition allows for only those expeditions to Jerusalem as a proper crusade and may also be a more accurate reflection of contemporary understandings of the crusades. Pluralists, as opposed to the traditionalists, cite papal authorization as the defining feature of a crusade, regardless of against who or where it is directed. Consequently, the pluralists’ definition of a crusade provides for a broad expansion of the crusading movement including expeditions against religious dissenters, pagans, political opponents, and Muslims in Europe. Among such expeditions are included the so-called Reconquista, the Albigensian Crusades, the Baltic or Northern Crusades, and the Italian Crusades. Because pluralists are increasingly dominating the ranks of crusades historians, the field of crusades studies has grown correspondingly to address the broader pluralist definition. Perhaps the most well known and influential of the pluralists is Cambridge University historian Jonathan Riley-Smith. In 1977 he defined a crusade as “[…] a holy war authorized by the pope, who proclaimed it in the name of God or Christ […] a defensive reaction to injury or aggression or as an attempt to recover Christian territories lost to the infidels, it answered the needs of the whole church or all of Christendom […] rather than those of a particular nation” (Jonathan Riley-Smith, What Were the Crusades?, 1977). Historian Elizabeth Siberry is representative of many other scholars in that she has embraced Riley-Smith’s definition with minor modifications arguing the crusades were also launched by the papacy “against heretics, schismatics, and Christian lay powers in the West as well as the campaigns against the Muslims in the Near East” (Elizabeth Siberry, Criticism of Crusading, 1985, preface). Riley-Smith argues that the pluralist movement began with Princeton historian Giles Constable in 1953. It was then that Constable demonstrated that the various expeditions around the time of the Second Crusade taking place in the Levant, Spain, and Central Europe, were parts of a larger collective movement, rather than separate unassociated movements (see Giles Constable, “The Second Crusade as Seen by Contemporaries,” Traditio 9 [1953]: 213–79). Contributing to Constable’s pluralist position was Norman Housley’s work on the Italian Crusades,
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which demonstrated their compatibility with the crusades to the East (Norman Housley, The Italian Crusades: The Papal-Angevin Alliance and the Crusades Against Christian Lay Powers, 1254–1343, 1984). Additional summaries of the pluralist-traditionalist debate, as well as a broader examination of crusading historiography, are found in Jonathan Riley-Smith, “The Crusading Movement and Historians,” The Oxford History of the Crusades (1999), 1–15; and Giles Constable, “The Historiography of the Crusades,” The Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World (2001), 1–22. C. Chronological Overview of Crusades Historiography The historiography of the crusades begins with the earliest accounts of contemporaries who were often, but not always, participants and eyewitnesses to the crusades. Like in any area of historical studies, a critical analysis of primary source texts is necessary, as it often would have benefited many source authors to portray their involvement in the best possible way. By most primary source accounts, the crusaders believed they were fighting what amounted to a defensive war that sought to end the Turkish abuse of Eastern Christians and restore the Holy Land to Christian control. Byzantine source authors, with the exception of limited initial praise for some of the earliest crusaders, are generally distrustful of crusaders whom they view as rude, unrefined, and ungrateful guests in their homeland. The accounts of contemporary Muslim historians of the crusades are equally dominated by cultural and religious loyalties. Regardless of past Turkish and Arab conquests of Christian lands, for Muslims, the crusades amounted to a brutal invasion by western Christians. A large number of surviving manuscripts demonstrate the continued legitimacy with which the crusading movement was viewed in Latin Christendom after the fall of the last crusader state at Acre in 1291. Perhaps this is best demonstrated by the repeated calls for renewed crusading in the East to reclaim the Holy Land during the fourteenth century and later. Peter Dubois was typical of the many Christian authors who called for a new crusade to reclaim the Holy Land. Writing in the wake of the events of 1291 (ca.1305) Peter advocated the study of oriental languages as the means by which crusades preachers might convert large numbers of Arabs and make it possible to retain the Holy Land after a successful crusade. As late as 1430, Joan of Arc wrote to the Hussites and equated them with Muslims in their rejection of the Catholic faith. She used the imagery of crusading, implying its continued legitimacy in her age, as she threatened to lead an army against them if only she were not so busy with her efforts against the English. During the sixteenth century, crusading ideology survived largely in response to the advance of the Turks into Europe as well as the wars of religion.
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Both Catholics and Protestants used crusading rhetoric in their calls for warfare against the Turks, and occasionally each other. For example, Pope Gregory XIII offered the same indulgence that had been offered to crusaders centuries earlier to the Irish who opposed the Protestant English Queen Elizabeth. Also, the enthusiastic reception to the publication in 1581 of Tasso’s fictional Gerusalemme Liberata, which came out ten years after the battle of Lepanto, reflected the way in which European clashes with the Turks had inspired interest in the crusading movement and crusading theory. In 1611 appeared the important collection of primary sources on the crusades edited by Jacques Bongers called the Gesta Dei per Francos sive orientalium expeditionum et regni Francorum Hierosolimitani historia. This influential collection of sources was followed by the 1639 publication of the Protestant Minister Thomas Fuller’s Historie of the Holy Warre, considered the first serious general history of the crusades. Fuller, writing from a decidedly anti-Catholic perspective, was the first to both question the legitimacy of the crusades and assign them to the past, rather than as part of a continuing movement. In 1670 the French writer Louis Maimbourg responded with his generally more positive depiction of the crusades in his Histoire des croisades. It would not be until the period of the Enlightenment that the general hostility of several thinkers of this era toward religion in general, and Catholicism in particular, initiated a significant shift in European thinking about the crusades. For the rationalists of the Enlightenment, the crusades were nothing more than the product of religious extremism and greed. In Voltaire’s 1751 work on the crusades, which was incorporated into his Essai sur les mœurs, he referred to the crusaders as adventurers motivated only by “the thirst for brigandage.” His opinion of Christianity was perhaps best summed up in a letter to Frederick the Great in which he wrote that Christianity was “the most ridiculous, the most absurd and bloody religion that has ever infected the world.” About the Albigensian crusade, Voltaire wrote, “[…] there was never anything as unjust.” In comparison with Voltaire and other Enlightenment era writers, the English writer Edward Gibbon wrote generally more sympathetically of the crusaders. Yet in some instances Gibbon reflected the spirit of many Enlightenment era authors as when he claimed the crusaders were motivated by a “savage fanaticism” (Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 6 vol., 1776–1789). With the rise of the Romanticism movement of the nineteenth-century, the influence of Enlightenment depictions of the crusades was reduced and the crusades were increasingly portrayed in a positive way. Popular novelists like Sir Walter Scott emphasized the heroism and adventure of the crusading
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movement through positive portrayals of the heroic exploits of both crusaders and their Muslim opponents. Out of this era of greater popular interest for the crusaders emerged the so-called “golden age” of crusades scholarship in the second half of the nineteenth century. Few had a greater influence on understandings of the crusades during this period than the French historian Joseph-François Michaud (d. 1839). Michaud’s popular and monumental work, Histoire des Croisades (1st ed., 3 vol., 1812–1817; 6th ed. Poujoulat, 6 vol., 1841) became a standard reference work during the late nineteenth century and portrayed the crusaders as heroes whose achievements inspired the rebirth of the West. As a supplement to his Histoire, Michaud also produced a four volume collection of crusades sources in translation, including one volume of Arabic sources translated by M. Reinaud, titled the Bibliotheque des croisades. Michaud also served as a member of the Acadèmie des Inscriptions et Belles letteres which in 1824 began several decades of work on what remains to the present as the most important collection of crusades sources, the sixteen volume Recueil des Historiens des croisades. Michaud’s work was representative of the efforts of German and French scholars during the 19th century who laid a foundation for modern scholarly approaches to crusades studies. During this time scholars critically sifted through the earliest primary source accounts, which were becoming increasingly accessible during this period, and made significant breakthroughs on a number of issues. For example, from the era of the crusades until the nineteenth century, the origins of the First Crusade were often attributed to the efforts of a wandering preacher known as Peter the Hermit. According to the traditionally accepted narrative, Peter had been the inspiration behind Pope Urban II’s calling of the First Crusade and spoke at the Council of Clermont in 1095. However, in the later nineteenth century the German historian Heinrich Hagenmeyer convincingly demonstrated that Peter did not inspire the Pope to preach, did not speak at Clermont, and was only a minor figure during the First Crusade (Heinrich Hagenmeyer, Peter der Eremit, 1879). In the early 20th century, Princeton University historian Dana Carleton Munro was perhaps the leading U.S. scholar of the crusades. Munro published numerous journal articles and essays on the crusades on a host of issues in leading publications of his time. His influence on the field of crusades studies was demonstrated by the 1928 publication of a collection of essays by his former students, many of whom were by then teaching at various universities and colleges, titled The Crusades and Other Historical Essays Presented to Dana C. Munro by his Former Students. Munro’s final work, The Kingdom of the Crusaders, was published shortly after his death in 1935 and focused on
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the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. Munro died before finishing what would have been his opus magnum, a history of the crusades based on an exhaustive and critical use of contemporary sources and fieldwork in the Near East. Munro also contributed an influential essay on perceptions of Islam during the crusades with his 1931 article for Speculum, “The Western Attitude Toward Islam During the Period of the Crusades” (329–43) Munro’s efforts were followed with significant research in this area by R.W. Southern’s broader examination of Medieval Europe in his 1962 work, Western Views of Islam in the Middle Ages. As recently as 2002 John Tolan also contributed to this field of study with his book, Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination. While both Southern and Tolan did not focus exclusively on the period of the crusades, their work addressed the issue substantively enough to be of value for crusades studies. Conversely, few crusades historians have dealt with the issue opposing issue of Muslim perspectives of the crusades. That is until Carole Hillenbrand came out with her groundbreaking work published in 2000, The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives. Many of these books, to varying degrees, also touch on the issue of MuslimChristian interaction during the crusades, but among the most focused recent works dedicated to the subject is the 1986 volume edited by Vladimir P. Goss, The Meeting of Two Worlds. While Dana Carleton Munro was active in the United States in the 1930s, European scholarship during this time was perhaps best represented by French historian Rene Grousset who published his authoritative Histoire des croisades between 1934–1936, and German scholar Carl Erdmann, whose influential Die Entstehung des Kreuzzugsgedankens, published in 1935, argued that the crusades was a product of the eleventh century ecclesiastical reform movement. Erdmann posited that the efforts to purify the church during this period extended to the greater Christian society, including Christian knights and soldiers. Consequently, the crusading movement provided an opportunity to purify the actions of such warriors, by their taking up arms in defense of other Christians and Christian holy places. As a result, the so-called Erdmann thesis is that the crusades were effectively an export of violence carried out primarily for the benefit of a western Christian society attempting to reform itself. It would be nearly thirty-five years before Oxford historian H.E.J. Cowdrey provided the first serious challenge to the Erdmann thesis. Cowdrey’s most direct rebuttal to Erdmann came in 1970 with the publication of his article “Pope Urban II’s Preaching of the Second Crusade” (History 55 [1970]: 177–88). In it Cowdrey convincingly argued that Pope Urban II’s true goal was the liberation of Jerusalem, rather than simply an export of violence as advocated by Erdmann.
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The later half of the twentieth century saw the rise and eventual dominance of British historians of the crusades. British historian Jonathan RileySmith has described this movement as nothing less than “phenomenal.” He notes that in the early 1950s there were only two historians of the crusades teaching in British universities, but by 1990 there were twenty-nine British universities and colleges that had faculty members belonging to the Society for the Study of the Crusades to the Latin East, the leading scholarly organization for crusades historians. While not many crusades historians were employed at British universities in the 1950s, this does not take into account the influence of Steven Runciman, perhaps the world’s most famous crusades scholar. Runciman’s three volume History of the Crusades, published between 1951 and 1954, remains among the most popular works on the crusades even today. Runciman approached the crusades from a Byzantine perspective and, as a result, found several causes for criticism of the movement and he did not shy away from expressing moral indignation. This was perhaps best demonstrated in Runciman’s often quoted description of the crusading movement, “High ideas were besmirched by cruelty and greed, enterprise and endurance by a blind and narrow self righteousness, and the Holy War itself was nothing more than a long act of intolerance in the name of God, which is a sin against the Holy Ghost.” Current scholars generally speak of Steven Runciman with respect for the popular enthusiasm his works have generated for crusades studies. Yet while current popular understandings of the crusades remain largely in line with those propagated by Runciman, scholars have largely rejected his moral condemnation of the crusaders, preferring instead to understand the crusaders according to standards and morality of their time. This has resulted in a striking divide of current scholarly and popular opinions of the crusades. Runciman, as well as many modern popular writers on the crusades, found it hard to accept that violence motivated by religion was considered legitimate to those who took the cross. Yet as Jonathan Riley-Smith has argued, this is a mental block that belongs to a post-Enlightenment Christian age, rather than medieval Christianity. Riley-Smith notes, “They, and everyone else, have forgotten how intellectually respectable the Christian theory of positive violence was.” Then the 1960s saw the rise of the Christian Liberation movement in South America. Some aspects of the movement justified the use of violence during acts of rebellion as a moral good and an act of Christian charity. As a result, crusades historians realized that there were sincere Christian contemporaries advocating positions nearly identical to those of the crusaders, thus making the concept of Christian violence during the crusades much more believable and respectable for modern scholars.
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In 1965, German historian Hans Eberhard Mayer argued that the crusaders were motivated by religious reasons. Specifically, Mayer noted that the crusaders were driven by a desire to liberate Jerusalem from Muslim control and to come to the aid of Eastern Christians whom they believed suffered as a result of Turkish abuse. Mayer based his conclusions on a common theme in contemporary western Christian accounts of the crusades that claim Christian charity was essentially at the heart of crusading. Cambridge historian Jonathan Riley-Smith has explored this issue in his 1980 article aptly titled, “Crusading as an Act of Love” (History, 65, 177–85) The idea of crusading “as an act of love” or charity, comes from the reasoning reportedly employed by the earliest crusades preachers used to stir their listeners to take crusading vows. Clerics regularly cited the suffering of eastern Christians under Turkish rule and the blasphemies committed by Turks against holy places in the Holy Land to great effect, contributing to the argument that many crusaders held only sincere motives in taking the cross. This was the dominant thought of crusades historians roughly until the Enlightenment when greater suspicion was directed toward the motives of the crusaders. Yet since the late twentieth century, largely due to the work of Riley-Smith, historians are reconsidering the issue and increasingly favoring the view that many participants in crusades understood crusading as, essentially, an act of Christian charity. One would have to go back to Steven Runciman to find another scholar that has had nearly the impact on crusades studies as Cambridge historian Jonathan Riley-Smith. Undergraduates are usually introduced to the scholarship of Riley-Smith through his massively popular 1987 textbook titled, The Crusades: A Short History. As already mentioned in this essay, and as reflected by the scope of his textbook, Riley-Smith is a major proponent of the idea that the crusading movement included efforts in Europe against northerners, heretics, and Muslims in Spain, rather than only the crusades to the East. Riley-Smith’s works are greatly at odds with many popular perceptions of the crusades. His scholarship, once considered revisionist in light of the popular works by earlier historians like Runciman, is now mainstream in the scholarly community. Riley-Smith has effectively argued that the crusaders were largely sincere and motivated by piety more than greed, as had been argued since the Enlightenment. Riley-Smith has also shown the great personal sacrifice involved for each crusader and his or her family, demonstrating the enormous amount of wealth that flowed from West to East rather than the other way around. He also has contributed substantially to undermining the so-called “younger sons” theory of crusade motivations in his 1986 work The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading. In the
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work, he demonstrates that heads of families often went on crusade, and that younger sons seeking land of their own, as normally only their oldest brother would inherit their father’s lands, were a small minority of crusaders. While the vast majority of modern crusades historians have embraced the theories advocated by Riley-Smith concerning the motivations of the crusaders, there are some dissenters. A major challenge has come from John France, another respected British historian from the University of WalesSwansea. While crusades historians have largely embraced Riley-Smith’s rejection of greed as a motivation of the crusaders, France has argued that many crusaders did, in fact, hope to get wealthy. France does not deny Riley-Smith’s argument that religious devotion was a major motivating factor for crusaders, but he argues that the hope of acquiring wealth also served as a motivation for crusaders (see, for example, “Patronage and the Appeal of the First Crusade” The First Crusade, ed. Jonathan Phillips, 1997, 5–20). Although crusades scholars generally agree that crusading was expensive and a very poor way to try to earn one’s wealth, France argues that the earliest crusaders did not yet know of the burdensome costs associated with crusading. If France’s argument is correct, it would apply only to the motives of the earliest crusaders, as the hardships of crusading became well known by the Second Crusade at the latest. In addition to France, historian Ronald C. Finucane has also challenged the religious motivations theory. In his 1983 book, Soldiers of the Faith: Crusaders and Moslems at War, Finucane argues that while religious motivations were significant, many other factors must also be acknowledged. He argues that political, social, economic, and military factors also played an important role in determining the composition of crusader armies. Few historians would deny this; however the real dispute is over the level of importance of such factors when weighed against religious factors. Among U.S. scholars, Thomas Madden is quickly becoming one of the most visible and highly regarded historians of the crusades. In addition to Madden’s well-received scholarly works, his articles for non-scholarly publications, including religious and political magazines, have positioned him in the thick of modern debates over the crusades and Islam and generally reflect his conservative viewpoints of each. His highly regarded scholarly work has examined Italian history at the time of the crusades as well as the Fourth Crusade. His work on the controversial Fourth Crusade resulted in his 1997 co-authorship of The Fourth Crusade: The Conquest of Constantinople with the late Donald Queller. Madden and Queller argued what has come to be known as the accident theory, which holds that the crusaders only ended up attacking Constantinople at the end of a series of unforeseeable and
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unpredictable events rather than plotting such an attack from the beginning. D. Areas of Crusades Studies Regardless of how one defines or limits the crusading movement, the crusades remain an enormous field for scholarly study. Scholars working in disciplines including literature, philosophy, and religion will find enough to satisfy a lifetime of study within the crusading movement. Even researchers in non-traditional areas like economics and psychology have ventured into the realm of crusades studies for their research. Despite the appeal of crusades studies to scholars in other disciplines, it is without doubt historians who dominate the field. Historians of the crusades approach their studies from several broad backgrounds, including Medieval European, Byzantine, and Islamic History. Areas of specialization range from the more traditional study of the military orders, the clerical preaching of the crusades or the crusader states, to relatively new areas of specialization such as the study of sex and gender during the crusades. E. The Current State of Crusades Research and Graduate Studies Because the United Kingdom is home to a disproportionate share of prominent crusades historians, it is one of the best places to pursue advanced studies of the crusades. A large number of historians completed their PhD studies at Cambridge University under the supervision of Jonathan RileySmith. His former students have had great success in obtaining teaching positions at various universities and colleges in the United Kingdom and the United States, and essentially form a school of historians that insure the survival of Riley-Smith’s influence on crusades studies well into the future. The University of London currently offers an M.A. in Crusader Studies that is jointly run by the Department of History at Queen Mary, University of London and the Department of History at Royal Holloway, University of London. Their program boasts a faculty of no less than five crusades historians, an exceptionally large number to be associated with one university. They include such prominent historians as Jonathan Phillips, Thomas Asbridge, Jonathan Harris, and Susan Edgington. Oxford University is the home of crusades historian Christopher Tyreman, author of the recent mammoth work, God’s War: A New History of the Crusades (2006), as well as Eric Christiansen, perhaps the leading scholar of the so-called Northern Crusades against European pagans (Eric Christiansen, The Northern Crusades, 1980). Other important British historians one might consider working with for advanced studies of the crusades include Carole Hillenbrand at the
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University of Edinburgh, Peter Edbury and Helen Nicholson at Cardiff University, Marcus Bull at the University of Bristol, A. J. Forey at the University of Durham, John France at the University of Wales-Swansea, Malcolm Barber at the University of Reading, Norman Housley at the University of Leicester, and Alan V. Murray at the University of Leeds. If the United Kingdom is at the forefront of Crusades Studies, the United States is not far behind. Although a number of esteemed U.S. historians of the crusades are retired, they are in most cases still active at conferences and in publishing and are known for their willingness to help younger scholars. Included among their ranks are James Powell, Alfred Andrea, and James Brundage. U.S. historians active in teaching positions at universities and colleges include William Chester Jordan at Princeton, Michael Lower at the University of Minnesota, Thomas Madden at St, Louis University, Kelly Devries at Loyola College in Maryland, Jaroslav Folda and Brett Whalen at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Ronald Finucane at Oakland University, William Urban at Monmouth College, and Edward Peters at the University of Pennsylvania. Especially noteworthy are the efforts of scholars at St. Louis University which, at times, has appeared poised to become a center for crusades studies in the United States under the direction of Thomas Madden. French and German scholars, whose predecessors laid the foundations of modern crusades studies from the nineteenth to mid twentieth centuries, continue to rank among the leading specialists of the crusades. The French historian Jean Richard, for example, has published a number of important works on varying crusading topics over a period of more than four decades including Le royaume latin de Jérusalem (1953), Saint-Louis (1983), and his popular general history Histoire des croisades (1996). Jean Flori, who serves as Director of Research at the Centre d’études supérieures de civilisation médiévale in Poitiers, has also established himself as a leading French historian of the crusades through several well received works including Pierre l’ermite et la premiere croisade (1999) and La guerre sainte: la formation de l’idee de croisade dans l’Occident chretien (2001). Michel Balard at the University of Paris, Sorbonne, has also made important contributions to crusades studies (see M. Balard, ed., Autour de la Première Croisades, 1996). Karl Borchardt at the University of Würzburg is among the leading German scholars of the crusades (see The Hospitallers, the Mediterranean, and Europe: Festschrift for Anthony Luttrell, ed. K. Borchardt, Nikolas Jaspert, and Helen J. Nicholson, 2007). Sabine Geldsetzer has also made an important contribution to the study of women during the crusades (Frauen auf Kreuzzügen, 2003). Allan Oslo’s work Der Erste Kreuzzug: Hintergründe und Auswirkungen (1999) challenged many
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scholarly assumptions about the uniqueness of the First Crusade by pointing out that very similar holy wars had been waged against various European peoples prior to 1095. Finally, Malte Prietzel at Humboldt University of Berlin has published two recent works on warfare in the Middle Ages (Kriegsführung im Mittelalter, 2006, and Krieg im Mittelalter, 2006). There are, of course, a host of scholars from other countries who have made important contributions to crusades studies. They include, but are not limited to, Niall Christie at the University of British Columbia whose knowledge of Arabic allows for his comparative research on the nature of early crusades and jihad (see “Parallel Preachings: Urban II and al-Sulami,” with Deborah Gerish, Al-Masaq: Islam and the Medieval Mediterranean 15 [2003]: 139–48); Italian scholar Francesco Gabrieli whose 1957 Islamic sourcebook Storici arabi delle crociate (Arab Historians of the Crusades) has been translated into several languages and is commonly assigned by instructors teaching crusades courses throughout the world; Christoph T. Maier at the University of Zurich, whose research has focused on crusading sermons and propaganda, is perhaps the leading Swiss scholar of the crusades (Crusade Ideology and Propaganda: Model Sermons for the Preaching of the Cross, 2000); Israeli historian Joshua Prawer, who innovatively used legal and governmental sources for research on crusader institutions (Histoire du Royaume Latin de Jérusalem, 2 vols., 1969, 1970); Hebrew University historian Benjamin Z. Kedar is one of the leading scholars of the Frankish Levant (The Franks in the Levant, 11th to 14th Centuries, 1993) and his colleague David Jacoby has also made significant contributions in the same area (“Aspects of Everyday Life in Frankish Acre,” Crusades, vol. 4 [2005], 73–105). Most recently Conor Kostick of Trinity College in Dublin Ireland has published a promising volume examining the social structure of the First Crusade (The Social Structure of the First Crusade, 2008). F. Language Competencies The largest number of surviving crusades sources unsurprisingly originates with western authors, but a large number of Arabic sources survive, as well as considerable Greek, Hebrew, Armenian, and Old French records. Consequently, Latin is the essential language for crusades studies while additional training in the other relevant languages opens new possibilities for the scholar. While it is standard that crusades scholars are proficient in Latin, and to a lesser extent Greek, relatively few are trained in Arabic. The primary modern research languages for a study of the crusading movement include English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish.
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G. Professional Associations The sole international organization for scholars of the crusades is the Society for the Study of the Crusades in the Latin East, more commonly known as the SSCLE. It claims nearly 500 members from thirty countries, including the world’s top scholars, and is active in the promotion of crusades research around the world. SSCLE conferences, held every four years, have met in the United Kingdom, France, Israel, and the United States, and their next meeting is scheduled for 2008 in Carcassonne, France. The Society is also active hosting panels at various other medieval studies conferences including the Annual Congress on Medieval Studies held each May at Western Michigan University. The SSCLE also publishes its prestigious annual journal Crusades (Ashgate Press), which is devoted exclusively to the crusades and boasts an impressive editorial board including Jonathan Riley-Smith, Karl Borchardt, Jean Richard, James Brundage, and many others. While the SSCLE is the only scholarly organization exclusively devoted to the broader crusading movement, a number of crusades historians are involved with related organizations such as the Society for Medieval Military History or organizations devoted to the studies of particular military orders. H. Source Collections The largest and most important collection of crusades sources is the Recueil des Historiens des Croisades, commonly known as the RHC. The Acadèmie des Inscriptions et Belles letteres began compiling the sources for the RHC in 1824 and took decades to complete. The RHC comprises sixteen lengthy volumes of crusades sources in their original languages including Latin, Greek, Arabic, Armenian, and Old French. Lengthy introductions written in modern French accompany the sources for each volume. The Bibliothèque nationale de France, Gallica Project, has generously made the entire RHC available online for viewing or downloading by volume in PDF format. Other important collection of crusades sources include the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, commonly referred to as the MGH and the Palestine Pilgrims Text Society Library (PPTSL). The MGH contains a number of important papal documents related to the crusades while the PPTSL includes a large collection of documents of travelers to the Holy Land before and during the time of the crusades as well as important crusades era histories and biographies. For additional sources on the Latin East one might also consult Comte Riant’s Archives de l’orient latin published in Paris between 1881–1884 and for sources concerning Byzantium during the crusades see the Exuviae Sacrae Constantinopolitanae.
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Select Bibliography For a useful examination of the various trends in crusades historiography, including important secondary sources addressing issues disputed by historians, see Thomas Madden. The Crusades: The Essential Readings, ed. Thomas Madden (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002). For bibliographical references, see Aziz Atiya, The Crusade: Historiography and Bibliography (Bloomington, IN: University Press, 1962); Hans E. Mayer, Bibliographie zur Geschichte der Kreuzzüge (Hanover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1960); and J. Mclellan and H.W. Hazard, “Select Bibliography of the Crusades,” History of the Crusades, vol. 6: The Impact of the Crusades on Europe, ed. Kenneth M. Setton (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989), 511–664.
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D Deconstruction in Medieval Studies A. General Outline of Topic Deconstruction, pioneered by the French philosopher Jacque Derrida (1930–2004), has yet to achieve comparable influence in Medieval Studies as it has in the study of modern literature. In the study of medieval texts this is likely due to what appears to be a tendency to apply an hermeneutic interpretational approach, the objective of which is to reconstruct and convey the intention of the author through textual analysis to the modern reader and thus establish a ‘most likely’ or ‘most accurate’ interpretation or understanding – and thus significance – of a piece of literature for the reader, whereas deconstruction is understood in a contrastive manner as a process of demonstrating the potential for any number of alternative interpretations, effectively endlessly deferring meaning and, as a result, final significance of the text for the reader. It is noted here that the topic of this entry is that of deconstruction in a very narrow sense, and will not conflate it with the topics of post-structuralism, post-modernism, New Medievalism etc. B. The Rise and Spread of Deconstruction Jacques Derrida first addressed what would grow to become ‘deconstruction’ in the late 1960s: Speech and Phenomena (1967), Structure, Sign and Play (1967), Of Grammatology (1967); among other works important to the spread of deconstruction are his Dissemination (1972) and Margins of Philosophy (1972). These works emerged to constitute a school of philosophy formulated as a response to the philosophical considerations of Edmund Husserl, Ferdinand de Saussure and Sigmund Freud, among others, whose works were significant for phenomenology, structuralism and psychoanalysis. Deconstruction is considered to both criticise and expand upon Martin Heidegger’s Dekonstruktion and Friedrich Nietzsche’s critique of Western metaphysics and philosophy. Deconstruction was developed by Derrida to encourage/enable a new understanding of the influence of metaphysics on intellectual history and the field of philosophy, quickly transcended the boundaries of the discipline, and was adopted/co-opted by scholars of literary criticism in the 1970s and early 1980s in what is today known as the Yale
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School that included professors from both English and Comparative Literature departments such as Paul de Man, Geoffrey Hartman, J. Hillis Miller and Harold Bloom. Richard Rorty, “Deconstruction” (The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism VIII: From Formalism to Poststructuralism, ed. Raman Selden, 1995, 166–96), notes that “Derrida was made famous (in Englishspeaking countries) not by his fellow-philosophers but by literary critics (who were looking for new ways of reading texts rather than for a new understanding of intellectual history), this label has (in those countries) become firmly attached to a school of which Derrida is, rather to his own surprise and bemusement, the leading figure. As used by members of this school, the term ‘deconstruction,’ refers in the first instance to the way in which the ‘accidental’ features of a text can be seen as betraying, subverting, its purportedly ‘essential’ message.” This development lead deconstruction to be more significant as a movement in the U.S.A. than in continental Europe, and was further facilitated by Derrida teaching at Yale from 1975–1985. The Yale School established itself in print in Paul de Man’s Blindness and Insight (1971), and the closest this circle came to establishing or making a programmatic statement for the school of deconstruction can be found in the anthology Deconstruction and Criticism (1979). Deconstruction as practiced in the U.S.A. has often been criticized as investing literary texts with a philosophical agenda, treating the text as an inferred and/or accidental statement about said agenda (e. g. epistemological issues). Derrida’s work can thus be viewed as having been adapted into a ‘method’ of reading or ‘strategy’ of approaching the text through which it is possible to challenge the canonical understanding, interpretation and significance of any given text. Thus, what was originally a critical approach toward the question of the metaphysics of presence (the privileging of presence over absence; logocentrism, phallogocentrism) in Western philosophy was adopted by the field of literary criticism (for a summary of the differing objectives between Derrida and the reception of his work among literary critics, see: Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, “Deconstruction deconstructed: Transformationen französischer Logozentrismuskritik in der amerikanischen Literaturwissenschaft” [Philosophische Rundschau 33 [1986]: 1–35); this process that has been criticized on numerous fronts, among others by Umberto Eco, “Intentio Lectoris: The State of the Art” (Differentia 2 [1988]: 147–68): “It so happened that a legitimate philosophical practice has been taken as a model for literary criticism and for a new trend in textual interpretation […] this […] should not have happened” (166).
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C. Definition The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000) provides the following definition of deconstruction: “A philosophical movement and theory of literary criticism that questions traditional assumptions about certainty, identity, and truth; asserts that words can only refer to other words; and attempts to demonstrate how statements about any text subvert their own meanings: ‘In deconstruction, the critic claims there is no meaning to be found in the actual text, but only in the various, often mutually irreconcilable, ‘virtual texts’ constructed by readers in their search for meaning’ (Rebecca Goldstein).” Despite this and the ensuing attempt at defining Deconstruction, it should be noted that many of the prominent scholars who have written on it have intentionally (and inevitably in keeping with deconstruction itself) left any definition purposefully vague. Perhaps the most widely cited ‘definition’ of Deconstruction isn’t a definition at all, but an indication of what it can do; Paul de Man writes: “It’s possible, within text, to frame a question or undo assertions made in the text, by means of elements which are in the text, which frequently would be precisely structures that play off the rhetorical against grammatical elements” (Interview with de Man in: A Recent Imagining, ed. Robert Moynihan, 1986, 156). It is this subversive aspect that led Nikolaus Wegmann to provide the definition of deconstruction as “Kalkül, das bei der Lektüre von Texten angewandt wird, um die Geltungsansprüche einer auf die Ermittlung von Sinn zentrierten Interpretation zu unterlaufen” (“Calculation used for reading texts in order to subvert the validity of an interpretation that is based on the conveyance of meaning”) (Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturwissenschaft, vol. 1 [1997], 334). A perhaps more benign definition can be found in Barbara Johnson’s The Critical Difference: Essays in the Contemporary Rhetoric of Reading (1980, 5): “Deconstruction is not synonymous with ‘destruction’, however. It is in fact much closer to the original meaning of the word ‘analysis’ itself, which etymologically mean ‘to undo’ – a virtual synonym for ‘to de-construct’. The deconstruction of a text does not proceed by random doubt or arbitrary subversion, but by the careful teasing out of warring forces of signification within the text itself. If anything is destroyed in a deconstructive reading, it is not the text, but the claim to unequivocal domination of one mode of signifying over another. A deconstructive reading is a reading which analyzes the specificity of a text’s critical difference itself.” In the face of many misapprehensions Martin McQuillan, “Five Strategies for Deconstruction” (Deconstruction: A Reader, 2001, 1–46), has attempted to define what deconstruction is not: “Deconstruction is not a school or an ‘ism.’ There is no such thing as ‘deconstructionism’: this is a word used by idiots. Deconstruction is
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not a theory or a project. It does not present an idea of the world with which we should keep faith, nor does it offer rules for achieving that idea. Deconstruction is not an ‘application’ of the thought of Derrida or de Man or Hillis Miller or Barbara Johnson or … Deconstruction undoes the logic of outside-inside which the idea of an application presupposes. Deconstruction is not literary criticism. Deconstruction is not philosophy … Deconstruction is not postmodernism … Deconstruction is not a political ideology … Deconstruction is not solely about language … Deconstruction is not opposed to reality/history/the world … Deconstruction is not discourse … Deconstruction is not reading … This word ‘deconstruction’ is only the metaphysical name we give to the effects of an ethico-theoretico-political situation. Deconstruction is what happens” (41–42). It may be worth venturing the definition that deconstruction, at least in literary studies, is a ‘strategy’ for approaching a text that identifies and expounds upon key concepts and terms that evidence paradox and the subversion of meaning, that identifies those elements that compromise or entail a re-evaluation of ‘traditional’ understandings, traditionally with regards to the tenets of Western metaphysics. Deconstruction could be understood as a ‘strategy’ of textual criticism that identifies foundational concepts and the assumptions that accompany them in order to enable alternative readings by questioning the logocentrism they are attributed or with which they are invested by the reader. Finally, Deconstruction entails recognizing the malleable or unstable meanings found in a text in order to derive, differ with, or defer meaning and/or significance. Derrida himself specifically states that deconstruction is not a literary method of textual analysis, insofar as there is not a set sequence of steps for “deconstructing” a text, however, literary critics that attempt ‘deconstructive’ readings frequently employ a strategic approach to the text that questions the self-evident, hierarchical scale of dichotomies within a text by emphasizing the interdependence, instabilities, tensions and contradictions within it, the attention to which in ‘traditional’ reading has been marginalized. Thus multiple readings of the same text are possible – those of established canonical significance and/or those that break from such a view and examine its deviation and marginality produced through the ‘wandering’ of meaning. Derrida makes use of many different terms in his texts treating deconstruction, which is considered one means of demonstrating the mutability of meaning inherent in the strategy of deconstruction, and by doing so enables him to focus on discrete words or themes within a text that undermine the ‘explicit’ intent of the text on account of their ambiguity. Frequently utilized and referred to terms in deconstructive readings include arche-écriture, blanc, différance, écriture, iterability, hymen,
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invagination, pharmakon, supplement and trace among others. For an introduction to deconstruction and its terminology, consult Jonathan Culler, On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism after Structuralism (1983); Deconstructions: A User’s Guide, ed. Nicholars Royle (2000); Christopher Norris, Deconstruction: Theory and Practice (New Accents) (2002). D. Deconstruction in Medieval Studies D.1. Current State of Deconstruction in Medieval Studies To date there are no monographs or reference works that specifically treat the topic of deconstruction in Medieval Studies as a whole. The recognition of deconstruction as relevant for Medieval Studies has been present from the beginning, and a few authors have ventured to break ground in what will certainly become an important aspect of Medieval Studies, namely the re-evaluation of traditional understandings – or re-approaching – of medieval texts by questioning long-held assumptions about the medieval text, author and/or environment. In an expanded sense, whenever a new interpretation of a medieval text is presented that questions previous interpretations, or whenever a specific ‘under’-recognized aspect of a text is drawn to the fore and the possibilities for (non/-)significance or deferral of meaning inherent in its presence are expounded upon, it could be considered an inroad of deconstruction into Medieval Studies. For the purposes of this entry only those texts that make explicit use or mention of deconstruction as such in order to explicate their (medieval) topic will be referenced. Further, an appropriation of ‘deconstruction’ as ‘revision’ or ‘exacting analysis’ can be identified in certain instances in lieu of an explicit methodological approach, as can a lack of theoretical stringency through the conflation of ‘deconstruction’/’poststructuralism’/’post-modernism’ in others; despite this said studies will be included below to provide a broader foundation for future consideration of deconstruction in medieval studies. The following overview of research to date is arranged chronologically within the ‘sub-discipline’ of Medieval Studies in which it is deemed most appropriate, and should not be considered an exhaustive list of available literature as countless studies avail themselves of the tenets of deconstruction or reference Derrida’s ideas without being beholden unto them/him.
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D.2. Select Publications Exhibiting the Influence of Deconstruction in Medieval Studies As perhaps can be expected by the rise of deconstruction’s popularity in the United States, it appears that most treatments of medieval topics with recourse to deconstruction are to be found in the English speaking world, and more specifically in terms of English studies, in the study of Geoffrey Chaucer: An early study considering the Chaucer’s puns in a deconstructive light can be found in Joseph Gerhard, “Chaucer’s Coinage: Foreign Exchange and the Puns of the Shipman’s Tale,” Chaucer Review 17 [1983]: 341–57). It appears that the decisive publications for widespread advent of the treatment of Chaucer from a deconstructive approach were two pieces detailing a pro and con debate on this issue of whether his work should be ‘deconstructed’: Peggy Knapp, “Deconstructing The Canterbury Tales: Pro” (Studies in the Age of Chaucer: Proceedings 2, 1986, 73–81), and Traugott Lawler, “Deconstructing The Canterbury Tales: Con” (Studies in the Age of Chaucer: Proceedings 2 1986, 83–91). Marshall H. Leicester Jr.: “Oure Tonges Différance: Textuality and Deconstruction in Chaucer” (Medieval Texts and Contemporary Readers, ed. Laurie A Finke and Martin Shichtman, 1987, 15–26), discusses Chaucer’s literary environment as one in which the textual heritage has assumed the status of culture, and Chaucer’s puns and other language thus constitutes him as “an active deconstructionist” (22). At the end of the 1980s we find: Ruth Waterhouse, “‘Sweete Wordes’ of Non-Sense: The Deconstruction of the Moral Melibee” (Chaucer Review 23–24 [1989]: 338–61 and 53–63); and R.Allen Shoaf, “Medieval Studies after Derrida after Heidegger” (Sign, Sentence, Discourse: Language in Medieval Thought and Literature, ed. Julian Wasserman and Lois Roney, 1989, 9–30), in which Shoaf explores the ramifications of Derridean concepts of margin and différance for modern understanding of medieval discourse, “we humans come to the truth only by wandering. For Derrida such wandering consists in detours” (23); Henry Marshall Leicester, Disenchanted Self: Representing the Subject in the Canterbury Tales (1990), argues that Chaucer represents a “disenchanted” and practical comprehension of self-construction in terms of gender and social ranking, indeed, in his discussion of the Pardoner he notes in a decidedly deconstructionist vein that “The ironist notoriously does not ‘stand behind’ what he says. Because you can never be sure if he is serious or ironic, sincere or rhetorical, his ‘real meaning’ and his ‘real self’ are always displaced. They are always something and somewhere else, different and deferred […] Language itself reflexively deconstructs the self” (170), and can be considered one of the major works in the field availing itself of deconstruction to make its arguments, which was followed and expounded upon
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in his “Structure as Deconstruction: ‘Chaucer and Estates Satire’ in the General Prologue: Or, Reading Chaucer as a Prologue to the History of Disenchantment” (Exemplaria 2 [1990]: 241–61). In that same year, R.Allen Shoaf, “Literary Theory, Medieval Studies, and the Crisis of Difference” (Reorientations: Critical Theories & Pedagogies, ed. Bruce Henricksen and Thais Morgan, 1990, 77–92), discussed the difficulties of translation, particulary in regards to Chaucer and Beowulf, commenting that the crisis of différance has significant ramifications for the translation of medieval literature: “Translation without transformation is a dream of fullness and presence hopelessly afflicted with nostalgia – a nostalgia, moreover, that is corrupt, since it entices its victim to shirk authorial responsibility” (80). This is followed by a deconstructive approach to the narrative frame in Peter Travis, “Deconstructing Chaucer’s Retraction” (Exemplaria 3 [1991]: 135–58), and David Aers, “Medievalists and Deconstruction: An Exemplum” (From Medieval to Medievalism, ed. John Simons, 1992, 24–40), who discusses the deconstructionist approach of Leicester (1987, 1990). This was followed by a consideration of Andrew Taylor, “Chaucer Our Derridean Contemporary?” (Exemplaria 5 [1993]: 471–86). This was followed by Liang Sun-chieh, “Chaucer, Joyce, Lacan, and Their ‘We Men’” (Ph. D. diss. State Univ. of New York, Buffalo 1997), who discussed the role of femininity in Chaucer with recourse to the theoretical approaches of Jacques Lacan and Derrida. A contribution in Korean, with English summary was provided by Jae-Whan Kim, “[M/W: A Deconstructive Reading of the Wife of Bath]” Journal of English Language and Literature/Yongo Yongmunhak 44 [1998]: 255–74). A brief summary of scholarship with an eye to postmodern literary theory and criticism was provided by Michaela Grudi, “Chaucer Scholarship at the Turn of the Century: Postmodernism, Poetry, and Comfortable Assumptions” (Review 23 [2001]: 107–37). Stephanie Trigg, Congenial Souls: Reading Chaucer from Medieval to Postmodern (2002) reminds us that “In foregrounding the role of the reader and the act of communication as a two-way process, Derrida reminds us to put our own habits of reading into the historical picture” (72). A broader discussion of Chaucer in regards to literary theory and criticism, in which deconstruction plays a role, can be found in Carolyn Dinshaw, “New Approaches to Chaucer” (The Cambridge Companion to Chaucer, ed. Jill Mann, 2003, 270–89). Franziska Scheitzeneder, “‘For myn entente nys but for to pleye’: On the Playground with the Wife of Bath, The Clerk of Oxford and Jacque Derrida” (PhiN – Philologie im Netz [2006]: 44–59), discusses how “taking Derrida’s assumptions and implications about decentered structure […] for a reading of the Wife of Bath and the Clerk […] show(s) how both the anxieties and the affirmation in regard to a dismissal of the illusion
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of stability are inherent in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales” demonstrates how a reading that is “delayed from the writing process bears unexpected interpretations […] It illustrates how we as modern readers approach a medieval text from our own background and influence the text accordingly. And ultimately, it acknowledges that in the end, interpretation is itself simply a play of infinite substitutions while we are on the quest for a center of the text” (55–56). And most recently the possibilities for instruction have been considered by James Paxson, “Triform Chaucer: Deconstruction, Historicism, Psychoanlysis, and Troilus and Criseyde” (Approaches to Teaching Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde and the Shorter Poems, ed. Tison Pugh and Angela Weisl, 2007, 127–32). Arthurian: Other notable contributions to the deconstructive approach in the study of medieval English literature can be found in the Arthurian vein, including a treatment of King Arthur and his relationship to women in light of deconstruction provided by Sheila Cavanagh, “‘Beauties Chalice’: Arthur and Women in The Faerie Queene,” The Passing of Arthur: New Essays in Arthurian Tradition, ed. Christopher Baswell and William Scharpe, 1988, 207–18. See also the unpublished considerations of Cathy Darrup, A New Medievalist Approach to the Madness of Merlin/Lailoken, B.A. thesis, Bucknell University, 1995. To these can be added Miranda Griffin, “Writing Out the Sin: Arthur, Charlemagne and the Spectre of Incest,” Neophilologus 88 (2004): 499–519; and Raluca L. Radulescu: “‘Now I Take uppon Me the Adventures to Seke of Holy Thynges’: Lancelot and the Crisis of Arthurian Knighthood,” Arthurian Studies in Honour of P. J. C. Field, ed. Bonnie Wheeler et al., 2004, 285–95. Theology: In addition to English studies, deconstruction has found a forum in relation to metaphysics, which can be considered a logical outgrowth of Derrida’s own concerns with the ontology of presence. This category can be discerned as treating the relationship between deconstruction and Christian (particularly Meister Eckhart), Arabian and Jewish metaphysics. Christian Metaphysics: John Caputo, “Mysticism and Transgression: Derrida and Meister Eckhart,” Derrida and Deconstruction, ed. Hugh Silverman, 1989, 24–39; David Thomson, “Deconstruction and Meaning in Medieval Mysticism,” Christianity and Literature 40 (1991): 107–21; David Thomson: “Deconstruction and Negative Meaning in Medieval Mysticism,” Negation, Critical Theory, and Postmodern Textuality, ed. Daniel Fischlin, 1994, 41–58; Maris Fiondella, “Derrida, Typology and the Second Shepherds’ Play: The Theatrical Production of Christian Metaphysics,” Exemplaria 6 (1994): 429–58; Niklaus Largier, “Repräsentation und Nega-
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tivität: Meister Eckharts Kritik als Dekonstruktion,” Contemplata aliis tradere: Studien zum Verhältnis von Literatur und Spiritualität, ed. Claudia Brinker et al., 1995, 371–90; Marie-Ann Vannier, “Déconstruction de l’individualité ou assomption de la personne chez Eckhart?” Individuum und Individualität im Mittelalter, ed. Jan Aertsen and Andreas Speer, 1996, 622–41; William Young, “Naming God and Friendship in the Work of St. Thomas Aquinas and Jacques Derrida”, Ph. D. diss. University of Virginia, 2000); Anne Clark Bartlett, “Reading It Personally: Robert Glück, Margery Kempe, and Language in Crisis,” Exemplaria 16 (2004): 437–56; Susan Stephenson, “Derrida, Deconstruction and Mystical ‘Languages of Unsaying’,” Studies in Spirituality 16 (2006): 245–71. Arabian Metaphysics: The consideration of deconstruction in relation to Western metaphysics in the Middle Ages has found a counterpart in Ian Almond’s treatment of deconstruction and medieval Arabic mysticism: Ian Almond, “The Honesty of the Perplexed: Derrida and Ibn ‘Arabi on ‘Bewilderment’,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 70 (2002): 515–37; Ian Almond, “The Meaning of Infinity in Sufi and Deconstructive Hermeneutics: When Is an Empty Text an Infinite One?” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 72 (2004): 97–117. Jewish Studies: Straddling the border can be found Inge Siegumfeldt, “The Double Movement of Creation: Vignettes of Kabbalistic and Deconstructive Thought” (Creations: Medieval Rituals, the Arts, and the Concept of Creation, ed. Sven Havsteen et al., 2007, 247–54), which leads to the few studies available linking deconstruction and medieval Jewish Studies, which includes such contributions as Steven Kruger, “The Spectral Jew,” New Medieval Literatures II, ed. Rita Copeland et al., 1998, 9–35, and Albrecht Classen, “Jewish-Christian Relations in the German Middle Ages-The Exploration of Alternative Voices? The Deconstruction of a Myth or Factual History? Literary-Historical Investigations,” ABäG 58 (2003): 123–49. This enables us to segue to the study of language and literature in German, French, Italian, and Spanish Studies: German studies: The contributions in German also appear limited, but notable contributions include: Priscilla Hayden-Roy, “Till Eulenspiegel’s Transgressions against Convention: Interpreting the Parasite,” Daphnis 20 (1991): 7–31; Waldemar Riemer, “Deconstructing an Established Ideal: Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Criticism of the Minne/Aventiure System in Parzival,” ABäG 35 (1992): 65–86; Volker Mertens, “Konstruktion und Dekonstruktion heldenepischen Erzählens: Nibelungenlied–Klage–Titurel,” PBB 118 (1996): 358–78; Armin Schulz, “Morolfs Ende: Zur Dekonstruktion der feudalen Brautwerbungsschemas in der sogenannten ‘Spielmannsepik’,”
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PBB 124 (2002): 233–49; Albrecht Classen, “Moriz, Tristan, and Ulrich as Master Disguise Artists: Deconstruction and Reenactment of Courtliness in Moriz von Craûn, Tristan als Mönch, and Ulrich von Liechtenstein’s Frauendienst,” JEGP 103 (2004): 475–504; Jan-Dirk Müller, Rules for the Endgame: The World of the Nibelungenlied, trans. William Whobrey, 2007. Similarly, French, Italian and Spanish studies have seen limited inroads of deconstruction into the study of medieval texts and/or traditions: Peter Haidu, “The Hermit’s Pottage: Deconstruction and History in Yvain” The Sower and His Seed: Essays on Chrétien de Troyes, ed. Rupert Pickens, 1983, 127–45; John Grigsby, “Perceval devant l’herméneutique et la grammatologie,” Esprit Créateur 23 (1983): 25–37; Carine Bourget, “Allégorie et déconstruction dans Le Roman de la rose,” Chimères 24 (1997): 41–52; Sharon Kinoshita, Medieval Boundaries: Rethinking Difference in Old French Literature, 2006; John Leavey, “Derrida and Dante: Différance and the Eagle in the Sphere of Jupiter,” MLN 91 (1976): 60–68; Marguerite Waller, “Historicism Historicized: Translating Petrarch and Derrida,” Historical Criticism and the Challenge of Theory, ed. Janet Smarr, 1993, 183–211; Christian Thomsen, “Was haben der Garten von Bomarza und die Divina Commedia mit dem Dekonstruktivismus zu tun? Leuchtspuren zu Techniken und Ausdrucksformen des Komischen in der Architektur,” Von Rubens zum Dekonstruktivismus: Sprach-, literatur- und kunstwissenschaftliche Beiträge-Festschrift für Wolfgang Drost, ed. Helmut Kreuzer et al., 1993, 228–64; John Dagenais, “That Bothersome Residue: Toward a Theory of the Physical Text,” Vox Intexta: Orality and Textuality in the Middle Ages, ed. Alger Doane and Carol Pasternack, 1991, 246–59. E. Current Issues and Future Perspectives Whereas deconstruction has apparently in some instances been misappropriated as an orientation with which to champion an exclusive orientation on ‘modern’ as ‘relevant’ and ‘medieval’ as ‘irrelevant’, as depicted in the following passage, it should not be so: “Others have pointed out the need to change our historical perspective altogether and to follow an exclusively postmodernist, deconstructionist path both in research and teaching of literature: that is to say, to turn away from the Middle Ages and begin with a ‘more relevant’ interpretive work, resisting traditional orientation and stifling canon building. This has led, indeed, to practical consequences in a number of graduate programs across the country” (Paden 21f.) as quoted in Albrecht Classen, “The Never-Ending Story of the (German) Middle Ages: Philology, Hermeneutics, Medievalism and Mysticism” (Rocky Mountain Review [Fall 2001]: 67–79, here 67; see also his “The Literary Puzzle of Hein-
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rich von Türlin’s Diu Crône: Seen from a Postmodern Perspective,” Michigan Germanic Studies XXIV,2 [1998, published in 2000]: 111–28). It is worth speculating if the apparent reluctance to adopt or adapt postmodern theoretical approaches, including deconstruction, has not done more to harm medieval studies than to preserve them by enabling the study of the Middle Ages to appear outdated or irrelevant to those who must compete for funding to see their own ‘modern and relevant’ research goals achieved. As Ursula Schaefer, “Alterities: On Methodology in Medieval Literary Studies” (Oral Tradition 8 [1993]: 187–214), has discussed, “Medieval literary studies hold a privileged position in methodological and theoretical argumentation. The privilege is based on the limitedness of and the in-immediate access to their ‘material.’ The latter is created by the philological barrier that virtually keeps theoretical and/or methodological intruders out. In that sense medieval literary studies potentially enjoy a sanctuary privilege: theoretical and methodological novelties may enter the sanctuary only if the philologically trained so warrant. That is, literary medievalists are very much in control of theoretical and/or methodological import because, due to their philological training, they are the only ones who can handle the ‘material’ in the first place” (187). If this is an accurate depiction of the field, as it appears to be to this author at this time, it would behove medievalists to actively adopt and adapt new theoretical approaches in order to deconstruct the misapprehension of the intentionally maintained ivory tower and encourage others – particularly students to preserve the discipline for future generations – to engage themselves with medieval topics from a ‘post-/modern’ perspective. This engagement could be considered as encouraged and facilitated by Schaefer’s consideration that “Due to the limitedness of their material, medieval literary studies do, however, have another kind of privilege. The concept of some monolithic entity called ‘the Middle Ages’ creates a kind of laboratory situation where new approaches/methods/theories can furnish quick results. Since the Middle Ages – or any period within it, or any ensemble of phenomena from remote periods that are made the object of research – are constructs in the mind of the scholarly beholder to begin with, the (sometimes sparse) building blocks, as it were, out of which the respective constructs are built, can more easily be shuffled about according to one’s (methodologically geared) Erkenntnisinteresse” (187–88). In order to achieve this posited harmonious synthesis of post-modern approaches (here understood as deconstruction in particular) and medieval studies, the current issue that is in most dire need of being addressed is a clear distinction between deconstruction and other post-modern, post-structuralist approaches in their methodological application to the field of Medieval Studies, achieving consensus on
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which would be a significant contribution, and a more stringent use of the term, so as – at least in academic study – to preserve the term deconstruction from becoming diluted and synonymous with ‘revision’ or ‘exacting analysis’. Thereto a monograph treating deconstruction in medieval studies in terms of a comprehensive survey of its impact, influence, forms and adaptation and trends in the respective sub-disciplines would prove beneficial. Being as no such work is available for the study of modern literatures, where deconstruction has experienced the widest reception, nor for the individual medieval sub-disciplines, and the (perhaps) slow adaptation of deconstruction to the medievalist’s repertoire of tools for literary criticism and interpretation, such a project would require both innovation and cooperation between many individuals, departments and universities. Fortunately, the advent of what is known as New Medievalism does avail itself of post-modern intellectual achievements in order to understand medievalism, as William Paden, “‘New Medievalism’ and ‘Medievalism’” (The Year’s Work in Medievalism X [1995]: 232–33), defines it “What, then, does New Medievalism mean? I will offer you two versions. First, it means study of the Middle Ages in the light of what literary scholars call, by ellipsis, ‘theory’ – that is, the literary and cultural theories associated with thinkers such as Derrida and Michel Foucault […] More specifically, New Medievalism means Postmodern Medievalism, study of the Middle Ages from a consciously held postmodern perspective, a point of view which distinguishes itself from modernity, or what I have proposed to call the Long Renaissance.” Despite the challenges facing a harmonious synthesis of deconstruction and medieval studies, the future of deconstruction in medieval studies, perhaps precisely due to the lack of distinction often drawn between it and post-structuralism and post-modernism, is bright. The pluralities of understandings that are capable of being rendered by deconstruction do point towards a new horizon, if not several new horizons, for medieval studies. Perhaps the most readily feasible could be the expanded provision of alternative readings in traditional annotated commentaries to medieval texts, and the ready provision to students of understandings that have traditionally been marginalized. One such example in medieval German literature could be to provide additional annotation allowing that Isolde’s trial before God in Gottfried von Straßburg’s Tristan could be understood as a staged event following her dutiful payment of an indulgence, and not rigidly as a miraculous moment of divine mercy for an adulterous duo. As Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, “Writing Commentaries” (The Powers of Philology: Dynamics of Textual Scholarship, 2003, 41–52), rightfully comments “Commentaries should be every deconstructor’s dream” (49).
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Select Bibliography Barbara Johnson, The Critical Difference: Essays in the Contemporary Rhetoric of Reading (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1980); Jonathan Culler, On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism after Structuralism (London: Routledge, 1983); Jacques Derrida, ed. Geoffrey Bennington (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1990); Deconstruction: A Reader, ed. Martin McQuillan (New York: Routledge, 2001); Jacques Derrida and the Humanities: A Critical Reader, ed. Tom Cohen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
Maurice Sprague
Diplomatics A. Definition The term ‘diplomatics’ is derived from Jean Mabillon’s standard work De re diplomatica libri VI (Paris 1681) and stands for both the teaching and the study of charters (in German: “Urkundenlehre,” “Urkundenforschung”). Diploma (greek ), originally denoting a writing on two folded sheets (in paleography and codicology, the folded double sheet is called ‘diploma’), is, in the wider sense of the word, synonymous with the term ‘document’, and in its narrow sense a synonym for praeceptum, i. e., a document (of an authority, i. e., a king/emperor, pope, or bishop) which – at least in theory – claims permanent validity, as opposed to the mandatum, which is a temporary order. Therefore, a diploma is both a dispositive document and a document of proof, and the word is still used in this sense today (e. g., university diploma). “The term document designates […] written declarations recorded in compliance with certain forms alternating according to the difference in person, place, time, and matter, which are meant to serve as a testimony of proceedings of a legal nature” (Harry Bresslau, Handbuch der Urkundenlehre, vol. 1, 4th ed. 1969, 1). B. Nature of Documents Thus, documents, unlike annals and chronicles, are legal documents and, therefore, unfiltered relics of the past as defined by Ernst Bernheim (Lehrbuch der historischen Methode und der Geschichtsphilosophie, 3rd/4th ed. 1903). Such legal documents remained valid right up to the French Revolution, which, in the name of “égalité” and on the basis of a codified uniform law, put an end to prerogatives based on privileges. Consequently, early diplomatics was the
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profession of lawyers, and the well-known bella diplomatica dealt with the legality and authentication of documents as legal titles. Diplomatic criticism remained the most important task of diplomatics even after the French Revolution, although it was now historians who pursued the discrimen veri ac falsi in order to use documents as reliable historical sources; diplomatics changed from a predominantly legal to a purely historical auxiliary science. After all, even documents identified as forgeries do not lose their significance as historical sources, although they must then be understood as being situated in different historical contexts. This means: a diplomatist decides, first of all, on the usefulness of a document as a source; all subsequent interpretations depend on this judgment. With this in mind, the diplomatist needs to rank undated documents or forgeries chronologically and, last but not least, preserve the text on the basis of systematically collected testimonies (normally in the form of a critical edition into which all diplomatic observations need to be incorporated). Every diplomatist, hence, works in an interdisciplinary way by systematically utilizing the findings of other auxiliary sciences and related disciplines or those of specialized fields of history, true to Jean Mabillon’s motto that, first and foremost, all findings are to be gathered with regard to internal and external features, before a judgment can be formed. C. Forgeries Medieval diplomatic criticism was, by all means, underdeveloped, and this is why the general conditions were auspicious for forgers: both methodological and technical prerequisites and reliable parameters were missing, so that the efforts of Pope Alexander III and, most notably, Innocent III to counteract the proliferation of forgeries appear rather inept in retrospect; Innocent III himself was frequently taken in by forgeries. When Italian humanist Lorenzo Valla (†1457) exposed the famous Constitutum Constantini as a forgery (De falso credita et ementita Constantini donatione [= MGH Quellen zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters, 10], ed. Wolfram Setz, 1976) or the Centuriators of Magdeburg furnished proof of the fictitiousness of the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals (Martina Hartmann, Humanismus und Quellenkritik: Matthias Flacius Illyricus als Erforscher des Mittelalters, 2001), they did their research cum ira et studio and primarily drew on contents-based criteria. When analyzing large corpora of forgeries, a large variety of motives come to light. As a general rule, forgeries react to political, legal and even personal issues in their time of origin: unlawful acquisition or endorsement of actual legal titles, precautions against impending legal disputes, personal vanity, etc. Occasionally, for instance in the case of the monastery of Reichenau in the 12th century, a single forger served customers from a whole region,
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which suggests a widespread knowledge of the existence and adoption of forgeries, even although secular and ecclesiastic law allotted severe penalties for forgeries; confessions of forgers, however, are rarely recorded. Just as manifold as the motives are also the forms of forgery of documents, ranging from interpolation and falsification of authentic documents (usually by means of erasure) and forgeries based on an authentic specimen (if applicable as copies figurées, possibly including the fraudulent use of a seal) all the way to completely forged documents (including the falsification of a seal); cf. Theo Kölzer, “Urkundenfälschungen im Mittelalter,” Gefälscht! Betrug in Politik, Literatur, Wissenschaft, Kunst und Musik, ed. Karl Corino, 1990, 15–26; id., Studien zu den Urkundenfälschungen des Klosters St. Maximin vor Trier, 10.–12. Jahrhundert, 1989. D. Jean Mabillon In the early stages of diplomatics, at best incidental comparative materials were consulted in disputes about single documents, which frequently resulted in forgeries being compared with other forgeries; a method that, as is generally known, still played a role in the controversy about the Hitler Diaries. There was urgent need for a comprehensive compendium, finally provided by the Benedictine monk Jean Mabillon (†1707), who was assisted in his work by the whole order (Blandine Barret-Kriegel, Jean Mabillon, 1988). Mabillon responded to a rival project which had been undertaken by the Jesuit Daniel Papebroch (Papenbroek, †1714). As the successor of Jean Bolland, Papebroch was head of the editing project Acta Sanctorum (published since 1643), and in a royal charter (MGH Diplomata Merov., ed. Theo Kölzer, vol. 1, 2001, n. 65) he found that Saint Irmina of Oeren (Treves) was supposed to have been the daughter of a certain King Dagobert. It was the trustworthiness of this source that Papenbroch was interested in, and accordingly he attempted to develop methodological parameters for its evaluation on a total of 31 folio sheets (Acta Sanctorum, Aprilis t. 2, 1675) – after all with the correct result that the document was a forgery. The Order of Saint Benedict, however, in view of its antique treasury of documents, felt challenged by Papebroch’s casual remark that he had not found a single genuine document in the whole of France that dated back to before King Dagobert I (†639) (this observation, too, is not to be easily dismissed, since the oldest predominantly authentic Merovingian royal charter is dated 596: MGH Diplomata Merov. 25). Mabillon’s De re diplomatica (1681), hence, was written as an apology of Benedictine transmission. Contents: (Book I) types of documents, general fundamental terms, writing materials, typefaces; (II) style and conventional form of charters, chancery staff, seals, witnesses,
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signatures, dating; (III) Criticism on the old doctrines (e. g. Papebroch’s et al.), notitiae, cartularies; (IV) palatinates of the Frankish kings; (V) specimen of handwriting; (VI) appendix of documents. It is important to note that in his methodological approach (comparison of each single document with contemporary practice) Mabillon did not surpass his rival Papebroch; however, his findings were founded on a decidedly wider and more sound basis of material (the materials of the “correspondents” have been mostly preserved at the BnF Paris). In spite of a few critical voices (e.g., Bartholomé Germon S. J.), Mabillon’s opus proceeded quickly to conquer the world of letters in Europe (an enhanced second edition was prepared in 1709 by Mabillon’s disciple Thierry Ruinart; 3rd ed. in 2 vols., 1789). This compendium has been the methodological key to diplomatic transmission ever since, in legal practice as well as in regard to historical epistemological interest. It is remarkable that the first usage in Germany was by a jurist, Johann Nikolaus Hert (†1710), Professor of Law at Gießen university, who also was the first to attempt a compendium of German diplomatics: Dissertatio de fide diplomatum Germaniae imperatorum et regum (1699, several reprints); cf. Theo Kölzer, “Mabillons ‘De re diplomatica’ in Deutschland,” Papstgeschichte und Landesgeschichte: Festschrift für Hermann Jakobs, ed. Joachim Dahlhaus and Armin Kohnle, 1995, 619–28. For the teachings at universities, too, the alliance of diplomatics and palaeography with jurisprudence was still in effect, starting with Christian Eckhard in Halle (†1751), Johannes Heumann von Teutschenbrunn in Altdorf (†1760) and Johann Christoph Gatterer in Göttingen (†1799), all of whom were, at the same time, also authors of their own compendia; cf. Richard Rosenmund, Die Fortschritte der Diplomatik seit Mabillon, 1897. E. The Aftermath The progress of diplomatics after Mabillon occurred primarily in four domains: 1. amendment of the subject matter; 2. systematization of the subject matter; 3. instruction and institutionalization; 4. special analyses. Ad 1) An unsurpassed opus is that of the two Maurists Charles-François Toustain and René-Prosper Tassin, Nouveau traité de diplomatique …, 6 vols., 1750–1765. Nevertheless, it did not have the same impact as Mabillon’s compendium, apparently for the sole reason that the accumulated bulk of material rather impeded its use. More comprehensive editions of documents were only rendered possible by a facilitated access to the archives. In the wake of the French Revolution, thus, the consolidation of documents and archival material of the clerical institutions abolished in 1803 into cen-
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tral national archives with soon well-regulated access proved advantageous. As early as 1794, a right of admission for all citizens was certified in France. Subsequently, the Vatican Archives were opened to historic research in 1880. Ad 2) The most extreme example is, without doubt, Johann Christoph Gatterer, who essayed to graft Linné’s system of biological classification onto diplomatics and paleography, without achieving any scientific progress. At least, however, this dependence on the natural sciences anticipates Sickel in some respects. Ad 3) In 1821, the École nationale des Chartes was founded in Paris as the central French training post for the higher archival service (one of the Grandes Écoles). Thus, diplomatics – in union with the other auxiliary sciences – was provided with a study center outstanding even by today’s standards, whose instructors have always ranked among the leading professionals throughout the world. When founding the Institut für österreichische Geschichtsforschung (Austrian Institute for Historical Research) in Vienna in 1854, Theodor Sickel, who had been allowed to attend courses at the École des Chartes, took the latter as his model; in 1894, Paul F. Kehr established the Marburger Archivschule along with the Institut für historische Hilfswissenschaften (Institute for Auxiliary Historical Sciences). The Monumenta Germaniae Historica, founded in 1819, have since then been aiming at publishing and researching Germany’s medieval sources. And even though the first edition of royal charters turned out to be entirely uncritical (Diplomatum imperii tomus I [Diplomata regum Francorum e stirpe Merowingica], ed. Karl A. F. Pertz, 1872; replaced by: Diplomata regum Francorum e stirpe Merovingica, ed. by Theo Kölzer in collaboration with Martina Hartmann and Andrea Stieldorf, 2 vols., 2001), the Diplomata series of the MGH has substantially advanced the field of diplomatics in both terms of methodology and factual findings; Theodor Sickel’s edition of Ottonian royal charters (Conradi I., Heinrici I. et Ottonis I. Diplomata, 1879–1884) can be regarded as the first really critical edition of medieval documents. Ad 4) Various specific analytical methods were applied to all aspects of diplomatics (seals, monograms, practice of shortening, etc.), thus deepening the knowledge of the material and refining the parameters of comparison. The analysis of particular corpora of documents or periods of time was also begun at this time. The abbot of Göttweig Abbey, Johann Georg Bessel (†1749): Chronicon Gotwicense … Tomus prodromus de codicibus antiquis manuscriptis: De imperatorum ac regum Germaniae diplomatibus (1732), must be considered groundbreaking in this respect. He analyzed the documents issued for his monastery in the time from Konrad I to Frederick II in reference to their internal and external features (Peter G. Tropper, Urkundenlehre
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in Österreich, 1994, chap. 4). The above-mentioned Johannes Heumann (†1760) can be seen as on a par with him: Commentarii de re diplomatica imperatorum ac regum Germanorum inde a Caroli Magni temporibus adornati (2 vols., 1745–1753), Commentarii de re diplomatica imperatricum ac reginarum germaniae (1749). Heumann could not draw upon the original documents and accordingly underestimated the importance of the external features; in turn, however, he was forced to give more emphasis to the contents of the documents. Both criteria are of equal importance. Another factor not to be underestimated is the improvement of the general conditions of diplomatic research. The enhanced accessibility of the material in well organized archives has already been mentioned. Improved conditions of travel and communication, as well as technical innovations (photography of documents, photocopies, scans, computers) have to be taken into account as well. Against this background, one has to appreciate the achievements of past editors, who were forced to cope without the technological possibilities taken for granted nowadays. F. Progress after Mabillon After Mabillon, substantial progress in the field of diplomatics is closely connected with the names of Johann Friedrich Böhmer (†1863), Theodor Sickel (†1908), and Julius Ficker (†1902). Johann Friedrich Böhmer, town registrar and librarian of his hometown of Frankfurt/Main, and in the MGH’s beginnings considered for the position of editor of the royal and imperial documents, today is regarded as the originator of the Regesta Imperii. This organization, nowadays financed by the Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities as well as by the Austrian Academy of Sciences, has devoted itself to the systematical and chronological registration of all attestable royal activities, including the issuing of documents. These activities have been paraphrased in a “regest,” a short synopsis. (For the current state of research, see www.regesta-imperii.org). Admittedly, however, the test prints of documents of Conrad I as submitted by Böhmer still reflect the pre-scientific practices of editing, thus prompting Georg Waitz to raise the fundamental question, “How should documents be edited?” (Historische Zeitschrift 4 [1860]: 438–48). Waitz’s study is one of the earliest theoretical treatises on the subject-matter. The most relevant methodological progress, however, was achieved by Sickel and Ficker, the former working in a strictly diplomatic context, while the latter analyzed relations to the field of general history. Sickel’s Beiträge zur Diplomatik of the Carolingian and Ottonian dynasties, published between 1861 and 1882 in the Sitzungsberichte der Wiener Akadmie, proved to be
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pioneering: they presented comprehensive studies of the documents of Louis the German, of Carolingian privileges of protection and immunity, of the chancellors and those who filled in their recognition, etc. In 1867, with his Acta regum et imperatorum Karolinorum (2 vols.), Sickel published the first selfcontained specimen of special diplomatics, in which he elaborated his Lehre von den Urkunden der ersten Karolinger (751–840). This work was followed by a sample of documents in the form of regests commented at great length. His argumentation focused on the organization of the chancery, which he seems to have envisaged as too bureaucratic – according to the habits of his times –, as well as on chancery style, i. e. the observable practice of issuing documents as a parameter of the discrimen veri ac falsi. His methodological tools were comprised of the detailed analysis of the external structure, as well as of a comparative analysis of handwriting and dictamen, and, for documents exclusively transmitted in copied form, the recordation and assessment of all transmissions according to Lachmann’s method, the clarification of possible originals, or of the use of formulae, etc. His endeavor to align diplomatics as a quasi-empirical academic discipline with the aspiring natural sciences of his day is apparent. That this method not infrequently mislead into unwarranted certainties can be clearly discerned from a present-day point of view, but this does not discredit Sickel’s approach at all. The comparative analysis of dictamen in particular every now and then meets with a certain skepticism, particularly since this method used to be applied in a very superficial way at times in the past – resulting in grave misjudgments (e.g., Bernhard Schmeidler, Kaiser Heinrich IV. und seine Helfer im Investiturstreit, 1927). In principle, however, the scientific value of the comparative analysis of dictamen should always be taken into account, provided that it is implemented with caution and a strict adherence to the philological method, and without succumbing to the “manie de la certitude” (Georges Tessier) (Heinrich Appelt, “Diktatvergleich und Stilkritik erörtert am Beispiel der Diplome Friedrichs I.,” MIÖG 100 [1992]: 181–96). Today, the use of information technology (corpus linguistics) offers substantial assistance, also regarding the discrimen veri ac falsi (Nicolas Brousseau, “Lemmatisation et traitement statistique: De nouveaux instruments pour la critique diplomatique? Le cas des diplômes pseudo-originaux au nom de Louis le Germanique,” Médiévales 42 [2002]: 27–44). It may be legitimate to venture the prognosis that, due to these technological possibilities, the old diplomatics of the context à la Stengel, an approach which has not yet found an adequate successor, may be obsolete (Edmund E. Stengel, Diplomatik der deutschen Immunitäts-Privilegien vom 9. bis zum Ende des 11. Jahrhunderts, 1910). Problems similar to those of the comparative analysis of dictamen also apply to the comparative analysis
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of handwriting and to the identification of scribes: there is no absolutely reliable method, but many uncertainties exist, especially with regard to the limits of tolerance. Yet this does not imply a fundamental discreditation of the methodological instruments (some methodological remarks are given by Jan W. J. Burgers, “Aspekte der diplomatischen Methode,” Skripta, Schreiblandschaften und Standardisierungstendenzen: Urkundensprachen im Grenzbereich von Germania und Romania im 13. und 14. Jahrhundert, ed. Kurt Gärtner, Günter Holtus et al., 2001, 9–36). For the practical implementation of his methodological arguments, Sickel did not, as might be expected, choose the Carolingian documents, but the documents of the Ottonian kings, which were published between 1879 and 1893 (3 vols.). For a long time, these earliest truly critical editions of charters were considered to be the benchmark, although they have, by now, come into the need of supplementation (cf. http://www.mgh.de/diplomata/ nachtraege.htm). Julius Ficker, Westphalian by birth, declined any kind of participation in the MGH on account of Prussian predominance. Throughout his life, he remained a historian first and foremost, in particular focusing on Legal and Constitutional History, and he has come to be most notably known as the adversary of Heinrich von Sybel in the so-called Sybel-Ficker Controversy (1859/62), in which he advocated a pan-German position. His main interest was in Forschungen zur Reichs- und Rechtsgeschichte Italiens (4 vols., 1868–1874), as well as in the Constitutional History of the 12th to 14th centuries in general. Documents were important sources for these fields, and this is why he pursued diplomatics as an auxiliary science in the truest sense of the term. In opposition to the “Sickeliotes” of “strict observance,” Ficker stated that diplomatics drew its “raison d’être” exclusively from a general historical epistemic interest. Hence, Ficker did not draw up a system of theories (Beiträge zur Urkundenlehre, 2 vols., 1877–1878). He was primarily concerned with the genesis of documents, which might account for some anomalies, and with their “place in life,” i. e., the actual analysis of documents as historical sources. Ficker was the one to realize that the chancery was not a well-coordinated agency and did not function nearly as reliably as had been assumed; that discrepancies in dating could frequently be traced back to a time lag between legal act and registration; that, subsequently, the roles of witnesses needed to be differentiated; and, furthermore, that inconsistencies in the lists of witnesses could by no means automatically be classified as a sign of forgery, etc. In summary, the rules of diplomatics might not be applied schematically. Most certainly, nevertheless, Ficker too adhered to Hans Hirsch’s dictum that “a diplomatist’s synthesis is legal history” (“Die Syn-
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these des Diplomatikers heißt Rechtsgeschichte”: Hans Hirsch, Die hohe Gerichtsbarkeit im deutschen Mittelalter, 2nd ed. 1958, 9). The 1908 founding of a new periodical called Archiv für Urkundenforschung by Harry Bresslau, Karl Brandi, and Michael Tangl also led to an increased historical orientation of diplomatics, which was taken as an offence by inveterate followers of Sickel (Annkatrin Schaller, Michael Tangl [1861–1921] und seine Schule, 2002, 215–28). The Archiv für Diplomatik, founded after World War II (1955), has continued this tradition. G. The 20th Century The methodological principles of diplomatics, established in their fundamentals by Mabillon, Sickel and Ficker, were subsequently refined more and more in connection with the major editing endeavors or the evaluation of larger complexes of documents and forgeries. It is no coincidence that the two authoritative handbooks of diplomatics were written in the final years of the 19th century (Arthur Giry, Manuel de diplomatique, 2 vols., 1894; Harry Bresslau, Handbuch der Urkundenlehre für Deutschland und Italien, 2 vols., 2nd ed. 1912/1915 [1st ed. in 1 vol.: 1889]). Heinrich Fichtenau, Das Urkundenwesen in Österreich vom 8. bis zum frühen 13. Jahrhundert (1971) must be considered a fundamental exemplar of regional diplomatics, Tom Graber’s (ed.), Diplomatische Forschungen in Mitteldeutschland (2005) might serve as a preliminary work in this respect. There is also a very well-written survey from more recent times that deserves mentioning, concerning the diplomatics of papal documents (Thomas Frenz, Papsturkunden des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit, 2nd ed. 2000). Furthermore, the growing efforts concerning the diplomatics of modern times should also be noted (Olivier Poncet, “Défense et illustration de la diplomatique de l’époque moderne,” Archiv für Diplomatik 52 [2006]: 395–416; Bernard Barbiche, “La diplomatique royale française de l’époque moderne,” id., 417–27). Completely innovative methodological approaches are comparatively rare. One example is W. Schlögel’s attempt at applying the methods of forensic document analysis to the analysis of subscriptions (Waldemar Schlögl, Die Unterfertigung deutscher Könige von der Karolingerzeit bis zum Interregnum durch Kreuz und Unterschrift. Beiträge zur Geschichte und Technik der Unterfertigung im Mittelalter, 1978). Due to the rarity and characteristics of the source material, the benefits to be expected from this approach are admittedly limited. Contributions to a more recent miscellany demonstrate, however, that the methodological approach in conjunction with graphology and typographics may prove advantageous for diplomatics and paleography (Methoden der Schriftbeschreibung, ed. Peter Rück, 1999). Besides special diag-
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nostic procedures (fluorescence photography, X-rays, CT), other scientific analytical methods have also been employed occasionally (Karl-Ernst Lupprian, “Die Altersbestimmung mittelalterlicher Pergamenturkunden mit der Radiokarbonmethode,” Archivalische Zeitschrift 88 [2006]: 573–83). Especially Paul F. Kehr (†1944), with his life achievement as editor of documents and his skills in organizing, brought about a lasting advance. The first three volumes of the Diplomata regum Germaniae ex stirpe Karolinorum (documents from Louis the German to Arnolf, 1932–1940), besides preliminary studies (Paul F. Kehr, Ausgewählte Schriften, 2 vols., ed. Rudolf Hiestand, 2005), are owed to him. The founding of the Göttinger Papsturkundenwerk (Center for Research on Papal Documents at Göttingen) (Hundert Jahre Papsturkundenforschung: Bilanz – Methoden – Perspektiven, ed. Rudolf Hiestand, 2003), Kehr’s contribution to the work of the Prussian Institute of History in Rome, which he headed from 1903 on (Italia Pontificia, vols. I–VIII, 1906–1935; vols. IX–X, 1962, 1975; Germania Pontificia [for regular reports cf. Deutsches Archiv], Gallia Pontificia [vol. 1: Diocèse de Besançon, par Bernard De Vrégille, René Locatelli et Gerard Moyse, 1998; most recently vol. 3/1: Diocèse de Vienne, par Beate Schilling, 2006]), must be considered groundbreaking. No less so was his founding of the Germania Sacra, the historical statistical study of the medieval German Church, which is based on archival materials and documents to a notable extend (www.germaniasacra.mpg.de/). Kehr, a stranger to theoretical reflections or historical descriptions, shared the rigorism of his teacher Sickel. Late antiquity’s foundations of medieval documentary practices were remarkably illuminated by Peter Classen (“Kaiserreskript und Königsurkunde: Diplomatische Studien zum römisch-germanischen Kontinuitätsproblem,” Archiv für Diplomatik 1 [1955]: 1–87; 2 [1956]: 1–115; rpt. as: Kaiserreskript und Königsurkunde. Diplomatische Studien zum Problem der Kontinuität zwischen Altertum und Mittelalter, 1977; id., “Spätrömische Grundlagen mittelalterlicher Kanzleien,” Ausgewählte Aufsätze, ed. Josef Fleckenstein, 1983, 67–84). The new edition of the documents of the Merovingian kings (Diplomata regum Francorum e stirpe Merovingica, ed. Theo Kölzer et al., 2 vols., 2001) has insofar led to more precision as it indicated that, in the Frankish Empire north of the River Loire, the transition from late antiquity’s records to early medieval documents must have taken place in the last third of the 6th century (Theo Kölzer, Tra tarda Antichità e Medioevo: l’edizione critica dei diplomi merovingici. Inaugurazione del Corso Biennale Anni Accademici 1998–2000, 2000; id., “Merowingische Kapitularien in diplomatischer Sicht,” Scientia veritatis. Festschrift für Hubert Mordek zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Oliver Münsch and Thomas Zotz, 2004, 13–23).
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Of all the major European editing endeavors, the Monumenta Germaniae Historica has made the most notable progress in the postwar period. Today, there are only a few gaps left in the line of royal charters from the Merovingian time to the end of the Hohenstaufen era; the editions still due are being worked on, and, in some cases, much progress has been made. In the neighboring countries there has been less progress and the gaps are wider, despite an ongoing editing process (Rudolf Schieffer, “Diplomatik und Geschichtswissenschaft,” Archiv für Diplomatik 52 [2006]: 233–48). For the royal charters of South Italy and Sicily, the Codex diplomaticus regni Siciliae, ed. Carlrichard Brühl, Francesco Giunta, and André Guillou, might be cited as an example of an editing endeavor that started as a private initiative (Rogerii II. regis diplomata latina, ed. Carlrichard Brühl, 1987; Guillelmi I. regis diplomata, ed. Horst Enzensberger, 1996; Tancredi et Willelmi III regum diplomata, ed. Herbert Zielinski, 1982; Constantiae imperatricis et reginae Siciliae diplomata, 1195–1198, ed. Theo Kölzer, 1983; new edition: id., MGH Diplomata XI/3, 1990). In reference to this and to the accompanying special studies cf. Theo Kölzer, “Codex diplomaticus regni Siciliae. Erläuterungen zu einem internationalen Forschungsvorhaben,” Jahrbuch der historischen Forschung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1983, 1984, 17–22; id., “Die normannisch-staufische Kanzlei 1130–1198,” Archiv für Diplomatik 41 (1995): 273–89. The documents of Frederick II (1198–1212), originally intended for this series, have now been edited within the MGH: Friderici II. diplomata, ed. Walter Koch et al., vol. 1, 2002. After a long time of editing, the Codice diplomatico longobardo was also completed, whose first two volumes, containing private documents, had been edited by Luigi Schiaparelli in 1929/33 for the Fonti per la storia d’Italia (vol. III/1 [royal charters], ed. Carlrichard Brühl, 1973; vol. III/2: Indici, 1984; vol. IV/1 [dukes of Spoleto], ed. Carlrichard Brühl, 1981; vol. IV/2: I diplomi dei duchi di Benevento, ed. Herbert Zielinski, 2003; vol. V: Le chartae dei ducati di Spoleto e di Benevento, ed. Herbert Zielinski, 1986). The number of successes like this one might very well grow, since the activities of editing and collecting regesta, including that of local or regional documentary corpora, are progressing everywhere (Robert-Henri Bautier, “Les orientations de la diplomatique en Europe depuis la fin de la seconde guerre mondiale,” Cento anni di cammino. Scuola vaticana di paleografia, diplomatica e archivistica (1884–1984), a cura di Terzo Natalini, 1986, 101–45; Rudolf Schieffer, “Neuere regionale Urkundenbücher und Regestenwerke,” Blätter für deutsche Landesgeschichte 127 (1991): 1–18; id., “Diplomatik und Geschichtswissenschaft,” Archiv für Diplomatik 52 (2006): 233–48; Stand, Aufgaben und Perspektiven territorialer Urkundenbücher im östlichen Europa, ed. Win-
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fried Irgang and Norbert Kersken, 1998), although editing is not held in high regards nowadays and constantly needs defending, even against historians (Quelleneditionen und kein Ende? Symposium der Monumenta Germaniae Historica und der Historischen Kommission bei der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, ed. Lothar Gall and Rudolf Schieffer, 1999; Vom Nutzen des Edierens. Akten des internationalen Kongresses zum 150-jährigen Bestehen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, Wien, 3.–5. Juni 2004, ed. Brigitte Merta, Andrea Sommerlechner and Herwig Weigl, 2005; Hubert Seibert, “Wozu heute Urkunden edieren? Zum Abschluß des Babenberger Urkundenbuches,” Zeitschrift für bayerische Landesgeschichte 64 [2001]: 295–308). Nevertheless, critical editing will, even in the future, retain its central position in a scholarship of history that considers historical sources its essential foundation, since sources and methods are all that historians have at their disposal. Diplomatic editions do not guide research in terms of concept, and neither do they follow the ever-changing trends, both because they are based on a reliable methodology and because further editions are predetermined by the obvious gaps. In this respect, the “crisis of diplomatics,” which was declared in the beginning of the 1960s (Armando Petrucci, “Diplomatica vecchia e nuova,” Studi medievali, 3a ser. 4 [1963]: 785–98), is a misinterpretation; to speak of an exhaustion of the material or the method would be plainly wrong (Theo Kölzer, “Diplomatik und Urkundenpublikationen,” Historische Hilfswissenschaften, ed. Toni Diederich and Joachim Oepen, 2005, 7–34; Herwig Wolfram, “Die Krise der Diplomatik – ein Missverständnis,” Tirol – Österreich – Italien. Festschrift für Josef Riedmann zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Klaus Brandstätter and Julia Hörmann, 2005, 661–71). Despite the false premise that, in the field of documents, everything, or at least the major part, has already been accomplished, it would be misleading to follow the recommendations uttered in the wake of this discussion and extend the field of diplomatics to all kinds of archival documents (Robert-Henri Bautier, “Propositions méthodologiques pour la Diplomatique du Bas Moyen Age et les débuts des temps modernes,” id., Chartes, sceaux et chancelleries. Études de diplomatique et de sigillographie médiévale, vol. 1, 1990, 35–45, in particular p. 36), because then it would compete with what in German is called ‘Quellen- und Aktenkunde’ (the study of sources and documents) by employing a method which was not developed for this purpose and seems hardly applicable to it. Most recently, however, even Ivan Hlavácek, ˇ “Das Problem der Masse: Das Spätmittelalter,” Archiv für Diplomatik 52 (2006): 371–93 has argued in agreement with Bautier.
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H. More Recent Trends With their studies on the arenga and the intitulatio (Heinrich Fichtenau, Arenga. Spätantike und Mittelalter im Spiegel der Urkundenformeln, 1957; Herwig Wolfram, Intitulatio I. Lateinische Königs- und Fürstentitel bis zum Ende des 8. Jahrhunderts, 1967), which they regarded as being in line with the tradition of historical diplomatics as established by Julius Ficker and Hans Hirsch, Heinrich Fichtenau and his disciple Herwig Wolfram have opened up the field of diplomatics to the history of ideas. Works with similar aims but of a more limited scope have also been dedicated to other parts of written documents: the invocations, formulas of devotion, addresses, appartenance clauses, as well as the intercessors and witnesses or the subscriptions (Heinrich Fichtenau, Beiträge zur Mediävistik, vol. 2, 1977, 37–61; op. cit., vol. 3, 1986, 149–66; Dietrich Lohrmann, “Formen der Enumerationes bonorum in Bischofs-, Papst- und Herrscherurkunden, 9.–12. Jahrhundert,” Archiv für Diplomatik 26 (1980): 281–311; Alfred Gawlik, Intervenienten und Zeugen in den Diplomen Kaiser Heinrichs IV., 1056–1105, 1970; Lothar Saupe, Die Unterfertigung der lateinischen Urkunden in den Nachfolgestaaten des weströmischen Reiches, 1983). Both rhetoric and royal propaganda, including “political dating,” have also been objects of diplomatic interests (Heinrich Fichtenau, Beiträge zur Mediävistik, vol. 2, 1977, 18–36, 126–56; vol. 3, 1986, 186–285; Herwig Wolfram, “Politische Theorie und narrative Elemente in Urkunden,” Kanzleiwesen und Kanzleisprachen im östlichen Europa, ed. Christian Hannick, 1999, 1–23; id., “Diplomatik, Politik und Staatssprache,” Archiv für Diplomatik 52 [2006]: 249–70) and have thus supplemented the more legal and formal approach of earlier stages of research. In more recent times, increasing attention has been given to the ritual and performance surrounding the act of privileging (Peter Worm, “Beobachtungen zum Privilegierungsakt am Beispiel einer Urkunde Pippins II. von Aquitanien,” Archiv für Diplomatik 49 [2003]: 15–48; Hagen Keller and Christoph Dartmann, “Inszenierungen von Ordnung und Konsens: Privileg und Statutenbuch in der symbolischen Kommunikation mittelalterlicher Rechtsgemeinschaften,” Zeichen – Rituale – Werte, ed. Gerd Althoff, 2004, 201–23; Arnold Angenendt, “Cartam offerre super altare: Zur Liturgisierung von Rechtsvorgängen,” Frühmittelalterliche Studien 36 [2002]: 133–58), and documents have been considered a link for “the communication between the king and his retainers” (Hagen Keller, “Zu den Siegeln der Karolinger und der Ottonen. Urkunden als ‘Hoheitszeichen’ in der Kommunikation des Königs mit seinen Getreuen,” FMSt 32 [1998]: 400–41). The ritual act of privileging has been perceived as the one crucial act which opens up a new dimension of meaning essential to understanding the
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text and its function. Before this, Peter Rück had already postulated a return to a discipline of diplomatic semiotics that regards documents as a system of signs in a communication process (Peter Rück, “Beiträge zur diplomatischen Semiotik,” Graphische Symbole in mittelalterlichen Urkunden, ed. id., 1996, 13–47; regarding Rück’s approach, cf. most recently Peter Worm, “Ein neues Bild von der Urkunde: Peter Rück und seine Schüler,” Archiv für Diplomatik 52 (2006): 334–52). Rück focuses on “visual rhetoric,” on encrypted sub-messages, and graphical symbols that, in a largely illiterate society, render documents “medieval posters”. However, for the decryption of such mystery symbols (“Rätselzeichen”), there is want of a reliable tertium comparationis keeping subjective interpretations at bay; the interpretative approaches offered so far cover a spectrum too broad for these symbols to be a reliable source of historical insight (cf. Theo Kölzer, “Diplomatik und Urkundenpublikationen” [see above], 20 ss.). Despite the fact that there has been constant skepticism regarding the details, Peter Rück nevertheless is to be considered the most innovative diplomatist of the last third of the 20th century, who, amongst other things, has emphasized the epistemic value of statistical survey methods, stressed the importance of format and layout, reevaluated the musicality of rhythmical conclusions of sentences, underlined the value of modern photography, and provided a new impetus to the field of parchment research (Fotografische Sammlungen mittelalterlicher Urkunden in Europa, ed. Peter Rück, 1989; Pergament. Geschichte – Struktur – Restaurierung – Herstellung, ed. Peter Rück, 1991; Fachgebiet Historische Hilfswissenschaften: Ausgewählte Aufsätze zum 65. Geburtstag von Peter Rück, ed. Erika Eisenlohr and Peter Worm, 2000). The work on documentary language which has been intensified by the École des Chartes and the Commission Internationale de Diplomatique (La langue des actes. International congress in Troyes, September 11–13, 2003; for most contributions, refer to: http://elec.enc.sorbonne.fr/sommaire163/ html) stands as one attempt at measuring a field long neglected. In more recent times, and following the example of Michael T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record: England 1066–1307 (1979, 2nd ed. 1993), impact and usage of documents in a predominantly illiterate society (Brigitte Bedos-Rezak, “Diplomatic Sources and Medieval Documentary Practises: An Essay in Interpretive Methodology, “The Past and Future of Medieval Studies, ed. John van Engen, 1994, 313–43; Charters and the Use of the Written Word in Medieval Society, ed. Karl Heidecker, 2000) have more and more become a focus of research, especially in the context of conflicts (Laurent Morelle, “Les chartes dans la gestion des conflits [France du Nord, XIe – début XIIe siècle],” Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes 155 [1997]: 267–98).
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The French ARTEM-Project ([Atelier de Recherche sur les Textes Médiévaux, Nancy]: La diplomatique française du Haut Moyen Age: Inventaire des chartes originales antérieures à 1121 conservées en France, 2 vols., sous la direction de Benoît-Michel Tock par Michèle Courtois et Marie-José Gasse-Grandjean avec la collaboration de Philippe Demonty, 2001) demonstrates that systematically surveyed material yields surprising results, raising a variety of new questions. In turn, entirely new insights are gained by regarding the different kinds of document traditions not as “quarries” for the purpose of constituting a text as part of a critical edition, but rather as carriers of individual traditions in the context of a recipient’s archives (Charters, Cartularies, and Archives: The Preservation and Transmission of Documents in the Medieval West, ed. Adam J. Kosto and Anders Winroth, 2002), of its keeping and organization (Elke Goez, Pragmatische Schriftlichkeit und Archivpflege der Zisterzienser, 2003). Recent French research has been particularly dedicated to the analysis and interpretation of cartularies (Les Cartulaires, ed. Olivier Guyotjeannin et al., 1993). It should be noted that the richly decorated cartularies possessed a great symbolic value as a collection of different libertates (Theo Kölzer, “Codex libertatis. Überlegungen zur Funktion des “Regestum Farfense” und anderer Klosterchartulare,” Il ducato di Spoleto. Atti del 9 Congresso internazionale di studi sull’alto medioevo, vol. 2, 1983, 609–53). A special research project based in Münster is devoted to “pragmatic writing” in its broadest sense (Hagen Keller, “Träger, Felder, Formen pragmatischer Schriftlichkeit im Mittelalter,” Frühmittelalterliche Studien 22 [1988]: 388–409; Pragmatische Schriftlichkeit im Mittelalter: Erscheinungsformen und Entwicklungsstufen, ed. Hagen Keller et al., 1992). Research in the Italian notary’s office, traditionally the field of Italian medieval studies, has recently been added to by two profound foreign contributions (Andreas Meyer, Felix et inclitus notarius: Studien zum italienischen Notariat vom 7. bis zum 13. Jahrhundert, 2000; Petra Schulte, Scripturae publicae creditur: Das Vertrauen in Notariatsurkunden im kommunalen Italien des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts, 2003). Two more recent research papers have had far-reaching methodological ramifications: H.-H. Kortüm falsified the idea of an early institutionalized Papal chancery predominant so far by showing that, in their individually formulated parts (Petitio, Dispositio), Papal documents were strongly influenced by the addressee (Hans-Henning Kortüm, Zur päpstlichen Urkundensprache im frühen Mittelalter: Die päpstlichen Privilegien 896–1046, 1995). As a methodological ramification, the parameters of “chancery style” and “individual dictamen,” employed since Sickel in the context of the discrimen veri ac falsi, now carry much less weight and also demand a systematic review from the addressee’s point of view in every single case. Generally speaking,
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there should be claims for a more diligent differentiation when it comes to identifying chancery documents and documents originating from outside the chancery (Jaap G. Kruisheer, “Kanzleiausfertigung, Empfängerausfertigung und Ausfertigung durch Dritte: Methodologische Anmerkungen anläßlich einiger neuerer Untersuchungen,” AfD 25 [1979]: 256–300). Along similar lines, W. Huschner opposed Sickel’s idea of an hierarchically organized, bureaucratic royal chancery in Ottonian times by pointing out that, in the royal or imperial court, the persons engrossing the documents were often distinguished prelates, and not the subordinate, anonymous notaries to whom Sickel had attributed grammalogues (Wolfgang Huschner, Transalpine Kommunikation im Mittelalter: Diplomatische, kulturelle und politische Wechselwirkungen zwischen Italien und dem nordalpinen Reich, 9.–11. Jahrhundert, 3 vols., 2003; for a critical comment cf. Hartmut Hoffmann, “Notare, Kanzler und Bischöfe am ottonischen Hof,” Deutsches Archiv 61 [2005]: 435–80). Consequentially, royal and imperial documents may no longer be interpreted as statements by the monarchs themselves; a closer look should be taken into the striking innovations enacted, for instance, during the reign of Otto III. French researchers have recently suggested comparing “European” diplomatics with cultures outside of Europe (contributions on Mesopotamia, Japan etc. in Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes 160 [2003]: 477 ss.). However enriching this may prove, it cannot and will not change the very nucleus of diplomatics, which is still arranged around the discrimen veri ac falsi as the source of all further conclusions. Not least of all, the large amount of medieval forgeries demonstrates that contemporaries used to perceive medieval documents as legal documents first and foremost (Fälschungen im Mittelalter: Internationaler Kongreß der Monumenta Germaniae Historica, 6 vols., 1988, 1990, especially vols. 3–4). “Visual rhetoric” is not the “raison d’être” of medieval documents but merely a circumstantial detail; this does not affect the notion that documents may also and additionally be “expression du pouvoir,” a notion that has, after all, never been contended by anyone (Les actes comme expression du pouvoir au Haut Moyen Age, ed. Marie-José Gasse-Grandjean and Benoît-Michel Tock, 2003). I. Digital Diplomatics Recent technological developments have started a revolution in respect to availability and linking of the source material: whole series of editions and regesta have been made available on CD-ROM or can be accessed on the Internet (e.g. the d(igital)MGH; Regesta Imperii; Thesaurus diplomaticus [CD-ROM], ed. Paul Tombeur et al., 1997); first attempts with single archival material
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or archival stocks look promising, and it does no longer appear illusory to believe that, one day, the most important stocks of documents will be accessible from individual computer workstations and will supplant extremely elaborate and expensive facsimile editions, such as, for instance, the systematic collection of the Chartae Latinae Antiquiores, which covers the period up to the year 800 and has by now been extended to the 9th century (ed. Anton Bruckner and Robert Marichal, 49 vols., 1954–1998; 2nd series, ed. Guglielmo Cavallo and Giovanna Nicolaj, 27 vols., since 1997). For “digital diplomatics” cf. most recently the contributions by Patrick Sahle, Georg Vogeler and Gautier Poupeau, Archiv für Diplomatik 52 (2006): 429–78. Already the first special internet journal (Scrineum) is available online (http://scrineum.unipv.it). All the euphoria notwithstanding, it should be noted that neither the increased availability of material nor the digital architectures of editions, however sophisticated they may be, will be able to supplant the methodologic work of the diplomatist. In fact, the nearly unlimited options of digital editing actually call for an intensification of the historian’s technical training, which has, in some places, been unduly neglected. Whether a new area of applications might be opened up to diplomatics, such as, for instance, the categorizing of digital administrative records, is still a controversy (Angelika Menne-Haritz, “Archivwissenschaft, Diplomatik und elektronische Verwaltungsaufzeichnungen,” Archiv für Diplomatik 44 [1998]: 337–76). J. Diplomatics of the Papal Document In view of the large amount of material scattered all over the whole Orbis christianus, there is still a lot of catching up to do when it comes to critical editions; we are largely dependent on outdated regesta and occasional editions (a survey can be found in Thomas Frenz, Papsturkunden des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit, 2nd ed. 2000). The first critical edition not to recur to Papal Registers was published only two decades ago (Papsturkunden 896–1046, 3 vols., ed. Harald Zimmermann, 2nd ed., 1988/1989). There is no prospect of a sequel, particularly since it is reasonable to reckon on another 20.000 documents for the period up to 1198. For the subsequent period, a compensation is offered by the Papal Registers, edited by the Österreichisches Kulturinstitut and the École française in Rome, and supplemented for their original transmission with the “Censimento Bartoloni” (planned until 1417) (Die Register Innozenz’ III., ed. Othmar Hageneder et al., vols. 1–2, 5–8, 1964–2001; the French printed series of registers [Paris 1883 ss.] and the current status of the “Censimento” in Frenz, Papsturkunden, op. cit., 123–25; last volume: Tilman Schmidt, Die Originale der Papsturkunden in Norddeutschland [Bremen, Hamburg,
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Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Schleswig-Holstein] 1199–1415, 2003). A more recent conference of the Commission Internationale de Diplomatique (Papsturkunde und europäisches Urkundenwesen: Studien zu ihrer formalen und rechtlichen Kohärenz vom 11. bis 15. Jahrhundert, ed. Peter Herde and Hermann Jakobs, 1999) has highlighted how profoundly European diplomatics were shaped by the Papal document in the High Middle Ages. The best survey of the current state of research on Papal documents is offered by Frenz, Papsturkunden (2nd ed. 2000). K. Private Documents Another field that is difficult to survey and has only been explored to varying degrees is, for obvious reasons, the wide field of so-called “private documents,” including in particular the Episcopal charters, the notary’s office, and urban diplomatics. Here, too, the Commission Internationale de Diplomatique has organized important conferences to establish at least approximate surveys and to initiate a dialogue among the experts (Landesherrliche Kanzleien im Spätmittelalter: Referate zum VI. Internationalen Kongress für Diplomatik, München 1983, ed. Gabriel Silagi, 2 vols., 1984; Notariado público y documento privado: de los orígenes al siglo XIV. Actas del VII. Congreso internacional de diplomática, Valencia 1986, Josip Trenchs Odena, 1989; Estudios sobre el notariado europeo (siglos XIV–XV), ed. Pilar Ostos and Maria Luisa Pardo, 1997; Die Diplomatik der Bischofsurkunde vor 1250: Referate zum VIII. Internationalen Kongress für Diplomatik, Innsbruck 1993, ed. Christoph Haidacher and Walter Köfler,1995; La diplomatique urbaine en Europe au moyen âge: Actes du Congrès de la Commission internationale de diplomatique, Gand 1998, ed. Walter Prevenier and Thérèse de Hemptinne, 2000). Exemplary for the analysis of the significant Episcopal charters are, for instance, the closed series of the regesta of the Archbishops of Cologne, which by now comprises 12 volumes (Die Regesten der Erzbischöfe von Köln im Mittelalter, vol. 1, ed. Friedrich Wilhelm Oediger, 1954–1961, vols. 8–12, ed. Norbert Andernach, 1981–2001), as well as the more recent editing project of the English Episcopal Acta, which has reached a total of 28 volumes in relatively short time (1980–2004). L. Quo vadis? Despite the fact that university posts are currently being cut everywhere (with the two exceptions of Italy and Spain), and, consequently, education is being stunted, diplomatics may look into the future rather optimistically. This positive attitude, which seems to disregard the bleak academic reality, is rooted in the confidence that no historian will, upon unbiased reflection, deny the fact that diplomatics is able to uncover crucial historical findings
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otherwise inaccessible; in many areas, diplomatics establishes the parameters of the historical verdict. For even in the aftermath of the “linguistic turn,” documents are neither random “texts” nor iridescent sources of memory, but legal documents intended to record specific circumstances of a legal nature. In this respect, they are more reliable witnesses of the past than the sources of “tradition”. It is, accordingly, no coincidence that diplomatics have remained unchallenged by past theoretical disputes; they are, at any rate, not subject to the need of vindicating themselves, even if this may not be immediately evident to every single disciple of Clio’s. Resting on the firm foundations of a well-tried methodology, the field of diplomatics will continue to be open to new research questions and technical challenges in times to come. In doing so, however, it must always be mindful of its actual purposes, to determine the usefulness of documents as historic evidence, and to exploit them as extensively as possible in the line of general historical epistemic interest. A source-oriented historiography will not be able to forego these contributions. Now more than ever, the new world of bits and bytes calls for a solid education in diplomatics and the auxiliary sciences in general. Select Bibliography Carlrichard Brühl, “Derzeitige Lage und künftige Aufgaben der Diplomatik,” Landesherrliche Kanzleien im Spätmittelalter, vol. 1 (Munich: Arbeo-Gesellschaft, 1983, rpt. id., Aus Mittelalter und Diplomatik: Gesammelte Aufsätze, vol. 2 [Hildesheim: Olms, 1989], 463–73); Robert-Henri Bautier, “Les orientations de la diplomatique en Europe depuis la fin de la Seconde Guerre Mondiale,” Cento anni di cammino: Scuola vaticana di paleografía, diplomatica e archivistica (1884–1984), ed. Terzo Natalini (Città del Vaticano: Scuola Vaticana, 1986) 101–45; Ma Milagros Cárcel Ortí, La eseñanza de la paleografía y diplomática (Valencia: Artes Gráficas Soler, 1996); Rudolf Schieffer, “Zur derzeitigen Lage der Diplomatik,” Diplomatische Forschungen in Mitteldeutschland, ed. Tom Graber (Leipzig: Leipziger Universitäts-Verlag, 2005), 11–27; Theo Kölzer, “Diplomatik und Urkundenpublikationen,” Historische Hilfswissenschaften: Stand und Perspektiven der Forschung, ed. Toni Diederich and Joachim Oepen (Cologne, Weimar, and Vienna: Böhlau, 2005), 7–34; Diplomatik im 21. Jahrhundert: Stand und Perspektiven: Tagung der Commission internationale de Diplomatique, Bonn 7.–11. September 2005, Archiv für Diplomatik 52 (2006): 233–673. Handbooks: Harry Bresslau, Handbuch der Urkundenlehre für Deutschland und Italien, 3 vols. (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1958, 4th ed. 1969); Alain de Boüard, Manuel de diplomatique française et pontificale, 2 vols. (Paris: Picard, 1929, 1952); Georges Tessier, La Diplomatique, Paris: PUF, 1952, 3rd ed. 1966); Alessandro Pratesi, Genesi e forme del documento medievale (Roma: Jouvence, 1979, 2nd ed. 1987); Giovanna Nicolaj, Lezioni di diplomatica generale (Roma: Bulzoni, 2007); Thomas Vogtherr, Urkundenlehre (Hanover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 2008). An introduction to diplomatics as well as a first-rate work book for self-study (with a comprehensive bibliography): Olivier Guyotjeannin, Jacques Pycke and Benoît-Michel Tock, Diplomatique médiévale (Turnhout: Brepols, 1993, 2nd ed. 2006). Technical terms are explained in: Vocabulaire
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international de la diplomatique, ed. M. Milagros Cárcel Ortí (Valencia: Generalitat Valenciana, Conselleria de Cultura, 1994, 2nd ed. 1997). Introductions to diplomatics in English are rare, however: Leonard E. Boyle, “Diplomatics,” Medieval Studies: An Introduction, ed. James M. Powell (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2nd ed. 1992), 82–113; Richard Sharpe, “Charters, Deeds, and Diplomatics,” Medieval Latin: An Introduction and Bibliographical Guide, ed. Frank A. C. Mantello and Arthur G. Rigg (Washington: Catholic University of America University Press, 1996), 230–40; Brigitte Bedos-Rezak, “Diplomatic Sources and Medieval Documentary Practises: An Essay in Interpretive Methodology,” The Past and Future of Medieval Studies, ed. John Van Engen (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), 313–43. Web sites containing important hyperlinks or bibliographies: http://www.vl-ghw.uni-muenchen.de/diplomatik/html http://www.phil.uni-passau.de/histhw/bibliographie.html http://theleme.enc.sorbonne.fr/sommaire64.html More useful bibliographical references are to be found in: Martha Howell and Walter Prevenier, From Reliable Sources: An Introduction to Historical Methods (Ithaca andLondon: Cornell University Press, 2001); revised German version: Werkstatt des Historikers (Cologne, Weimar, and Vienna: Böhlau, 2004).
Theo Kölzer
Disability Studies A. Definition Disability Studies is, broadly speaking, an interdisciplinary approach stemming from the consideration of disability as a social construct. The Disability Studies perspective is less clinical than representational, focusing on perceptions of the impaired body and on interactions between the impaired subject and sociopolitical institutions. Therefore, like the related fields of Gender Studies and Cultural Studies, Disability Studies draws upon a variety of materials and disciplinary approaches, such as social history, literary and visual analysis, history of science and medicine, ethnology, and sociology. B. Emergence of Disability Studies Disability Studies emerged principally in the social sciences in the late 1980s and early 1990s; its inception thus coincided with the surge in activism surrounding the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in the United States in 1990. Early articles and monographs, such as many reproduced in the Disability Studies Reader, tend toward an ahistorical and presentist view of the social construction of disability. Prior to the mid-2000s,
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most general social histories of disability, as well – with the notable exception of Henri-Jacques Stiker (Corps infirmes et sociétés, 1982) and Walter Fandrey (Krüppel, Idioten, Irre: Zur Sozialgeschichte behinderter Menschen in Deutschland, 1990) – omitted the medieval period or depicted it as a “Dark Age” marked by the neglect or persecution of the physically and mentally disabled. C. Disability Studies from a Medieval Perspective From the late 1990s onward Disability Studies broadened in its scope, as the Middle Ages became the object of several articles, and in its disciplinary apparatus, as scholars of literature and art history began adopting key concepts and terminology. Lois Bragg (now known as Edna Edith Sayers) was among the first literary scholars to develop Disability Studies as an approach to medieval texts in her studies of Icelandic saga, notably “Disfigurement, Disability, and Dis-integration in Sturlunga Saga” (Alvíssmál 4 [1994]: 15–32), “From the Mute God to the Lesser God: Disability in Medieval Celtic and Old Norse Literature” (Disability and Society 12.2 [1997]: 165–77), and Oedipus borealis: The Aberrant Body in Medieval Iceland (2004). Edward Wheatley, author of numerous studies of blindness in England and Normandy (“‘Blind’ Jews and Blind Christians: Metaphorics of Marginalization in Medieval Europe,” Exemplaria 14 [2002]: 351–82; “A River Runs Through It: Disability, Homosexuality, Queered/Disabled Discourse, and the Isle of Blandie in Bérinus,” Exemplaria 19 [2007]: 386–401), has developed the concept of the “religious model” of disability, an institutionalized construction of disability that, like the modern era’s “medical model,” stands in opposition to the construction of disability as a social category and serves to segregate and disempower the disabled. Other major contributors to medieval Disability Studies include Irina Metzler, author of the first monograph offering an overview of disability in the Middle Ages (Disability in Medieval Europe: Thinking About Physical Impairment During the High Middle Ages, c.1100–1400, 2006), which adopts a spiritual framework for the understanding of medieval disability; Wendy J. Turner, who has explored the definition and treatment of mental illness, particularly in a legal context, in medieval England (“Mental Incapacity and Financing War in Medieval England,” The Hundred Years War: vol. 2: Different Vistas, ed. L. J. Andrew Villalon and Donald Kagay, 2008, 387–402); and Encarnación Juárez-Almendros, whose research has focused on women and disability in medieval Spain (“The Autobiography of the Aching Body in Teresa de Cartagena’s Arboleda de los enfermos,” Disability Studies: Enabling the Humanities, ed. Sharon L. Snyder, Brenda Jo Brueggeman, and Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, 2002, 131–43). Much research concerning the medieval body, while not explicitly subscribing to
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the Disability Studies approach, nonetheless intersects with medieval Disability Studies: for example, Fedwa Malti-Douglas’s essay “Mentalités and Marginality: Blindness and Mamlûk Civilization,” Power, Marginality, and the Body in Medieval Islam, 2001, 211–37, or Caroline Walker Bynum’s studies of embodied female spirituality (Holy Feast and Holy Fast, 1987; Fragmentation and Redemption, 1991). Scholarship in medieval Disability Studies has continued to expand through the present decade. A number of recent dissertations and dissertations in progress (including those of Mark O’Tool, University of California Santa Barbara, 2007; Alexsandra Pfau, University of Michigan, 2008; Julie Singer, Duke University, 2006; and Tory Vandeventer Pearman, Loyola University Chicago, 2009) have provided deeper consideration of the applicability of Disability Studies to medieval materials and contributed to the elaboration of critical vocabulary appropriate to the study of medieval disability. The ongoing establishment of Disability Studies programs at numerous U.S. and U.K. universities will likely increase the level of scholarly interest in medieval disability. Additionally, a number of monographs and essay collections are forthcoming as of January 2009: Edward Wheatley’s Stumbling Blocks Before the Blind: Medieval Constructions of a Disability, Encarnación Juárez-Almendros’s Women and Disability in Early Modern Spain: Duennas, Prostitutes and Saints (Mujeres y discapacidad en la España pre-moderna: dueñas, prostitutas y santas), Wendy J. Turner’s collection on Madness and Law in the Middle Ages, and Joshua T. Eyler’s collection of essays on disability in the Middle Ages. These studies, supplementing Metzler’s monograph, provide more detailed accounts of the social markers of disability within specific geographic areas. In addition to offering a more nuanced social history of disability, the authors of recent and ongoing projects in medieval Disability Studies are increasingly attuned to the intersection of gender, sexuality, class, and disability. Selected Bibliography Lois Bragg, Oedipus borealis: The Aberrant Body in Old Icelandic Myth and Saga (Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2004); Lennard J. Davis, The Disability Studies Reader (New York: Routledge, 1997; 2nd ed., 2006); Irina Metzler, Disability in Medieval Europe: Thinking about Physical Impairment during the High Middle Ages, c. 1100–1400 (London: Routledge, 2006); Henri-Jacques Stiker, Corps infirmes et sociétés (Paris: Aubier, 1982); Edward Wheatley, “Blindness, Discipline, and Reward: Louis IX and the Foundation of the Hospice des Quinze-Vingts,” Disability Studies Quarterly 22 (2002): 194–212.
Julie Singer
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Editing Medieval Texts
E Editing Medieval Texts A. Introduction Because of the nature of textual transmission in the Middle Ages, the majority of texts that have come down to us are at some remove from the authors who composed them. Few authorial MSS or authorized copies have survived from before the end of the Middle Ages, and the later copies that preserve medieval works inevitably contain errors and often present modifications introduced by scribes who sought to adapt these works to the esthetic, linguistic and cultural codes of their milieu. Whether only a single MS is extant or whether several divergent copies have survived, editors are faced with the question of how best to represent the work to a modern public. In practical terms, this has often meant deciding to what degree an edition should faithfully reproduce the text as it stands in MSS, and to what degree, on what grounds, and according to what methods the text should be modified in passages where it is perceived to be faulty or to result from scribal intervention. The various solutions that have been adopted over time depend on practical considerations like the nature of the documents preserved and knowledge of the material aspects of transmission, but are also determined by the ways in which editors have defined the nature of medieval works and evaluated the respective roles of author and scribe. B. Early History and the Terms of the Debate B.1. Early History The critical editing of medieval texts has a long history. As early as the 14th century, Boccaccio produced an ‘edition’ of Dante’s Commedia based on several MS witnesses that combined their readings with conjectural emendations in order to restore the text of his illustrious predecessor. In Italy, the interest in medieval texts would remain more or less constant over time and literary works continued to be read and published; in most countries, however, the medieval heritage rapidly fell into oblivion and went virtually unknown for several centuries. This situation changed at the beginning of the 19th century, when a renewed interest in medieval history and literature led
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to the rediscovery and publication of numerous works. The editors of this period were not only scholars, but also antiquarians, bibliophiles, and amateurs. As a result, and because there were as yet no rigorous standards for the editing of medieval texts, the nature and reliability of these early editions varied greatly. The quality of the texts produced depended largely on the number and quality of MSS known to the editor and on his skill in reading the witnesses and correcting their errors, either by combining variants from other known MSS or through conjectural emendation. Moreover, editorial procedures differed widely, and editors did not always feel the need to inform their readers about the provenance of the lessons adopted: whereas Francisque Michel, for example, published a text of the Chanson de Roland (1837) that closely adhered to the oldest known witness, Dominique Martin Méon silently combined lessons from twelve MSS to create as complete a text as possible of the Roman de Renart (4 vols., 1826). As the century progressed, Medieval History and Medieval Literary Studies continued to gain importance and would eventually establish themselves as recognized disciplines within the academic world. This led to the inclusion of medieval literature in university curricula, the founding of institutions specialized in the study of MSS and archival materials, and the creation of learned societies and editorial collections for the publication of medieval works (e.g., Les Anciens Poëtes de la France, 1856; Deutsche Klassiker des Mittelalters, 1864; EETS, 1864; Chaucer Society, 1865; SATF, 1875; Società dantesca, 1888). As the discipline became increasingly professionalized, scholars sought to elaborate a series of norms and scientific methods that would guarantee the quality of their research and publications. The debates that took place and the methodological innovations that were introduced in the late 19th and early 20th century have had a long-lasting influence on the theory and practice of medieval textual philology. Almost all modern discussions center around two methods that pursue opposing goals: a documentary approach, that aims to reproduce faithfully the documents that have come down to us, and a reconstructive approach, that attempts to go beyond the documentary evidence in order to restore the text of the author’s lost original. In the history of editing, these opposing approaches are not new; the arguments set forward in the modern period and, to some degree, the methods adopted, however, are. In classical and medieval studies, these two approaches have come to be associated (rightly or not) with two major figures: the German classical scholar Karl Lachmann (1793–1851), and the French medievalist Joseph Bédier (1864–1938).
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B.2. The “Lachmannian” Method This editorial approach – variously referred to as the scientific, commonerror, stemmatic, or recension method – was devised in order to establish a text which approximates as closely as possible the author’s original work in cases where the original has been lost, but where multiple copies have survived. Ideally, the systematic nature of the early stages of the editorial work was to allow for establishing the majority of the critical text by objective, mechanical procedures (recensio). Whereas previous editors had often based their texts on an incomplete knowledge of the extant MSS or had given undue preference to the lessons contained in the largest number of witnesses, in the vulgate (textus receptus), or in a single MS deemed the most reliable (because of age, completeness or correctness), the new method insisted on the need to examine all the surviving MS evidence and to establish the critical text based on a precise knowledge of the relationships that exist between the various copies and between these copies and the original. The determination of these relationships is based on the principle of common error, according to which two copies that make the same mistake in the same passage must be related to one another: either one MS was copied from the other, or both derive from a third copy that contained the error but which no longer exists. On the basis of these errors, the filiation of the MSS is established: the MSS are grouped into families, and the relationship of these families to the lost original is defined by positing a minimal series of lost intermediaries. Ideally, these relationships are represented graphically in the form of a stemma codicum (genealogical tree of MSS). In the final stage of recension, the stemma serves to reconstruct step by step the lost intermediaries between the extant MSS and the original, until reaching the oldest common ancestor of all surviving copies (the archetype). In its simplest form, the reconstruction obeys a more or less mechanical procedure. If it can be ascertained that the MSS fall into three main families, the text of the common ancestor is automatically established by the agreement of any two of them, unless it can be shown that they agree in an error. If the MSS form only two families, the text of the common ancestor can be determined whenever the two families agree; if they disagree, and both lessons are acceptable, the editor must rely on other sources or on his own judgment to establish the authentic text. This last operation belongs to the second phase of the editing procedure (examinatio), in which the editor examines the reconstructed text and attempts to determine if it corresponds to the original work as written by the author. In cases where the editor is faced with two variants of equal stem-
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matic value, the text is to be established either by selecting one or by conjecturing a third lesson that can explain the divergence in the MS tradition. Even if the reconstructed text does not present variants, however, it must be examined in all passages in order to detect and emend corruptions. Since the MSS can offer no more assistance, corrections will necessarily be introduced by conjecture (divinatio), informed by an intimate knowledge of the author’s language, style, and intellectual milieu. The successive operations of recensio and examinatio produce a critical reconstruction that resembles the texts offered by extant witnesses, but is identical to none of them; in the “Lachmannian” perspective, these copies are merely a means to attaining the ultimate goal, which is the recovery of the original work of the author. Although most often referred to as the “Lachmannian” method, this editorial approach was in fact not invented by the great German scholar, nor, does it seem, was it even employed by him. Sebastiano Timpanaro (La genesi del metodo del Lachmann [1963], 2nd ed. 2003) has shown that the various concepts and techniques that compose the stage of recension are the result of a collective endeavor begun by classical and biblical scholars in the 18th century; key principles were developed by such early critics as Johann Albrecht Bengel (1687–1752), Johann Jacob Wettstein (1693–1754), and Friedrich August Wolf (1759–1824). The first systematic description of the mechanical method in its canonical form would come only much later, when in 1927 Paul Maas published his slender volume on textual criticism (Textkritik, 4th ed. 1960; Elio Montanari, La critica del testo secondo Paul Maas, 2003). Lachmann himself seems to have had little interest in stemmatics. While he was a tireless and talented editor of medieval German and classical texts, and although he greatly impressed contemporaries with his detailed description of the archetype of the extant MSS of Lucretius’ De rerum natura, his editions were largely based on what he determined to be the best MS of each work and he never attempted to reconstruct an archetypal text by mechanical application of a stemma (Giovanni Fiesoli, La genesi del lachmannismo, 2000). The method continued to gain favor amongst critics, however, and by the end of the 19th century it had entered most fields of medieval studies. In the romance literatures, the first detailed exposition and full application of the new method came with Gaston Paris’ 1872 edition of the Old French Vie de saint Alexis. In a lengthy introduction, Paris not only explained and demonstrated the technique of establishing the substantive lessons in his critical text (“critique des leçons”), but also offered a more than 100-page study of the original language of the poem (“critique des formes”), which formed the basis for his linguistic reconstruction of the work. Doubts and
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misgivings were expressed by early reviewers and critics, but the new technique won large acceptance from practicing editors and by the beginning of the 20th century it had been used to produce important editions in a number of medieval literatures: e.g. editions by Léopold Constans of the Roman de Thèbes (1890), by Michele Barbi of Dante’s Vita nuova (1907), by Carl Appel of Bernart de Ventadorn’s poetry (1915), by John Manly and Edith Rickert of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (8 vols., 1940). In Spain, where the number of extant witnesses is generally much lower than in other national literatures, the stemmatic method, which is designed to deal with multiple-MS traditions, would only be introduced much later and in a more evolved form: the first applications to works in medieval Castillian came in 1964 with Alberto Vàrvaro’s Premesse a un’edizione critica delle poesie minori di Juan de Mena and Giorgio Chiarini’s edition of the Libro de buen amor (Alberto Blecua, “Los textos medievales castellanos y sus ediciones,” RPh 45 [1991]: 73–88). B.3. Joseph Bédier While the stemmatic method met with some early resistance, the strongest challenge would come at the beginning of the 20th century from the student of one of its most fervent promoters. In 1913, Joseph Bédier, who had studied under Gaston Paris, published his second edition of Le lai de l’ombre; with its polemical introduction and iconoclastic editorial approach, it severely shook confidence in the scientific method. In his first edition of the poem (1890), Bédier had adopted the then prevalent editorial method: basing analysis on the principle of common error, he determined that the seven extant MSS divided themselves into two major families; he then proceeded to establish the critical text according to the stemma he had devised, and finally rewrote the work in what he deemed to be Jean Renart’s original language. The edition was reviewed by Paris, who contended that Bédier’s stemma was faulty: the MSS formed three families, not two; the text could therefore be reconstructed mechanically. When Bédier returned to the text some twenty years later, however, he would reject the “Lachmannian” method altogether. His contestation stems from the study of other editions of Old French texts. While three-branch stemmas appear in preliminary studies and critical reviews, scholars who actually publish editions of medieval texts arrive almost invariably at two-branch stemmas: of the eighty editions he consulted, seventy-eight were based on bipartite stemmas. This “surprising law” of textual editing was, he argued, evidence of a methodological flaw: that the extant copies all derive from two exemplars may very well be the case for
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some texts, but the systematic nature of this conclusion “indicates that we are most often not in the presence of true facts of the history of textual transmission, but of phenomena that occur in the minds of textual editors” (1913, xxvii). He explained the predominance of two-branch stemmas by the unconscious desire of editors to maintain control over the establishment of their critical texts and exercise their judgment when faced with two variants, rather than blindly follow a mechanical two-against-one rule that imposed the choice of lessons. Therefore, while in theory the “Lachmannian” method appeared to be scientific and objective, in practice it allowed for a subjective representation of the facts and an arbitrary reconstruction of the text. In the specific case of the Lai de l’ombre, Bédier strove to show that the common-error method was incapable of producing unequivocal results. His demonstration is based on three main considerations. First, one of the two MS families he had identified in 1890 contained no obvious errors and the reality of the family was therefore impossible to prove: in such a case, the decision to group the MSS in one family, as he had done, or to divide them into two separate families, as Paris proposed, was arbitrary. In the absence of errors, the method was incapable of providing a solution. Secondly, the “Lachmannian” method is based on an unexamined assumption that the original (or the archetype) was without flaw, and that the MS transmission of the text was an uninterrupted process of degradation at the hands of incompetent scribes. Surely, Bédier argued, this was not the only possibility: when, for example, one of his MS families presented an error absent from the other, it was equally possible that the error was already present in the archetype and that the seemingly correct lesson was no more than a scribal emendation. Finally, faced with one very innovative MS of the Lai de l’ombre, he declared that it was not possible to decide whether its text represented the work of an intelligent scribe – in which case its individual lessons should be eliminated – or a second authorial redaction – in which case it was to be considered apart from the rest of the tradition. Bédier concluded that the interpretation of the MS evidence could lead to the elaboration of different stemmas and to the constitution of different critical texts; the reconstruction of the lost “original” was therefore “generally nothing more than one more or less plausible, but unverifiable hypothesis, arbitrarily chosen from amongst several others that are equally plausible and equally unverifiable” (xl). Refusing to base his edition on such questionable grounds, Bédier chose to reproduce the text of one witness and to introduce only a minimal number of corrections. As his base MS, he chose what he considered to be a “good manuscript,” i. e. one that was not necessarily the closest to the original, since this was impossible to determine, but that presented the fewest
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number of individual lessons and that the editor was therefore less often tempted to correct. In the 962 lines of the poem, Bédier intervened only 34 times, in order to eliminate obvious scribal errors. Because the new method he advocated did not function mechanically and because the subjective nature of weighing variants was explicitly recognized, he provided numerous textual notes, convinced as he was that for this type of edition “the editor must endeavor to justify his choice in each doubtful case” (xliv). The first response to Bédier’s challenge came from the French biblical scholar Dom Henri Quentin, who had devised what he considered a more mathematical and objective stemmatic method in order reconstruct the text of the Vulgate (Essais de critique textuelle [ecdotique], 1926). Quentin advocated a method based on the comparison of all MS variants and not just their errors. By a statistical analysis of the agreement and disagreement between the MSS, he claimed it was possible to arrive at an objective determination of the MS families and their relationships to the lost original. Though concentrating on the text of the Vulgate, Quentin applied his method to the Lai de l’ombre and drew up a stemma for the MS tradition that was different from both Bédier’s and Paris’. Bédier’s reply came almost immediately, in the form of a cogent, polemical critique of stemmatic methods: “La tradition manuscrite du Lai de l’ombre. Réflexions sur l’art d’éditer les anciens textes” (R 54 [1928]: 161–96 and 321–56). Reiterating his arguments of 1913 against “Lachmannian” reconstructive techniques and the composite texts they produced, Bédier went on to show that Quentin’s proposed modifications produced results that were no more certain and that the text reconstructed according to his stemma was esthetically unsatisfying. Bédier’s main argument rests, again, on the impossibility of reaching an unequivocal interpretation of the MS tradition based on the variant distribution. If Quentin’s method, like Lachmann’s, succeeded in grouping the MSS into families, neither, he argued, could determine the exact relationships of these families to one another and to the lost original. In addition to the four possible stemmas he had drawn up in his 1913 edition, he now added seven more – including Quentin’s – that were equally possible, and equally unverifiable. Since each stemma would produce a different critical text, Bédier contended that editors of medieval texts in the vernacular should refrain from reconstructing originals until such a time as editorial methods might provide us with the one “true” stemma. Generalizing from his experience with the Lai de l’ombre, he concluded with the following recommendation:
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Therefore, the most commendable editorial method is perhaps, in final analysis, one dictated by an attitude of distrust of oneself, of prudence, of extreme “conservatism,” and by a strong, indeed unyielding determination to trust scribes as much as possible and to modify the text of the manuscript one is publishing only in cases of extreme and nearly self-evident necessity: all conjectural emendations should be relegated to an appendix (356).
In calling for conservative single-MS editions, Bédier not only rejected reconstructionist methods, he also ultimately rejected the values on which they were predicated. Inverting the “Lachmannian” view both in his demonstration and in his final recommendation, he transformed the traditional defiance of scribal copies into defiance of oneself: copyists were now to be “trusted”; and their copies were no longer a mere means to end: given the impossibility of attaining the authorial original, they had become an end in themselves. In the years following, notably in his work on the Chanson de Roland (1927, 1937–1938), Bédier would endorse and practice an increasingly conservative adherence to the base MS. The approach recommended by Bédier was not entirely new. Editions that offered the text of a single MS with minimal emendations had been published by many early editors and advocated by such scholars as Hermann Paul and Gustav Roethe (Leithandschriftenprinzip); contemporary editors of Old English were already shifting to an even more conservative, diplomatic approach. Bédier’s importance, however, lies in the fact that his self-proclaimed “return” to pre-scientific editorial techniques rests upon a methodical examination and critical rejection of the “Lachmannian” method, and offers a clearly articulated theoretical justification for single-MS editions. Reactions to Bédier’s propositions varied according to national traditions: whereas the majority of editors of Old French texts, for example, quickly adopted them, such conservative principles were slow to spread into the neighboring fields of Spanish and German literatures; in general, Italian editors and editors of medieval Latin texts have strongly opposed them (see Pratiques philologiques en Europe, ed. Frédéric Duval, 2006 and Scholarly Editing, ed. David C. Greetham, 1995). B.4. Merits and Limitations Both methods have their strengths and weaknesses. Alongside the obligation to examine the entire body of available evidence, one of the greatest contributions of the “Lachmannian” method is the principle of common error, i. e. the realization that amidst all the lessons shared by different MSS, only the agreement in errors is pertinent for retracing MS filiation. The discovery of this principle, grounded in the very nature of scribal activity, was
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a milestone in the historical understanding of MS transmission and has had a profound impact on the evaluation of extant documents. At the same time, as Bédier showed, the immediate usefulness of this principle was limited, and at times counteracted, by the fact that the “Lachmannian” method, at least in its early formulation, adopted a simplistic view of MS transmission and assumed that all copies derived from a single archetype in a linear descent that could be characterized as a slow but constant degradation of the original. Other criticisms, such as the argument of circularity (errors are used to establish a stemma that determines error) or the idea that the method leads only to subjective, modern rewritings of ancient texts, are unfounded (D’Arco Silvio Avalle, “La critica testuale,” GRLMA t. 1 [1972]: 538–58, rpt. as “Fenomenologia ecdotica del Medioevo romanzo,” La doppia verità, 2002, 142–45; R. B. C. Huygens, Ars edendi, 2001, 40). One of the great merits of Bédier’s challenge resides in his reevaluation of scribal activity, which has brought about a heightened awareness of the complexity of MS transmission and the intrinsic value of scribal copies; and his call for single-MS editions and editorial justification of all doubtful passages has fostered undeniable progress in the linguistic analysis of medieval texts. For a number of scholars, however, Bédier’s radical skepticism is no less dangerous than the naïve optimism of some early “Lachmannians,” since it denies the possibility of studying an essentially historical phenomenon from a historical perspective and thereby leads to a misrepresentation of medieval texts by placing the editor, and reader, at the mercy of capricious scribes. It has been argued, moreover, that Bédier’s conclusions are exaggerated: while the study of one MS tradition (the Lai de l’ombre) indeed highlights certain limitations of the “Lachmannian” method, it by no means impeaches its general usefulness or its validity for other traditions. In this respect, however, it has also been noted that Bédier’s attitude towards “Lachmannian” techniques was in fact less radical than some of his polemical affirmations suggest (Cesare Segre, “L’Après Bédier: Due manuali francesi di critica testuale,” Ecdotica 2 [2005]: 171–82). C. Development and Diversification of Methods Neither of these competing methods has won unanimous favor with editors and the debate continued – and sometimes raged – throughout the 20th century. Whereas some adopted, and even radicalized Bédier’s recommendations, others took up his challenge to “define the limits of [the “Lachmannian” method], to refine it, to make it more flexible, and, thereby, to solidify it” (“La tradition manuscrite …,” 355–56). New orientations, the diversity of practices and the importance of methodological innovations are such that
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current references to the mythical figures of Lachmann and Bédier are often anachronistic and misleading; one may more accurately speak of “author-centered approaches” and “transmission-oriented approaches” (Mary B. Speer). C.1. Author-Centered Approaches Unwilling to abandon the search for a historical understanding of MS transmission, as Bédier had done, and convinced that the “Lachmannian” method offered valuable, if imperfect, techniques for distinguishing between the work of authors and the work of scribes, a number of scholars continued to reflect on the process of MS transmission and the means at the disposal of editors for coming to terms with it. Giorgio Pasquali’s landmark Storia della tradizione e critica del testo (1934), which grew out of a review of Paul Maas’s Textkritik, constitutes a penetrating reevaluation of the method that takes into account the complex nature of MS traditions. Together with Michele Barbi’s La nuova filologia (1938), Pasquali’s study marked the beginnings of the Italian school of New Philology that was founded on the conviction that editors needed to exercise their judgment at all stages of the editing process and adopt a case-by-case approach, since no method could claim universal validity: “each text presents a specific critical problem, each problem has its own solution, and […] editions are not established according to a model or […] by a machine” (Barbi, 1938, x). Building on the “Lachmannian” legacy and attempting to render it more historical and less mechanical, these scholars believed that the editor’s main task remained the reconstitution of the author’s original text from the entire MS tradition. With the following generation of Italian scholars, nuova filologia evolved into the influential school of “neo-Lachmannian” criticism (a term coined by Gianfranco Contini). A similar attitude and similar goals were adopted by contemporary textual critics in other countries – often referred to as “eclectic” editors. Over the course of the last century, continued reflection by editors who have refused the single-MS approach has striven to implement more rigorous definitions of concepts and a more judicious application of techniques, to specify the limits of the “Lachmannian” method, and to discover new criteria that could complement traditional techniques or be used in their stead. C.1.1. Common Errors Given that the very act of copying lends itself to certain characteristic mistakes (Louis Havet, Manuel de critique verbale appliquée aux textes latins, 1911) and that scribes tend to intervene and correct errors in their exemplars, Maas argued as early as 1937 for a more stringent selection of errors and
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a more methodical examination of their significance for the establishment of the stemma (“Stemmatica,” rpt. in Textkritik, appendix; cf. Pasquali, 1934, 17). In order for a shared error to be stemmatically relevant, it must be a “significant error” (Leitfehler), i. e., a mistake such that one may reasonably exclude the possibility that two scribes committed it independently or that another copyist corrected it by conjecture. To establish MS families with certainty, the significance of the errors must be determined by distinguishing those that demonstrate kinship between two copies (errores coniunctivi) and those that prove their independence (errores separativi). Some more recent editors have also argued in favor of the stemmatic value of innovations and interpolations that can be surely identified as such. C.1.2. Recentiores, non deteriores Contrary to a previously common assumption, it has been proven that older MSS are not necessarily less corrupt than more recent ones and that the quality of a witness is in fact independent of its age (Pasquali, 1934), a fact that underscores the necessity to examine carefully the entire MS tradition. C.1.3. Two-Branch Stemmas Recent scholarship has shown that while bipartite stemmas predominate, they are not as systematic as Bédier claimed. Purely statistical explanations for this prevalence have been advanced, but fail to convince; current views tend to consider either that a number of bipartite stemmas result from insufficient analysis of MS traditions on the part of editors, or that their predominance in fact results from the material conditions of medieval MS production (Armando Balduino, Manuale di filologia italiana [1979], 3rd ed. 2001, 354–60). C.1.4. Types of Manuscript Traditions Critical reflection on various traditions has lead to a better understanding of the complexity of MS transmission and its relevance to textual editing. Pasquali proposed a typology distinguishing, on the one hand, traditions in which scribes were content to merely copy their exemplars (closed traditions) from those in which they more or less freely intervened in the text they were copying (open traditions), and, on the other, traditions in which each copy was based on a single exemplar (vertical traditions) from those in which MSS from one family were contaminated through consultation of members of another family (horizontal traditions). Since the early mechanical procedures of the “Lachmannian” method assumed, and were therefore only applicable to closed, vertical traditions, editors searching to restore the au-
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thor’s original but faced with other types of transmission had to proceed with extreme caution, adopt other means, or limit their ambitions. Pursuing Pasquali’s reflections, Alberto Vàrvaro has explored differences between medieval and ancient traditions and the techniques used by their respective editors (“Critica dei testi classica e romanza. Problemi comuni ed esperienze diverse,” RAN 45 [1970]: 73–117, rpt. in: Identità linguistiche e letterarie nell’Europa romanza, 2004, 567–612). C.1.5. Multiple Redactions and Authorial Variants Pasquali was also one of the first scholars to accord critical attention to the fact that ancient and medieval authors, like their modern counterparts, at times produced more than one version of their works. While this is obvious in cases like that of Petrarch, where autograph or partially autograph copies have survived, the distinction between authorial variants and scribal innovations can often be difficult to make. Subsequent research has established minimal stemmatic criteria for the identification of authorial redactions (Balduino, Manuale, 378–79), but the distinction can be blurred in instances where the author revised a corrupt scribal copy rather than a pristine copy of the original redaction. C.1.6. Contamination Medieval correctors at times revised MSS on exemplars from different families, inscribing corrections and variants in the margins or between lines of text. When such a MS in turn served as model, the new copy could contain lessons derived from two different families, thus obscuring its place in the tradition. While rampant contamination can render the establishment of a stemma impossible, scholars have devised criteria for identifying contamination, for determining its nature and degree in various traditions, and for limiting, if not eliminating the risks it poses to critical reconstructions (Maas, Textkritik, § 10; Segre, “Appunti sul problema delle contaminazioni nei testi in prosa,” Studi e problemi di critica testuale, ed. Raffaele Spongano, 1961, 63–67, rpt. in: Ecdotica e comparatistica romanze, 1998, 71–74; Avalle, Principî di critica testuale [1972], 2002, § 3.3). C.1.7. Lectio difficilior, lectio potior Based on the observation that scribes tend to replace unfamiliar words and constructions with more familiar ones, this old axiom asserts that a more difficult or idiosyncratic lesson contained in one or more MSS is more likely to be authentic than other banal lessons offered by the tradition. Because this principle, like that of usus scribendi, trumps the rule of stemmatic majority,
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thus offering a corrective to the mechanical nature of the stemma, it has attracted a good deal of attention. Gianfranco Contini, in a series of penetrating contributions dating from 1953–1977 (now in Breviario di ecdotica, 1986), showed how difficult lessons create a phenomenon of diffraction in the MS tradition, with various scribes either misreading the lesson or replacing it with a more common synonym; the occurrence of this phenomenon in traditions where the lectio difficilior has been preserved by at least one witness leads to positing a lectio difficilior, and correcting by conjecture, when it has not been, but when the tradition shows such a typical dispersion of variants. The plausibility of this type of conjectural emendation is reinforced by the serial nature of certain phenomena within the same work or the same historical period. Maurizio Perugi, a student of Contini, has further refined the concept and invested it with greater methodological importance in his editions of Arnaut Daniel (1978) and La vie de saint Alexis (2000). C.1.8. Usus scribendi Like the concept of lectio difficilior, the linguistic and stylistic traits of the author are extra-stemmatic criteria that have received much attention from theorists and practitioners. In cases where the common-error method fails to produce results (due to bipartite stemmas or contamination), some recent scholars have given it a central role in the establishment of the critical text. Good examples of this are Alfred Foulet’s “grid-editing” (“On Grid-Editing Chrétien de Troyes,” L’Esprit créateur 27 [1987]: 15–23) and George Kane and E. T. Donaldson’s “deep editing” of Piers Plowman (1960, 1975; Lee Patterson, “The Logic of Textual Criticism and the Way of Genius: The Kane-Donaldson Piers Plowman in Historical Perspective,” Negotiating the Past, 1987, 77–113). Assigning the concept a more limited role, Segre has offered a clear theoretical exposition based on the linguistic concept of diasystem and has underscored the need to study the habits of each individual scribe, in order to found editions on a differential analysis of competing linguistic, esthetic and ideological systems that coexist in medieval copies (“Critique textuelle, théorie des ensembles et diasystème,” BCLSMP 62 [1976]: 279–92). C.1.9. Control Manuscripts Faced with problematic traditions, other editors have sought less conjectural means for editing. In cases where the stemma remains uncertain, but the MSS can be divided into families, the control method consists of choosing the best MS of the least innovative family as base and using the best MSS of the other families as controllers (Alexandre Micha, Prolégomènes à une édition de
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Cligès, 1938; id., La tradition manuscrite des romans de Chrétien de Troyes, 1939). This method allows for a limited restoration of the authorial text by eliminating obvious scribal innovations. C.1.10. Use of Computers In the last few decades, some editors have attempted to explore the usefulness of modern technologies for the analysis of MS traditions (e. g. The Canterbury Tales Project Occasional Papers, 1993–). For all its help in managing large amounts of information, however, the computer remains incapable of distinguishing between a minor variant and a significant error, and has thus not brought with it any tangible methodological advantage in this respect. C.2. Transmission-Oriented Approaches Abandoning interventionist methods, others scholars have reaffirmed the primacy and intrinsic interest of individual copies. The motivations for producing conservative editions of scribal copies are varied. In some cases, an individual MS warrants particular interest: autograph MSS, texts copied under the supervision of the author, MSS of particular historical or linguistic value, etc. In other cases, the adoption of this approach to textual editing is prompted by methodological and theoretical concerns. Some editorial projects are closely associated with the elaboration of dictionaries (e. g., EETS, HSMS) and the conservative editorial principles have aimed at supplying lexicographers with a large and varied array of attested words and constructions. Most frequently, however, the adherence to the text of scribal copies results from a perceived impossibility or the affirmed undesirability of reconstructing an authorial version. In almost all cases, the choice to present the text of one or more scribal copies rests on the argument that this type of edition offers the reader access to actual documents that were written and read during the medieval period; its historical, documentary nature is often opposed to the hypothetical nature of reconstructive editions. While the solution adopted seems simple, theory and practice have brought out a certain number of complexities. Over the course of the 20th century, the various solutions devised by editors for presenting scribal copies bears witness to the continuing reflection on the nature of medieval documents and the aims and implications of modern editions. C.2.1. The “Best-Manuscript” Approach Where the decision to present this type of edition rests on a conscious rejection of other methods, the solution implies a rehabilitation of scribal copies. The nature of this promotion and its consequences, however, vary. In the
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case of Bédier, the decision to edit a scribal copy resulted not from the undesirability, but rather from the methodological impossibility of retrieving the authorial original. Although he argued for the historical and esthetic value of scribal copies and suggested the interest of editing all extant copies of medieval works, his own published editions offered the text of only one witness, deemed to be “good” or “the best.” Over the course of the entire history of editing medieval texts, the presentation of one scribal copy of a work is undoubtedly the solution that has most commonly been adopted by practicing editors. While the value of such editions is undeniable, it has been noted that the approach presents other limitations. At the same time it shifts the editor’s and the reader’s attention away from the authorial original, it also runs the risk of turning attention away from the MS tradition as a whole: in its presentation of MS evidence, the best-MS approach in fact does not invest all scribal copies with greater value, but accords a privileged status to one single witness. Other scholars and critical currents have given greater importance to scribal activity and sought new ways to present and understand the dynamic character of textual transmission. A useful distinction may be drawn between approaches that focus on the scribe and those that remain centered on the work. C.2.2. The Scribe-Centered Approach Examining editorial practices and their relationship to the historical reality of textual transmission, Avalle concluded that insufficient attention had been given to individual copyists and the MSS they produced (“La critica testuale,” GRLMA, t. 1, 1972, 546–48). For him, Bédier’s shift from authorial original to scribal copy was incomplete and his recommendation to edit according to conservative principles would remain unproductive so long as the object and the aims of an edition had not also been redefined. As a corrective, he advocated expanding the perspective from single texts to complete MSS containing multiple texts. In this larger framework, he argued, a conservative approach to editing found its legitimate application and could contribute to a genuine renewal of MS studies: by integrating the study of the treatment of individual texts into a global vision of the MS as a coherent cultural program, such an approach would afford a more complete picture of medieval scribal activity while at the same time offering invaluable insights into the cultural and historical significance of MSS (concrete linguistic usage, medieval “editorial techniques,” the chronological and geographical diffusion of texts, the existence of scriptoria, the role of entire MSS in textual transmission, etc.). This renewed approach to scribal activity informs not only his study of the occitan tradition (La letteratura medievale in lingua d’oc
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nella sua tradizione manoscritta, 1961), but also his edition of early Italian lyric MSS (Concordanze della lingua poetica italiana delle origini, 1992). C.2.3. Work-Centered Approaches and the Concept of “mouvance” Whereas Avalle focused on individual scribes whose activity could be observed through multiple texts, other editors and theorists have sought to understand scribal activity by concentrating on the multiple manifestations of individual works. This has led to editions that rather than, or in addition to presenting a single critical text, offer editions or transcriptions of all major redactions or even of every single witness of a given work. While in and of itself the decision to edit multiple versions of a medieval text is by no means indicative of the rejection of the authorial original (as witness the editions of the Vie de saint Alexis by Gaston Paris [1872], or Guido Faba’s Formule volgari by Arrigo Castellani [SFI 13 (1955): 5–78]), the approach has become more frequent and has inspired – and in turn been inspired by – a radical redefinition of the concepts of “author” and “work.” Building on his study of lyric poetry in a neo-traditionalist perspective, Paul Zumthor coined the term “mouvance” (see also Roy Rosenstein’s contribution in this Handbook of Medieval Studies) in order to underscore what he considered to be one of the defining characteristics of medieval literature: its inherent instability, as seen in the course of its transmission (Essai de poétique médiévale, 1972, 65–75 and 507). He conceived this instability not as a negative phenomenon, but rather as a positive form of re-creation that constitutes the very life of medieval works. In his view, the modern notion of a fixed text attributable to a single author is anachronistic: for the medieval period, the notion of author must be expanded to include the performers and scribes who continually reinterpreted and recreated works; and the abstract notion of a static work must be replaced by a dynamic conception that includes, and is defined by the multiple, concrete manifestations of the work in extant documents. Though Zumthor did not deny the possible existence of an original authorial composition, his conception of medieval textuality refuses any esthetic priority to such an original, whose relevance is reduced to that of a reference point from which to measure the textual variance of its individual materializations. It is the latter, he argued, that constitutes the proper subject of scientific enquiry. Such a radical redefinition of the nature of medieval works and the aims of scholarly research questions the traditional notions upon which textual philology was founded, and goes beyond Bédier’s views by attributing, at least virtually, the same value to all copies of a given work. Similar revisions have since been pursued in other fields, such as that by Hubert Heinen who developed the
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concept of Mutabilität in his study of German lyric (Mutabilität im Minnesang, 1989). This new conception of medieval textuality may be responsible for an increasing number of parallel-text editions, but has remarkably not lead to a full-scale revolution in editing techniques. The first, and one of the only editions, to be explicitly based on Zumthor’s theory of mouvance illustrates well the difficult relationship between theories of literature and the concrete practice of editing. Published in 1978, Rupert T. Pickens’s edition of Jaufre Rudel’s occitan lyrics reproduces the texts of all extant witnesses, but organizes them according to their greater or lesser proximity to the poet’s lost original, thus reintroducing a “Lachmannian” hierarchy based on the notion of textual authority. Later parallel-text editions have shown a similar tendency (see Mary B. Speer, “Wrestling with Change: Old French Textual Criticism and Mouvance,” Olifant 7 [1980]: 311–26; id., “Editing Old French Texts in the Eighties: Theory and Practice,” RPh 45 [1991]: 7–43). Though paradoxical within this theoretical framework, attempts to establish the relative authority of different lessons or redactions are not entirely illogical, for if MS variance is to be understood, and not just reproduced, it can only be evaluated with respect to the putative original. Further theoretical reflections on the fundamental instability of medieval works and on the relevance of the concept of authority have been offered by scholars such as Bernard Cerquiglini, in his highly polemical Eloge de la variante (1989), and Tim W. Machan, in Textual Criticism and Middle English Texts (1994). While rightly underscoring the difficulty of representing MS variance in print format, both works have been faulted for failing to bridge the gap between theory and practice by proposing new editorial solutions and, especially in the case of Cerquiglini, for placing too much faith in computer-based editions, a medium which is no less anachronistic than the printed book. The potential influence of such work on concrete editing practice remains to be seen. C.2.4. Conservative Emendation Whatever the theoretical and practical concerns that motivate transmissionoriented editions, conservative editors remain faced by the question of when and how much to correct. Answers to these questions have varied, as the goals of editors and their conception of what an edited text should represent have differed. In order to reduce the number of potentially unjustified alterations of the documentary evidence, Bédier and many other editors have advocated correcting only obvious scribal errors. As early as 1939, Eugène Vinaver analyzed the concrete process of copying in order to establish a typology
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of purely mechanical errors and thereby provide objective criteria for such limited editorial intervention (“Principles of Textual Emendation,” Studies in French Language and Mediaeval Literature presented to Mildred K. Pope, 351–69). The resultant text offers a compromise between respect for the scribal copy and the desire to produce a text that is intelligible. To some degree, it also constitutes a compromise between the scribal copy and the authorial original, since in order to establish an acceptable text editors will at times correct an error that appears not only in their base MS, but also in the entire MS family to which it belongs. A similar tension between the original and the copy arises when in versified texts a semantically and grammatically sound lesson runs counter to meter: while emendation is not rare, some recent editors have preferred to retain the scribal variant. Alongside conservative editions that present varying degrees of intervention, a number of scholars choose to publish transcriptions of scribal copies without any editorial emendation. The aim of such diplomatic or near-diplomatic editions is to provide an exact documentation of the MS evidence, the interpretation of which is either provided elsewhere or left to the reader. D. The Diversity of Problems and the Variety of Solutions Although approaches to editing medieval texts and the theoretical models that inspire them differ widely, the acrimony of the debate between different schools of thought has abated in recent years as readers and editors have increasingly realized the validity and complementary nature of apparently opposing critical stances. Both author-centered and transmission-oriented approaches have, in various ways, made us aware of the complex nature of medieval textuality and scribal activity. Certain approaches are characteristic of various national and critical traditions, but individual editors continue to question their methods, attempt to adapt their strategies to the nature of the specific work they are editing, and explore new ways of understanding and presenting MS evidence. D.1. Production and Diffusion Progress in research into various aspects of the creation and circulation of medieval texts allows for a continually better informed, more nuanced approach to editing. Reflection on specific metrical traditions, for example, has underscored the problems posed by certain types of verse, regional practices, and diachronic evolutions that affect the work of editors (Middle English alliterative verse, anisosyllabism in Castillian, Anglo-Norman, Sicilian, etc.). Much work has been devoted to the specific issues raised by differing modes of composition and of diffusion for various genres and types of texts (oral
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vs. written transmission; the pecia-system; romance, epic, translations, technical texts, etc.). Among the fastest growing fields of inquiry are those of MS studies and of research on individual scribal copies. From the notion of “the scribe as editor” to “New Codicology,” these studies offer an increasingly clear view of the general mechanisms of MS variance while at the same time demonstrating that each scribal copy represents a more or less personal and coherent linguistic, esthetic, and ideological project in the framework of which individual innovations may be understood. D.2. Approaches Informed by such considerations, the diversity of current editorial practice not only illustrates attempts to adapt methods to varying material circumstances, but also attests to the vitality of reflection on what a critical edition can or should be. D.2.1. Single-MS Traditions The conservation of a medieval text by only one non-autograph witness imposes severe limitations on any attempt to restore the lost original. Editors therefore tend to adopt a conservative approach, or opt for diplomatic or semi-diplomatic editions. The fact that only one MS has survived, however, is not in and of itself an argument in favor of a diplomatic transcription. Careful consideration of internal and external evidence – such as authorial usage, scribal error patterns, genre, period, linguistic usage, or indirect testimony – can allow for restoring a certain number of critical passages. Though rarely applied to texts whose interest is primarily linguistic or historical, a more interventionist approach has at times been taken to literary texts. The Cantar de Mio Cid offers a good example of the various possibilities: the unique MS that preserves its text has been published in a diplomatic transcription (Ramón Menéndez Pidal [1908–1911], Obras completas, 1964–1969, 3: 907–1016), reproduced in facsimile (1982), and edited according to both conservative (ed. Colin Smith, 1972) and more interventionist principles (ed. Alberto Montaner, 1993). Exemplary editions offer detailed codicological analyses of the sole surviving witness, and departures from the documentary evidence are often signaled directly in the critical text by the use of diacriticals. Since there are no MS variants to document, some editors have used the critical apparatus to record the conjectural emendations of previous scholars, thus providing a valuable tool for future research and reflection on the text (see also: Edmond Faral, “A propos de l’édition des textes anciens: Le cas du manuscrit unique,” Mélanges Clovis Brunel, 1955, 1: 409–21; Rudolf Hofmeister, “The Unique Manuscript in Mediaeval German Lit-
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erature,” Seminar 12 [1972]: 8–25; Germán Orduna, “La edición crítica y el codex unicus: el texto del Poema de Mio Cid,” Incipit 17 [1997]: 1–46.). D.2.2. Originals The existence of original documents, autograph and partially autograph MSS create a situation similar to that of single-MS traditions, by most often imposing the choice of base MS and inspiring a conservative editorial approach. While the accurate reproduction of such documents is invaluable, original official acts and autograph copies are not always error-free and some critics advocate and practice limited emendation in order to establish the text as it was intended by the writer (cf. Franca B. Ageno, L’edizione critica dei testi volgari, 1975, 2nd ed. 1984, 31–44). Even when the original survives, recent work has shown the importance of examining the entire tradition, since later innovations, such as the falsification of acts, and variant versions by which texts were widely known and cited may have historical significance. (Gli autografi medievali, ed. Paolo Chiesa and Lucia Pinelli, 1994). D.2.3. Multiple Copies In cases where the original has been lost, but multiple copies survive, current editorial practices vary widely as editors continue to explore the full range of possibilities in terms of presentation of MS evidence. The commonly adopted solution of publishing a single critical text tends to imply some degree of editorial intervention, but the goals pursued by editors range from the reproduction of one witness with minimal emendation (e. g., The Fables of ‘Walter of England,’ ed. Aaron E. Wright, 1997) to the restoration of the author’s “ipsissima verba” (Chrétien de Troyes: Le roman de Perceval, ed. Keith Busby, 1993). Editions based on variations of the best-MS approach (Dantis Alagherii Comedia, ed. Federico Sanguinetti, 2001), on eclectic principles (Robert de Boron. Joseph d’Arimathie, ed. Richard O’Gorman, 1995), and on a flexible application of stemmatic methods (Il trovatore Raimon Jordan, ed. Stefano Asperti, 1990) regularly appear. Some editors, aware that a single-text edition may convey an unduly static image of the MS tradition, but convinced that, when feasible, a synthetic presentation of the documentary evidence is desirable, have experimented with the critical apparatus: the organization of variants according to MS families, redactions, or relative pertinence to establishing the text, and the distinction between variants and other elements (rejected lessons, previously proposed emendations) facilitate consultation of the critical apparatus, while at the same time emphasizing the dynamic character of the tradition and the importance of editorial decisions. Other scholars, faced with highly divergent redactions, have attempted to produce
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stratigraphic editions that distinguish successive stages of the work’s evolution by the use of various typographical conventions within the critical text (e. g., La chanson de Roland, ed. C. Segre, 1971; La vie de saint Alexis, ed. M. Perugi, 2000). Editors who, for various reasons, conclude that it is not possible or not desirable to reduce the MS tradition of the works they are editing to a single version often choose to edit two or more copies in parallel or in sequence. Here, too, practices and aims vary from one edition to the other. For example, A. V. C. Schmidt’s parallel-text edition of the A, B, C, and Z versions of Langland’s Piers Plowman (1995) focuses attention on the relationships between these four supposedly authorial redactions, while Neil Wright’s edition of the Historia regum Britannie (1985–1991) contrasts the authorial text with later variant versions. Less concerned with authority, Willem Noomen and Nico van den Boogaard offer diplomatic transcriptions of all MS witnesses of the Old French fabliaux (NRCF, 1983–2001), thus supplying a wealth of raw material that invites inquiry into all aspects of the diffusion of these comic tales. And, going a step further by offering individual editions of every extant witness, collaborative editions like those of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (gen. ed. David Dumville, and Simon Keynes, 1983–), the German poet Neidhart (ed. Ulrich Müller, Ingrid Bennewitz, and Franz V. Spechtler, 2007) or the Chanson de Roland (dir. Joseph J. Duggan, 2005) elevate scribal copies to the status of works in their own right. D.2.4. Complete-MS Editions A number of recent editors have taken a different approach to medieval texts and scribes by editing entire composite MSS. Following Avalle’s example, Francesco Carapezza produced an edition of a songbook, accompanied by a lengthy study: Il canzoniere occitano G (Ambrosiano R 71 sup.) (2005). Other, more diversified MSS have been edited by Middle Dutch scholars, who show particular interest in this type of edition: since 1994, the Middeleeuwse verzamelhandschriften uit de Nederlanden series has published ten complete-MS editions. While it is curious to note that MSS have not yet been elevated to the same artistic and intellectual status as some of the scribal versions of individual works they may contain – complete-MS are transcribed diplomatically, not edited critically – this type of edition offers interesting new perspectives on linguistic usage, scribal activity, and social and cultural aspects of the codex.
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D.3. The Letter An apparently minute aspect of editing, but one that continues to provoke reflection, is that of accidentals, and in particular the question of how words and letters are to be represented in the published text. Answers have varied over time, and in some fields the issue is not yet settled. Early editors had a tendency to rewrite medieval texts: Lachmann, for example, convinced that medieval poets wrote in a literary koine, regularized orthography and eliminated dialectal traits, whereas a number of romance scholars attempted to systematically recreate the presumed dialect of authors. Such reconstructions have been criticized for obscuring important aspects of medieval linguistic usage, and in most – though not all – fields have been abandoned in favor of a greater fidelity to the forms actually present in the MSS. Some linguists and critics have objected to other types of intervention, notably in terms of modernization (resolution of abbreviations, modern word-division and punctuation, etc.), and individual editors continue to seek an acceptable compromise between fidelity to the MSS and adaptation to a modern public. D.4. From Page to Screen While the use of computers has not had a profound impact on editorial techniques, it clearly offers new possibilities in terms of presentation. By overcoming some of the physical and economic constraints of the printed book, it allows editors to accompany their critical texts with large amounts of supplementary information (complete MS transcriptions, the texts of previous editions, reproductions of miniatures, etc.) and offer an impressive array of search options. A number of projects have already shown the rich potential of this medium, and the diversity of possible formats: entirely webbased editions (José Manuel Lucía Megías, Literatura románica en internet: los textos, 2002), CD-ROM publications (e. g., Canterbury Tales Project), and combinations of print and digital media (e. g., Ulrich von Zatzikhoven’s Lanzelet, ed. Florian Kragl, 2006). While the quantity of raw material presented in a format that is not always congenial to in-depth study may daunt readers who lack training in textual criticism, the abundant documentation provided by such editions is clearly one of the great advantages of this type of project. The challenge posed to electronic editors, however, may well be that of insuring the long-term conservation and accessibility of their work in the face of rapidly evolving digital technologies.
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D.5. Current Research The vitality of current critical reflection on textual editing is visible not only in the intense, multifarious activity of recent editors and their specific projects, but also in the ever-increasing number of publications devoted to questions of method. Alongside individual monographs and isolated articles, a number of colloquia have made important contributions to the debate: e. g. Atti del XIV congresso internazionale di linguistica e filologia romanza, ed. Alberto Vàrvaro, 1978; Editionsberichte zur mittelalterlichen deutschen Literatur, ed. Anton Schwob, 1994; La critica del testo mediolatino, ed. Claudio Leonardi, 1994; Alte und neue Philologie, ed. Martin-Dietrich Glessgen and Franz Lebsanft, 1997. In addition to such sporadic publications, various permanent fora for discussion have also been established, and periodicals dedicated principally or entirely to editing are increasingly numerous: e.g., Studi e problemi di critica testuale (1970–); Incipit (1981–); TEXT (1984–2006; continued as: Textual Cultures: Texts, Contexts, Interpretation [2006–]); Editio (1987–); Critica del testo (1998–); Variants (2002–); Ecdotica (2004–). Faced with the swell of activity and the proliferation of individual case studies, however, many have felt the need for comprehensive reviews of current practice, as well as for the establishment or reaffirmation of shared norms. This has lead to the publication of numerous manuals and introductions, most often conceived along linguistic or national boundaries: e.g. Armando Balduino, Manuale di filologia italiana, 1979 (3rd ed. 1989; rpt. 2001); Alfred Foulet and Mary Blakely Speer, On Editing Old French Texts, 1979; Alberto Blecua, Manual de crítica textual, 1983 (cf. Hugo Bizzarri, “Veinte años de reflexión sobre crítica textual [1983–2003],” RCPR 4–5 [2003–2004]: 296–318); Thomas Bein, Textkritik, 1990 (2nd ed., 2008); Guide to Editing Middle English, ed. Vincent McCarren and Douglas Moffat, 1998; Ursula Kocher, Einführung in die Editionswissenschaft (forthcoming). By offering an overview of current practices and norms, such works play an important role within the various fields of medieval textual criticism; one may hope that they will also facilitate exchange and discussion across the disciplines. Several recent publications clearly encourage this larger debate by adopting a pluridisciplinary perspective: e.g. Scholarly Editing: A Guide to Research, ed. David C. Greetham, 1995; Filologia classica e filologia romanza: Esperienze ecdotiche a confronto, ed. Anna Ferrari, 1998; Pratiques philologiques en Europe, ed. Frédéric Duval, 2006. E. Conclusions The current rhythm of publication of new editions and critical reflections on editing shows no signs of abating and clearly attests to the vitality and importance of the discipline. Whether they are editors or simply readers of
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medieval texts, scholars are increasingly aware of the ways in which modern editions help shape our understanding of the past and of the symbiotic relationship between textual theories and editorial praxis. Interpretation, reading, and editing are intimately bound together. Over time, approaches to editing and the concepts that inform them have evolved and diversified; and the aims and methods of textual criticism continue to vary according to national traditions, critical orientations, and individual convictions. The diversity of current approaches and the on-going debates are healthy signs, since the practice of editing consists of a constantly renewed effort to discover the strategies best-suited to the materials and to our understanding of them, and there can probably be no “definitive” editions. While the critical edition is established according to tried methods and rigorous standards, it remains a “working hypothesis” (Contini), an interpretation of the documentary evidence and an attempt to convey to the modern reader a certain understanding of a specific historical reality. And it is precisely for this reason that textual editing continues to play a central role in medieval studies. Select Bibliography D’Arco Silvio Avalle, La doppia verità (Florence: Galluzzo, 2002); Joseph Bédier, “La tradition manuscrite du Lai de l’ombre: réflexions sur l’art d’éditer les anciens textes,” R 54 (1928): 161–96 and 321–56 [rpt. independently, Paris: Champion, 1929, 1970]; Conseils pour l’édition des textes médiévaux, 3 vols. (Paris: ENC, 2001–2002); Gianfranco Contini, Breviario di ecdotica (Milan-Naples: Ricciardi, 1986); Deutsche Texte des Mittelalters zwischen Handschriftennähe und Rekonstruktion, ed. Martin J. Schubert (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2005); Pratiques philologiques en Europe, ed. Frédéric Duval (Paris: ENC, 2006); Les problèmes posés par l’édition critique des textes anciens et médiévaux, ed. Jacqueline Hamesse (Louvain-la-Neuve: UCL, 1992); Scholarly Editing: A Guide to Research, ed. David C. Greetham (New York: MLA, 1995); Martin L. West, Textual Criticism and Editorial Technique Applicable to Greek and Latin Texts (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1973).
Craig Baker
English Studies A. Definition Medieval English Studies denotes the modern academic investigation of literature produced in England in the vernacular during the period ca. 650–ca. 1500 CE. Talk of English literature as constituting a single, unified field is problematic, even anathema, since the body of writing has diverse linguistic
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bases, which evolved over time. The English language contains numerous Celtic components derived from the early inhabitants of the British Isles. With the annexing of the territory to the Roman Empire, Latin was installed as the official language of the Church (Richard Gameson, St Augustine and the Conversion of England, 1999), and the vernacular was affected also by the tongues of Norse and Germanic settlers during the first millennium. After the Norman Conquest of the 11th century Norman French operated within England with various linguistic registers (Ian Short, “Patrons and Polyglots: French Literature in Twelfth-Century England,” Anglo-Norman Studies 14 [1991]: 229–49; William Rothwell, “The Trilingual England of Geoffrey Chaucer,” Studies in the Age of Chaucer 16 [1994]: 45–67). For the purposes of the present article Old and Middle English texts are dealt with exclusively and cognate literatures are touched upon as source materials rather than a subject of immediate study. B. Terminological Definition: the Canon of Medieval English Literature B.1. Old English Literature Although verse comprises only about nine per cent of the corpus of extant Old English writing its critical understanding historically dominates the field of pre-Conquest English studies (Robert D. Fulk and Christopher M. Cain, A History of Old English Literature, 2000, 26). A handful of early poems, including Caedmon’s Hymn, the Ruthwell Cross Inscription, Bede’s Death Song, can be dated to the 8th century and are concerned with creation and mortality. The transience of life and wealth are recurrent themes throughout Anglo-Saxon verse, having their efflorescence in elegies like The Wanderer, and Resignation, a poem which likens separation from one’s kin to martyrdom. The Old English poetic record survives in four main manuscripts: London, British Library, MS Cotton Vitellius AV, the so-called “Beowulf-manuscript,” famed for its illustrations of monsters; Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Junius XII, which contains three poetic versions of Old Testament books (Genesis, Exodus, Daniel) together with the poem Christ and Satan; the Exeter Book (Exeter Cathedral Library MS 3501) includes a mixture of saints’ lives (Guthlac A and B, Cynewulf’s Juliana), elegy (The Wanderer, The Seafarer), three poems from the Physiologus or bestiary (The Panther and The Whale and The Partridge), and a set of cryptic riddles; the Vercelli Book (Vercelli Biblioteca Capitolaire CVII) resided largely unnoticed in an Italian library until the 18th century and preserves the hagiographies Andreas and Elene by Cynewulf and The
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Dream of the Rood, a devotional vision centred on the cross of Christ, which bares close verbal affinities with the inscriptions on the Ruthwell Cross. Dating any of these texts is troublesome, since they may have circulated aurally for generations prior to their recording in the present codices (Jeff Opland, Anglo-Saxon Oral Poetry: A Study of the Traditions, 1980). The Vercelli Book is usually ascribed to ca. 970 and MS Cotton Vitellius AV to the first quarter of the 11th century. Heroic poems like Widsi6 in the Exeter book and Beowulf, by far the longest epic in the corpus, make allusion to having been heard and memorialised, but the historical truth, if any, behind the antediluvian stories they recount remains obscure. The Battle of Maldon is atypical, since it refers to an actual event which happened in 991 CE and purports to record the testimony of survivors or observers thereof. Apart from the preeminent genres outlined above (Old Testament poetry, hagiography, epic, elegy, riddles, homily), Old English poetry encompasses a number of modes, which seem not to have lasted into the later Middle Ages. The Gifts of Men in the Exeter Book is based around the parable of the talents found in Matthew 25:14–20, meanwhile The Fates of the Apostles in the Vercelli book, appears as a mnemonic on the deaths of Christ’s followers, intended as an aid to meditation on the life of holiness. The watershed for Anglo-Saxon prose occurred during and after the reign of King Alfred (871–899), who instigated an educational programme, which brought a number of Latin texts into the vernacular for the first time. His Pastoral Care is drawn from Gregory the Great’s Regula Pastoralis and his own added Preface outlines the duty which he feels he has as king, namely to restore the golden age of Anglo-Saxon learning now long past. Other texts translated under Alfred are Boethius from Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy, which exhorts the reader to strive after God, and the Soliloquies, which completes Saint Augustine of Hippo’s dialogue to affirm that one must think always upon the afterlife. Wærferth’s Dialogues also translates Gregory and the anonymous Orosius renders Paulus Orosius’s History Against the Pagans to show the triumph of Christian civilisation over barbarity. Similarly Bede takes the Venerable Bede’s The Ecclesiastical History of the English People as a timely account of the conversion of the English to Roman Christianity. History writing flourished too with the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which provides a mostly retrospective digest for the period 1–1154 CE, with two manuscripts recording the Roman invasion of Britain. The composition of prose saints’ lives came to intervene in the consolidation of a native identity and literary tradition. In the late 9th century, following a precedent established by Bede and others, the Old English Martyrology set 238 vitae to the dates of the calendar. Ælfric, the abbot of Eynsham
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(died ca. 1010), was to take the form one stage further with his two sets of Catholic Homilies and Lives of the Saints. The homilies are organized for recitation over a period of two years so as not to become langsumlic (“tedious”) to the layman. Contemporary anxieties about Danish incursion are enunciated in his hagiographical narratives, palpably in the passio of Saint Edmund King and Martyr. Through his Biblical prefaces Ælfric devised a more straightforward, less verbose manner of composition, attuned to his educative purposes. Archbishop Wulfstan of York (d. 1023), was a prolific homilist like his contemporary Ælfric. His Sermo Lupi ad Anglos (“Sermon of the Wolf to the English”) sees the coming Danish raids as an expression of divine wrath upon the English, with later versions of the text suggesting that the English should remember how God was thought to have used their pagan ancestors as a scourge against the Christian Britons four centuries earlier. Scientific texts dating from the latter end of this period, such as Ælfric’s De temporum anni, medical works like Bald’s Leechbook, and the Old English Lapidary each possess a rhetorical value, but have yet to be drawn into the orbit of literary examination. B.2. Middle English Literature The period of Middle English literature is broadly given as ca. 1100–ca. 1500 C.E. when the Germanic character of the language was transformed by the absorption of Norman French. Early Middle English texts such as The Ormulum, a life of Christ, retained the orthography of Anglo-Saxon as did later works such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (ca. 1380) originating from far beyond the London metropolis. Debate literature continued to be one means of illustrating philosophical arguments. Just as the Old English The Soul’s Address to the Body had set the angry soul against the corrupt body, The Owl and the Nightingale employed fictive avian personae to argue the benefits of a stoical versus a care-free attitude towards life. A small body of latter-day homilies is extant from the 12th century, and from the 13th century there survives literature of guidance like the vernacular rule for anchoresses Ancrene Wisse or Ancrene Riwle and the Wohunge Group, a set of prayers addressed to Christ, and the Katherine Group, a collection of saints’ lives also compiled for female recluses. The production of instructive writing in the vernacular gained necessary impetus from the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, which instituted the requirement of annual confession from the laity. The long didactic poem the Pricke of Conscience and Handlyng Synne seems to succour to just such a need for penance. The works of the hermit Richard Rolle (ca. 1300–1349) became
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hugely popular amongst the clergy and non-clerical devotees. His epistles Ego Dormio, The Commandment and The Form of Living were originally composed for a female anchoritic audience, yet were evidently embraced with enthusiasm by what Pantin was to call “the devout and literate layman,” individuals who had the education, the curiosity and the material means to seek out literature that would nourish their spiritual development (W. A. Pantin, The English Church in the Fourteenth Century, 1955, 262). Far more restricted in their contemporary circulation, though of great modern interest, were the two versions of the Shewings of Julian of Norwich (ca. 1343–post 1416), and the Book of Margery Kempe (ca. 1373–ca. 1439). The latter, a genre defying memoir-cum-auto-hagiography, lay unknown for centuries only to resurface in the 1930s. A large body of saints’ lives survives in collections like the Northern Homily Cycle, the Southern English Legendary and Osbern Bokenham’s (1393–ca. 1467) Legendys of Hooly Wummen, together with the vitae of Saints Katherine, Augustine and Gilbert of Sempringham translated by John Capgrave (1393–1464). Alongside exemplary hagiography later medieval readers could glean an insight into the afterlife through works like The Vision of Tundale and A Vision of Purgatory, a genre already rehearsed in the Old English Vision of Saint Paul. Medieval drama transformed the Scriptures and the life of Christ into public spectacle, with the principal extant records deriving from York, Chester, Wakefield and the semi-anonymous “N-town” in East Anglia. Geoffrey Chaucer’s (ca. 1343–1400) œuvre reveals a keen awareness of the possibilities of pre-existing literary forms, many of them ultimately continental in derivation. In addition to the Canterbury Tales, which included adaptations of the French fabliau and the romance, he reworked the dream vision in The Book of the Duchess. The same genre provided William Langland (ca. 1325–post 1388?) with a vehicle for interrogating abuses of the Church and charity in Piers Plowman and gave rise to a poignant exploration of paternal grief in the poem Pearl. Chaucer, like his contemporary John Gower (ca. 1330–1408), drew upon a rich stock of classical and ancient myth, so for instance, The Man of Law’s Tale and Book II of Gower’s Confessio Amantis both retell the legend of the exiled queen Constance. Gower is notable for straddling the three languages of England, using Latin in the apocalyptic Vox Clamantis (“A Voice Crying Out”) and French in the allegorical Mirour de l’omme (“The Mirror of Man”). The likes of Thomas Hoccleve (ca. 1367–1426) and John Lydgate (ca. 1371–1449) carried over the Chaucerian style of poetry into the 15th century, though these men were always overshadowed by their illustrious predecessor. As well as producing poets of lasting repute, the later Middle Ages saw the rising popularity of “commonplace” and “household”
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manuscripts, compilations often gathering together anonymous materials. One of the most famous examples of this phenomenon is London, British Library, MS Harley 2253, which contains an eclectic variety of religious and secular lyrics. As in the Early Middle Ages the telling of historical narratives continued to assume many guises. Layamon’s Brut (after 1189) drew upon Anglo-Norman and Latin sources to present an alliterative account of the history of England from the arrival of Brutus to Cadwallader (639 CE). The massive Cursor Mundi (“runner of the world”) of ca. 1300 presents the history of the universe from the creation until the apocalypse. In spite of its vivid descriptions of foreign lands and races, the Travels of John Mandeville was likely to be a fabrication, the brainchild of one who may never have ventured much beyond the confines of a well-stocked library. Romance persists in different milieus passing down the centuries. Alongside the refined courtliness of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight there survive numerous later medieval texts termed as “popular romance” by modern day criticism (Ad Putter and Jane Gilbert, The Spirit of Medieval English Popular Romance, 2000). Sir Gowther, The King of Tars and The Squyr of Low Degre are appreciably more explicit and unsettling in their treatment of violence, sex and monstrosity. At the farthest extremity of later Middle English writing the Morte d’Arthur of Sir Thomas Malory (d. 1471) stands as the great summa of Arthurian literature. The extensive emendation of this text by the print pioneer William Caxton in 1485 gives cause to reflect upon how late the standardisation of English had its inception. C. History of Research, Schools of Thought, Approaches C.1. Philology and the Classics in the Academy Attempts to catalogue and describe the early vernacular literature of England began centuries before the development of English as a field for university study. Only decades after Caxton published Malory, John Bale’s (1495–1563) Illustrium majoris Britanniae scriptorum (1548 and 1549), and Leland’s (ca. 1503–1552) de Rebus Brittanicis Collectanea (6 vols., 1716) and Commentarii de scriptoribus britannicis (2 vols., 1709) reviewed the insular literary achievements of recent centuries. Latin literature and authors form the backbone of Leland’s Commentarii, though he does refer to Ælfric’s use of “the Saxon tongue” (lingua Saxonica scriptae) (John Leland, Commentarii, vol. 1, 169), confusing him with the Archbishop of Canterbury of the same name, and laments how later authors who sought to write in Latin were forced to confront the “massive barbarity” (ingens barbaries) (John Leland, Commentarii, vol. 2,
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348; translation James Simpson, Reform and Cultural Revolution: The Oxford English Literary History, vol. 2: 1350–1547, 2002, 25). Stemming from the middle years of the 16th century, a smattering of wordlists, the earliest of which is that of Robert Talbot (ca. 1505–1558), reveal a curiosity with the Old English language. Matthew Parker’s A Testimonie of Antiquitie (1566/1567), which includes items by Ælfric, is believed to have been the first volume to reproduce Anglo-Saxon writing in type. At around the same time Laurence Nowell (1530–ca. 1570) was compiling the Vocabularium Saxonicum, consulted by generations of scholars in manuscript form. It was to be another century before an Old English dictionary was actually published with the appearance of William Somner’s Dictionarium Saxonico-Latino-Anglicum in 1659. Somner derived encouragement from William Camden’s (1553–1623) Remaines of a Greater Worke, Concerning Britaine, the Inhabitants Thereof, Their Languages, Names (1605), an innovative descriptive guide to the Anglo-Saxon heritage of England, touching on architectural remains, language and customs. In 1705 the scope of pre-Conquest learning was to become evident as never before with the addition of Humphrey Wanley’s inventory of manuscripts containing Old English to George Hickes’ earlier Institutiones grammaticae Anglo-Saxonicae, et Moeso-Gothicae (1689). The foundations of modern scholarship on medieval literature are to be found in the 18th and 19th centuries. Popular accounts like Sharon Turner’s History of the Anglo-Saxons (3 vols., 1799–1805) posited an almost evolutionary view of vernacular writing whereby the rude accents of Old English poetry foreshadowed the greater achievements of present day authors. This notion was still current in the time of Macauley (Thomas Babbington Macauley, History of England, 5 vols., 1848). The first recognition for medieval studies within the academy came in 1795 with Richard Rawlinson’s creation and assumption of a Chair in Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University. Rawlinson’s Chair was subsequently occupied by a number of Anglo-Saxonists, although the marginality of Old English literature meant that these were invariably autodidacts. On the other side of the Atlantic, Old English studies had a similarly long gestation period and the University of Virginia became the first college to offer it as a discipline in the 1830s. In the United Kingdom the systematic investigation of early vernacular languages flourished under the aegis of several individuals of exceptional linguistic range. With little in the way of dictionaries to aid him, the palaeographer Sir Frederic Madden used his long-term post at the British Museum to edit Havelok the Dane (1828), Gesta Romanorum (1838), Sir Gawayne and the Grene Knight (1839) which he also discovered, Layamon’s Brut (1847) and the Wycliffite Bible (1850). Two of the early English Anglo-Saxonists of note
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Benjamin Thorpe and John Mitchell Kemble were heavily influenced by continental philologists; the Dane Rasmus Christian Rask in the case of the former and the German Jakob Grimm in the case of the latter. Thorpe published in Copenhagen an English translation of the second edition of Rask’s Anglo-Saxon Grammar (1830) and followed this with, amongst other works, the anthology Analecta Anglo-Saxonica (1834). The latter was embraced by the then Rawlinson Chair and remained a standard textbook, alongside Edward J. Vernon’s Guide to the Anglo-Saxon Tongue (1846), until the appearanc e of Henry Sweet’s Anglo-Saxon Reader (1876). These were in turn accompanied by the dictionaries of Bosworth (1789–1876), revised by Toller (1844–1930) (An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary Based on the Manuscript Collections of Joseph Bosworth. Edited and Enlarged by Thomas Northcote Toller, 1882–98); Clark Hall (John R. Clark Hall, A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary for the Use of Students, 1894); and James W. Bright’s Anglo-Saxon Grammar (1891), and Reader (1894). John Kemble is frequently credited with having introduced “scientific” rigour to the study of Old English in Britain (Allen J. Frantzen, Desire for Origins: New Language, Old English and Teaching the Tradition, 1990, 34–35). He pioneered the now standard practice of using half-line lineation to organise Anglo-Saxon poetry on the printed page and the introduction to his edition of Beowulf reveals an interest in recovering the Germanic past of his homeland (John M. Kemble, The Anglo-Saxon Poems of Beowulf, The Travellers Song and The Battle of Finnes-burh, 2nd ed., with trans., 2 vols., 1835–1837). His nationalism is similarly evident in The Saxons in England (2 vols., 1849) and in his two part essay on the connections between the runic inscriptions on the Northumbrian Ruthwell obelisk and the poem The Dream of the Rood (John M. Kemble, “On Anglo-Saxon Runes,” Archaeologia XXVII [1840]: 327–72, esp. 349–57; id., “Additional Observations on the Runic Obelisk at Ruthwell,” Archaeologia XXX [1843]: 31–46). The last-named anticipates the interdisciplinary flavour of much subsequent Anglo-Saxon scholarship. Where Old English poetry was concerned, the question of the historicity of events behind the epics continued to prove vexatious. The same problems had previously surfaced in relation to the narratives of Homer and Virgil and German philologists proffered that the Classics were assembled from lieder, units which circulated for centuries as oral legend. The so-called liedertheorie was extended to explain the late date of many Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, though it seldom yielded favourable comparisons with ancient Greek and Latin literature. Karl Müllendorff, Bernhard Ten Brink, and Levin L. Schücking approached Beowulf as a composite of short episodic tales (Kar Müllendorff, “Die innere Geschichte des Beowulfs,” ZdfA 14 [1869]:
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193–244; Bernhard Ten Brink, Beowulf: Untersuchungen, 1888; Levin L. Schücking, Beowulfs Rückkehr: Eine kritische Studie, 1905). Across the English Channel, W. P. Ker found the same text irremediably diffuse when set alongside the Iliad and the Aeneid (W.P. Ker, Epic and Romance, 1st ed. 1897, 2nd ed., 1908, 159–78). If liedertheorie endorsed askew value judgments, Germany nonetheless set persistently high standards of scholarship which the Anglophone world would struggle to follow. The Old English poetic record was gathered in its entirety by Grein and Wülcker in the second half of the 19th century (Christian W. M. Grein, Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Poesie, 2 vols., 1857–1858; 2nd rev. ed. Richard P. Wülcker in 3 vols., 1881–1898). Two generations were to pass before Krapp and Kirk Dobbie completed the successor to this collection (George Philip Krapp and Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie, The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, 6 vols., 1931–1953). British interest in Middle English literature during the same period was in no small way bound up with emerging political consciousness. When Thomas Dale resigned as the first Chair of English at University College, London, in 1835 his position was taken by the proto-Christian socialist F.D. Maurice, who was anxious to establish Chaucer at the centre of the canon. He felt that The Canterbury Tales, with their gallery of social types, demonstrated the essentially middle class origins of the English literary tradition and earmarked its suitability for study by the contemporary bourgeoisie and proletariat. Many of Maurice’s principles, both scholarly and political, were imbibed by Frederick R. Furnivall. The long time secretary of the Philological Society at Oxford, he was the prime instigator of the Early English Text Society (1864), the Chaucer Society and the Ballad Society (1868), and the Wyclif Society (1882). Furnivall’s Six-Text Print of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (1869) introduced the editorial practice of presenting parallel columns of variant manuscript texts. This was one of several innovations taken up by W.W. Skeat, for instance in his edition of Langland (William Walter Skeat, The Vision of Piers the Plowman in Three Parallel Texts, 2 vols., 1886), and more generally by the E.E.T.S. Even though Skeat’s habit of occasionally “correcting” Chaucer’s language so as to neaten the poetic meter remains controversial, the inclusion of continental antecedent texts and glossary in his edition of the author’s complete works demonstrates how far English Studies had advanced towards becoming a fully fledged source-based discipline (William Walter Skeat, The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer Edited, from Numerous Manuscripts, 1894). The late 19th century also saw the publication of Horstmann’s Yorkshire Writers, which in spite of its spurious attribution of many works to Richard
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Rolle, long remained an invaluable anthology of devotional and didactic literature (Carl Horstmann, Yorkshire Writers: Richard Rolle and his Followers, 2 vols., 1895–1896). The turn of the 20th century heralded a new era of bibliographic endeavour, encompassing John Edwin Wells’ manual (John Edwin Wells, Manual of the Writings in Middle English, 1050–1500, 1916) and the Index to English Medieval Verse (Carleton Brown and Rossell Hope Robbins, The Index to Medieval English Verse, 1943), sources which enabled scholars to overcome the vagaries of referencing texts between different manuscripts. It also witnessed the first etymological dictionary of Old English (Ferdinand Holthausen, Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 1934; 2nd ed. with a bibliographical supplement by H. C. Matthes, 1963; rpt. 1974) and the inception of a multi-volume Middle English dictionary (Middle English Dictionary, ed. Hans Kurath and Sherman M. Kuhn, 1956–). New heights of rigour were attained at the heart of the canon through a line-by-line examination of Chaucer (John M. Manly, The Text of the Canterbury Tales, Studied on the Basis of all Known Manuscripts, 1940) and attempts were made to establish authoritative editions in more marginal genres like romance (Middle English Metrical Romances, 2 vols., ed. W. H. French and C.B. Hale, 1930). C.2. New Criticism versus Exegetical Criticism (“Robertsonianism”) in the Mid-20th Century English studies post World War II was initially colored by the tension between two conflicting schools of thought. ‘Exegetical criticism,’ a term coined only in the 1980s (Lee Patterson, “Historical Criticism and the development of Chaucer Studies,” id., Negotiating the Past: The Historical Understanding of Medieval Literature, 1987, 3–39), emphasized the allegorical nature of medieval writing, imputing to literary texts a sophisticated engagement with theological questions first raised by the Church Fathers. The roots of this approach can be seen in an essay by J. M. Campbell (J. M. Campbell, “Patristic Studies and the Literature of Medieval England,” Speculum 8 [1933]: 465–78), though its application was most closely identified with the work of D.W. Robertson, Jr., and “Robertsonianism” or “the Princeton school,” after the university at which he was based, were often used as titles for the movement. He adopted Alain de Lille’s metaphor of the text as a fruit in which the shell or rind (the fable) was merely a covering to the kernel (the meaning) and argued, apropos Saint Augustine of Hippo’s De Doctrina Christiana, “that story and expression are of value only insofar as they leave the mind with a conception of fundamental doctrinal truths” (Bernard F. Huppé and D. W. Robertson, Fruyt and Chaf: Studies in Chaucer’s Allegories, 1950, 6; see also D. W. Robertson, “Historical Criticism,” 1950, in id.,
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Essays in Medieval Culture, 1980, 3–20; id., Piers Plowman and Scriptural Tradition, 1951). Robertson’s neglect of romance analogues in his monograph on Chaucer (id., A Preface to Chaucer: Studies in Medieval Perspectives, 1963) was noted at the time (R. E. Kaske, “Chaucer and Medieval Allegory,” English Literary History 30 [1963]: 175–92). Meanwhile others decried his perceived inattention to aesthetics and the apparent disposition towards searching for literary examples which neatly augmented his thesis (R. S. Crane, The Idea of the Humanities, 2 vols., 1967, 2:246–58). Exegetical criticism became one of the motors driving the return to sources and a renewed emphasis on allegory in Anglo-Saxon studies. Mid20th-century editions of Beowulf searched for Christian echoes in the epic (C. L. Wrenn, Beowulf with the Finnesberg Fragment, 1953) as did critical studies (Morton W. Bloomfield, “Patristics and Old English Literature,” Comparative Literature XIV [1962]: 36–37, and 39–41; Margaret E. Goldsmith, The Mode and Meaning of Beowulf, 1970). For Bernard Huppé and Geoffrey Shepherd Augustine’s theory of literature provided the main cipher for understanding Old English poetry (Bernard F. Huppé, Doctrine and Poetry: Augustine’s Influence on Old English Poetry, 1959), both the manifestly allegorical, as in the Anglo-Saxon elaborations of the Old Testament found in the Junius XI manuscript (Geoffrey Shepherd, “Scriptural Poetry,” Continuations and Beginnings: Studies in Old English Literature, ed. Eric G. Stanley, 1966, 1–36), and the heroic (Bernard F. Huppé, The Web of Words: Structural Analyses of the Old English Poems, Vainglory, the Wonder of Creation, the Dream of the Rood, and Judith, 1970; Hero in the Earthly City: A Reading of Beowulf, 1984). Counter-posed to “Robertsonianism,” “New Criticism” (J. C. Ransom, The New Criticism, 1941), or “practical criticism” as it was known in the United Kingdom (I. A. Richards, Principles of Literary Criticism, 1924; id., Practical Criticism, 1929), stressed the integrity of the text as an individual and self-sufficient artefact, dismissing the biography of the author and literary history as apparatus for producing a critical reading. The independence of the text was expressed through several figures, including the “well-wrought urn” (Cleanth Brooks, The Well Wrought Urn, 1947) and the “verbal icon” (William K. Wimsatt, The Verbal Icon, 1954). New Criticism was indebted to the practices of the Russian formalists of the early 20th century. It sought to produce “explications” or “close readings” of literary works, whereby the reader was made conscious of the internal function of irony, symbolism, figures of speech, fallacy and ambiguity in the production and undercutting of meaning. For the study of medieval literature, New Criticism at first represented a break with the dominant tradition of philology. Tolkien’s decision
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to focus upon the vocabulary employed to describe Grendel and his mother propagated interest in the application of close reading to Old English texts (J. R. R. Tolkien, “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics,” Proceedings of the British Academy, XXII [1936]: 245–95; Stanley B. Greenfield, A Critical History of Old English Literature, 1965). In later medieval poetry New Criticism afforded the opportunity to concentrate on the function of irony and symbolism in authors such as Chaucer (Charles A. Owen, Jr., “The Crucial Passages in Five of the Canterbury Tales: A Study in Irony and Symbol,” JEGP 52 [1953]: 294–311; Charles Muscatine, Chaucer and the French Tradition, 1957). It also presented a means of interrogating the narrowly allegorical interpretations encouraged by exegetical criticism. Donaldson’s rejoinder to Robertson’s “Historical Criticism” demonstrates the potential inattention to verbal effects resulting from the reading of poetry through the prism of selected Scriptures and Augustine (E. Talbot Donaldson, “Patristic Exegesis in the Criticism of Medieval Literature: The Opposition,” Critical Approaches to Medieval Literature, ed. Dorothy Bethurum, 1960, 1–26). Leading advocates of close reading were not, however, wholly averse to philological endeavour as witnessed in Donaldson’s attempt to establish an edition of Piers Plowman (E. Talbot Donaldson and George Kane, Piers Plowman: The B Version, 1975; rev. 1988). Therein the footnotes are crammed with linguistic variants from different manuscripts as opposed to the notation of antecedents. The relict of the debate between “New Criticism” and “Exegetical Criticism” persists in the generation of scholars who reached maturity before the rise of literary theory. John V. Fleming has tried to establish the centrality of Augustine’s Cassiciacum dialogues to the education of Jean de Meun, author of the Roman de la Rose (John V. Fleming, Reason and the Lover, 1984) and has stressed the strong Classical antecedents of Chaucer (id., Classical Imitation & Interpretation in Chaucer’s Troilus, 1990). Ann Astell’s exploration the Song of Songs has revealed how exegesis seeped into religious and secular literature (Ann W. Astell, The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages, 1990). C.3. Current Issues and Future Trends C.3.1. Germania and Latina in Old English Literary Criticism Joyce Hill has linked the rise in exegetical criticism within Old English studies with a shifting perception of early medieval literary endeavour, based around two contrasting viewpoints, Germania and Latina. Germania stressed “the survival of essential Germanic spirit, evidenced in vocabulary, formulaic structures, verse form, and those scenes and episodes which – so the
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critics claim – testify to the heroic ethos of the Anglo-Saxons” (Joyce Hill, “Confronting Germania Latina: Changing Responses to Old English Biblical Verse,” Latin Culture and Medieval Germanic Europe: Proceedings of the First Germania Latina Conference held at the University of Groningen, 26 May 1989, ed. Richard North and Tette Hofstra, 1992, 71–88; here 71). During the 19th and early 20th centuries this approach predominated under the apostasy of Anglo-German scholarship. She labels exegetical criticism, as practiced by Huppé and Robertson, as “the extreme manifestation of the shift to the Christian (Latina) approach to Old English poetry” (North and Hofstra, 81). Hill suggests that these in turn affected the shape of the canon. During the height of the Germania phase, critical attention was focused squarely upon the heroic poems Beowulf and Widsi6 and the fragmentary remnants of Waldere and Finnsburh to the neglect of the series of Old Testament verses found in London, British Library, MS Junius XI. Ethnographic readings of Old English literature have resurfaced in more sophisticated guises, aided in recent years by the work of historians Patrick Wormald and Sarah Foot (Patrick Wormald, “Enga-Lond – The Making of an Allegiance,” Journal of Historical Sociology 7. 1 [1994]: 1–24; Sarah Foot, “The Making of Angelcynn: English Identity before the Norman Conquest,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 6th Series 6 [1996]: 25–49). Wormald has questioned the privilege traditionally afforded to historiography over heroic poetry in recovering the attitudes of the later Christian Anglo-Saxons to the paganism of their ancestors. He asks us to consider the values conveyed by epic poets as being just as informative as the judgements of ecclesiastical commentators (Patrick Wormald, “Bede, Beowulf and the Conversion of the Anglo-Saxon Aristocracy,” Bede and Anglo-Saxon England, ed. R. T. Farrell, BAR 46 [1978]: 32–95). Nicholas Howe has investigated how the migration of the pre-Christian Germanic tribes to Britain continued to be an important legitimising myth in a range of writers from Archbishop Wulfstan to Bede and the Junius-poet, working after the conversion (Nicholas Howe, Migration and Mythmaking in Anglo-Saxon England, 1989). Those poems which depict documented historical conflicts (The Battle of Maldon, AD 991, ed. Donald G. Scragg, 1991; Janet Cooper, The Battle of Maldon: Fact and Fiction, 1993; C. R. Davis, “Cultural Historicity in the Battle of Maldon,” Philological Quarterly 78:1–2 [1999]: 151–69) and the disputed (Patrizia Lendinara, “The Battle of Brunanburh in later Stories and Romances,” Anglia 117.2 [1999]: 201–35) have also been re-assessed in their cultural and ethnic contexts.
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C.3.2. Theory and the Medieval Text Theory had its naissance in the study of modern literary texts, and yet recent decades have seen the application of conceptual or even counter-intuitive modes of thought to medieval writing. Early attempts at scrutinising literature in terms of the Marxist view of history proved to be short-lived in their influence (Margaret Schlauch, English Medieval Literature and its Social Foundations, 1956). These accounts were succeeded in the 1980s by a new generation of historical analyses informed by cultural materialism (David Aers, Medieval Literature: Criticism, Ideology and History, 1986). The pertinence of New Historicism, a line of enquiry developed first within Renaissance literary studies, has been debated (Stephen Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare, 1980; Paul Strohm, “Postmodernism and History,” id., Theory and the Premodern Text, 2000, 149–64), and the spectre cast over literature by political upheavals, most prominently the 1381 Peasant’s Revolt, continues to exercise fascination (J. R. Maddicott, “Poems of Social Protest in Early Fourteenth-Century England,” England in the Fourteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1985 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. W. Mark Ormrod, 1986, 130–44; Paul Strohm, Hochon’s Arrow: The Social Imagination of Fourteenth-Century Texts, 1992). Gender studies have interacted in productive ways with English studies. Old English heroic poetry has been re-evaluated for its portrayal of feminine protagonists (Jane Chance, Woman as Hero in Old English Literature, 1986) with some critics contending that Cynewulf’s Elene possesses considerable agency for a woman (Alexandra Hennessey Olson, “Cynewulf’s Autonomous Women: A Reconsideration of Elene and Juliana,” New Readings on Women in Old English Literature, ed. Helen Damico and Alexandra Hennessey Olson, 1990, 222–32), whereas others see the character’s gender as part of her casting as an elaborate, if conventional, figura for the Church (Clare A. Lees, “At a Crossroads: Old English and Feminist Criticism,” Reading Old English Texts, ed. Katherine O’Brien O’Keefe, 1997, 146–69). In later literature, the mystic Julian of Norwich’s claim to be a “simple creature vnlettyrde” has come to be seen as something more than a reflection upon the state of her schooling. Her Shewings have frequently been studied alongside The Book of Margery Kempe as expressive of, and even subversive of, medieval constructions of the female body and femininity (Karma Lochrie, Margery Kempe and Translations of the Flesh, 1991; Lynn Staley, Margery Kempe’s Dissenting Fictions, 1994; Elizabeth Herbert McAvoy, Authority and the Female Body in the Writings of Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe, 2004). The interrogation of the human subject and authorial intention, two pillars of literary criticism, have come to be re-considered in the light of psycho-
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analysis and queer theory. Psychoanalytic readings of Beowulf (Clare A. Lees, “Men and Beowulf,” Medieval Masculinities: Regarding Men in the Middle Ages, ed. id., 1994, 129–40; Judy Anne White, Hero-Ego in Search of a Self: A Jungian Reading of Beowulf, 2004) have scrutinized the heroic ethic of the poem, whilst in the study of later medieval romance the questioning of patriarchal power has become a leitmotif (Clare R. Kinney, “The Disembodied Hero and the Signs of Manhood in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” Medieval Masculinities, ed. Clare A. Lees, 47–60; Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, “Gowther among the Dogs: Becoming Inhuman c.1400,” Becoming Male in the Middle Ages, ed. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen and Bonnie Wheeler, 1997, 219–44). Psychoanalysis has also influenced the interpretation of Chaucer (L. O. Aranye Fradenburg, Sacrifice Your Love: Psychoanalysis, Historicism, Chaucer, 2002) and the interaction between the male hagiographer and his female subject (Gail Ashton, The Generation of Identity in Late Medieval Hagiography: Speaking the Saint, 2000). “Queer”-informed readings have illumined subversive gender relations in romance (Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, Medieval Identity Machines, 2003; Carolyn Dinshaw, “A Kiss is Just a Kiss: Heterosexuality and its Consolation in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” diacritics 24, 2–3 [1994]: 205–26). Meanwhile, Queer Studies has made possible a radical re-evaluation of John Gower, a writer sometimes seen as an uncomplicated exponent of politically conservative myth and literature (Diane Watt, Amoral Gower: Language, Sex and Politics, 2003), as well as one Anglo-Saxon poem, maligned as a problem text for its generic uniqueness and manifest paganism (David Townsend, “The Naked Truth of the King’s Affection in the Old English Apollonius of Tyre [Reflections on constructions of gender and sexuality],” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 34.1 [2004]: 173–95). Carolyn Dinshaw’s Getting Medieval pursues “historical analyses that embrace the heterogeneity of sex,” a call to see the increasing instability of categories of sexuality as a hermeneutic tool for understanding the past (Carloyn Dinshaw, Getting Medieval: Sexualities and Communities, Pre- and Postmodern, 1999, 1). Concepts of “Otherness” now inform the reading of Mandeville’s Travels (Chapter 5 of Geraldine Heng, Empire of Magic: Medieval Romance and the Politics of Cultural Fantasy, 2003). One of the additional insights of post-colonialism has been to see the spread of early English studies across the world through such organs as the E.E.T.S. as being complicit with the values of colonialist enterprise (Kathleen Biddick, “introduction,” The Shock of Medievalism, 1998).
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C.3.3. The Return to Philology The manuscript and the codex have never been entirely eliminated as fertile fields of enquiry. Interest in the nature of literacy (Michael T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record, c. 1066–1307, 1979), the way literature was memorialised (Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory) and the composition of the reading public (Felicity Riddy, ‘“Women Talking about the Things of God’: A Late Medieval Subculture,” Women and Literature in Britain, 1150–1500, ed. Carol M. Meale, 1993, 104–27) have ensured the persistence of the material letter in Medieval English Studies. In the early 1990s the coming of a “new philology” was postulated (Speculum 65 [1990]). One of the watchwords of this movement was “mouvance,” the notion that the scribe is in some instances as much the maker of the medieval text as the author, since many considerations affecting the reception of a text, such as lineation and interpolation, lie in his hands (Bella Millet, “Mouvance and the Medieval Author,” Late Medieval Texts and their Transmission: Essays in Honour of A. I. Doyle, ed. Alistair J. Minnis, 1994, 9–20; Paul Zumthor, Essai de poétique médiévale, 1972). Many of the protocols of “new” philology were, however, already long evident in the work of scholars and editors like E. J. Dobson (E. J. Dobson ed., The English Text of the Ancrene Riwle: Edited from B.M. Cotton MS. Cotton Cleopatra C.VI, 1972), Pamela Gradon (Elene, ed. Pamela Gradon, 1958) and Malcolm Godden (Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies: The Second Series: Text, ed. Malcom Godden, 1979). A specific point of rupture with the “old philology” remains unidentified. In the area of dialectology, the completion of The Linguistic Atlas of Late Medieval English has given a comprehensive view of the language used in postConquest vernacular manuscripts (Angus McIntosh and M. L. Samuels, The Linguistic Atlas of Late Medieval English, 4 vols., 1987), though reservations have been expressed about the practical value of the project to English textual criticism (Regionalism in Late Medieval Manuscripts and Texts: Essays Celebrating the Publication of A Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English, ed. Felicity Riddy, 1991). The continued importance of palaeography to literary studies as opposed to philology per se has been demonstrated by Linne Mooney’s recent, and contentious, unmasking of Chaucer’s “drasty” scribe as Adam Pinkshurst. Pinkshurst was a clerk hitherto known for his copying of petitions rather than poetry (Linne Mooney, “Chaucer’s Scribe,” Speculum 81 [2006]: 97–138).
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C.3.4. Medieval Literary Theory The variegation of English studies to absorb a range of contemporary conceptual approaches has coincided with renewed interest in pre-modern attitudes towards authorship and textual authority. The potential anachronism of applying, for instance structuralist or poststructuralist methodologies has helped give rise to the postulation of a “medieval literary theory.” Minnis and Scott have sought to recover and translate the auctores, scholastic authorities who were appropriated during the Middle Ages (Alistair J. Minnis, Medieval Theory of Authorship: Scholastic Literary Attitudes in the Later Middle Ages, 1984, 1988; Medieval Literary Theory and Criticism, c1100-c1375: The Commentary Tradition, ed. Alistair J. Minnis and A.B. Scott, with David Wallace, 1988) Amongst the topics illumined by their work are the different levels of exegesis and the aesthetic value of literature as comprehended in the Middle Ages. Minnis’s and Scott’s framework has been followed up by the editors of the argued anthology The Idea of the Vernacular, which brings together prologues from Middle English works and uncovers the politics and theory behind the act of translation (The Idea of the Vernacular: An Anthology of Middle English Literary Theory, 1280–1520, ed. Jocelyn Wogan-Browne et al., 1999). A number of other collections have attempted to situate the drive towards composition in Middle English within a broader European context of translation (The Vernacular Spirit: Essays on Medieval Religious Literature, ed. Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Duncan Robertson, and Nancy Warren, 2002). Rita Copeland’s coining of the expressions “primary” and “secondary” translation has lent vitality to the debate over the relationship between writing in which the “exegetical motive” seems to take precedence and literature by the likes of Chaucer, which renders continental or Latin sources into Middle English and yet reveal greater “rhetorical” or “literary” ambition (Rita Copeland, Rhetoric, Hermeneutics, and Translation in the Middle Ages: Academic Traditions and Vernacular Texts, 1991, 94). The work of Seth Lerer shows indebtedness to both medieval and modern literary theories. His discussions of authority and authorship reference the auctores and exploit structuralist and post-structuralist conceptions of the nature of the sign (Seth Lerer, Literacy and Power in Anglo-Saxon Literature, 1991). C.3.5. Periodization and the Rethinking of the Canon The division of medieval writing into separate periods has been one of the practices to be re-evaluated in the light of modern criticism. Hitherto it was commonplace to speak of the early Middle Ages and later Middle Ages as though they were distinct entities, each possessing his own literatures. Upon
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reflection, the boundary between Old English and Middle English is increasingly porous. Work on post-Conquest writing in English has highlighted how past studies have underestimated the vitality of the vernacular in the Central Middle Ages (Rewriting Old English in the Twelfth Century, ed. Mary Swan and Elaine M. Treharne, 2000). Treharne brings to our attention a number of homilies produced after Ælfric and Latin sermons which include piquant annotations in English (Elaine M. Treharne, “The Production and Script of Manuscripts Containing English Religious Texts in the First Half of the Twelfth Century,” Rewriting Old English, 11–40), also Susan Irvine reveals a continued reverence towards Anglo-Saxon literature during the Latinate Central Middle Ages (Susan Irvine, “The Compilation and Use of Manuscripts Containing Old English in the Twelfth Century,” Rewriting Old English, 41–61). At the other end of the chronological scale, Derek Pearsall, James Simpson, and David Lawton have each drawn into question the priority long given to the literature of the 14th century over that of the 15th. The title of an essay by Lawton encapsulates how the generations following Chaucer’s death had been retrospectively seen to witness an atrophying of literary skill and ambition (David Lawton, “The Dullness of the fifteenth century,” English Literary History 54 [1987]: 761–99). Hoccleve’s reputation has been rehabilitated so that he is now no longer seen as merely a clerkly imitator of Chaucer (Ethan Knapp, The Bureaucratic Muse: Thomas Hoccleve and the Literature of Late Medieval England, 2001; Albrecht Classen, Die autobiographische Lyrik des europäischen Spätmittelaltlers, 1991), and Lydgate has re-emerged as a hagiographer and historiographer of incidence (Derek Pearsall, John Lydgate, 1970). Simpson reminds us of the fact that Julian of Norwich died after 1416 and that Margery Kempe lived on until ca. 1439, so that to group these women among the “14th-century mystics” would be to risk overlooking the changing context to religious writing since the death of Rolle in 1349 (James Simpson, Reform and Cultural Revolution: The Oxford English Literary History, vol. 2: 1350–1547, 2002). Nicholas Watson has demonstrated that the copying and circulation of Middle English religious literature occurred under ecclesiastical prohibitions not envisaged by their authors (Nicholas Watson, “Censorship and Cultural Change in Late Medieval England: Vernacular Theology, the Oxford Translation Debate, and Arundel’s Constitutions of 1409,” Speculum 70 [1995]: 822–64). Helen Cooper’s study of romance utilizes the taxonomy of evolutionary biology to unpick the development of the genre. “Meme” expresses the capacity of an individual motif, such as the penitential quest, to behave like a gene, in its capacity “to replicate faithfully and abundantly, but also on
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occasion to adapt, to mutate, and therefore survive in different cultures” (Helen Cooper, The English Romance in Time: Transforming Motifs from Geoffrey of Monmouth to the Death of Shakespeare, 2004, 3). A more seminal role has simultaneously been argued for popular romance (Nicola F. McDonald, Pulp Fictions of Medieval England: Essays in Popular Romance, 2004). D. Summary Writing at the beginning of the 1990s, Allen Frantzen reflected upon how the quest for a sense of origin has always been intrinsic to Old English studies (The Desire for Origins: New Language, Old English and Teaching the Tradition, 1990). The examination of early vernacular literature yields a host of questions about linguistic and ethnic antecedents, and also about how English relates to Latin, the dominant language of ecclesiastical and secular administrative communication. Origins loom large in institutionalised university English studies to which Frantzen ascribes a Foucauldian desire to excavate an epistemological ground for present endeavours. Both Old and Middle English studies continue to be shaped by the tension between emergent methodologies and the pull of philology in its various guises. Select Bibliography Allen J. Frantzen, Desire for Origins: New Language, Old English and Teaching the Tradition (New Brunswick and London: Rutgers University Press, 1990); R. D. Fulk and C. M. Cain, A History of Old English Literature, (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000); Lee Patterson, “On the Margins: Postmodernism, Ironic History, and Medieval Studies,” Speculum 65 (January 1990): 87–108; Wendy Scase, “Medieval Studies and the Future of English,” Vital Signs: English in Medieval Studies in Twenty-First Century Education, ed. id. (Leicester: English Association, 2002); Paul Theiner, “Medieval English Literature,” Medieval Studies: An Introduction, ed. James M. Powell (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1992).
Robin Gilbank
Enlightenment Perspectives on the Middle Ages A. Definition of the Period Enlightenment can either be understood ahistorically as a cultural manner of thought, or historically as an epoch. As an epoch, the Enlightenment covers, at most, the period between 1688, when Charles Perrault began the Querelle
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des Anciens et des Modernes in the Academie Francaise, and the death of Immanuel Kant in 1804. The period thus covers the rationalism of the early Enlightenment, Sentimentalism, ‘Sturm and Drang,’ Weimar Classicism, the Early Romantics, and the Berlin Late Enlightenment. However, a narrower definition of ‘Enlightenment’ underlies the following article. It should be remembered, although this cannot be considered in the present article, that elements of the Middle Ages continued to be of significance in the culture of the Enlightenment (law, Christian religion, scholarship, politics, and lordship), as well as its institutions (courts, monasteries, churches, libraries, universities, courts, and administrative structures) and its art (architecture, painting, texts). B. Enlightenment in the Middle Ages A few studies have focused on the ahistoric aspect of the Enlightenment, claiming a group of enlightenment ideas as peculiarly medieval. They regard Enlightenment as a modernizing movement which began in the early modern period and especially in the late Middle Ages. An overview can be found in the work of Kurt Flasch and Udo R. Jeck (Das Licht der Vernunft: Die Anfänge der Aufklärung im Mittelalter, ed. Kurt Flasch, and Udo R. Jeck, 1997), as well as the collection of essays on Enlightenment and anti-Enlightenment (Walter Haug, “Experimenta medietatis im Mittelalter,” Aufklärung und Gegenaufklärung in der europäischen Literatur, Philosophie und Politik von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, ed. Jochen Schmidt, 1989, 129–51; and Kurt Flasch, “Aufklärung und Gegenaufklärung im späten Mittelalter,” op. cit., 152–67). Maimonides, Averroes, Abelard, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Meister Eckhart, and Boccaccio have all been linked to the enlightenment. C. ‘Medieval’ as a Pejorative Term in the Enlightenment The concept of the “dark Middle Ages” is explored in two studies (Lucie Varga, Das Schlagwort vom finsteren Mittelalter, 1932; Klaus Arnold, “Das finstere Mittelalter: Zur Genese und Phänomenologie eines Fehlurteils,” Saeculum 32 [1981]: 287–300;). Furthermore, Haslag investigates the change in meaning of the term ‘Gothic’ in relation to conceptions of the barbaric and of the dark night (Josef Haslag, Gothic im siebzehnten und achtzehnten Jahrhunder: Eine wort- und ideengeschichtliche Untersuchung, 1963). Varga argues that medieval structures were active within the Enlightenment, but were strongly and systematically opposed by William Robertson, Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, David Hume, Voltaire, Marie Jean Caritat de Condorcet, and Isaak Iselin. She points to the continued presence of the topos of night in the later Johann Gottfried Herder (“Nacht der
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mittleren Zeiten,” night of the middle times, Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit, 1787). The Enlightenment developed three points of criticism: a) criticism of medieval understanding of religion; b) criticism of medieval culture; c) criticism of the absence of a concept of statehood in the Middle Ages. The theorists named generally understand the Middle Ages as a period of decline. Arnold expands this argument. The term “dark Middle Ages” was first found in Petrarca and Boccaccio. The Renaissance saw itself as an epoch of light, which was played off against the darkness of the Middle Ages, which were viewed negatively. The motif can again be found in the Enlightenment. In his Essais sur Moeurs (1752–1756), Voltaire spoke of “ces tristes temps,” “siècle d’ignorance,” of ignorance, rawness, superstition, and barbarism. David Hume added to the picture: “some faint glimmerings of common sense might sometimes pierce through the thick cloud of ignorance.” In Leviatan (1677) Thomas Hobbes spoke of a “kingdom of darkness.” Yet Arnold points out that the negative view was not the only one. Valentin Ernst Löscher made an early rescue attempt in his Die Historie der Mittleren Zeiten als ein Licht aus der Finsterniß vorgestellet (1725). In 1718 Polykarp Leyser went so far as to speak of the riches of medieval poetry in his Dissertatio de ficta medii aevi barbarie inprimis circa poesiam Latinam. In this connection, Zimmermann further considers Löscher’s manifesto, although it never got beyond the draft stage (Harald Zimmermann, “Valentin Ernst Löscher, das finstere Mittelalter und dessen Saeculum obscurum,” Gesellschaft, Kultur, Rezeption und Originalität im Wachsen einer europäischen Literatur und Geistigkeit, ed. Karl Bosl, 1975, 259–77). Josef Haslag (Gothic, 1963) has shown the development of the term ‘Gothic’ in English literature. This term, too, was taken over from the Renaissance. The Neo-classical period used it as a derogatory term for an idea of art and a political attitude which the Middle Ages had not yet overcome. In the course of its development, ‘Gothic’ came to be used as a classification of a type of style, which was later used ahistorically: ‘Gothic taste’ set against ‘true taste.’ The Neo-classic epoch rejected Gothic architecture and pre-Enlightenment garden design. The decisive change can be found in a dualistic attitude which was fully developed in England around 1750. Contemporary historiography understood ‘Gothic’ as describing something barbaric, yet at the same time Germanic and medieval society and politics were thought of as highly civilized. The models were the totally uncivilized barbarian, or the hospitable, moderate and brave, yet also just member of a society which viewed freedom as the highest good. The familiar tripartite scheme of ideal antiquity, barbaric
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Middle Ages, and the revival of the ideal in the Renaissance began to dissolve. These characteristics also dominated the debate surrounding the reception of the Middle Ages in other European countries. By the early Enlightenment period, some scholars, critics, and thinkers used the term ‘Gothic’ in art appreciation. James Thomson or Richard Steele viewed the medieval epoch positively; Anthony Ashley-Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury rejected it as a period lacking freedom; Thomas Warton even spoke of Gothic slavery. However, the whole early and middle Enlightenment was dominated by the traditional view of the Middle Ages as an epoch of night. The terms “German,” “Teutonic,” “northern,” “Gothic,” and “barbarian” could be easily substituted for each other. However, in the Neo-classical period and the transition to the late Enlightenment, study of the older texts of the North, such as the Gothic Bible, and a growing knowledge of old Scandinavian literature, began to alter attitudes, especially among British historians and philosophers. The aesthetic and poetic condemnation lasted longer. In debates about taste, Gothic was whatever was not Greco-Roman. The argumentation was expanded on the basis of architecture, painting, and landscapes. Everything ‘unnatural’ was labeled as ‘Gothic,’ as raw and barbaric. The old cathedrals, in particular, were perceived as ugly. Musical aesthetics agreed: opera was ‘Gothic’ with its swollen style (compared to tumors) and bombastic ornamentation. In the late Enlightenment, the term ‘Gothic’ underwent several changes of meaning. It certainly changed from an ethnological, political or social concept to a stylistic term which could be used ahistorically. By 1760 at the latest, the Middle Ages were viewed not as the night of reason, which was to be opposed, but as a night with positive connotations. Richard Hurt introduced a relativized reading of the period, connecting ‘Gothic’ with ‘chivalry’ and ‘romance’ (Richard Hurd, Letters on Chivalry and Romance, 1762). Ossian’s songs determined the outcome of the matter: aesthetically, ‘Gothic’ now partook of the spirit of the sublime, of romance and fancy. With Ossian and Horace Walpole’s Castle of Otranto (1765), a sensational novel drawing on medieval matter and motifs, a positive concept of the Middle Ages appeared in poetics, which the Romantics quickly and enthusiastically espoused for their own purposes. D. The Middle Ages Before and During the Early Enlightenment Heinrich Heine argued that the discovery of medieval culture was an achievement of German Romanticism (Heinrich Heine, Die romantische Schule, 1836). While this belief held good for over a century, today it is only of literary-his-
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torical significance (Wolfgang Harms, “Das Interesse an mittelalterlicher deutscher Literatur zwischen der Reformationszeit und der Frühromantik,” Akten des VI. Internationalen Germanistenkongresses, ed. Heinz Rupp and HansGert Roloff, 1981, 60–84). There are two reasons for this: first, the Renaissance appears in some discussions as an integral part of the early enlightenment (Daniel G. Morhof, Unterricht von der Teutschen Sprache und Poesie, 2nd ed. 1700; cf. Wolfgang Beutin, “Contraria contrariis curantur? Über die Interdependenzen von Mittelalter-Rezeption und Renaissance-Rezeption von der Aufklärung bis zur Gegenwart,” Mittelalter-Rezeption, ed. Ulrich Müller et al., 1996, 46–61); second, the epochs after 1500 continued traditions and research of and about the Middle Ages. Arnold lists Christoph Cellarius, Du Cange, Georg Horn, Philipp Labbé, William Camden, and Estienne Pasquier. The Baroque period was heavily influenced by the Middle Ages, although the term itself had no clear meaning then (Wolfgang Harms, “Rezeption des Mittelalters im Barock,” Deutsche Barockliteratur und europäische Kultur, ed. Internationaler Arbeitskreis für Deutsche Barockliteratur, 1977, 23–52). Baroque reception of the Middle Ages has been described in detail in early studies like that of Lempicki (Sigmund von Lempicki, Geschichte der deutschen Literaturwissenschaft bis zum Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts, 1920, 99–188; Rudolf von Raumer, Geschichte der germanischen Philologie vorzugsweise in Deutschland, 1870, 154–93, 247–91; Hermann Paul, “Geschichte der germanischen Philologie,” Deutsche Philologie im Aufriss, ed. Hermann Paul, vol. 1, 1897, 2nd ed. 1901, 9–158) and briefly sketched by Janota (Johannes Janota, “Zur Rezeption mittelalterlicher Literatur zwischen dem 16. und 18. Jahrhundert,” Das Weiterleben des Mittelalters in der deutschen Literatur, ed. James Poag, Gerhild Scholz-Williams, 1983, 37–43). Janota describes the work of Melchior H. Goldast as the most important stage of the reception, and a long list of medieval works which received intensive attention (Melchior H. Goldast, Paraeneticorum veterum, pars I, 1604; on this: Wolfgang Harms, “Des Winbeckes Genius. Zur Einschätzung didaktischer Poesie des deutschen Mittelalters im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert,” MittelalterRezeption: Ein Symposion, ed. Peter Wapnewski, 1986, 46–59). Harms argues differently, rejecting the thesis and maintaining that the reception of individual works was rare. Harms believes that the reception of the mentality of the Middle Ages was more important than that of content, though at the same time he points to a small but real interest in the Latin literature of the Middle Ages, as well as vernacular chapbooks and romances. The Baroque seems to have viewed the Middle Ages as possessed of high ethical value and a secure authority for both scientific and religious knowledge. In particular, the encyclopedic literature of the baroque draws on medieval texts. Harms
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also shows that traditions survived within art history on the basis of the example of fortune’s wheel. As Albrecht Classen could demonstrate, considerably more Baroque authors were interested in and drew more from the medieval world than has been assumed so far (Albrecht Classen, “Literarhistorische Reflexionen in der Barockliteratur: Interesse an und Widerstand gegen das Mittelalter als Medium der poetischen Selbstidentifikation im Werk von Lohenstein und Hoffmannswaldau,” Etudes Germaniques 63.3 [2008]: 551–70). E.1. The German Enlightenment and the Middle Ages Only two detailed monographs address the history of reception. Christoph Schmid divided it into four phases: around the mid-18th century (Gottsched, Bodmer); Sturm und Drang (Herder, Ossian, folk song); the transition to the early Romantics (Bodmer and his ‘school’, ballads); and the early Romantics (Novalis, Tieck). He sees a dominant continuity of reception between the early Enlightenment and the Romantics (Christoph Schmid, Die Mittelalterrezeption des 18. Jahrhunderts zwischen Aufklärung und Romantik, 1979). Felix Leibrock assesses the manuscripts of Bodmer and Gottsched, with the focus of his study resting not on the portrayal of the Middle Ages, but from the standpoint of memory and understanding, which he sees as important for Bodmer (Felix Leibrock, Aufklärung und Mittelalter: Bodmer, Gottsched und die mittelalterliche deutsche Literatur, 1988). For him the ideas of Gottsched and Bodmer are in radical opposition to each other. Leibrock also wrote the only study containing a literature review on the theme of ‘reception of the Middle Ages’ in the works of both authors (9–14). A shorter overview of the history of reception is also offered by Brinker-Gabler (Gisela BrinkerGabler, Poetisch-wissenschaftliche Mittelalter-Rezeption: Ludwig Tiecks Erneuerung altdeutscher Literatur, 1980).According to existing views, the study and reception of the Middle Ages built upon the pejorative judgment of the Renaissance, which viewed (as shown in the example of England) the epoch as a time of decay, barbarism, darkness, superstition, scholasticism, ignorance, despotism, and a decline in morals. The reformation criticism of the Catholic church was expanded by the Enlightenment to apply to the Middle Ages as a whole. The criticism by empirical natural scientists of book learning strengthened this rejection. On the other hand, a minority opinion quickly formed which stressed continuity between the eras. This was particularly the case in Scandinavia, where scholars of the Nordic Enlightenment developed a positive view of the Germanic period. The models of world literature, which quickly emerged within literary theory and literary history, and which viewed the Middle Ages as an independent era, should also be taken into
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account here (Reinhold Münster, “Der Beginn der Komparatistik in der Aufklärung und die Konzeption der Weltliteratur,” Estudios Filológicos Alemanes 12 [2006]: 147–60). E.2. The Significance of Bodmer The focus of the current research of reception has been on the work of Johann Jakob Bodmer (Wolfgang Bender, J. J. Bodmer und J. J. Breitinger, 1973, 30–51; Albert Debrunner, Das güldene schwäbische Alter: Johann Jakob Bodmer und das Mittelalter als Vorbildzeit im 18. Jahrhundert, 1996; Jan-Dirk Müller, “J. J. Bodmers Poetik und die Wiederentdeckung mittelhochdeutscher Epen,” Euphorion 71 [1977]: 336–52; Paul Merker, “J. J. Bodmers Parzivalbearbeitung,” Vom Werden des deutschen Geistes: Festschrift Gustav Ehrismann, ed. Paul Merker and Wolfgang Stammler, 1925, 196–219; Volker Mertens, “Bodmer und die Folgen,” Die Deutschen und ihr Mittelalter: Themen und Funktionen moderner Geschichtsbilder vom Mittelalter, ed. Gerd Althoff, 1992, 55–80; Berta Raposo, “Parzival ilustrado, Parzival romántico: Bodmer y Fouqué,” Parzvial: Reescritura y transformación, ed. eadem, 2000, 185–202). Delbrunner’s study aims to depict Bodmer’s part in the development of the Romantic view of the Middle Ages, and describes the influence of the Zurich artist on the mode of observations of the 18th century with regard to literature and art. The monograph places Bodmer’s method of reception in the context of the discourse of the time (understanding of history, poetry as Anacreonics, Thomas Blackwell’s theories, parallels between the Middle Ages and antiquity, architecture). Scholarship has, as whole, stressed the significance of Bodmer as an editor and a poet who revived medieval themes and material, and even wrote in Middle High German, and as a literary critic and historian. Bodmer’s examination of the Middle Ages began in his Discoursen der Mahler (1721–1723). In it, he compared Gothic architecture with Baroque fashion, and rejected both. This attitude was based on an enlightened cultural criticism and the aesthetic ‘tumor criticism’ (Tumorkritik), attacking swollen, ugly forms, in vogue at the time. Bodmer perceived a continuity with inflated stylistic techniques such as hyperbole, metaphor, and wordplay. He criticized the doggerel of previous epochs. Equally, he rejected the chivalric romances and adventure stories, the tales of murder and violent death, witch stories, alchemical books and astrological writings. His attitude in the Discoursen tended ever more to ahistorical judgments, such as he might have found in British Classicism, which had a strong influence on the circle around the Moralische Wochenschrift. Bodmer developed a new approach in his Character Der Teutschen Gedichte (1734). Bodmer defended German poetry against the attacks of the Abbé Bouhours in the Querelle des Anciens et des Mod-
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ernes, and the reproach that Germans were incapable of culture. He painted a history of progress in the matter of ‘taste’ (Geschmack), which was simultaneously a critical portrayal of German literary history. In the night of history, bards sang their sublime songs, which echoed the raw manners of the populace, and the bardic song soon sank back into the dark night. Monks, with their superstitious teaching, drove men and art still deeper into the dark. The Middle Ages were in “tieffer Dunckelheit” (deep darkness). A dim light shone under the Hohenstaufens, as the “Winsbekin” sang her didactic poems (he refers to an anonymous 13th-century didactic debate poem involving a mother and her daughter). Once again art fell back into barbarism, into a fantastic-wild world, and the savage night. Only with Sebastian Brandt and Johann Fischart did the light begin to return in the Renaissance, and with Erasmus of Rotterdam’s art, as if by itself, revived. The height of artistic development, however, was the poetry of Martin Opitz (1597–1639). Once again, Bodmer turned to the English and French classicist aesthetics (Richard Steele, Joseph Addison; Nicolas Boileau) and disarmed the criticism of the alleged provincialism of medieval literature. The ‘bardic’ period and that of the Hohenstaufens, later Bodmer’s ‘Swabian’ period were depicted as positive developments. This method of appraisal can be found in Tactitus and Caesar – Bodmer used Roman opinions in his understanding. The Catholic Church – Bodmer was a Reformed minister in Zürich – was criticized from the standpoint of the reformed tradition. The next stage of reception can be found in the text Von den vortrefflichen Umständen für die Poesie unter den Kaisern aus dem schwäbischen Hause (in Sammlung Critischer, Poetischer und Geistvoller Schriften, 7th part, 1743). Here enlightened anti-feudalism combined with Blackwell’s theories on Homer. Bodmer reapplied the classical model of Homeric Greece to the European Middle Ages. Greece replaced Rome. The key features of this innovative essay are: an enlightened conception of nature, an expanded conception of a high medieval cultural progress influenced by bourgeois-urban mobility, and more general civilizing developments, the abandoning of purely national criteria of reception, and a recognition of extra-national influences on culture, the description of specific feudal social and cultural experiences, the actual living conditions of medieval singers, and finally the interpretative possibilities of a liberal, sensualist aesthetics of effect and expression. Some thoughts on an authentic emotionality of the Middle Ages were also explored. To be sure, this essay was a giant step in a new direction for medieval reception (Anacreonics and sentimentalism served as the basic models). This change of events cannot be fully grasped without a consideration of Enlightenment editorial activity. Bodmer’s interest as a collector ranged from
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the Bible to medieval texts; he was particularly interested in lyric poetry, including that of the Paris Minnesänger manuscript. He edited texts from the Codex Mannese. He drew parallels between the lyrics from the 13th century [really the 12th] (Proben der alten schwäbischen Poesie des Dreyzehnten Jahrhunderts, 1748) and those from antiquity to the Anacreonics, the typical Enlightenment literary form, which Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim, Johann Peter Uz, and Johann Nicolaus Götz had made the dominant paradigm, with encouragement from Friedrich von Hagedorn. In Neue Critische Briefe (1749) Bodmer discussed the influence of the lyrics from the Provence (France) on Minnesang, which he thought was transmitted via Tuscan literature. Bodmer came to favor the art of the south (in contrast to the research of his Scandinavian contemporaries) in his reception of the Middle Ages, and he thus attempted to show the similarities between the lyrics of the Provence and Swabia. (In this connection, he published his own Middle High German compositions). In all his works, sharp criticism of the Catholic church remained. However, Bodmer connected his criticism ever more closely with Enlightenment historicism as established in the middle period of the Enlightenment, and he also drew from Abbé Dubos’s climate theories. The positive response which his poetry edition received, particularly from the Anacreontics and Hagedorn, encouraged Bodmer to bring out his Sammlung von Minnesingern aus dem schwäbischen Zeitpuncte CXL Dichter enthaltend, durch Rüdiger Manessen … (1758, 1759). Although Bodmer, rejecting knightly and adventurous stories, regarded medieval epics with skepticism, he reworked Parzival (Der Parcival. Ein Gedicht in Wolframs von Eschilbach Denckart …, 1753) for an edition. He also turned to the Nibelungenlied. Jacob Hermann Obereit, the medical doctor who had discovered manuscript C at Schloß Hohenems, informed Bodmer of his find, who published the manuscript under the title Crimhilden Rache, und die Klage, zwey Heldengedichte: Aus dem schwäbischen Zeitpuncte. Samt Fragmenten aus dem Gedichte von den Nibelungen und aus dem Josaphat. Darzu kömmt ein Glossarium (1757). Bodmer still clung to Blackwell’s theories, and compared the Nibelungenlied with the Ilias. Bodmer’s preoccupation with the Middle Ages continued for the rest of his life. However, Sturm und Drang developed new paradigms of reception, which the elderly Bodmer rejected. In Literarische Denkmale von verschiedenen Verfassern (1779) he opposed the views of Herder and the importance of the Nordic-Germanic in literature. However, his editorial work continued with Altenglische Balladen: Fabel von Laudine. Siegeslied der Franken (1780).
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E.3. Gottsched’s Contribution Gottsched’s significance lies in his literary criticism and historical writings, as well as his frequent efforts to acquire medieval texts, and so to form a kind of school. Scholarship has placed emphasis on his concept of the patron. Gottsched attempted to interest absolute rulers of his time in the medieval period and its literature. He quickly developed the goal of a comprehensive history of literature and language, but his various drafts remained incomplete. His plan to tackle the literary history of the Middle Ages can be shown to have existed by 1742 at the latest. Gottsched made intensive use of the various editions produced in the Baroque period or earlier. There is evidence of countless research trips to libraries in search of medieval texts (he consulted libraries in Vienna, the monasteries of Melk and Neuburg, Gotha, Kassel, Göttingen, Hanover, Braunschweig, Wolfenbüttel, Dresden, and Leipzig). A comprehensive list of texts which Gottsched owned or obtained copies from can be found in Leibrock (47–49). Gottsched also published the work of other authors who had concerned themselves with the Middle Ages. In a speech delivered at the University of Leipzig in 1746, the Abhandlung von dem Flore der deutschen Poesie, zu Kaiser Friedrichs des ersten Zeiten, eine Rede, Gottsched sketched out his concept of literary history. His model of understanding, and the selection of his sources, owed much to Tacitus. He placed the beginnings of German poetry with the bards; Charlemagne was praised as a patron of the arts and the sciences. Despite his sympathy for absolutism, Gottsched particularly criticized the Catholic Church and the Pope. A further preparatory work on the history of literature can be found in the Nöthiger Vorrat zur Geschichte der deutschen Dramatischen Dichtkunst (vol. 1, 1757; vol. 2, 1765), a catalogue of dramatic works from 1450 to 1760. Gottsched’s handwritten bibliography, Verzeichnis einiger alter deutscher Gedichte, so im XVten XVIten und XVIIten Jahrhunderte durch den Druck bekannt gemacht worden (1767), is also worthy of note. Gottsched, too, initially analyzed medieval texts according to the paradigms of Classicism, but increasingly turned to more academic-objective positions. Gottsched, as an editor and critic, appeared most concerned with questions of dating and origins. He was also interested in Old French epics. Gottsched made few alterations to the linguistic form of the Middle and Old High German texts, and hoped that the reader would learn the old languages. This can be seen, too, in his translation of Reineke Fuchs (1752, edition and translation). Leibrock provides a further list of his publications (61–62). Gottsched’s concentration on the prince as patron (both in the past and in his present) remained. In his Critischen Dichtkunst (esp. 4th ed., 1751; 1st ed. 1729) Gottsched added many sections on medieval literature. In the chapters on Milesian tales
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and knightly novels and heroic epic, he undertook a periodization of German epic poetry. The criterion he used was the matter of the poems: Theoderic’s conquest of Italy, King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table, Charlemagne and the deeds of Roland, the crusades. Reineke Fuchs is classed with the ‘comic heroic epic.’ A comparison of Gottsched and Bodmer shows that their opinions were frequently opposed. Gottsched paid more attention to Old High German literature, interpreted the texts from the perspective of courtly patronage, and portrays the Middle Ages in relation to national ideology and the dynasties of the day. While Bodmer gave central importance to lyric poetry, Gottsched was most interested in the didactic tendencies of medieval literature. His intellectual model was defined by three stages: the mythological, bardic period, the age of heroic epic, and the crusades. E.4. The Reception of the Middle Ages Around Gottsched and Bodmer In the first phase, the school around Gottsched replied to Bodmer’s 1734 didactic poem on Die Teutsche Poesie. Johann J. Schwabe published Der Deutsche Dichterkrieg (1741). He attempted to integrate the Middle Ages into the courtly tradition (specifically, that of the Saxon court), and to view it as a national inheritance. In opposition to Bodmer, he rehabilitated the bardic poetry, the love of liberty, and the heroism of the Germanic tribes in their war of independence against Rome. He also viewed the clerical early Middle Ages positively, as the monasteries made a contribution to education. Schwabe shows himself to be a strict follower of Enlightenment ideas arguing for a parallel to the pedagogical ideals of his own era. Like Bodmer, Schwabe developed comparisons here with antiquity (Homer) and medieval authors. Schwabe’s attitude cannot be understood without consideration of the development of research into Scandinavian literature. Germanic scholarship became particularly important, thanks to D. von Stade, Frederik Rostgaard, Olof Rudbeck, Erik Berelius, Gerg Stjernhjelm, who edited the Edda, Johann G. von Eckhart (Hildebrandslied), Johann Philipp Palthen (Tatian), and D. Dieckmann (Maurus Rhabanus). From 1760, knowledge of Germanic culture and Nordic literature became more widespread. Christian D. Ebeling published a Kurze Geschichte der deutschen Dichtkunst in the Hannoverisches Magazin (1767), based on Michel Hubers Choix de poesis allemands (1766). He described the character of medieval literature critically, and judged it according to the spirit of the north. At that point, Skaldic poetry was enjoying a wide reception in Scandinavia through the efforts of Daniel Bartholius, Erich Julius Björner, and Ole Wormius. The trend was strengthened by Thomas Percy’s Relicks of Ancient English Poetry (1765) and
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James Macpherson’s Fragments (1760–1763), as well as by the imitations of Ossian. The sphere of influence of the Gottsched school also included the 18thcentury Austrian researchers who had close ties with Gottsched and advised him on his travels (Fritz Peter Knapp, “Die altdeutsche Dichtung als Gegenstand literarhistorischer Forschung in Österreich von den Brüdern Pez bis zu Friedrich Schlegels Wiener Vorlesungen im Jahre 1812,” Die österreichische Literatur: Ihr Profil an der Wende vom 18. zum 19. Jahrhundert, 1750–1830, ed. Herbert Zeman, vol. 2, 1979, 697–734). The Benedictines Bernhard and Hieronymus Pez, who both undertook countless journeys in Austria, Switzerland, and Bavaria in the hopes of locating and collecting medieval texts merit particular mention. Placidius Amon provided Gottsched and his pupil Franz Christoph Scheyb with many texts for publication. Florian Anton von Khautz, from the Viennese Bücherhofkommision, supplied Gottsched’s magazine, the Neuer Büchersaal, with sources and documents. Johann Bendedikt Gentilotti and Adam Franz Kollar carried out manuscript studies in the Imperial Court Library in Vienna. Michael Denis translated Ossian and discovered the poems by Oswald von Wolkenstein. Gottlieb Leon not only published lyrics in the medieval-anacreontic style of Gleims, but analyzed and evaluated medieval manuscripts from the court library (Wienerischer Musenalmanach [Minnelieder], 1778; Gedichte, 1788). The beginnings of German philology can be traced to Karl Joseph Michaeler (Iwein, 1786). Johann Baptist Gabriel Mareck contributed a Verzeichniß österreichischer deutscher Dichter (manuscript 1795, published in 1972). Bernhard Christian B. Wiedeburg of the University of Jena brought Bodmer’s theories to the book trade in his Ausführliche Nachricht von einigen alten teutschen poetischen Manuscripten aus dem dreyzehnten und vierzehnten Jahrhunderte, welche in der Jenaischen Bibliothek aufbehalten werden (1754). Christian Fürchtegott Gellert, following the didactic concerns of the Enlightenment, was interested in medieval fables. He enthusiastically took up Bodmer’s edition of Fabeln aus der Zeit der Minnesinger (1757), but he had published a preface to his own fable edition long before that (Nachricht und Exempel von alten deutschen Fabeln, 1746). Gellert’s own fables owe much to Johann Georg Scherz’s Philosophiae moralis Germanorum medii aevi (1704–1710). Over time, the quarrel between the two schools died down. Johann Jakob Rambach expanded Bodmer’s model of the Middle Ages (Abhandlung aus der Geschichte und Litteratur, 1771); while he still referred to Anacreonics, he related Minnesang to the folk song tradition. He also considered non-literary elements: the development of sea travel, trade and the crusades, as well as the cultural influence of the East.
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Leonhard Meister also worked in the Bodmer tradition. The medieval section of his book, Beyträge zur Geschichte der teutschen Sprache und NationalLiteratur (1771), showed the influence of Enlightenment historicism. Meister investigated the differences between Gothic and Old High German, and broadened the corpus of texts studied (the Wulfila Bible in Fr. Junius’s edition, the Weingartner Liederhandschrift, the Trojanerkrieg and Freidank from Strasburg, Iwain and Tristan from Florence, Justus Möser’s Reinbot manuscript, the Annolied (first ed. by Martin Opitz, 1639), the Rolandslied, the Weltchronik, and Rudolf von Ems’s Josaphat, the Cruziger manuscript from Klosterneuburg, and the St. Gallen Codex (the Nibelungenlied B text). His Charakteristik der Dichter (2 vols., 1789) offered further texts from the Gothic period to the end of the Middle Ages. In fact, the Middle Ages became a popular source of themes, material, and motifs in literature. Bodmer wrote dramas and epics in that vein: Heinrich IV. (1768), Conradin von Schwaben (1771), Friedrich der Rothbärtige and Albert von Gleichen (1778), Hildebold und Wibrade (1776), and Maria von Brabant (1776). Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock took up the theme, e.g. in his ode Kaiser Heinrich (1764; 1771). His poetry was aimed at the princes, whom he wished to win over to nationalist literature. At the same time, he drew on the bard cult. Klopstock (Hermanns Schlacht, 1769; Hermann und die Fürsten, 1784; Hermanns Tod (1787), and Johann Elias Schlegel (Herrmann, 1743) wrote dramas on Arminius. Schlegel also produced an epic (Heinrich der Löwe, 1742) and a DanishNordic national drama (Canut, 1746). Treatments of Götz von Berlichingen and Faust appeared in print. Many of those texts were influenced by the Anacreonticists, or the ideal of archaism and the adaptation of medieval linguistic forms as practiced by the Göttingen League of the Grove (Göttinger Hain-Bund). Ossianism played a central role for belletristic literature (Sven Aage Jørgensen, Klaus Bohnen, and Per Øhrgaard, Aufklärung, Sturm und Drang, frühe Klassik, 1990, 159–67). James Macpherson had laid the foundations with his Fragments of Ancient Poetry collected in the Highlands of Scotland and translated from the Gaelic or Erse Language (1760). The epics Fingal (1762) and Temora (1763) followed next. Ossian was later turned into hexameters by Michael Denis. Johann Georg Sulzer tackled the parallels with Homer in the article “Oßian,” in his Allgemeine Theorie der Schönen Künste (1771–1774; vol. 2, 865–73). In addition to Ossianism, a fashion for bardic and skaldic literature emerged. Heinrich Wilhelm Gerstenberg published the Gedicht eines Skalden (1766). He maintained that Ossian should be taken as an example for literature. Herder believed that Ossian was not forged, although arguments suggesting this were already circulating at that time. By contrast, the interest in
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Ossian grew considerably, influenced by French studies. Paul Henri de Mallet (Introduction à la Historie de Dannemarc, 1755; Monuments de la Mythologie et de la Poesie des Celtes et particulièrement des anciens Scandinaves, 1756) argued for the identity of Celtic with the Scandinavian languages. His works were translated into English by Percy. Klopstock developed a similar line of argument to Mallet (theory of Scythian natural religion). Klopstock’s Germanic enthusiasm can be traced in his lyrics Der Hügel und der Hain and Vaterlandslied (1770). General information on the image of the Teutons can be found in Klaus See (Deutsche Germanenideologie: Vom Humanismus bis zur Gegenwart, 1970). E.5. The Reception of the Middle Ages in and around the Journals Deutsches Museum, Bragur and Olla Potrida, and by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing The editions of the Deutsches Museum (1776–1791) brought out by Heinrich Christian Boie, provided an important basis for scholarship on the general and for the literary reception of the Middle Ages (esp. for the Göttingen Grove) in particular. Johann Jakob Eschenburg, active in Boie’s circle, began a comparative study of medieval texts (Wigamur manuscript in Wolfenbüttel, Engelhart, edited with Lessing, and Vom alten Hildebrandt, 1799). Carl August Küttner broke away from Bodmer in Charaktere teutscher Dichter und Prosaisten (1780/1781). Küttner produced a biographical-bibliographical work and added Johannes Tauler to his objects of study. Christian Heinrich Schmid continued this line of academic research in the Anthologie der Deutschen (1770–1772), the Biographie der Dichter (1769/1770) and Skizzen der teutschen Dichtkunst (1780–1784) in Olla Potrida. Schmid attempted to write a representative and complete history of literature. This was also the goal of Johann Traugott Plant in his Chronologischer biographischer und kritischer Entwurf einer Geschichte der deutschen Dichtkunst und Dichter von den ältesten Zeiten bis aufs Jahr 1782 (1782), in which he focused on national aspects. Erduin Julius Koch’s Grundriss einer Geschichte der Sprache und Literatur der Deutschen von den ältesten Zeiten bis auf Lessings Tod (1790) then provided a reliable basis for literary history. Koch also attempted to produce a bibliography of the complete history of German national literature. The number of editions increased enormously in this period. Bodmer’s pupil, Christoph Heinrich Müller/Myller published a representative selection of texts. His Sammlung deutscher Gedichte aus dem XII. XIII. und XIV. Jahrhundert (1784, 1785, 1787) was one of the most important editorial projects of its day. Müller printed manuscripts C and A of the Nibelungenlied, Eneite, Got Amur, Parzival, Der Arme Heinrich, Tristan, Floris und Blanchflur, Iwein, Freidank, Meliure und Partenopier, the Trojanerkrieg, and count-
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less songs. Gundolf Schütze edited texts from the holdings of Hamburg libraries, and became an important historian of Old Norse and of Germanic antiquarianism. Friedrich Christoph Jonathan Fischer published Waltharius (De prima expeditione Attilae … ac de Rebus gestis Waltharii (1780) and commented on the Middle Ages in Sitten und Gebräuche der Europäer im V. und VI. Jahrhundert (1784). Wilhelm Johann Gustav Casparson added Willehalm to the list of editions (1781). Karl Michaeler of the Viennese University Library presented the Innsbruck Iwain manuscript (1786). By this stage, a complete translation of De La Curne de Sainte-Palaye’s Mémoires sur l’ancienne Chevalerie (1759–1781) was available, which further stimulated scholarship. Johann Ludwig Klüber, a legal historian, added a commentary and further material relating to cultural history to his translation (1786, 1788, 1791). Other authors used the theme of Prussia as their point of departure. Martin Ernst v. Schlieffen used Germanic ideology to justify the eastern colonization in Prussia in his Nachricht von einigen Häusern der Geschlechter der von Schlieffen (1784). Christian Wilhelm Dohm pointed to Prussia’s claim to leadership in an Abhandlung worin die Ursachen der Ueberlegenheit der Deutschen über die Römer … (Deutsches Museum, 1780). Chistian Ernst Weiße, the son of the poet Christian Felix Weiße, glorified feudalism in Von den Vortheilen der teutschen Reichsverbindung (1790). Meves provides information on the close connection between Prussianism and the Middle Ages in the late Enlightenment in the Berlin grammar schools (Uwe Meves, “Zur Rezeption der altdeutschen Literatur an den Gelehrtenschulen in Preußen am Ausgang des 18. Jahrhunderts,” Mittelalter-Rezeption: Ein Symposion, ed. Peter Wapnewski, 1986, 473–98). Christian Heinrich Müller, an author who worked as a teacher, published a collection of poets from the 12th to the 14th centuries (1784), Johann Peter Willenbücher (Praktische Anweisung zur Kenntnis der Hauptveränderungen und Mundarten der teutschen Sprache, von den ältesten Zeiten bis ins vierzehnte Jahrhundert, 1789) and Erduin Julius Koch advanced the knowledge of the Middle Ages in schools. A similar transfer of knowledge took place in Hamburg grammar schools, thanks to Paul Dietrich Giesecke (Über der Nibelungen Liet, 1795) and Gundolf Schütze (Rudolf von Ems: Weltchronik, 1779/1781). The Deutsches Museum and Olla Potrida played an important role for literature inspired by the Middle Ages. Here works were published which glorified the literature of the past. The contribution of August Wilhelm Iffland, Schloss Frankenstein (Deutsches Museum, 1782) in particular shows a literary reception of the Middle Ages which drew on the English Gothic novel and aimed to revive the vanished glory of times past. Christian Vulpius (Das Abentheuer auf dem Raubschlosse, Olla Potrida, 1783) continued this trend.
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Scholarship gained its first journal of medieval literary history in Bragur: Ein litterarisches Magazin der Deutschen und Nordischen Vorzeit (ed. Friedrich David Gräter, 1791–1797) It numbered among its staff Herder, Klopstock, Christoph Martin Wieland, Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim, Uz, Gotthart Ludwig Theobul Kosegarten, Friedrich Weiße, Johann Joachim Eschenburg, Karl Gottlob Anton, David Christoph Seybold, Georg Gustav Fülleborn, August Böckh, J. Wilhelm Petersen, G. W. Friedrich Panzer, Johann Heinrich Häßlein, Karl Joseph Michaeler, Michael Denis, Gottlieb Leon, Johann Friedrich August Kinderling, Friedrich A. Knittel, Johann Christian Zahn, Karl Friedrich Conz, W. Hertzberg and, later, the Brothers Grimm, and Friedrich Heinrich von der Hagen. Lessing was particularly influential in the Late Enlightenment. He was especially interested in the didactic genre of the fable, and remained within the traditions of the nationalist Enlightenment, without taking on Bodmer’s and Herder’s expanded view of the Middle Ages. Two recent studies present his achievements as a medievalist (Ursula Liebertz-Grün, “Gotthold Ephraim Lessing als Mediävist,” Euphorion 77 [1983]: 326–41; Albrecht Classen, “Lessing als Philologe: Seine Kenntnis und Wertung mittelalterlicher Dichtungen und Texte,” Lessing Yearbook 19 [1987]: 139–65). Liebertz-Grün links Lessing to 17th-century polyhistoricism, but also sees his academic writings as exemplary for the Enlightenment period. LiebertzGrün emphasizes that Lessing first became seriously preoccupied with the Middle Ages in Wolfenbüttel. The study concentrates on Lessing’s observations on the medieval Biblia Pauperum. Classen shows that Lessing was interested in the fashion for bardic poetry from an early age, and undertook detailed criticism of it. Lessing listed philological errors in the Swiss fable edition (Über die sogenannten Fabeln aus den Zeiten der Minnesinger: Zweyte Entdeckung, 1781). From an anti-Absolutist position, he investigated the patron-theory developed by Gottsched in the study Zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur von den Minnesängern bis auf Luther (1777). Lessing was also interested in the Wolfenbüttel manuscript of Hugo von Trimberg’s Renner on the grounds of its didactic content. In the field of theology, Lessing dealt with Berengar of Tours (who had been labeled a heretic), in whom he believed he had discovered a kindred spirit. Marco Polo also gained Lessing’s attention. Lessing and Herder entered into an intensive debate on the term ‘folk poetry’ (Volkspoesie). On the one hand, Classen sees this as confirming the polyhistoricist theory, but on the other, he gives Lessing and his endeavors toward objectivity a place between the Enlightenment and Romanticism. The article concludes with a complete list of Lessing’s work on the Middle Ages (156–61).
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E.6. Sturm und Drang and Weimar Classicism Scholarship connects the reception of the Middle Ages in ‘Sturm and Drang’ above all with the work of Johann Gottfried Herder. Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg opened the horizon of reception for the concept of ‘genius’ and anti-Classicist approaches. The alteration in opinion about Shakespeare and the folk song also formed the new picture of the Middle Ages. Irrational elements of the Middle Ages (e.g. the witches in Macbeth) were now viewed positively. The reception of folk songs was enabled by the concept of natural poetry (Naturpoesie). Nordic mythology replaced the Greek. The young Herder agreed with these views (Heinz Stolpe, Die Auffassung des jungen Herder vom Mittelalter, 1955; Schmid. loc. cit.). In Fragmente ueber die neuere Deutsche Literatur (1766–1767), he was guided by the ideal of a national literary language, which is linked to his observations on medieval language. At the same time, he stressed the cultural and political freedom of the Germanic tribes. He counted freedom as one of the elements of the German national character. As he saw it, an oriental-Arabic influence was also present. Herder drew comparisons between contemporary war poetry (Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim’s Grenadierlieder) and the national war songs of the Germanic tribes. His Kritische Wälder (1769) explicitly compared Oriental and Nordic literature and developed the term ‘folk literature’ (Volksdichtung), not to be confused with the vulgar literature of the mob, and the concept of the Nordic national character. He criticized the contemporary Ossian craze (Oßian und die Lieder der alten Völker) in the collection Von Deutscher Art und Kunst (1773). Against it, he placed the sense of German ancestral strength and simplicity. The medieval Germanic peoples or tribes are used as models for the ur-German, who honored the ideals of virtue, patriotism, and chastity. Herder saw the Ossian lyrics, however, as an opportunity to rehabilitate the term ‘Volk,’ and the focus of his interest shifted to the lyric. By contrast, Paolo Frisis’s contribution to the collection (Versuch über die Gothische Baukunst) persisted in using ‘medieval’ as a pejorative term. Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s essay Von deutscher Baukunst (1772) related it to the organic, and compared the cathedral with an enormous tree. He thus placed himself in line with the traditions of the Anglo-Saxon Gothic revival and the Gothic novel. Justus Möser’s Patriotische Phantasien (1766) began with knightly epic, which he took to mirror the social conditions of the Middle Ages. His key term was the law of the jungle. Herder’s Auch eine Philosophie der Geschichte zur Bildung der Menschheit (1774) was influential for the further development of Sturm und Drang and beyond. The old structures (the patriarchy as the original model of bourgeois order, the church, feudalism) guaranteed historical continuity. Herder inter-
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preted the history of feudalism teleologically. The Northern air and the wildness of nature produced knights inspired by the values of courage, honor (noblesse obligée), chastity (marriage), devotion (the church), and loyalty (the feudal structure). This allowed him to integrate criticisms of the church (especially those formulated by the French Enlightenment). The work found a provisional end in a collection of folk songs, but curiously Herder omitted Minnesang from his considerations on linguistic and aesthetic grounds. In Jena, 1790 Friedrich Schiller published Allgemeine Sammlung historischer Memoires as well as Universalhistorische Übersicht der vornehmsten an den Kreuzzügen teilnehmenden Nationen on Anna Commnena, Otto von Freising and Bohadin Saladin (Byzantium–Rome–Arabia). Although Schiller saw the crusades as a folly (“Raserei,” delirium), he gave the Middle Ages a singular place in European history. In his view, Rome had placed the nations in an unnatural calm, a soft slavery which suffocated humanity’s powers. The stormy, rebellious revolt for freedom in the “Germanic period” (i. e., the Middle Ages) struck against this repression of the energies of humanity, which eventually reached the happy medium which benevolently combined calm and activity, freedom and order, variety and harmony. Schiller constructed a three stage development from captivity (“non-freedom,” Unfreiheit) via anarchy (lawlessness) to the freedom of an ethically ordered life (Rudolf Stadelmann, “Grundformen der Mittelalterauffassung von Herder bis Ranke,” Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft 9 [1931]: 45–88). E.7. German Painting and Enlightenment Art Within the development of Enlightenment historical painting, a small but significant corpus of medieval subjects can be made out. (Frank Büttner, “Die Darstellung mittelalterlicher Geschichte in der deutschen Kunst des ausgehenden 18. Jahrhunderts,” Mittelalter-Rezeption: ein Symposion, ed. Peter Wapnewski, 1986, 407–33). Wilhelm Tischbein painted Konradin von Schwaben und Friedrich von Österreich vernehmen im Gefängnis von Neapel ihr Todesurteil at Bodmer’s instigation. Tischbein, true to the narrative models of the Enlightenment, intended the painting to have exemplary functions, but he also attempted to portray his figures in accurate dress (Enlightenment historicism). His paintings reveal, however, that patriotism had not yet achieved enough influence on the art world to justify putting medieval subjects on canvas. The situation is different with regard to the frescos in the Würzburg Residence (1752). Giovanni Battista Tiepolo gives scenes showing the bestowal of feudal fees a central place, which points to the great significance which the Prince Bishops of Schönborn and Greiffenklau ascribed to feudalism. A transformation took
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place in book illustration where the painter Bernhard Rode was active from 1751. He was concerned with the historical fidelity of his depictions, not their effects. In historical painting, medieval themes first achieved their breakthrough from 1780 onwards. Daniel Chodowiecki attempted to popularize knightly and old German themes. He chose to paint historical celebrities of heroic temper with characteristic local color. F. The Middle Ages in France France’s appropriation and judgment of the Middle Ages and its culture was dominated by the discourse of the European Enlightenment. Two studies deal explicitly with this question (Jürgen Voss, Das Mittelalter im historischen Denken Frankreichs: Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des Mittelalterbegriffes und der Mittelalterbewertung von der zweiten Hälfte des 16. bis zur Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts, 1972; Werner Krauss, “Das Mittelalter in der Aufklärung,” Medium Aevum Romanicum: Festschrift Hans Rheinfelder, ed. Heinrich Bihler and Alfred Noyer-Weidner, 1963, 223–31). Several categories of reception can be distinguished: the movement influenced by Classicism took a negative view; there was a small counter-movement that created a positive judgment; then there was a larger movement which was objective, a group driven by political considerations, and finally one which was militantly against the Middle Ages. The first group inherited the judgments of Classicism, but was inclined to relativize its prejudices. The works of Ellis Dupin, Abbé Claude Fleury, Gabriel Daniel, Abbé Louis de Gendre, Charles Rollin, Luc de Clapier Marquis de Vauvenargues, Abbé Velly, Juvenal de Carlancas, Joseph Ducreux, Chevalier de Méhégan, Rigoley de Juvigny, Abbé Bérault-Bercastel, Abbé de Longchamps, and Nicolas de Bonneville belong into this category. They all repeated in some form the idea that the Middle Ages were an epoch of barbarism, ignorance, and decline. The classical attitude condemned medieval architecture on the basis of the same criteria, but here too the theory of an art which is defined by the individual historical situation and the customs of the time began, slowly, to emerge. The belief of the second group, of which there is still no summarizing account available, were determined by a positive revaluation of the Middle Ages, and they became interested in old French and Provencal literature. In this group Classicist dogma retreated to the background, and great names were involved: Jean Baptiste de La Curne, who covered several art forms in his reflections (theater, novels, poetry, opera), Guillaume Massieu, Abbé Goujet, Legrand d’Aussy, and Etienne de Barbazan, who compiled a dictionary of Old French and published medieval fables for the educated public, and thus rehabilitated older French literature. (It was at this time that Bodmer
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was taking up studies of older German in Switzerland.) The troubadours were declared models of contemporary literature. On the artistic side of the movement, older lyrics were revived by the Comte de Tresan or the Marquis de Paulmy. The third group attempted an objective evaluation of the Middle Ages. The Christian congregations and the Academies, in particular the “Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres (AIBL),” gave this model of reception cultural importance. Jacob Nicolas Moreau’s “Cabinet des Chartes” also belongs into this category. Importance should be given to the congregations’ efforts, which resulted in the writings of Bernard de Montfaucon, Antoine Rivet, and Martin Bouquet. In due course, the discussion developed outside the structures of the church, in the Academies, which now, like the AIBL, made a definite turn toward the Middle Ages: their members included Abbé Vertot, the Orientalist Antoine Galland, Jean Boivin de Villeneuve, Antoine Lancelot, Camille Falconet, and J. B. de La Curne de Sainte Palaye (on La Curne cf.: Lionel Gossman, Medievalism and the Ideologies of the Enlightenment, 1968). The latter wrote his own chivalric romances, as well as investigations of chivalric culture and medieval languages. He linked the study of objects to the study of words, and so set new standards. Abbé Lebeuf compiled a glossary, commented on Gothic architecture, and practiced an enlightened form of scientific archaeology. Abbé Octavien de Guasco worked on the art and literature of the Middle Ages. Jean Baptiste d’Anville researched medieval geography. In Alsace, Johann Daniel Schöpflin dedicated himself to writing regional history (Alsatia illustrata, 1761). Up until 1770, the group was dominated by subject-oriented research interests with a politically conservative undertone. J. N. Moreau devoted himself to legal questions, and built up a historical and legal library, together with his circle and some AIBL members. The fourth group was concerned with the political model of the medieval state, and was dedicated to the restoration of the rights of the nobility. Abbé Dubos expanded upon theories of Absolutism, and believed that he had found the vindication of this form of government in the Middle Ages. The final group consisted of militant Enlightenment ‘philosophers,’ who researched and assessed the medieval epoch not out of an interest in historical knowledge, but in opposition to it and with political considerations in mind. The aesthetic principles of classicism were applied to cultural ones in general, to state institutions, and to the Church. The key names here are Charles de Secondat de Montesquieu and Voltaire, whose universal history portrayed the Middle Ages as barbaric, Gothic, and as a time of ignorance. Only the 13th century brought a small change, where Voltaire located the replacement of “ignorance sauvage” with “ignorance scolastique.” This atti-
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tude did not prevent Voltaire from publishing a popular play with knights, Tancrède (1771). D’Alembert’s and Diderot’s Encylopaedia, by contrast, appeared without an article on the ‘Middle Ages.’ Etienne Bonnot de Condillac categorically rejected the Middle Ages; Gabriel Bonnot de Mably deprecated it, and Anne Robert Jacques Turgot described it as an epoch of decay. Marie Jean Caritat de Condorcet saw the crusades as the beginning of a dark decadence, but he viewed scholasticism positively. Abbé Sièyes traced contemporary social injustice to the Frankish conquests. All the authors in this group discovered the origins of the miseries of the revolutionary period in the Middle Ages: absolutism, ecclesiastical dominance, and oppression. G. The Middle Ages in Spain The situation in Spain was very different to that in France (Werner Krauss. loc. cit.; Heinrich Bihler, Spanische Versdichtung des Mittelalters im Lichte der spanischen Kritik der Aufklärung und Vorromantik, 1957). In Spain, a continuity remained between the epochs. The accent placed on historical questions merely shifted. The Academia de Historia, founded in Madrid in 1735, assembled an impressive amount of research on the Middle Ages. The work of Padre Enrique Flórez, whose handbook España sagrada was first printed in 1747, deserves special notice. Caspar Melchior de Jovellanos wrote about medieval culture in detail. Xavier Lampilla attempted to portray the Arab Middle Ages in Spain. Thomás Antonio published a four volume collection of texts (1779–1790), including El Cid, Gonzalo de Berceo’s Milagros, and the Arcipreste de Hita’s Libro de buen amor. H. Research on Individual Medieval Works and Themes Rautenberg and Grosse provide information on adaptations and translations of medieval texts during the Enlightenment (Ursula Rautenberg, and Siegfried Grosse, Die Rezeption mittelalterlicher deutscher Dichtung: Eine Bibliographie, 1988). Frenzel does the same for individual figures of medieval literature and history (Elisabeth Frenzel, Stoffe der Weltliteratur, 9th ed. 1998; 1st ed. 1961). Grunewald reports on the reception of the Manessa lyrics (Eckhard Grunewald, “Zur Rezeption und Reproduktion der Manessischen Liederhandschrift im 18. Jahrhundert und frühen 19. Jahrhundert,” Mittelalter-Rezeption, ed. Peter Wapnewski, 1986, 435–49). A new collection of essays describes the reception of Arthur with a detailed perspective on France and England (Moderne Artus-Rezeption: 18.–20. Jahrhundert, ed. Kurt Gamerschlag, 1991). Ehrisman provides information about knowledge of the Nibelungenlied in the 18th century (Otfrid Ehrismann, Nibelungenlied 1755–1920. Regesten und Kommentare zu Forschung und Rezeption, 1986).
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Select Bibliography Lucie Varga, Das Schlagwort vom finsteren Mittelalter (Aalen: Scientia, 1932); Josef Haslag, Gothic im siebzehnten und achtzehnten Jahrhundert: Eine wort- und ideengeschichtliche Untersuchung (Cologne: Böhlau, 1963); Christoph Schmid, Die Mittelalterrezeption des 18. Jahrhunderts zwischen Aufklärung und Romantik (Frankfurt a. M., Bern, and Las Vegas: Peter Lang, 1979); Felix Leibrock, Aufklärung und Mittelalter: Bodmer, Gottsched und die mittelalterliche deutsche Literatur (Frankfurt a. M.: Lang, 1988); Gisela BrinkerGabler, Poetisch-wissenschaftliche Mittelalter-Rezeption: Ludwig Tiecks Erneuerung altdeutscher Literatur (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1980); Jürgen Voss, Das Mittelalter im historischen Denken Frankreichs: Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des Mittelalterbegriffes und der Mittelalterbewertung von der zweiten Hälfte des 16. bis zur Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts (Munich: Fink, 1972).
Reinhold Münster
Epigraphy A. Terminology ‘Epigraphy’ is the study of inscriptions. The name of the discipline derives from the Greek words and φ (write upon), so that φ (epigraphe, Lat. inscriptio) initially meant merely ‘writing,’ that is script on some kind of material (not further defined). It occurs as a term for ‘inscription’ from the late 17th century on. ‘Epigraphy’ is found as an academic term from 1843 on, and was adopted by the Academie Français in 1878. The Latin inscriptio was used in antiquity to mean ‘writing’ or ‘heading,’ but while it can occasionally be found in our sense in the Middle Ages, it only became usual during the 16th century. In the Middle Ages, titulus or epitaphium occured more frequently, or verbal forms such as scriptum, inscriptum, caelatum, etc. were used (Robert Favreau, Les inscriptions médiévales [= Typologie des sources du Moyen Âge occidental, 35], 1979, 13–17). Epigraphy concerns itself with everything necessary for the appraisal of inscriptions. This means – apart from the script form and the graphical ‘mise-en-page’ as a whole and among other considerations – language and linguistic characteristics, formularies, metrics and musicality where relevant; text analysis and a determination of the sources used, the patron, where possible the author of the text and the craftsman responsible; the placing of the inscription within the context of inscription genres (grave inscriptions, memorial inscriptions, building or dedication inscriptions, house inscriptions etc.); interpretation of the content of the inscription and valuation of its
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sources; the investigation of the object bearing the inscription according to historical, and art and cultural historical criteria; culminating in a suitable editorial strategy for the publication of the texts. Increasingly, the term Inschriftenpaläographie (inscription paleography) is being used for the area of the subject dealing purely with script (Walter Koch, “Inschriftenpaläographie: Ein schriftkundlicher Beitrag zu ausgewählten Inschriften Kärntens mit besonderer Berücksichtigung von Gurk,” Carinthia I.162 [1972]: 115–47, esp. 115–17; id., Inschriftenpaläographie des abendländischen Mittelalters und der früheren Neuzeit: Früh- und Hochmittelalter, 2007, 26). Inscription paleography deals with everything that has to do with the appearance of the script. The goal is a description of the script style, as well as the determination of dating and, where possible, localization characteristics. Initially, it is concerned with individual forms. Individual letter forms and their proportions and construction in strokes, cross-strokes, bows and finishing strokes and their formation, the thickness of strokes and its variation within a form, the decorative elements attached to the letters, combinations of letters such as nexus litterarum, ligatures, merged and connecting bows, enclaves, interlacing, the appearance of abbreviations, word division and signs indicating word divisions, as well as numbers and their development are of interest. However, graphical study is not restricted to the consideration of individual forms. Attention must be paid to whether the aspect of the script is open or cramped, the layout of lines, the question of ‘scriptura continua,’ the homogeneity of the script as a whole, as well as the possibility of later revision(s) or additions (cf., on the criteria to be studied, Rudolf M. Kloos, “Methoden und Möglichkeiten der lateinischen Epigraphik des Mittelalters,” Actes du VIIe Congrès International d’Épigraphie Grecque et Latine, Constantza, 9–15 septembre 1977, ed. D. M. Pippidi, 1979, 91–107, esp. 95ff.; and Robert Favreau, Èpigraphie médiévale, 1997, 59–60. On the technique of letter description, cf. Deutsche Inschriften: Terminologie zur Schriftbeschreibung, devised by the staff of the Academies of the Sciences and Humanities in Berlin, Düsseldorf, Göttingen, Heidelberg, Leipzig, Mainz, Munich, and the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, 1999). B. Subject Inscriptions form the central – and often exclusive – source-material on civil and public life for the ancient historian, and the international corpora begun in the 19th century for the collection and critical edition of inscriptions of classical antiquity – Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL) or Inscriptiones Graecae (IG) – made epigraphy the most prestigious branch of the study of antiquities. Yet at the same time, the systematic cataloguing and methodical
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academic study of medieval and early modern inscriptions of the post-antique, western-occidental area, (that is inscriptions in Latin script) which is the subject of this literature review, is relatively young, developing slowly during the 20th Century on the local and national level – far too late, according to some (Alphons Lhotsky, Quellenkunde zur mittelalterlichen Geschichte Österreichs, 1963, 65). Although the study of the inscriptions of the Middle Ages and the periods following constitutes a new and independent discipline, at least a basic knowledge of the epigraphy of antiquity is necessary. After all, it is the alphabet developed and formed then which despite many modifications – remains the bearer of the inscription, even to this day. The capitalis developed for the political and sacral epigraphic requirements of Rome and the Latin parts of the Roman empire, a script suitable for stone monuments with the greatest representative function, was later – in a deliberate recourse to antiquity – revived, not merely in the humanism of the transition from the Middle Ages to the modern, but also, for instance, in the socalled Carolingian renaissance. Indeed, it was the broad tradition of epigraphic script of Late Antiquity and above all the early Christian period which in many cases seamlessly continued in early medieval epigraphy, though the quality of execution varied considerably. While it is often the case that medieval and modern inscriptions exist in parallel to other textual sources (archival sources and chronicles) – and this is even more the case for the more recent – , the spontaneity of their statements nevertheless often makes them valuable sources. In addition, the inscriptions are often still at their original location, or easily localizable, so that their connection to a limited area is generally clear. Due to the almost unlimited range of themes which appear in the texts, the value of inscriptions as sources is manifold. The variety of their form and above all content – there is almost nothing which cannot be the theme of an inscription – makes them valuable sources for countless disciplines; not just for the epigrapher in the narrow sense, but also the local or town historian, the social historian, the historians of the economy, law, and the church, for the genealogist and the student of heraldry, the philologist – the latinist as well as the representatives of the vernacular –, students of dialect, art historians, ethnologists, for modern disciplines like the history of mentalities or objects, and more. As bearers of cartulary information – though more in the south of Europe than further north – inscriptions are often of value to the diplomatist, while connections to various kinds of writing interest the paleographers (cf. the case studies in Walter Koch, “Epigraphische Editionen europaweit: Inschriften als Quellen verschiedenster Art,” Vom Nutzen des Edierens: Akten des internationalen Kongresses zum 150jährigen Bestehen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichts-
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forschung. Wien, 3.–5. Juni 2004, ed. Brigitte Merta, Andrea Sommerlechner, and Herwig Weigl, 2005, 229–54, esp. 236–54). In the last three or four decades, the study of medieval inscriptions, and to a lesser extent the epigraphy of the early modern period have been taking the decisive step towards academic coherence and have established themselves as an individual discipline in the canon of historical subjects. As an expression of this, they have begun to appear in the regular teaching programs of a number of universities, and a number of international co-operations have been begun or are planned, and, most importantly, a number of handbooks summarizing the principles and practice of working with inscriptions and the editing process have appeared (see below). C. Definition It is impossible to give a definition of the term ‘inscription’ which does justice to all aspects without some reflection. Its differentiation from other written utterances, which fall instead within the competence of the paleographer, remains at times unclear or willful. The primary characteristics of an inscription are, according to Robert Favreau, durability and publicity, “durée” and “publicité” (see Robert Favreau, “L’épigraphie médiévale,” Cahiers de la civilisation médiévale Xe–XIIe siècles 12 [1969]: 394–98; or id., Les Inscriptions médiévales, 1979, 16). Further, monumentality or a sculptural impulse are certainly criteria which generally or at least to a great extent fit inscriptions, but they are doubtless unable to cover the whole spectrum of monuments which can be viewed as inscriptions. In the German-speaking area, a negative definition formulated by Rudolf M. Kloos, which confines itself to the lowest common denominator, has proved serviceable: “Inschriften sind Beschriftungen verschiedener Materialien – in Stein, Holz, Metall, Leder, Stoff, Email, Glas, Mosaik u.s.w., die von Kräften und Methoden hergestellt sind, die nicht dem Schreibschul- und Kanzleibetrieb angehören” (Rudolf M. Kloos, Einführung in die Epigraphik des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit, 1980, 2nd ed. 1992, 2). The most important element of the definition is the almost unlimited variation in the carriers of the inscription, and therefore the varying production techniques. The formulation aims at a clear distinction from paleography, which according to an established academic consensus describes the description and interpretation of written utterances on ‘soft’ substances, i. e., papyrus, parchment, paper, and also on wax tablets. Kloos’ definition shuts out certain marginal areas which tend to be classed as inscriptions, such as the broad group of graffiti. They are made on ‘epigraphic’ surfaces, and there is a certain wish for durability and above all, public communication. However – many scribbles on walls are executed with ink
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or colored pens – they generally, if not exclusively, fall under the graphical assessment of the paleography of written hands, in particular that of the cursive. By contrast, the inscriptions on seals and coins do fall entirely under Kloos’ definition. However, they tend to be considered to lie at the margins of epigraphy, as their study remains the province of the older special disciplines of sphragistics and numismatics, particularly as the inscription is only one aspect relevant to the classification of the object as a source. It is only with regard to the script that the interests of the epigraphers coincide with those of the other disciplines, although of course the serial mass production means that the inscription reveals the age of the type or the die, rather than the date of production of the actual seal or coin (among the few epigraphic studies of these objects, cf. Ilse-Maria Michael-Schweder, Die Schrift auf den päpstlichen Siegeln des Mittelalters, 1926). Inscribed monuments have, as a result of their function, physical characteristics, and production, a different status to other textual utterances as preserved in codices and charters. A different group of people was responsible for their origins; they were craftsmen of varying techniques, whether masons, fresco painters, goldsmiths, mosaic makers or others. In many periods a different writing system appears in the inscriptions than the writing of the codices; genuinely epigraphic scripts which have their origins in the capitalis of the monuments of antiquity. Nonetheless, it would be mistaken to hermetically seal epigraphy and paleography off from each other. There are always connections between the two, though they vary in their thickness from era to era. For instance, the most prestigious antique monumental script was adopted in the decorative scripts of Carolingian manuscripts, and later – in the Romanesque and Gothic eras – the headings of the codices acted, more or less, as examples for inscriptions. Finally, in the later period (from the beginning of the long 14th century) various types of writer’s hand – such as textura, bastarda and humanist minuscules – appeared, suitably adapted, in the field of inscriptions (gothic minuscule; fractura, antiqua minuscule). D. Corpora The large scale – often national – projects for the collection and critical edition of material are of decisive importance for our knowledge of the Middle Ages. While large collections of transcriptions of important inscriptions have existed in manuscript or printed form since the humanist period (cf. the summary in Walter Koch, Inschriftenpaläographie des abendländischen Mittelalters und der früheren Neuzeit: Früh- und Hochmittelalter, 2007, 11–14), these older works, usually the fruit of individual labor, were generally made out of
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antiquarian interest, to serve as evidence for mostly regional history or genealogy, or as a preliminary documentation of larger collections. They did not yet involve the wish for the development of systematic academic study of the inscriptions of post-antiquity. Nevertheless, these collections – particularly those from the 17th and 18th century – are of considerable value, as they preserve in transcription, and sometimes even as illustrations, countless medieval inscriptions which have been destroyed in the succeeding centuries by war, in some regions by radical ‘baroquization’ and, to this day, simple carelessness. Only the national ventures of the 20th century were intended, not merely to make available valuable historical sources, but to lay the foundations of an academic discipline concerned with medieval and, with reservations, early modern, inscriptions, allowing a correct and consistent evaluation of the inscriptions and their carriers – that is, much later than was the case with epigraphic monuments of antiquity or the early Christian period. The large, long term projects currently underway are products of the second half of the 20th century. This is true – de facto – even of the oldest of them, the German inscription project (Die Deutschen Inschriften), which has published around 70 imposing quartos, with more than two dozen well in hand. While the undertaking was begun in the thirties, and the first volume actually appeared in 1942, the war and the immediate post-war period interrupted and indeed seriously threatened the project. In other countries comparable endeavors began decades later – and in some cases only in the recent past, around the millennium. E. Projects, Corpora and Editions Die Deutschen Inschriften owes its existence to the dogged enthusiasm of one individual, the Heidelberger Germanist Friedrich Panzer, whose proposals and plans for a national inscription catalogue comparable to the great corpora of inscriptions of antiquity was adopted in 1934 by the German academies and the Viennese Academy as the basis of a joint project (on its history, cf. Walter Koch, “50 Jahre Deutsches Inschriftenwerk (1934–1984): Das Unternehmen der Akademien und die epigraphische Forschung,” Deutsche Inschriften: Fachtagung für mittelalterliche und neuzeitliche Epigraphik, 1984; Vorträge und Berichte, ed. Karl Stackmann, Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, Philol.-hist. Kl. 3. Folge Nr. 151, 1986, 15–45). In 1938 Friedrich Panzer published a programmatic paper summarizing the scholarly motives behind the ambitious project for a wider audience: Die Inschriften des deutschen Mittelalters: Ein Aufruf zu ihrer Sammlung und Bearbeitung (1938). These included the development of medieval epigraphy, a history of numbers and figures, the techniques of production, linguistic history,
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the accommodation between German and Latin, the role of middle Latin and the German dialects, the sociological and the religious distribution of the inscriptions, the objects bearing the inscriptions and their art-historical interpretation, an interpretation of religious scenes, the development of epitaphs and ideas about the afterlife, study of memorial stones and cartulary inscriptions, mentions of historical events, inscriptions of secular buildings, inscriptions of ethnological interest, joke and puzzle inscriptions, etc. This rather unsystematic list at least shows how large the goals of the project were – a huge demand on the staff of the project (as it is to this day). A comprehensive sourcebook was also planned. The basis for unified working and editorial guidelines was laid in the first phase. Far-reaching modifications in the seventies meant, in addition to a coherence of working practices, the deciphering of abbreviations using round brackets, whereas previously only the exact letters of the inscription had been reproduced. The optically attractive but academically worthless gimmick of devising fonts to represent the various alphabets used had already been abandoned. The project collects, criticizes and edits the Latin and German inscriptions of Germany and Austria of the Middle Ages and the early modern period (until c. 1650) in chronological order – both those inscriptions preserved in the original as specimens surviving only in pictorial or transcript form. Every academy involved – today, all the German academies except Berlin, and the Austrian Academy of Sciences – has a particular working area. The common editorial principles for the Viennese element of the project have been published: Walter Koch, Bearbeitungs- und Editionsgrundsätze für die “Wiener Reihe” des deutschen Inschriftenwerks (1991; with additional guidelines privately printed for internal use). The inscriptions are generally grouped by political units at district level or by town – occasionally single locations, such as cathedrals are used where they offer a rich enough source of material. A pragmatic decision was made to exclude runes as well as seals and coins which – given their serial production – are left to the relevant specialist disciplines. An inter-academy steering group was set up at when the project was re-founded in 1960, made up of the chairs of the individual academy commissions. As previously, staff members of the individual academies meet regularly and are the real bearers of the work. More than a third of all the volumes thus far published date from the last decade (1997–2006), nearly two thirds from the last two decades (1987–2006), a sign of the enormous development of the project and how work on it has intensified. The French inscription center, founded in 1969 at the ‘Centre d’études supérieurs de civilisation médiévale’ of the University of Poitiers under René-Edmond Labande, has published, under the academic supervision of Robert Favreau (who later took over leadership of the center)
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22 volumes of the Corpus des inscriptions de la France médiévale between 1974 and the present. The small staff of the project has completed the South of France and most of the central region. The last volume published, on the departements of Normandy, has reached the northern areas. Inscriptions up to the end of the medieval period have been photographically documented, but only those pre-1300 are to be published. While this early cut-off point is regrettable, the richness of southern France in particular, where the edition began, in the old inscriptions is undeniable, for there is an often seamless tradition dating back through the early Christian period to antiquity. Two French volumes include almost as much material from the Early and High Middle Ages as all existing German volumes put together. The catalogue entries are strictly schematized and offer quick access to information: A) function of the inscription, B) location, C) material, technical execution, size, D) transcription, E) translation, F) paleographic comments, G) linguistic comments, H) biblical, liturgical or secular sources, formularies, I) historical commentary and date, finally bibliographical material. The work begins in the Carolingian period and thus follows on from the excellent new version of Edmond Le Blant’s older edition of early Christian Gaulish inscriptions, which covers the period up to the end of the Merovingian, and has been slowly appearing since 1975 under the title Recueil des inscriptions chrétiennes de la Gaule antérieures à la Renaissance carolingienne. Only three of the planned 19 volumes are available to date (Première Belgique, Aquitaine Première, Viennoise du Nord). The Corpus Inscriptionum Medii Aevi Helvetiae, founded in 1971 at the Medieval Institute of the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, under the leadership of Carl Pfaff, was completed in 1997 with the fifth volume, the inscriptions of Graubünden and Ticino. This edition, too, only covers the period up to 1300, but offers excellent specimens, particularly from the early period of transition from late antiquity to the early Middle Ages. The treatment is characterized above all by an effort to link individual inscriptions to literary or linguistic monuments. Among the older projects of the second half of the 20th century is the Corpus Inscriptionum Poloniae, founded by Józef Szymanski in 1973, which covers the inscriptions of modern Poland until 1800 (medieval inscriptions worth mentioning being lacking). The project consists of teams of historians at various Polish universities, who have divided the country up between them. Up to the present, 17 volumes/fascicles have appeared, covering nine voivodeships (regions). New projects – clear evidence both of increasing interest in inscriptions and a concern to preserve these sources from increasing environmental threats – continue into the very recent past. The first volume of a Corpus Inscriptionum Bohemiae, closely linked to the art historical survey of the
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Czech Republic appeared in 1996, covering the inscriptions of the mining town Kuttenberg, the second volume on the Kuttenberg region appearing in 2002. Material from the late Middle Ages and the early modern period until about 1800 is covered. An epigraphic centre at León University in northern Spain is being set up under Vicente Garcia Lobo and his colleague María Encarnación Martín López with the aim of producing a Corpus Inscriptionum Hispaniae Medievalium. At present, one volume has been published – that on the inscriptions of the town and province of Zamora, from 1997. The growth of epigraphic studies in Spain is extremely gratifying, as it offers not only extremely interesting material which differs significantly from the rest of Europe until well into the Middle Ages, but also connections to the inscriptions of the South of France. A three volume book on the medieval inscriptions of Portugal has recently appeared, in which volume two – split into two half-volumes – offers an edition which reaches into the start of the 15th century: Mário J. Barroca, Epigrafia medieval Portugesa, 842–1422 (2000). The beginnings of a national Italian corpus of medieval inscriptions (Inscriptiones Medii Aevi Italiae [saec. VI–XII]), centered on Spoleto, which occurred a few years after several attempts, is also cheering. Presumably this took place so late because of the overweening competition from inscriptions from antiquity and the early Christian period in the consciousness of the Italians. However, the new project only covers material from the 6th century up to 1200. That is bitter, considering the endless riches of late-medieval inscriptions in the politically and culturally diverse Italian landscape. The first volume, covering the inscriptions of part of the province Viterbo has appeared (2002). The new project will eventually replace the five volume work on the 6th–8th century by another hand, Pietro Rugo, Iscrizioni dei secoli VI–VII–VIII esistenti in Italia (1974–1980). In addition to these national corpora, countless editions exist dealing with larger regions, towns or individual locations scattered across Europe. A few important larger scale projects are: Sabino De Sandoli, Corpus inscriptionum crucesignatorum Terrae Sanctae (1099–1291): Testo, traduzione e annotazioni (1974); Inscripciones medievales de Asturias, ed. Francisco Diego Santos (1994); André Guillou, Recueil des inscriptions grecques médiévales d’Italie (1996); Rolant A. S. Macalister, Corpus Inscriptionum Insularum Celticarum, 2 vols. (1945–1949); Elisabeth Okasha, Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Non-Runic Inscriptions (1971); Elisabeth Okasha and Katherine Forsyth, Early Christian Inscriptions of Munster: A Corpus of the Inscribed Stones (2001); Martin Syrett, The Roman-Alphabet Inscriptions of Medieval Trondheim, 2 vols. (2002); Ottavio Banti, Monumenta epigraphica Pisana saeculo XV antiquiora (2000); Giancarlo Roversi, Iscrizioni Medievali Bolognesi (1982); id., Corpus Inscriptionum Medii Aevi Liguriae, 4 vols. currently available (1978–2000).
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F. Phases and Emphases of Scholarship Approaches to the inscriptions can take various routes. The most obvious is that via the visual, i. e. the form of the lines of text and the individual letters and the general impression the inscription makes, as well as its layout and, where relevant, artistic aspects. This is closely related to technical questions and the production of the text. A further possibility is via literary-linguistic considerations – the formularies used, rhythm, the question of the composition of the text. Finally, the interpretation of the manifold information contained in the texts and their integration into a social context remains a major goal of research, including a determination of the desired goal – ‘eternal’ validity, representative character, public announcement, etc. The first steps on the road to a systematic academic discipline studying the inscriptions of the Middle Ages were taken between the wars, both in Germany and in France. It began with the creation of an overview of the development of script, the change of forms over the centuries – concentrating initially on inscriptions in stone. In the German area, the earliest works attempt to study relatively small areas over long periods. Konrad F. Bauer should be mentioned first, who studied material from Mainz and created a basis of knowledge which is useful to this day (“Mainzer Epigraphik, Beiträge zur mittelalterlichen Monumentalschrift,” Zeitschrift des deutschen Vereins für Buchwesen und Schriftttum 9 [1926]: 1–45). His work began with early Christian material and reached to around 1400. He was followed by Rudolf Conrad, Niederrheinische Epigraphik vom achten bis zum dreizehnten Jahrhundert (1931), and Rudolf Rauh, Paläographie der mainfränkischen Monumentalinschriften (1935), while Karl Brandi – in connection with the beginnings of the Deutsche Inschriftenwerk (see above) – produced the summary Grundlegung einer deutschen Inschriftenkunde (1936, 11–43; see also id., Ausgewählte Aufsätze, 1938, 64–8). Another pioneer of the early period – though in the area of inscription formularies – was Rudolf Zimmerl, “Die Entwicklung der Grabinschriften Österreichs” (Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Leo-Gesellschaft [1934]: 185–220). In French scholarship, it was Paul Deschamps who listed and discussed the development of forms up to the end of the 12th century using a selection of material from all over France (“Étude sur la paléographie des inscriptions lapidaires de la fin de l’époque mérovingienne aux dernières années du XIIe siècle,” Bulletin monumental 88 [1929]: 5–88). Nicolette Gray’s study, written between the wars but not published until 1948, is still useful today (“Paleography of Latin Inscriptions in the Eighth, Ninth and Tenth Centuries in Italy,” Papers of the British School at Rome 16 [1948]: 38–171). She discusses 161 inscriptions from all over Italy, ordered by period and region, with especial reference to regional differences and to comparing the products of ‘popular
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schools’, i. e., rustic inscriptions, with those on a higher stylistic level. Gray came from the circle around the venerable representative of early Christian epigraphy Angelo Silvagni, whose four volume Monumenta epigraphica christiana saeculo XIII antiquiora quae in Italiae finibus adhuc extant (1943) and its pictures is indispensable for medieval Italian epigraphy. It offers examples from various Italian towns (Rome, Milan, Pavia, Como, Lucca, Naples, Benevento). German epigraphic scholarship in the sixties and seventies was dominated by the leading researchers of the great inscription projects, distinguished personalities from the first period following the recommissioning of the inter-academy project. They were Rudolf M. Kloos (Munich), Renate Neumüllers-Klauser (Heidelberg), and Ernst Schubert (Halle-Berlin), the former regularly offering epigraphic courses at the University of Munich since 1967. Apart from the preparation of volumes, the discussion dealt with questions of editorial practice, the validity of 1650 as a period marker, but also the criteria used to judge the inscriptions by internal and external markers. On the French and German sides the first handbook summaries of the state of the field appeared almost simultaneously in 1979 and 1980, acting both as a stock-taking and the basis of further work (Robert Favreau, Les Inscriptions médiévales, 1979; and Rudolf M. Kloos, Einführung in die Epigraphik des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit, 1980, 2nd ed. 1992). The two works complement each other admirably. The French epigraphic centre in Poitiers prioritizes, as can be seen in the work of Favreau and his colleagues, the inscription as a source on medieval life as influenced by Christianity; that is, the cultural or history of mentalities aspect clearly dominates (cf. Favreau’s work as summarized up to 1995 in: Études d’épigraphie médiévale, 2 vols., 1995). German scholarship, however, has always been dominated by an orientation toward the auxiliary sciences, i. e., a preoccupation with the script of the inscriptions as the basis for their dating and where applicable localization, or where required a judgment as to the “discrimen veri ac falsi,” and all this as a precondition for all further interpretation of the texts. This fundamental orientation has been followed by recent surveys: Robert Favreau, L’épigraphie médiévale (1997); and – restricted to the paleographic aspect – Walter Koch, Inschriftenpaläographie des abendländischen Mittelalters und der früheren Neuzeit. Früh- und Hochmittelalter (2007). In Italy, alongside investigations of individual monuments and places, as in the countless studies of Ottavio Banti on Pisa (cf. the summary of his works up to 1995 in: Scritti di storia, diplomatica ed epigrafia, ed. Silio P. P. Scalfati, 1995), there is a trend toward work which thematizes written culture – codex, charter, and inscription as a whole (Gugliemo Cavallo, “Le tipologie della cultura nel riflesso delle testimonianze scritte,” Bisanzio, Roma e l’Italia nell’ Alto medioevo: Settim-
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ane di Studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo 34, vol. 2, 1988, 467–516; id., “La cultura scritta a Ravenna tra antichità tarda e alto medioevo,” Storia di Ravenna 2: Dall’età Bizantina all’età Ottoniana, ed. Antonio Carile, 1992, 79–125; Francesco Magistrale, “La cultura scritta latina e greca: Libri, documenti, iscrizioni,” Federico II. Immagine et potere, ed. Maria S. Calò Mariani, Raffaella Cassano, 1995, 125–41; id., “Cultura grafica a Bari fra IX e XI secolo,” Storia di Bari dalla Preistoria al Mille, ed. Raffaella Cassano, Giosue Musca, and Mario Pani, 1989, 411–43; Armando Petrucci, “Mille anni di forme grafiche nell’area milanese,” Il millennio ambrosiano: La nuova città dal Comune alla Signoria, ed. Carlo Bertelli, 1989, 140–63). Epigraphic interest in the British Isles on a significant scale is restricted almost entirely to the Anglo-Saxon and Irish Celtic period (6th/7th–9th century). Cf. a number of larger works under “Selected Bibliography.” One of the specific features of the insular inscription culture of the period – and this is an appreciable difference to the situation on the continent – is that the national language, whether Anglo-Saxon or Celtic can be found in inscriptions in parallel to the imported learned language, Latin, and are only gradually driven out by it. The co-existence of the Latin alphabet, also for texts in the vernacular – with inscriptions in Germanic runes and Celtic Ogham, which are often bilingual, is also worthy of notice. It is hardly surprising that stone inscriptions have been, and are, at the centre of epigraphy. However, from the end of the sixties on, there was a systematic turn towards inscriptions on other surfaces (cf. Walter Koch, “Paläographie der Inschriften österreichischer Fresken bis 1350,” MIÖG 77 [1969]: 1–42; id., “Zur Schrift auf den österreichischen Bildfenstern,” Corpus vitrearum medii aevi, Österreich, vol. 2: Die mittelalterlichen Glasgemälde in Niederösterreich, part 1, ed. Eva Frodl-Kraft, 1972, LI-LVI; Rudolf M. Kloos, “The Paleography of the Inscriptions of San Marco,” The Mosaics of San Marco in Venice, part 1: The Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries, vol. 1, ed. Otto Demus, 1984, 295–307, and 382–85; Clemens M. M. Bayer, “Versuch über die Gestaltung epigraphischer Schriften mit besonderem Bezug auf Materialien und Herstellungstechniken: Beobachtungen und Folgerungen anhand von Inschriften rhein-maasländischer Goldschmiedewerke des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts,” Inschrift und Material, Inschrift und Buchschrift: Fachtagung für mittelalterliche und neuzeitliche Epigraphik, Ingolstadt 1997, ed. Walter Koch and Christine Steininger, 1999, 95–125). The trend continues, as the question of ‘inscription and material,’ and the varying techniques of production, often connected to the cultural gradient from West to East are sometimes of paramount importance for the dating of inscriptions, for instance in the High Middle Ages just prior to the triumph of Gothic script. It is apparent that painted inscriptions or those in gold- or
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enamelwork are considerably more sophisticated than those works in stone in terms of stylistic developments (cf. Walter Koch, “Auf dem Wege zur gotischen Majuskel: Anmerkungen zur epigraphischen Schrift in romanischer Zeit,” Inschrift und Material, Inschrift und Buchschrift: Fachtagung für mittelalterliche und neuzeitliche Epigraphik, Ingolstadt 1997, ed. Walter Koch and Christine Steininger, 1999, 225–47). While some publications have recently appeared on the subject, the question of the closeness – or otherwise – of the relationship between heading scripts in books and, sometimes, charters, remains a desideratum, the relative priority always requiring reassessment. The question is particularly interesting with regard to insular inscriptions of the 7th–9th centuries, as well as those of the Iberian peninsula of the 9th–11th centuries (some studies are: John Higgitt, “The Stone-Cutter and the Scriptorium: Early Medieval Inscriptions in Britain and Ireland,” Epigraphik 1988: Fachtagung für mittelalterliche und neuzeitliche Epigraphik, Graz, 10.–14. Mai 1988, ed. Walter Koch, 1990, 149–62; Walter Koch, Auszeichnungsschrift und Epigraphik: Zu zwei Westschweizer Inschriften der Zeit um 700, 1994; Jean Vezin, “Épigraphie et titres dans les manuscrits latins du haut Moyen Âge,” Titres et articulations du texte dans les oeuvres antiques: Actes du Colloque International de Chantilly, 13–15 décembre 1994, éd. par Jean-Claude Fredouille, Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé et al., Collection des Études Augustiniennes, Série Antiquité 152 [1997], 549–58; Vicente García Lobo, “La escritura publicitaria en la Península Ibérica: Siglos X–XIII,” Inschrift und Material, Inschrift und Buchschrift: Fachtagung für mittelalterliche und neuzeitliche Epigraphik, Ingolstadt 1997, ed. Walter Koch and Christine Steininger, 1999, 151–90; Walter Koch, “Epigraphik und die Auszeichnungsschrift in Urkunden,” Documenti medievali greci e latini: Studi comparativi: Atti del seminario di Erice 23–29 ottobre 1995, ed. Giuseppe de Gregorio, and Otto Kresten, 1998, 309–26). Some studies have also appeared on the subject ‘inscription and printing’ (FranzAlbrecht Bornschlegel, “Druckschriften und epigraphische Schriften auf der Schwelle zum Frühdruck am Fallbeispiel Augsburg,” Inschrift und Material, Inschrift und Buchschrift: Fachtagung für mittelalterliche und neuzeitliche Epigraphik, Ingolstadt 1997, ed. Walter Koch and Christine Steininger, 1999, 213–24; Thomas Glöss, Druckschrift und Inschrift: Formzusammenhänge und wechselseitige Einflüsse von frühen Druckschriften und epigraphischen Schriften der Mitte des 15. Jahrhunderts bis zum Anfang des 16. Jahrhunderts in Deutschland, 2006). Epigraphic studies of geographically limited areas within the framework of the large corpora projects make it possible, during periods where much material exists, to identify many groups of inscriptions which should probably be regarded as the products of workshops. The identification and study of workshops whose names are known is an area of particularly pro-
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ductive cooperation between art history and epigraphy, especially for the period of the late Middle Ages and the Early Modern. In not a few uncertain cases, the identification of characteristic graphical elements which appear repeatedly is very helpful in attributing monuments to particular masters (Franz-Albrecht Bornschlegel, “Die Inschriften des Loy Hering und seiner Werkstatt,” Pinxit / sculpsit / fecit. Kunsthistorische Studien: Festschrift für Bruno Bushart, ed. Bärbel Hamacher and Christl Karnehm, 1994, 39–50; id., “Stilpluralismus oder Einheitszwang? Die Schriften in süddeutschen Bildhauerwerkstätten der frühen Renaissance,” Epigraphik 2000: Neunte Fachtagung für mittelalterliche und neuzeitliche Epigraphik, Klosterneuburg 9.–12. Oktober 2000, ed., Gertrud Mras and Renate Kohn, 2006, 39–63; Rüdiger Fuchs, “Die Schrift der Werkstatt Hans Ruprecht Hoffmanns [†1616] in Trier,” Sancta Treveris: Beiträge zu Kirchenbau und bildender Kunst im alten Erzbistum Trier: Festschrift für Franz J. Ronig zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. Michael Embach, Christoph Gerhardt, Wolfgang Schmid, Annette Schommers, and Hans-Walter Stork, 1999, 147–71; id., “Die Kapitalis-Inschriften von Trierer Bildhauern des 16. Jahrhunderts,” Epigraphik 2000: Neunte Fachtagung für mittelalterliche und neuzeitliche Epigraphik, Klosterneuburg 9.–12. Oktober 2000, ed., Gertrud Mras and Renate Kohn, 2006, 15–37; Ramona Epp, “Inschriften als Quellen für Leben, Werk und Werkstatt Jörg Gartners,” Passauer Jahrbuch 47 [2005]: 85–106). With regard to historical periods, recently the 12th and 13th centuries, and the transition between the medieval and the modern have recently been of particular interest. The first relates to the Gothicization of script, the phase of transition between the various developments from Romanesque script to the Gothic majuscule. This was a process which regionally took genuinely different courses, fairly continuous in German-speaking territories, but elsewhere – for instance, southern and central France, detouring via various whimsical, hypertrophic forms, whose variations first opened the way to the Gothic majuscule, a script form prevalent throughout Europe (Walter Koch, “Auf dem Weg zur gotischen Majuskel: Anmerkung zur epigraphischen Schrift in romanischer Zeit,” Inschrift und Material, Inschrift und Buchschrift: Fachtagung für mittelalterliche und neuzeitliche Epigraphik, Ingolstadt 1997, ed. Walter Koch, and Christine Steininger, 1999). The majuscule scripts ‘between’ the Middle Ages and the early-modern world, that is, after the end of the Gothic Majuscule – in central Europe around 1400, in Rome around the second quarter of the 15th century, and in Liguria only later in the second half of the century – and the revival of the capitalis of antiquity under the banner of humanism first in Italy and then, much later, north of the Alps, sometimes takes rather curious forms. These ‘early humanist’ scripts are often given an individual form by each master,
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and often appear as a conglomerate of pre-Gothic majuscules and modern capitalis forms. The net result is the co-existence of multiple script forms. With regard to miniscule, a transition style exists, the ‘gothic-antiqua’ primarily found in Passau’s sphere of influence, which departs from the gothic miniscule and was eventually replaced, a few decades later, by the modern antiqua miniscule (Barbara Treli nska, ´ “Epigraficzna kapita a protorenesansowa w Polce,” Tradycje i perspektywy nauk pomocniczych historii w Polce, ed. Mieczyslawa Rakosza, 1995, 209–22; Ottavio Banti, “Dall’ epigrafica Romanica alle Pre-umanistica: La scrittura epigrafica dal XII alla fine del XV secolo a Pisa,” Scrittura e civiltà 24 [2000]: 61–97; Walter Koch, “Das 15. Jahrhundert in der Epigraphik: Die Schriften ‘zwischen’ Mittelalter und Neuzeit in Italien und nördlich der Alpen,” Libri, documenti, epigrafi medievali, possibilità di studi comparativi: Atti del convegno internazionale di studio dell’ Associazione italiana dei Paleographi e Diplomatisti, Bari 2.–5. ottobre 2000, ed., Francesco Magistrale, Corinna Drago, and Paolo Fioretti 2002, 587–606; id., “Variationsfreudige Majuskel,” Mediterraneo, Mezzogiorno, Europa: Studi in onore di Cosimo D. Fonseca, ed. Giancarlo Ardenna and Hubert Houben, 2004, 621–40; id., “Epigraphische Vielfalt am Übergang vom Mittelalter zur Neuzeit,” Österreichische Zeitschrift für Kunst und Denkmalpflege 54 [2000]: 367–76; Ramona Epp, “Eine epigraphische Minuskel zwischen Mittelalter und Neuzeit: Die Gotico-Antiqua in den Inschriften,” Archiv für Diplomatik 47/48 [2001/2002]: 167–221). Characteristic of the growing academic professionalism of the epigraphy of post antiquity and the increase of knowledge is a gratifying growth of international networks, which continues apace, and has the ultimate goal of a European comparative discipline. The process is driven by international congresses which are wholly or partly dedicated to inscriptions. This is particularly true of the German inscription project, which has been holding regular conferences with foreign participants since 1980, usually on clearly defined themes. Furthermore, congresses and seminars on medieval epigraphy have taken place in Rome, Erice, Poitiers, Oxford, León and Prague. Most of the proceedings, with contributions from leading epigraphicists, most of whom are involved in the large-scale projects, and representatives of related fields, have been published and make clear the progress made in medieval and modern epigraphy, and the continual opening of new themes (Fachtagung für lateinische Epigraphik des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit. Landshut, 18.–20. Juli 1980, ed. Rudolf M. Kloos, 1982; Epigraphik 1982: Fachtagung für mittelalterliche und neuzeitliche Epigraphik, Klagenfurt, 30. September – 3. Oktober 1982, ed. Walter Koch, 1983; Deutsche Inschriften: Fachtagung für mittelalterliche und neuzeitliche Epigraphik, Lüneburg 1984, ed. Karl Stackmann, Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, Philol.-hist.
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Kl. 3. Folge Nr. 151, 1986; Deutsche Inschriften: Fachtagung für mittelalterliche und neuzeitliche Epigraphik, ed. Harald Zimmermann, Abhandlungen der Geistes- und sozialwissenschaftlichen Kl. der Akademie der Wissenschaften und Literatur zu Mainz Jahrgang 1987, Nr. 12, 1987; Epigraphik 1988: Fachtagung für mittelalterliche und neuzeitliche Epigraphik, Graz, 10.–14. Mai 1988. Referate und Round-Table-Gespräche, ed. Walter Koch, Denkschriften der Phil.hist. Kl. der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 213 = Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für die Herausgabe der Inschriften des deutschen Mittelalters 2, 1990; Vom Quellenwert der Inschriften: Vorträge und Berichte der Fachtagung Esslingen 1990, ed. Renate Neumüllers-Klauser, Supplemente zu den Sitzungsberichten der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, Phil.-hist. Kl. 7, 1992; Inschriften bis 1300: Probleme und Aufgaben ihrer Erforschung. Referate der Fachtagung für mittelalterliche und frühneuzeitliche Epigraphik, ed. Helga Giersiepen and Raymund Kottje, Abhandlungen der Nordrhein-westfälischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 94, 1995; Inschrift und Material: Inschrift und Buchschrift: Fachtagung für mittelalterliche und neuzeitliche Epigraphik, Ingolstadt 1997, ed. Walter Koch and Christine Steininger, Abhandlungen der Phil.-hist. Kl. der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften NF 117, 1999; Epigraphik 2000: Neunte Fachtagung für mittelalterliche und neuzeitliche Epigraphik, Klosterneuburg 9.–12. Oktober 2000, Denkschriften der Phil.-hist. Kl. der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 335 = Forschungen zur Geschichte des Mittelalters 10, 2006 [the meeting was dedicated to the early modern period]). The proceedings of the last two conferences – Halberstadt 2004 (Theme: “Inscriptions and European Treasures”) and Greifswald 2007 (Theme: “Traditions, Caesuras, Fresh Starts: Inscriptions of the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period;” the event was mostly concerned with the Baltic regions) – have not yet been published. (On proceedings of conferences outside German-language scholarship, see: Epigrafia medievale greca e latina. Ideologia e funzione: Atti del seminario di Erice 12–18 settembre 1991, ed. Guglielmo Cavallo and Cyril Mango, Biblioteca del “Centro per il collegamento degli studi medievali e umanistici in Umbria,” 11, 1995; Épigraphie et iconographie: Actes du Colloque tenu à Poitiers les 5–8 octobre 1995, ed. Robert Favreau, Civilisation Médiévale, 2, 1996; Roman, Runes and Ogham: Medieval Inscriptions in the Insular World and on the Continent, ed. John Higgitt, Katherine Forsyth, and David N. Parsons, 2001; Documenti medievali greci e latini: Studi comparativi: Atti del seminario di Erice 23–29 ottobre 1995, ed. Giuseppe de Gregorio and Otto Kresten, 1998; Libri, documenti, epigrafi medievali: Possibilità di studi comparativi: Atti del Convegno internazionale dell’Assoziazione Italiana dei Paleografi e Diplomatisti, Bari, 2–5 ottobre 2000, ed. Francesco Magistrale, Corinna Drago, and Paolo Fio-
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retti, 2002; Epigraphica & Sepulcralia 1: Sborník prísp ˇ evkù ˇ ze zasedání k problematice sepulkrálních památek poradn ˇ ych ´ Ústavem Dejin ˇ Kmení ˇ AVMR v letech 2000 azˇ 2004, ed. Dalibor Prix and Jiri Rohá cek, ˇ 2005). The Epigraphische Forschungs- und Dokumentationszentrum (center for epigraphic research and documentation) of the University of Munich, founded in the 1980s within the School of History (Dept. of the auxiliary sciences) regards itself as a service point for the discipline. It aims to catalogue and where possible acquire works published on the subject throughout Europe, both that directly relating to epigraphy as well, in selection, historical and art historical works where inscriptions play a central role. With what is now the largest library on medieval and modern epigraphy, the center is the first port of call for research trips and enquiries from Germany and abroad. Literature reviews are published at intervals (see “Selected Bibliography”), which arrange and discuss publications under eight thematic headings: 1) Conference proceedings, handbooks, large-scale summaries. 2) National edition series. 3) Other editions. 4) Epigraphic methodology, aims, projects. 5) Scripts. 6) Language, formularies, meter, ‘mentalité.’ 7) Individual monuments or groups of monuments in historical perspective. 8) Epigraphy and art history, the applied arts, studies of objects and restoration questions. These reviews have become a means of international communication, and show the progress made in research, as well as the growing appreciation throughout Europe of inscriptions as a varied and spontaneous source on the life of earlier ages. Select Bibliography Rudolf M. Kloos, “Epigraphische Bemerkungen zum Aachener Karlssiegel,” Zeitschrift des Aachener Geschichtsvereins 82 (1972): 5–10; Harald Drös, “Siegelepigraphik im Umfeld des ältesten Kölner Stadtsiegels,” Archiv für Diplomatik 39 (1993): 149–99; Jürgen Sydow, “Paläographie der Kölner Münzinschriften des Mittelalters,” Bonner Jahrbücher 149 (1949): 239–86; Rudolf M. Kloos, Einführung in die Epigraphik des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1980, 2nd ed. 1992; with an excellent bibliography); Robert Favreau, Les Inscriptions médiévales: Typologie des sources du Moyen Âge occidental, 35 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1979); id., L’Épigraphie médiévale. L’Atelier du Médiéviste, 5 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1997; with an excellent bibliography); Nicolette Gray, A History of Lettering (Oxford: Phaidon, 1986); Helga Giersiepen and Clemens Bayer, Inschriften, Schriftdenkmäler – Techniken, Geschichte, Anlässe (Niedernhausen/Ts.: Falken, 1995); Vicente García Lobo and Encarnación Martín López, De Epigrafia Medieval. Introducción y Album (León: n.p., n.y.); Walter Koch, Inschriftenpaläographie des abendländischen Mittelalters und der früheren Neuzeit: Früh- und Hochmittelalter (Vienna and Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 2007; with an excellent bibliography); Rudolf M. Kloos, “Die deutschen Inschriften: Ein Bericht über das deutsche Inschriftenunternehmen,” Studi Medievali 3a serie XIV, I (1973): 335–62; Walter Koch, “50 Jahre Deutsches Inschriftenwerk (1934–1984): Das Unternehmen
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der Akademien und die epigraphische Forschung,” Deutsche Inschriften: Fachtagung für mittelalterliche und neuzeitliche Epigraphik. Lüneburg 1984. Vorträge und Berichte, ed. Karl Stackmann (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986), 15–45; Robert Favreau, “L’Épigraphie médiévale: Naissance et dévéloppement d’une discipline,” Académie des inscriptions & belles lettres: Comptes rendus des séances de l’année (Paris: Boccard, 1989), 328–63; Walter Koch, “Das Schweizer Inschriftenwerk im Rahmen der europäischen Epigraphik,” Zeitschrift für Schweizerische Archäologie und Kunstgeschichte 61 (2004): 45–59; id., “Die mittelalterliche und neuzeitliche Epigraphik: Das Werden einer neuen Historischen Hilfswissenschaft,” AfD 50 (2004): 547–77; id., Literaturbericht zur mittelalterlichen und neuzeitlichen Epigraphik (1976–1984) (Munich: Monumenta Germaniae Historica, 1987; with an introduction reviewing the discipline’s history); Walter Koch (with contributions from Franz-Albrecht Bornschlegel, Albert Dietl, and Maria Glaser), Literaturbericht zur mittelalterlichen und neuzeitlichen Epigraphik (1985–1991) (Munich: Monumenta Germaniae Historica, 1994); Walter Koch, Maria Glaser, and Franz-Albrecht Bornschlegel, Literaturbericht zur mittelalterlichen und neuzeitlichen Epigraphik (1992–1997) (Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 2000); Walter Koch and Franz-Albrecht Bornschlegel, Literaturbericht zur mittelalterlichen und neuzeitlichen Epigraphik (1998–2002) (Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 2005).
Walter Koch
Eschatology A. Definition Eschatology (from Greek “ta eschata,” the last things) will here be understood as collective term for all conceptions concerning the life after death current in Latin Christendom between the age of migration and the Protestant Reformation. During that epoch, death, judgment, Heaven and Hell were known as the four last things, quattuor novissima, de veer uitersten, etc. The idea of our present dwelling in this ‘vale of tears’ being but a short time of examination for the everlasting life to come shaped the mentalities of our forefathers much more intensively than we can imagine today. The existence of the Church as organisation and of monasticism as institution, both considering themselves and being considered by most lay people as necessary intermediaries between man and the divinity, depended most on the suggestion that priests and monks possessed the means of securing a place in Heaven for the believers. This they would do only in exchange for earthly goods, i. e., administer the sacraments and pray for the dead. Eschatological beliefs therefore had a most intensive impact not only on medieval mental-
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ities, but on economics and power structures as well (as has been, several errors notwithstanding, convincingly demonstrated by Robert B. Ekelund et al., Sacred Trust: The Medieval Church as an Economic Firm, 1996; Achim Mayer, Fegefeuer und Bettelorden: Päpstliches Marketing im 13. Jahrhundert, 1996). Most modern investigations into this subject of the medieval history of religiosity, however, usually do not have an interpretative character, but try, in the tradition of positivism, to collect and classify the material. This is sound, because much less work has been done in that field than, e. g., on the medieval epic, the iconography of the saints, or the political theories etc. It is self-evident that for this subject matter the period which attracts the majority of scholars from different disciplines are the late Middle Ages, which provide extensive source material. Perhaps the psychological and social functions of fantasies of a life after death, when the good will be rewarded and the bad ones be punished, are so obvious that psychohistory does not see a particular need to deal with this subject. For the historian of medieval mentalities, however, it would be vital to integrate these all-pervasive concepts into every single kind of his reconstructions of that period. B. Dying The shifts in the situation and conception of dying throughout the various ages have become one of the favourite themes for the history of mentalities after the general books by Philipp Ariès and Jean Delumeau, which, however, are not well informed concerning the epochs before the 16th century (Ariel Guiance, Muertes medievales: Mentalidades medievales. Un estado de la cuestion sobre la historia de la muerte en la Edad Media, 1989; T. Worcester, “In the Face of Death: Jean Delumeau on Late-Medieval Fears and Hopes,” Death and Dying in the Middle Ages, ed. Edelgard E. DuBruck and Barbara I. Gusick, 1999, 157–74). Pre-Christian attitudes can be reconstructed via the archaeological finds and those Old Norse texts that point to the time before conversion (G. Steinsland, “Antropologiske og eskatologiske ideer i förkristen nordisk religion,” Collegium medievale 3 [1990]: 59–71). For the Middle Ages, it has become clear that usually people died at home, surrounded by their family, not separated in medical care (Peter Dinzelbacher, “Sterben/Tod – Mittelalter,” Europäische Mentalitätsgeschichte, ed. id.,1993, 244–60, now see the 2nd ed. 2008; in how far there was a new sentiment of privacy at the end of the Middle Ages remains to be seen, cf. Christoph Kiening, “Privatheit und Innerlichkeit: Figuren des Todes an der Schwelle zur Neuzeit,” Das Öffentliche und Private in der Vormoderne, ed. Gert Melville et al., 1998, 527–48). More and more, Christian rites surrounded the act of dying (Fre-
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deric Paxton, Christianizing Death, 1996), though pagan uses were never completely eradicated (cf. The Pagan Middle Ages, ed. Ludo J. R. Milis, 1991/ 1998). Given the much more detailed pictures of the afterlife which the new religion communicated to the people, death and the realms of the dead probably figured more strongly in Christian thinking than in that of classical or Germanic antiquity. In the hour of death, spiritual leaders tried to give their fellow-Christians exemplars of a “pia mors” (M. Lauwers, “La Mort et le corps des saints: La scène de la mort dans les Vitae du haut Moyen Age,” Le Moyen Age 94 [1988]: 21–50), but even repenting criminals did the same (Valentin Groebner, Ungestalten: Die visuelle Kultur der Gewalt im Mittelalter, 2003, 111). There is a great number of general overviews on the subject, e. g., Le Sentiment de la mort au moyen âge, ed. C. Sutto, 1979; Death in the Middle Ages, ed. H. Braet and W. Verbeke, 1982; Dies irae: Death in the Middle Ages, ed. J. Taylor, 1984; Tod im Mittelalter, ed. Norbert Ohler and Arno Borst et al., 1993; D. Alexandre-Bidon et al., A Réveiller les morts: La Mort au quotidien dans l’Occident médiéval, 1993; du guoter tôt: Sterben im Mittelalter: Ideal und Realität, ed. Markus Wenninger, 1998; D. Alexandre-Bidon, La Mort au Moyen Age, 1998. Though a general set of expectations was shared by all Christians, one must not marginalize the individual, temporal, and social differences (for the medieval sovereigns, see Medievales 31, 1996; all contributions dedicated to the theme ‘La mort des grands’; see also Der Tod des Mächtigen, ed. Lothar Kolmer, 1997). One of the most remarkable studies dealing with those attitudes in front of death typical for a certain community, the followers of the Devotio Moderna, is still Leen Breure, Doodsbeleving en levenshouding: Een historisch-psychologisch studie betreffende de Moderne Devotie in het Ijsselgebied in de 14e en 15e eeuw (1987). The Carthusians have created an especial interest in the last hour as an English manuscript of that provenience dealing with all sorts of death-motifs demonstrates (e. g., see James A. Hogg, “Morbid Preoccupation with Mortality?” Analecta Cartusiana 117.2 [1986]: 139–89. Because of its broad overview, Ariel Guiance, Los disursos sobre la muerte en la Castilla medieval [s. VII–XV], 1998, can be recommended as a regional study. Much shorter is Arnved Nedkvitne, Mötet med döden i norrön medeltid, 2004). The memento mori and the ars moriendi were at first monastic, later on general themes for pious meditations which were supposed to help to produce contrition at the hour of death, considered, during the later Middle Ages, more and more the decisive point of man’s destiny in the other world (cf. Gerhild Scholz Williams, The Vision of Death: A Study of the Memento Mori Expressions … of the 11th and 12th Centuries, 1976. As an example of the ars moriendi
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may serve: Scone leeringe om salich te sterven: Een Middelnederlandse Ars moriendi, uitegeg, geannoteerd en ingeleid door, ed. B. de Geus and J. van der Heiden, 1985. A collection of texts from ancient Rome to the Protestant Reformation is presented by Jacques Laager, Ars moriendi, 1996). Studies on dying in diverse literary genera have not proved to be particularly helpful, but can be used for collecting source-material (e. g., Edelgard Dubruck, The Theme of Death in French Poetry of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, 1964; Philipp Tristram, Figures of Life and Death in Medieval English Literature, 1976; B. Gottschling, Die Todesdarstellung in den Islendingasogur, 1986; Claude Blum, La Représentation de la mort dans la litterature francaise de la Renaissance, I, 2nd ed. 1989; Alois Haas, Todesbilder im Mittelalter, 1989; Daniel Schäfer, Texte vom Tod: Zur Darstellung und Sinngebung des Todes im Spätmittelalter, 1995). Many regional studies deal with last wills as serial sources which are unambiguous testimonies of the attitudes toward death and of the fear of Purgatory and Hell. They show, among other things, which religious orders might be preferred for donations in exchange for masses, which churches in a certain town would be most searched after for being interred in, how many percent of the legacies were intended for the family, for monks and nuns, for secular priests, and so on (to quote a few examples: Heinz-Dieter Heimann, “‘Testament’, ‘Ordenung’,‘Giffte under den Lebendigen’: Bemerkungen zu Form und Funktion deutscher Königs- und Fürstentestamente sowie Seelgerätstiftungen,” Ecclesia et Regnum, ed. Dieter Berg and Hans-W. Goetz, 1989, 273–84; A. Bejarano Rubio, El hombre y la muerte: Los testamentos murcianos bajomedievales, 1990). C. Death The personification of death is an intellectual invention of the later Middle Ages, appearing at first in Latin poems of the second half of the 12th century, becoming more frequent in the 13th century, and entering iconography only after 1300 (L. E. Jordan, “The Iconography of Death in Western Medieval Art to 1350,” Ph.D. diss. Notre Dame, 1980). Whilst the famous triumph of death at Pisa is a work shortly before the Plague (Friederike Wille, Die Todesallegorie im Camposanto in Pisa, 2002), the epidemics did reinforce the occupation with this sinister figure (Peter Dinzelbacher, Angst im Mittelalter: Teufels-, Todes- und Gotteserfahrung: Mentalitätsgeschichte und Ikonographie, 1996). The late 15th century were the heydays of this allegory both in art, literature, and on the stage, developing not only the skeleton shaped death but also a set of special motives as death riding on an oxen, etc. (Anna Rooth, Döden och den svarta oxen, 1985). Best known are the dances of death – more correctly:
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of the dead with the living – mostly painted on the walls of churches and cemeteries, but existing also in dramatized versions. They seem to be an inexhaustible topic, as demonstrated by regular congresses of the international society for their study (e. g., Il trionfo della morte e le danze macabre dagli Atti del VI Convegno Internazionale tenutosi in Clusone, 1997; Den Tod tanzen? Tagungsband des Totentanzkongresses Stift Admont 2001, ed. Renate Hausner and Winfried Schwab, 2002). For a bibliography, see: Hans Ferdinand Massmann, Literatur der Totentänze, rpt. of the 1840–1850 ed., with an epilogue, and bibliography of the dances of death 1830–1976 by Rainer Taepper, 2002. The fullest studies remain, however, Stephan Cosacchi, Makabertanz, 1965; and Reinhold Hammerstein, Tanz und Musik des Todes, 1980; to be supplemented by Hélène Bertrand Utzinger, Itinéraires des danses macabres, 1996; Brigitte Schulte, Die deutschsprachigen spätmittelalterlichen Totentänze: Unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Inkunabel “Des dodes dantz,” Lübeck 1489, 1990; and Andreas Mühling, Der Tod tanzt mit dem Leben: Totentänze des Spätmittelalters und ihre theologische Deutung des Lebens, 2005. It goes without saying that the concept of the macabre, so typical for late-medieval art, is the background for this phenomenon (Roberto Gigliucci, Lo spettacolo della morte: Estetica e ideologia del macabro nella letteratura medievale, 1994). D. Burial For the early Middle Ages, we are very well informed on all manners of interment and the objects with which the corpses were provided in the hope of their usefulness in the other world (cf. e. g., Bonnie Effros, Merovingian Mortuary Archaeology and the Making of the Early Middle Ages, 2003). There is, however, no unanimity about the question of how characteristic the diverse grave goods were for a certain ethnic group. Many descriptions of the ceremonies surrounding the interment of a person of a high social rank have been conserved, be it for a certain city (Leonor Gómez Nieto, Ritos funerarios en el Madrid medieval, 1991), be it for one of the great persons in history (a south-east European example is analyzed by Johannes Grabmayer, “Das Opfer war der Täter: Das Attentat von Belgrad 1456 – über Sterben und Tod Ulrichs II. von Cilli,” MIÖG 111 [2003]: 286–316). There is no need to underline the fact that we are best informed about the ceremonies celebrated for the religious and secular leaders, the popes (Agosto Paravicini Bagliani, Le corps du pape, 1997; Wendy J. Reardon, The Deaths of the Popes, 2004), and the kings (F. Sabaté, Lo senyor rei est mort! Actitud i cerimònes dels municipes Catalans baix-medievals devant las mort del monarca, 1994; Hartmut Jericke, Begraben und vergessen? Tod und Grablege der deutschen Kaiser und Könige, 2005). The lament for the dead always had been
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also a topic of learned lyrics, and is well documented in the vernacular tongues as well (e. g., Albrecht Classen, “Death Rituals and Manhood in the Middle High German Poems The Lament, Johannes von Tepl’s The Plowman, and Heinrich Wittenwiler’s Ring,” Grief and Gender 700–1700, ed. Jennifer Vaught and Lynne Dickson Bruckner, 2003, 33–47), whereas preachers spoke only in honor of the great (e. g., D. L. D’Avray, Death and the Prince: Memorial Preaching Before 1350, 1994). For the central and late Middle Ages, the inscriptions and tomb slabs are the richest sources for a person’s concrete ‘memoria,’ being addressed to the living, among whom the ‘glory’ of the dead should be preserved. An overview has been published by Hans Körner (Grabmonumente des Mittelalters, 1997), but there appear, of course, continually new monographs on the local level (cf., e. g., the collection edited by Wilhelm Maier et. al., Grabmäler: Tendenzen der Forschung an Beispielen aus Mittelalter und früher Neuzeit, 2000). Of course, also the place of interment has been studied (cf. Michel Lauwers, “Le cemetière dans le Moyen Âge latin: lieu sacré, saint et religieux,” Annales: Histoire: Sciences sociales 54/5 [1999]: 1047–72). But ‘memoria’ is also a term used by modern medievalists for all possible positive ways of dealing with the dead, the study of the varied forms of keeping alive their memory, being intensively promoted above all in Germany by the school of Otto Oexle (cf. his Memoria in der Gesellschaft und in der Kultur des Mittelalters: Modernes Mittelalter, ed. Joachim Heinzle, 1999, 297–323; cf. also Michel Lauwers, La mémoire des ancêtres, la souci des morts: Morts, rites et société au Moyen Âge, 1997). E. Visions of the Other World For medieval people, the main sources of information on the life after death would have been the Bible, the Apocrypha, and the visions of contemporaries, from those of the Frankish monks Barontus and Wetti of Reichenau to that of the Irish knight Tundal (1148, the best known text of this genus, ca. 200 manuscripts still extant today) or of the monk Edmund of Eynsham and of the peasant Gottschalk (both late 12th c.). Contrary to common opinion, the revelations of the late-medieval female mystics do not contain only images of heavenly and symbolic spaces, but also extensive and extremely sadistic descriptions of the punishments in Purgatory and Hell, such as provided by Hildegard of Bingen (Barbara Newman, “Hildegard of Bingen and the ‘Birth of Purgatory’,” Mystics Quarterly 19.3 [1993]: 90–97), Mechthild of Magdeburg (Katharina Bochsler, Ich han da inne ungehyrtú ding gesehen: Die Jenseitsvisionen Mechthilds von Magdeburg in der Tradition der mittelalterlichen Visionsliteratur, 1997), and, much more detailed, Bridget of Sweden
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and Francesca of Rome, whose eschatological ideas still remain to be explored. Even if mirroring authentic experiences, the structure and details of these showings, when recorded by an ‘amanuensis,’ were influenced markedly by apocalyptic apocrypha (Jewish and early Christian, like the otherworldly journeys ascribed to the apostles Peter and Paul), for which the volumes of the specialized yearbook Apocrypha: Le Champ des apocryphes (1990–) are indispensable. Though singular studies on the vast visionary literature have from time to time been published already by 18th century theologians and 19th century literary scholars, especially by those interested in the “precursors” of the Divine Comedy (the fullest overview remains August Rüegg, Die Jenseitsvorstellungen vor Dante und die übrigen literarischen Voraussetzungen der “Divina Commedia”, vol. I, 1945; the most recent one, albeit concentrated on Italian texts, is Guiseppe Tardiola, I viaggiatori del Paradiso: Mistici, visionari, sognatori alla ricerca dell’Aldilà prima di Dante, 1993), the subject has not been – and still is not sufficiently – recognized in its importance for the history of mentalities (notwithstanding the full monograph of Peter Dinzelbacher, Vision und Visionsliteratur im Mittelalter, 1981; and id., Mittelalterliche Visionsliteratur: Eine Anthologie, 1989; see also his “Vision Literature,” Medieval Latin, ed. Frank A. Mantello and A. Rigg, 1996, 688–93; cf. id., “La Littérature des visions au Moyen Age: un document historique,” Revue historique 275 [1986]: 289–305). Even when both Jacques Le Goff (“The Learned and Popular Dimensions of Journeys in the Otherworld in the Middle Ages,” Understanding Popular Culture, ed. Steven L. Kaplan and W. De Reuyter, 1984, 19–37) and Aaron Gurevich (“Per un’antropologia delle visioni ultraterrene nella cultura occidentale del Medioevo,” La semiotica nei paesi slavi, ed. C. Prevignano, 1979, 443–62; id., “Oral and Written Culture in the Middle Ages: Two ‘Peasant Visions’ of the Late Twelfth-Early Thirteenth Centuries,” New Literary History 16 [1984]: 51–66) declared their interest in this matter, only a few historians would accept these texts as valuable enough to be considered in historical studies. At least one volume of the Typologie de sources du Moyen Age occidental (57) by Peter Dinzelbacher (Revelationes, 1991) has been dedicated to this type of texts as a historical source. The best bibliography on the subject of the eschatological visions, though rather specialized, is Robert Easting, Visions of the Other World in Middle English (1997); many details are given by Claude Carozzi, Le Voyage de l’âme dans l’au-delà d’après la littérature latine (Ve-XIIIe s.) (1994); (cf. also the collective volume Le ‘visiones’ nella cultura medievale, 1990; and J. Rubio Tovar, “Literatura de visiones en la Edad Media románica: Una imagen del Otro Mundo,” Etudes de lettres 4. ser. 3 [1992]: 53–73).
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Therefore, the bulk of editions and secondary publications comes from literary historians, who usually overstress the part of fiction and topoi in this genus, minimizing the actual experiences of seers and mystics (Peter Dinzelbacher, “Zur Interpretation erlebnismystischer Texte des Mittelalters,” ed. id.: Mittelalterliche Frauenmystik, 1993, 304–31). The interest in the dissemination of the manuscripts of eschatological visions has been stimulated above all by Nigel Palmer (Visio Tnugdali: The German and Dutch Translations and their Circulation in the Later Middle Ages, 1982). The most recent critical editions in this field are: Th. Silverstein, A. Hilhorst, Apocalypse of Paul, 1997 (the long Latin versions); L. Jirousková, Die Visio Pauli, 2006 (medieval Latin, German, and Czech texts); La visione di Tungdal, ed. Margherita Lecco, 1998 (medieval French translations); Die ‘Vision des Tnugdalus’ Albers von Windberg, ed. Brigitte Pfeil, 1999 (the Latin text, without the German; the interpretation fills the bulk of this book!). Though most manuscripts have not been adorned by illuminations, there is nevertheless a splendid exception, viz. the French Tundalus, made for Margaret, King Eduard’s IV sister, by the painter Simon Marmion (†1489): Thomas Kren, ed., Margaret of York, Simon Marmion, and ‘The Visions of Tondal’ (1992). Not a few visions contain descriptions of the divine punishments which persons of political importance have (or will have) to endure. That often has been used for propagandistic aims, so by Carolingian writers (Paul Edward Dutton, The Politics of Dreaming in the Carolingian Empire, 1994), as well as during the investiture controversy (Roland Pauler, “Visionen als Propagandamittel der Anhänger Gregors VII.,” Mediaevistik 7 [1994]: 155–79), and in the contest between the popes in Rome and Agivnon, as both parties were supported by their prophets (Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Poets, Saints, and Visionaries of the Great Schism, 1378–1417, 2006). One can gain a wealth of information about the knowledge of popular expectations regarding the hereafter by analyzing visions of peasants, as demonstrated by Peter Dinzelbacher’s articles “verba haec tam mistica ex ore tam ydiote glebonis: Selbstaussagen des Volkes über seinen Glauben, unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Offenbarungsliteratur und der Vision Gottschalks” (Volksreligion im hohen und späten Mittelalter, ed. Peter Dinzelbacher and Dieter Bauer,1990, 57–99), and id., “Bäuerliche Berichte über das Leben in der anderen Welt” (du guoter tôt: Sterben im Mittelalter: Ideal und Realität, ed. Markus Wenninger, 1998, 255–71). It should be noted that this corpus of texts is of interest to modern thantology as well, given that the medieval visions of the other world have been near death experiences, psychologically not different from those of reanimated patients which have received so much attention through the seminal
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work of R. Moody Jr. (Caroline Zaleski, Otherworld Journeys: Accounts of NearDeath Experience in Medieval and Modern Times, 1987; and, independently, Peter Dinzelbacher, An der Schwelle zum Jenseits: Sterbevisionen im interkulturellen Vergleich, 1989). The evidence from different cultures makes it impossible to explain similarities as nothing but literary topoi (as was the opinion of Marc Van Uytfanghe, “Les Visiones du très haut Moyen Age et les récentes ‘expériences de mort temporaire’,” Instrumenta Patristica 23 [1991]: 447–82; continued in Sacris Erudiri 33 [1992/1993]: 135–82). F. The Realms of the Other World Though understandably denied by modern theologians, the common opinion of all orthodox medieval writers was (in concordance with St. Augustine) that only a small number of human beings was predestined for salvation, whereas the vast majority (all pagans, heretics, and unrepentant sinners) would go to Hell. The evidence has been collected already by François Xavier Godts, De paucitate salvandorum quid docuerunt sancti (3rd ed., 1899). According to the norm setting Thomas Aquinus, “very few will be redempted […] most fail salvation […] (Summa Theologiae I, q. 23, 7, resp. ad 3). It is small wonder, then, to find much more evidence for fear of Hell than for anticipated joy of bliss. Regularly, eschatological texts and paintings treat the underworld with much more detail and fascination than the regions of the righteous. In both cases, however, one can often recognize a mirror of the social groups of the seer’s or writer’s time in the descriptions of the transcendent realms: clerics and lay people, for example, though the main grouping was structured according to virtues (virgins, martyrs, confessors …) or to vices (like in Dante’s Divine Comedy) (see Peter Dinzelbacher, “Klassen und Hierarchien im Jenseits,” Miscellanea Mediaevalia 12 [1979]: 20–40; id., “Reflexionen irdischer Sozialstrukturen in mittelalterlichen Jenseitsschilderungen,” Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 61 [1979]: 16–34). G. Heaven In medieval imagination, the land of the blessed was constructed with elements drawn from the Bible and from the many eschatological apocrypha in circulation (Mary Dean-Otting, Heavenly Journeys: A Study of the Motive in Hellenistic Jewish Literature, 1984). Both in the literature and painting of the era, its descriptions were significantly less vivid than the places of punishment. Here all structures are well ordered and extremely calm, whereas the devil’s home is a place of utmost chaos (Jerôme Baschet, “Image du désordre et ordre de l’image. Représentations médiévales de l’enfer,” Médiévales 2 [1983]: 15–36; Margherita Lecco, “Ordine” e “disordine” nelle rap-
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presentazioni medievali del Aldilà,” Quaderni medievali 20 [1985]: 133–43). This restricted fascination may be the reason for the rather limited quantity of modern works on medieval Heaven, too (cf. the works by Oechslin Weibel and by Dinzelbacher, quoted below). Who enters this region? Before resurrection, the saints only; after the Judgment, all good Christians. But prior to humans, this realm has been populated by the angels faithful to God. Their nine choruses (a conception of Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita) have interested both art historians (Barbara Bruderer Eichberg, Les neuf choeurs angéliques: Origine et evolution du thème dans l’art du Moyen Âge, 1998) and, because of their singing and playing, musicologists (Reinhold Hammerstein, Die Musik der Engel, 1962, containing many illustrations; Hubert Herkommer, “Sphärenklang und Höllenlärm, Lächeln oder Fratzen,” Engel, Teufel und Dämonen, ed. id., 2006, 199–224). A controversy about the “visio beatifica” (do the righteous souls see God immediately after death or only after the Last Judgment?), initiated in 1334 by Pope John XXII., did affect only the learned specialists (Frans van Liere, “Johannes XXII en het conflict over het moment van de visio beatifica,” Nederlands theologisch tijdschrift 44 [1990]: 208–22). In accordance with the Revelation, Heaven was often imagined as ‘Hierusalem caelestis,’ the many-towered, shining city of God (Piere Prigent, La Jérusaleme Céleste, 2003), and as such it was seen in many a medieval shewing, with many symbolic details; e. g., by Elisabeth of Schönau, † 1164 (Die Werke der Elisabeth von Schönau, trans. Peter Dinzelbacher, 2006). (Cf. J. Emmerson, H. Feiss, ed., Imagining Heaven in the Middle Ages, 2000. Collective publications by art historians comprise: The Iconography of Heaven, ed. C. Davidson, 1994; and Der Himmel über der Erde, ed. Friedrich Möbius, 1995.) H. Hell Based on the Bible (parable of Lazarus; Revelation) and a bag of apocrypha (Martha Himmelfarb, Tours of Hell: An Apocalyptic Form in Jewish and Christian Literature, 1983; Alan E. Bernstein, The Formation of Hell: Death and Retribution in the Ancient and Early Christian Worlds, 1993) medieval people ‘knew’ that God had created Hell as the most terrible torture chamber he could think of in order to punish there those angels who had sided with Lucifer in the great rebellion against Him after creation. It used to be located in the very center of earth, the volcanoes being regarded as entrances thereto. Hell was omnipresent in the religious didactics of the epoch (theological and devotional writings, visions, preaching, art, theater, etc.), but figured in satires, too (D. D. R. Owen, The Vision of Hell: Infernal Journeys in Medieval
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French Literature, 1970; H. Thieulin-Pardo, “La Vision de l’enfer et de la damnation dans les manuels de confession, Castille, XIVe–XVe siècles,” Enfers et damnations dans le monde hispanique et hispano-américain, ed. Jean-Paul Duviols et al., 1996, 213–30). As all Romanesque and Gothic churches possessed reliefs or wall paintings with the Last Judgment, and preachers loved to speak about it, everybody was confronted with this dogma. (A rich source for pictorial representations of this place in wall paintings is Jerôme Baschet, Les justices de l’au-delà, Les représentations de l’enfer en France et en Italie (XIIe – XVe s.), 1993; whereas The Iconography of Hell, ed. Clifford Davidson and Thomas H. Seiler, 1992, offers only a few studies from the point of art history and drama.) Rarely have musicologist written on the cacophonies with which the damned are tortured, the standard work remaining Reinhold Hammerstein, Diabolus in musica (1974), who offers many illustrations of devilish musicians, too (Hieronymus Bosch!). I. Purgatory Until the seminal book by Jacques Le Goff, La naissance du purgatoire (1981), the place of cleansing for those Christians who were neither very good nor very bad – a characteristic element of Catholicism in contrast both to the teachings of the Early Church and of the reformed churches – had been studied exclusively by theologians who, however, used to treat this subject in an ahistoric dogmatic and apologetic way. Le Goff was the first medievalist to draw attention to the significance of the “third place” between Heaven and Hell for the history of mentalities, comparing this new structure to the more differentiated society of the high Middle Ages (cf. J. Bougerol, “Autour de ‘La naissance du purgatoire’,” Archives d’histoire doctrinale et litterature du moyen âge 58 [1983]: 7–59). On the whole, one can accept this conception as valid, though several reviewers have shown the invention of the term “purgatorium” to predate by one or two generations the last quarter of the 12th century (when Le Goff assumed its creation). And even if the term did not exist during the early Middle Ages, there is no doubt that then already such a cleaning punishment existed for the souls of Christians (Peter Brown, “Vers la naissance du purgatoire,” Annales HSS [1997/1996]: 1247–61).The more people were indoctrinated with this belief (Peter Dinzelbacher, “Das Fegefeuer in der mittelalterlichen Schrift- und BildKatechese,” Studi medievali 3a, serie 38 [1997]: 1–66, Tav. I–VIII; and id., Von der Welt durch die Hölle zum Paradies – Das mittelalterliche Jenseits, 2007; C. S. Watkins, “Sin, Penance and Purgatory in the Anglo-Norman Realm: The Evidence of Visions and Ghost Stories,” Past and Present 175 [2002]: 3–33),
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especially during the late Middle Ages, the more they spent money for indulgences (J. Chiffoleau, “Sur l’usage obsessionnel de la messe pour les morts à la fin du Moyen Age,” Faire croire, 1981, 236–56). That abuse, which has never been forgotten, was to lead to the abolishment of this part of the other world topography by the Protestant Reformers (J. Finkenzeller, “Purgatory,” The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Reformation, 1996, III, 363–64). An important step in the propagation of the cult of the poor souls has to be ascribed to the priests in Southern France during the time of the residence of the popes at Avignon (Jacques Chiffoleau, La comptabilité de l’au-delà: Les hommes, la mort et la religion dans la région d’Avignon à la fin du Moyen Age, 1980; Michelle Fournié, Le ciel peut-il attendre? Le culte du Purgatoire dans le Midi de la France (1320 environ – 1520 environ), 1997). The presence of evocations of purgatory in late-medieval literature as analyzed partly by Takami Matsuda (Death and Purgatory in Middle English Didactic Poetry, 1997) could easily been shown for the other national literatures as well. Only a few saints, like Pope Gregory I and Odilia of Alsace, were specialized in saving souls from purgatory (Leopold Kretzenbacher, Legendenbilder aus dem Feuerjenseits, 1980). However, most of the late medieval practical mystics, especially the female ones, saw apparitions of tormented souls begging for help and were asked by believers to use their special contacts with Jesus in order to free their relatives from the purgatorial fires (Erich Bauer, “Die Armen-Seelen- und Fegefeuervorstellungen der altdeutschen Mystik,” Ph.D. diss. Würzburg, 1960). There was yet the possibility to make a pilgrimage to a famous entrance to this place, a cave in an island in Lough Derg, Ireland, known as St. Patrick’s Purgatory. A stay there would free the penitent from all purgatorial pains after his/her passing away (bibliography and edition of the Latin and Middle English treaties on the “Purgatorium Patricii” by Robert Easting, St Patrick’s Purgatory, 1991). There is a famous AngloNorman version of the story by Marie de France, which has been edited many times, lately by: G. Lachin, Maria di Francia: Il purgatorio di San Patrizio (2003); and Sonia Maura Barillari, Maria di Francia: Il purgatorio di San Patrizio (2004); Visiones Georgii (ed. Bernd Weitenmeier, 2006) prints the earlymodern German versions of Gregory of Hungary’s record of his visit to S. Patrick’s Purgatory in 1353. It is a strange contrast that medieval Latin and vulgar writings on purgatory by far outnumber the pictorial representations conserved today even in the Catholic countries. Therefore the revision of the iconography of this place has been undertaken only insufficiently (Gaby and Michel Vovelle, Vision de la mort et de l’au-delà en Provence d’après les autels des âmes du purgatoire, XVe – XXe siècles, 1970; and Susanne Wegmann, Auf dem Weg zum Himmel: Das
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Fegefeuer in der deutschen Kunst des Mittelalters, 2003, which should be supplemented by studies on other countries). But not all souls have to await their purgation in that subterranean dungeon. Some must stay as ghosts at the place of their sinful life, others are forced to join the wild hunt. Given the possibility to explore in these concepts pre-Christian forms of beliefs in man’s afterlife, which, however, must be distilled out of ecclesiastical records, this had been a preferred theme of the German mythological school before 1945, recently revived by French medievalists: Jean-Claude Schmitt, “Les Masques, Le Diable, Les Morts dans l’occident medieval” (Razo 6, 1986, 88–140); Claude Lecouteux, Geschichte der Gespenster und Wiedergänger im Mittelalter (1987); id. and Philippe Marcq, Les esprits et les morts, croyances médiévales (1990); Peter Assion, “Von den abgeschiedenen Seelen: Kirchenlehre und Volksglaube in der spätmittelalterlichen Fegefeuer- und Geisterliteratur” (Geist und Zeit: Festschrift für Roswitha Wisniewski, ed. Carola Gottzmann and Herbert Kolb, 1991, 255–75); Jean-Claude Schmitt, Die Wiederkehr der Toten (1995); Philippe Walter (Le mythe de la chasse sauvage dans l’Europe médiévale, ed. id., 1997); Andrew Joynes, Medieval Ghost Stories (2001); Claude Lecouteux, Das Reich der Nachtdämonen (2001); Christoph Fasbender, Von der Wiederkehr der Seelen Verstorbener (2001; from a theological point of view); Alwine Slenczka, Mittelhochdeutsche Verserzählungen mit Gästen aus Himmel und Hölle (2004). From the 12th century onward, the stories about souls appearing in order to get relief from the living via alms etc. multiplied (cf. Vito Fumagalli, “Il paesaggio dei morti: Luoghi d’incontro tra i morti e i vivi sulla terra nel Medioevo,” Quaderni Storici 50 [1982]: 411–23; Marie-Anne Polo de Beaulieu, Dialogue avec un fantôme, 1994; Robert Easting, ed., “Dialogue Between a Clerk and a Spirit of a Girl de Purgatorio (1153),” Mediaevistik 20 [2007]: 136–83). J. The Limbs Limbus patrum Located as a kind of vestibule to hell or a special compartment of it, a separate subterranean dungeon was assumed to exist for the fathers and mothers of the Old Testament. The main source for this idea was the Evangelium Nicodemi, the narration of Christ’s “descensus” into the netherworld in order to save these forerunners of the new religion, which is of course a special version of the world-wide mythological theme of the hero’s journey to the netherworld (cf. Höllen-Fahrten: Geschichte und Aktualität eines Mythos, ed. M. Herzog, 2006). Zbiginiew Zydorczyk edited an important handbook on the
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Latin and vulgar versions of this most influential apocryphon (The Medieval Gospel of Nicodemus, 1997). There were numerous pictorial representations of the harrowing of Hell (Gary D. Schmidt, The Iconography of the Mouth of Hell, 1995), but the most important consequence of the reception of this tale was the development of liturgical stage-plays at Easter time. Here the descensus was dramatized, at first in Latin, but soon in the vernacular tongues, too (to quote but one example: Das Redentiner Osterspiel: Mittelniederdeutsch / neuhochdeutsch, ed. Brigitta Schottmann, 2002). Limbus puerorum Medieval theologians taught that the unbaptized children would be shut up forever in the Limbus puerorum, another prison for souls near hell. Opinions were divided in how far they had to endure punishments because of the original sin, the most severe doctrine being formulated by the Augustinian Gregory of Rimini, therefore called “tortor parvulorum” (torturer of the little ones) (cf. R. Weberberger, “Limbus puerorum,” Revue de theologie ancienne et médiévale 35 [1968]: 83–133, 241–59; Jaques Le Goff, “Les limbes,” Nouvelle revue de psychoanalyse 34 [1986]: 151–73; Didier Lett, “De l’errance au deuil: Les enfants morts sans baptême et la naissance du Limbus puerorum aux XIIe-XIIIe s.,” La Petite enfance dans l’Europe médiévale et moderne, ed. Robert Fossier, 1997, 77–92. Still very valuable, but nearly unknown, remains G. G. Coulton, Infant Perdition in the Middle Ages, 1922). K. Paradise This word was used both for heaven and for the terrestrial garden of the Old Testament, and could also mean a spiritual-allegorical place, the monastery, a part of the church (Reinhold R. Grimm, Paradisus coelestis, paradisus terrestris, 1977; Ursula Frühe, Das Paradies ein Garten – Der Garten ein Paradies, 2002). In the tradition of the Greek and Roman islands of the blessed, the Celtic Avalon, and the Oriental myths of the Garden of Eden (John Prest, The Garden of Eden, 1981; Günther Lanczkowski, Die Inseln der Seligen und verwandte Vorstellungen, 1986) medieval legends had much to tell about the Biblical paradise. As not a few people believed that the souls of the righteous Christians would await the last day in the Earthly Paradise, a place situated in the East, on a high mountain, and inaccessible for the living ones, it must be considered one of the eschatological regions (Lars-Ivar Ringbom, Paradisus Terrestris: Myt, Bild och Verklighed, 1958; Arturo Graf, Il mito del paradiso terrestre, rpt. 1982). Visionary excursions to this eschatological place, however, seem to have been infrequent, like, e. g., the recently published narration of a devout woman of Cologne, living in the early 13th century (Peter Dinzel-
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bacher and Renate Vogeler, ed., “Die Jenseitsreise der Kölner Begine Petrissa,” MlatJb 32 [1997]: 77–104). L. Personal Judgment Only very recently the completely incoherent doctrines of both a personal judgment immediately after death and the Last Judgement at the end of time have been investigated (Jerôme Baschet, “Jugement de l’âme, Jugement dernier,” Revue Mabillon 67 [1995]: 159–204; Peter Dinzelbacher, “Persönliches Gericht und Weltgericht,” Endzeitvorstellungen, ed. Barbara Haupt, 2001, 95–131; Robert Easting, “Personal Apocalypse: Judgement in Some Other-World Visions,” Prophecy, Apocalypse and the Day of Doom, ed. Nigel Morgan, 2004, 68–85). That double concept has been the result of two Biblical models of divine arbitration which to reconcile medieval and post-medieval theology never really succeeded. The most famous representation of the personal (or particular) judgment is St. Michael who weighs the soul’s good and evil deeds (also integrated in scenes of the Last Judgment) (cf. Leopold Kretzenbacher, Die Seelenwaage, 1958; Mina Martens, Saint Michel et sa symbolique, 1979; J. Yarza Luaces, “San Miguel y la balanza,” Formas artisticas de lo imaginario, ed. id., 1987, 119–55). An other device or rather automatic instrument to the same effect was the testing bridge, waxing broad for the just souls, but growing so thin for the bad ones that they must fall down into the fiery river of the underworld (Peter Dinzelbacher, “The Ways to the Other World in Medieval Literature and Art,” Folklore 97 [1986]: 70–87; id. and Harald Kleinschmidt, “Seelenbrücke und Brückenbau im mittelalterlichen England,” Numen 31 [1984]: 242–87; Peter Dinzelbacher, “Il ponte come luogo sacro nella realtà e nell’immaginario,” Luoghi sacri e spazi della santità, ed. Sofia Boesch Gajano and Lucia Scaraffia, 1990, 51–60). Rather as a symbol for the difficult ascension to heaven, the ladder functioned as a popular pictogram (Christian Heck, L’échelle céleste dans l’art du Moyen Âge, 1997). M. Apocalyptic Expectations In contrast to the first centuries of Christendom, when the new religion tried to win adepts by promising them never-ending felicity in heaven, without stressing so much the doom of their enemies, in the Middle Ages there was much more menacing with the tortures of Hell expecting not only all pagans but all disobedient Christians, too. Therefore the waiting for the second coming of Christ to judge all the world implicated much more fear than hope, which is most evident in liturgy (the sequence Dies irae), art, religious prose and poetry (some general overviews may be read in Bernard McGinn,
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Apocalypticism in the Western Tradition, 1994; Claude Carozzi, Weltuntergang und Seelenheil: Apokalyptische Visionen im Mittelalter, 1996; P. Eligh, Leven in de eindtijd: Ondergangsstemmingen in de Middeleeuven, 1996; The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism, ed. John J. Collins et al., 1999; Peter Dinzelbacher, “Antichrist/Apocalypse,” The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft, vol. I, ed. Richard M. Golden, 2006, 45–48). A vital question, getting acute in situations of depression, was the concrete term of the Great Judgment. That millennial fears existed about the years 1000, 1033, 1260, 1348 etc. cannot be denied, though it is a matter of discussion how far not only the intellectuals, but the common people, too, were affected by such speculations (e. g., L’an mil: Medievales 21, 1991). As the perhaps most interesting thesis in this connection, Johannes Fried, Aufstieg aus dem Untergang: Apokalyptisches Denken und die Entstehung der modernen Naturwissenschaft im Mittelalter (2001), can be recommended. In this welldocumented book he shows how the wish to compute the date of the world’s end fertilized studies in the fields of astrology/astronomy, mathematics, optics etc. during the Middle Ages and the early modern period. The black death of the 14th century did have an impact to the religious imaginary, reviving, e. g., the angry God, the father from the Old Testament who destroys his creations with darts and sword (Robert Lerner, “The Black Death and Western European Eschatological Mentalities,” AHR 86 [1981]: 533–52; Dinzelbacher, Angst, loc. cit.). Though Jesus himself had blocked any speculations on the hour and day of the coming of the final realm, medieval scholars of course did reflect about this question. Given his influence in particular among the Franciscans, the theology of history by abbot Joachim of Fiore (†1202) has become a favorite theme for historians of religion and philosophy. Only the two most recent contributions can be mentioned here: G. L. Potestà, Il tempo dell’apocalisse: Vita di Giocchino da Fiore (2004); Matthias Riedel, Joachim von Fiore: Denker der vollendeten Menschheit (2004). In any case, the specialized review Florensia: Bolletino del centro internazionale di studi Gioacchimiti, should be consulted. Antichrist, as a central figure of the last days, became, predominantly in the later Middle Ages, a subject for theological disputations, the tractate by the papal surgeon Arnold of Villanova, De tempore adventus antichristi (1300) raising much objection against this idea (Manfred Gerwing, Vom Ende der Zeit: Der Traktat des Arnald von Villanova über die Ankunft des Antichrist in der akademischen Auseinandersetzung zu Beginn des 14. Jahrhunderts, 1996; C. Backman, “Arnau de Vilanova and the Body at the End of the World,” Last Things: Death and the Apocalypse in the Middle Ages, ed. Carolyn Bynum and Paul Freedman, 2000, 140–55, and 313–16). The legends surrounding him, telling
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about his seduction of the kings and peoples by feigned miracles, were represented, from the 12th century onwards, on the stage (cf. Hans-Dieter Kahl, “Der sog. ‘Ludus de Antichristo’ [De Finibus Saeculorum] als Zeugnis frühstauferzeitlicher Gegenwartskritik,” Mediaevistik 4 [1991]: 53–148). These legends have attracted many scholars, such as Richard Kenneth Emmerson (Antichrist in the Middle Ages, 1981), or J. Guadalajara Medina (Las profecías del anticristo en la edad media, 1996). Also, images of that figure and his deeds could been seen especially in early printed books of his vita (Rosemary Muir Wright, Art and Antichrist in Medieval Europe, 1995). Another complex of legends emerged around the strange “enclosed nations” Gog and Magog, who were supposed to attack Christianity at the end of time (A. R. Anderson, Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog and the Enclosed Nations, 1932; Helmut Brall-Tuchel, “Die Heerscharen des Antichrist: Gog und Magog in der deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters,” Endzeitvorstellungen, ed. Barbara Haupt, 2001, 197–228). Apocalypticism manifested itself in many fields and movements, as has been recognized since Norman Cohn’s seminal book, The Pursuit of the Millennium (1961, 3rd ed. 1970) (perhaps overinterpreting the evidence). Some of the legends about the events of the last days could even become motivations for political actions, be it within the pauperistic movements of the high and late Middle Ages (Peter Classen, “Eschatologische Ideen und Armutsbewegungen im 11. und 12. Jahrhundert,” id., Ausgewählte Aufsätze, 1983, 307–26), be it when an impostor asserted to be the last of the emperors (Hannes Möhring, Der Weltkaiser der Endzeit, 2000). Also the Hussite movement was influenced by speculations on the end of the world (Eschatologie und Hussitismus, ed. Alexander Patschovsky and F. Smahel, 1996). N. Last Judgment and Resurrection The end of the world and the second coming of Christ occupied many authors and artists of the period, as it then was a nearly undisputed element of the weltbild (R. Schwarz, “Die spätmittelalterliche Vorstellung vom richtenden Christus: Ein Ausdruck religiöser Mentalität,” Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht 32 [1981]: 526–53). It also used to be represented, in the 14th and 15th century on the stage (one example must suffice: Churer Weltgerichtsspiel: Nach der Handschrift des Staatsarchivs Graubünden Chur Ms. B 1521, ed. Ursula Schulze, 1993). Remarkably, most newer generalizing work on this subject seems to have been carried out by art historians, given the importance of illuminated manuscripts of the Apocalypse (and especially of its commentary by Beatus of Liebana), and the frequency of the Final Judgment on the western facades
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or the apsides of Romanesque and gothic churches and on famous reredos of the 15th century (Fra Angelico, Memling, Bosch) (see Frits van der Meer, Apokalpyse, 1978; De l’art comme mystagogie: Iconographie du Jugement dernier et des fins dernières à l’époque gothique, ed. Yves Christe, 1996; id., Das Jüngste Gericht, 2001). A few scholars have put forward the question: Who should be addressed by these pictures, and how did people react to them? (Cf. C. Consoli, “Il Giudizio finale del Battistero di Firenze e il suo pubblico,” Quaderni medievali 9 [1980]: 55–83; P. Klein, “Programmes eschatologiques, fonction et réception historiques des portails du XIIe s.,” Cahiers de civilisation médiévale 33 [1990]: 317–49.) Though in medieval scholasticism the most minute details concerning the appearance or age of the new bodies of the resurrected were matters for discussion (Caroline Bynum, The Resurrection of the Body, 1995), this expectation did not play an important role in the common beliefs, as, e. g., the rareness of tomb labels with an iconography and inscription hinting to the future bodies shows (N. Rogers, “Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum,” Prophecy, Apocalypse and the Day of Doom, ed. Morgan, 342–55). The new earth and the new heaven of the Apocalypsis also remained mostly a theologumenon without stimulating the concrete hopes of the faithful people. A final note: In medieval literature, the Other World figured also in forms which did not reflect Christian or apocryphal lore, but reflected ancient motifs (as Charon, Cerberus, Elysium …), best known through the katabasis in book VI of Virgil’s Aeneid. Of course the courtly Norman Roman d’Eneas (1160) dwells deeply in Greco-Roman mythology, as does its somewhat later Teutonic counterpart, Heinrich von Veldeke’s Eneit (Hans Fromm, “Die Unterwelt des Eneas, Topographie und Seelenvorstellung,” Arbeiten zur deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters, id., 1987, 101–21). Foremost poets writing allegorical journeys to the beyond used such motifs, which were accepted as literary devices, not as eschatological realities. They flourished mostly in France, Spain, and England (Chaucer’s dream visions), but found their undisputed climax in Dante’s Divine Comedy (A. Iannucci, “Already and Not Yet: Dante’s Existential Eschatology,” Dante for the New Millennium, ed. Teodolina Barolini and H. Wayne Storey, 2003). Even the allegory of life as a voyage integrated both Christian and antique motives which originally had been founded in eschatological believes (Peter Dinzelbacher, “Die mittelalterliche Allegorie der Lebensreise,” Monsters, Marvels, and Miracles: Imaginary Journeys and Landscapes in the Middle Ages, ed. Lars Söndergaard and R. Hansen, 2005, 65–112; id., “Il viaggio allegorico per il mare del mondo nella letteratura medioevale,” Poeti e poesia a Genova [e dintorni] nell’età medievale, ed. Margherita Lecco, 2006, 101–25).
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Select Bibliography A comprehensive review of the relevant publications between 1980 and 1993 has been published by Peter Dinzelbacher, “Nova visionaria et eschatologica,” Mediaevistik 6 (1993): 45–84; see further: Christoph Auffarth, Mittelalterliche Eschatologie (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999); Cieli e terre nei secoli XI–XII (Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 1998); Peter Dinzelbacher, Die letzten Dinge: Himmel, Hölle, Fegefeuer im Mittelalter (Freiburg: Herder, 1999); id., Handbuch der Religionsgeschichte im deutschsprachigen Raum, II., Hoch- und Spätmittelalter (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2000); id., Himmel, Hölle, Heilige: Vision und Kunst im Mittelalter (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2002); id., “Visioni e profezie,” Lo spazio letterario del medioevo, vol. II (Rome: Salerno Editrice, 1994), 649–87; id., Von der Welt durch die Hölle zum Paradies – Das mittelalterliche Jenseits (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2007); Ende und Vollendung: Eschatologische Perspektiven im Mittelalter, ed. Jan Aertsen and Martin Pickavé (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2002) (mostly on philosophical and theological questions); Enfer et paradis (Conques: Centre Européen d’Art et de Civilisation Médiévale, 1995); Endzeitvorstellungen, ed. Barbara Haupt (Düsseldorf: Droste, 2001); Friedrich Heer, Abschied von Höllen und Himmeln (Esslingen: Bechtle, 1971) (best general essay); Himmel, Hölle, Fegefeuer: Das Jenseits im Mittelalter, ed. Peter Jezler (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1994); Last Things: Death and the Apocalypse in the Middle Ages, ed. Caroline W. Bynum and Paul Freedman (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000); Prophecy, Apocalypse and the Day of Doom: Proceedings of the 2000 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. Nigel Morgan (Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2004); H. R. Patch, The Other World according to the Descriptions in Medieval Literature (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950); The Use and Abuse of Eschatology in the Middle Ages, ed. Werner Verbeke (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1988).
Selected Studies on Individual Autors Berthold von Regensburg: Christa Oechslin Weibel, ‘Ein übergülde aller der saelikeit …’ Der Himmel und die anderen Eschata in den deutschen Predigten Bertholds von Regensburg (Bern: Peter Lang, 2005); Floris: J. H. Winkelmann, “Eschatologie als dieptestructuur: Over oorsprong en interpretatie von de Oudfranse Florisroman en zijn Middelnederlandse bewerkingen,” Middelnederlandse letterkunde, stand en toekomst, ed. F. P. van Oostrom and Frank Willaert (Hilversum: Verloren, 1989), 135–52; Giacomino da Verona: Marco Schrage, Giacomino da Verona: Himmel und Hölle in der frühen italienischen Literatur (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2003); Gregory the Great: R. Manselli, “L’eschatologia di S. Gregorio Magno,” Ricerche di storia religiosa, vol. 1 (1954; journal demised thereafter), 72–83; id., Scritti sul medioevo (Rome: Bulzoni, 1994), 81–95; Heinrich von Neustadt: Peter Dinzelbacher, “Eschatologie bei Heinrich von Neustadt,” Wirtschaft–Gesellschaft–Mentalitäten im Mittelalter: Festschrift Rolf Sprandel, ed. Hans-Peter Baum et al. (Stuttgart: Steiner Verlag, 2006), 643–58; Johannes Eriugena: T. Gregory, “L’escatologia di Giovanni Scoto,” Studi medievali 16 (1975): 497–535.
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Everyday Life in Medieval Studies
Everyday Life in Medieval Studies A. Definition The study of everyday life comprises an effort by medievalists to understand the common or mundane experiences of medieval people rather than focusing on traditional issues of politics, economy, religion, institutions, and language. Because this field is rather broad and encompassing, a precise definition of everyday life is elusive. Contemporary scholars have written that they are examining daily life while investigating strikingly different topics. Scholars also sometimes disagree about the subjects that should fall under “everyday life.” Studies of court culture can certainly offer much information about the daily experiences of the elite, and rich pictures of the quotidian activities of royalty, for example, are often possible. Yet many scholars of everyday life wish to emphasize the lives of the many rather than the few in their studies, giving examinations of rural and city life primacy. Furthermore, this frequent emphasis on the underrepresented has led to overlap with studies of women, the poor, children, and other groups often ignored in scholarship prior to the 20th century. Investigations of everyday life in the 1970s sometimes intersected or overlapped with the effort of scholars to understand Lebensformen (ways of life) and mentality. Examining the way medieval people thought about their world became increasingly important with the development of postmodernism and the new cultural history, which tend to emphasize the views that texts allow medievalists to discern rather than the reconstruction of common events that scholars of everyday life first emphasized. Although this diversity does not lend the same coherence to everyday life as that of many other established subject matters, it has led to a remarkably rich literature in a variety of disciplines. Historians, however, dominate the subject, thus far producing more studies concerning everyday life than their counterparts in literary studies, art history, or archeology. Nevertheless, many examinations of daily life employ an interdisciplinary approach especially given the nearly unparalleled information that art and material culture can provide. In order to explain this aspect of the Middle Ages, which few medieval texts take as their main focus, medievalists have used a wide range of sources, textual and material. They include court proceedings, wills, archeological remains, chronicles, art, architecture, literature, trade records, financial documents, inventories, theological and philosophical tracts, city and manorial records, laws, church documents, mirrors, and hagiography. The study of medieval everyday life is therefore inherently interdisciplinary,
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and because of the rich information archeology can provide about everyday life, it has strong intersections with material culture studies. Studies of medieval daily life often take up rather specific topics, and even those that purport to be general, covering the whole of the Middle Ages and all of Europe, tend to focus on western Europe in the later Middle Ages. Very few works have traversed both the early and late Middle Ages, which contributes to the volume and diversity of studies produced. Everyday life (vie quotidienne in French and Alltagsleben in German) became a common subject of study in the early 20th century though it has roots in the late 19th century. Neither the Lexikon des Mittelalters nor the Dictionary of the Middle Ages offer an entry on everyday or daily life perhaps because of the difficulty of working out its precise definition and scope. Although it is a relatively recent subject of study, it is a well established one. Since the 1960s broad examinations of everyday life as well as narrower studies that either draw from this concept or directly address it have proliferated. In July 2007, a search for the general subject “Daily Life” in the International Medieval Bibliography produced a list of 5497 articles, and the number of books that could fall under this category is enormous. The immense size of this field relates to the fact that it naturally overlaps with many other areas of study. One could argue that almost all medieval subjects touch upon aspects of daily life. Thus, this essay can only offer a sampling of the various subjects one might place under “everyday life” and some of the most important works. Works of lesser importance will be listed to show the variety and proliferation of such studies for there is no way to offer a comprehensive list in such a short piece. B. History of Research The first historians, art historians, and literary scholars to examine everyday life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries wished to investigate what they termed “domestic life,” “private antiquities,” or domestic antiquities.” Their strong desire to examine antiquities eventually developed into the common use of material culture as a source in later investigations of everyday life. Many of the most prominent among these early scholars were German speakers: among them Jakob Heinrich von Hefner-Alteneck, Hermann Weiss, Jacob von Falke, Moriz Heyne, and Georg Steinhausen. (Kühnel, 7). John Thrupp, an example from Anglophone scholarship, published in 1862 The Anglo-Saxon Home: A History of the Domestic Institutions and Customs of England, whose originality for the time is recognized by current AngloSaxonists. Among these early pioneers in the subject, the one still most cited today is Alwin Schultz who wrote Das höfische Leben zur Zeit der Minnesänger (1889); Alltagsleben einer deutschen Frau zu Anfang des 18. Jahrhunderts (1890);
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and Deutsches Leben im 14. und 15. Jahrhundert (1892). As an art historian, he drew much evidence from artworks though he also employed literature and other historical texts. In the most famous of his books, Das höfische Leben, he used art and poetry especially to examine courtly life in the 12th and 13th centuries. In its focus on the elite, sometimes too literal interpretation of sources, and desire to list and categorize, it is in keeping with much late 19th-century and early 20th-century scholarship, but his interest in the quotidian was relatively innovative. Using artistic and textual descriptions Schultz covered a staggering array of topics in chapters that employed the following topics as organizing principles: fortifications, children, getting up in the morning, meals, hunting, travel, courtly love, weapons, tournaments, “feuds, the Peace of God, and robber barons,” warfare, ships, repentance, starving a castle, and old age. Alltagsleben einer deutschen Frau equally reflects 19th-century ideas of possible female historical activities with its thematic organization into chapters on love and betrothal, clothing, marriage, housekeeping, daily life and pleasures, birth, baptism, and child-raising, death and burial, and prevailing beliefs. The study of everyday life would not, however, take off until the early 20th century. Influenced by sociology and anthropology, medievalists began in the 1920s and 1930s to address aspects of the past hitherto ignored in scholarship. The ideas of the French sociologist Emile Durkheim began, for example, to influence the work of medievalists. For historians, this scholarship was part of the ‘new history’ that strove to examine not the elite, but society as whole, making various groups, institutions, and ideas valid subjects of scholarly research. Highly influential in this period was Charles-Victor Langlois’ La vie en France au moyen âge de la fin du xiie au milieu du xive siècle (1926–1928). This two-volume study represents the ways this scholar worked against romanticizing history and rejected the idea that history could be a “scientific” inquiry. In his first volume, Langlois examined French life by studying the romances, and in the second he considered the same subject from the view of contemporary moralists. Before discussing certain French romances in turn, Langlois paid tribute to Alwin Schultz’s Das höfische Leben zur Zeit der Minnesänger, whom he credited with employing literary sources to learn about courtly life (vol. 1, x-xi). He defined moralists as those men who wrote seriously about the mores of their time, a large group of medieval writers, whom he believed to deserve more attention for the light they could cast upon French history. Though recognizing that they could not entirely be separated from the romance writers and their commentary on courtly life, he believed they offered another view of medieval existence (vol. 2, vi-vii). In his willingness to employ a wide range of sometimes under-
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appreciated sources, he presaged a typical approach to finding evidence in the field of medieval everyday life. Eileen Power helped to popularize the study of daily life and to bring Langlois’s ideas to Anglophone scholarship. Having studied for a year (1910–1911) with Langlois in Paris, she acknowledged her debt when she dedicated to him her edition and translation of the Le ménagier de Paris, a 14thcentury manual on female deportment. With her famous portrait of “Bodo” in the popular book Medieval People (1924) and with her depiction of a rural English family, The Paycockes of Coggeshall (1920), Power helped many to appreciate peasants’ historical roles. She called scholarly attention to the details in medieval individuals’ lives, arguing that it was worthwhile to study them, and at the same time she made social history accessible to a general audience. To this day, everyday life remains a subject of great interest to non-scholars with a rich bibliography of works addressed to the average reader. Even children’s books cover this topic, such as Neil Grant’s beautifully illustrated but not entirely up-to-date Everyday Life in Medieval Europe (2004). Power furthermore brought women to the forefront of historical inquiry (Medieval Women, published posthumously in 1975) reconstructing their role in medieval everyday life. Her English colleague and sometime collaborator George Gordon Coulton edited and translated many medieval documents for his Life in the Middle Ages (1910, 2nd ed. 1928) with later reprintings. He then edited the series Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought and along with Power co-edited the Medieval Life and Letters Series. Historians interested in social and economic history opened inquiry into life in the medieval city and countryside. Though ostensibly interested mainly in economic history, the Belgian historian Henri Pirenne offered examinations of both the merchant and “middle class” as well as the institutions that governed civic life in his influential Medieval Cities: Their Origins and the Revival of Trade (1925, French edition 1927), thereby demonstrating the close connection between economic and social history. This relationship between these two historical branches results in the strong economic and trade components of many studies of everyday life. When Pirenne also wrote the seminal Mahomet et Charlemagne (English translation 1937; German translation 1963), he inspired historians like Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre to start the Annales d’histoire économique et sociale. Among other subjects, Marc Bloch turned to the study of medieval rural life in many articles and the monograph Les caractères originaux de l’histoire rurale française (1931). He took a wide view, concentrating upon broad developments in rural life. Edmond Faral in his La vie quotidienne au temps de Saint Louis (1938), continued the trend of working against romantic notions of the Middle Ages. In
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addition to examining the material particularities of medieval life, he tried to determine the views that individuals held – their morals and conscience – but within relatively narrow chronological and geographic confines in order to produce a more comprehensive tableau. After describing the work and customs of various groups (women, royalty, knights, clergy), including a long chapter on “the people,” the non-elite from townspeople to rural peasants and doctors to charlatans, he covered comforts and diversions, ideas of life such as religious and moral views, literary conceptions, and concepts shaping and shaped by the social order. This work’s appearance as part of the Hachette series on la vie quotidienne directed mainly to a popular audience again demonstrates the rather wide popularity of this approach to scholars and average readers alike. The subject of everyday life continued to be popular in France and elsewhere in the West. In 1972, Robert Delort’s Le Moyen Âge: Histoire illustrée de la vie quotidienne appeared (English translation 1973). It was lavishly illustrated, using many images of everyday objects and artistic depictions of daily events to make its points and was clearly meant to appeal to general readers. The subjects of each of this book’s sections reflect areas of growing concern to scholars, which would shape works on everyday life for the next few decades. Delort’s chapter on the environment presages the interest in natural resources. One on mentality reflects an interest in the common perceptions of medieval people, especially those underrepresented in the sources. Following the medieval idea of ordo, he offered successive chapters on peasants, knights, and clerics. His last chapter on towns covers a group that was in some senses outside the traditional medieval order – the inhabitants of urban areas. The early 1970s were an especially important era in the development of Medieval Studies of everyday life. In his Lebensformen in Mittelalter (1973), Arno Borst influentially concerned himself with Lebensformen, a word he admitted was imprecise in meaning or “unscharf.” (14) Borst argued that the idea that people conceived of themselves as being able to follow various forms or ways of life was quite ancient in the West and that their conceptions of these Lebensformen had changed over time. Therefore, he saw utility in determining how medieval people understood their roles in life and their perceptions of the possibilities they had for how they lived. Dividing his work in two sections entitled condicio humana and societas humana, he indicated his desire to understand not only how medieval people lived but also how they understood their place in society as a whole and the effects each had upon the other. In the chapters “Time and Life,” “Space and Environment,” and “Man and Community,” he explored a wide array of subjects such as ruins, voluntary poverty, village planning, clothing, nature, insanity, and dialect. For the next section’s chapters, “Farmers and Burghers,”
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“Nobles and Princes,” “The Spiritual and the Educated,” and “Outsiders and the Exotic,” he touched upon an equally diverse list of topics including market economy, communes, robbers, virtue, court poets, students, heretics, and Mongols. In addition to displaying the sheer variety of medieval experience among other matters, Borst offered a means to examine how medieval ideas shaped everyday events. Another work to appear in 1973 was Pierre Riché’s La vie quotidienne dans l’empire carolingien (English translation 1978), which examined everyday life in the Carolingian Empire. As part of Hachette’s daily life series, it was meant to serve a popular audience as well as a scholarly one. The book was among the first works to examine daily life in the early Middle Ages. General works on medieval everyday life prior to and after Riché’s book frequently ignore or give little consideration to the centuries prior to 1000. On his first page, Riché noted the difficulties of his undertaking given the paucity of evidence for the early Middle Ages, but he was able to discern an extraordinary amount about common experiences and groups underrepresented in the sources. In addition to many chapters on lay and religious elite life, he included ones on rural technology, artisan technology, building trades, furniture and clothing, lighting, heating, and hygiene, food and drink, the landscape, cities, and demography. Other early medievalists have continued Riché’s efforts to learn about this aspect of their period. For example, Monika Obermeier has produced a study of servile women in the early Middle Ages (“Ancilla:” Beiträge zur Geschichte der unfreien Frauen im Frühmittelalter, 1996), Gale Owen-Crocker a book on Anglo-Saxon dress (Dress in Anglo-Saxon England, 1986, rev. ed. 2004), and Mechtild Müller a monograph on early medieval clothing (Die Kleidung nach Quellen des frühen Mittelalters). Various articles have touched upon early medieval everyday life, especially in the Carolingian Empire for which sources are relatively abundant (Jean Verdon, “La femme vers le milieu du ixe siècle d’après le polyptyque de l’abbaye de Saint-Remi de Reims,” Mémoires de la société d’agriculture, commerce, sciences et arts du département de la Marne 91 [1976]: 111–34; Ludolf Kuchenbuch, “Trennung und Verbindung im bäuerlichen Werken des 9. Jahrhunderts,” Frauen in der Geschichte VII, ed. Werner Affeldt and Annette Kuhn, 1986, 227–42; id., “Opus feminile. Das Geschlechterverhältnis im Spiegel von Frauenarbeiten im früheren Mittelalter,” Weibliche Lebensgestaltung im frühen Mittelalter, ed. Hans-Werner Goetz, 1991, 139–78; Chris Wickham, “Problems of Comparing Rural Societies in Early Medieval Western Europe,” TRHS 6th ser., 2 [1992]: 221–46). Though not necessarily directing himself squarely at the idea of daily life, Jacques Le Goff made major contributions to the field through his
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studies of many everyday issues as well as of the mentalities and views of a broad spectrum of medieval society. Representative of his work is the collection of essays, Pour un autre Moyen Âge: temps, travail et culture en occident, (1977, English translation 1980). Divided into four sections, the individual pieces each examine the past through a different lens while combining the quotidian experience with its contemporary intellectual understanding. In “Time and Labor” Le Goff explored conceptions of time among merchants, laborers, and the church, legal and illegal trades, early medieval workers and peasants, and the development from the 9th to 12th centuries of the social ideology of ordo which divided the population into those who fight, those who pray, and those who work. For “Labor and Value Systems” he studied university life and confessors’ understanding of other trades and professions while for “High Culture and Popular Culture” he chose not to view the two cultures as separate phenomena but instead considered culture in the Merovingian kingdoms, ritual and the cult of the saints, dreams, the marvels of the east, and folktales. By ending with “Toward a Historical Anthropology” Le Goff suggests anthropology as a means of better understanding the “ordinary man” as well as medieval ritual and indeed all the topics he covered. In his introduction he argues that anthropology allows historians to examine important sources like folklore and topics such as “daily habits, beliefs, behavior, and mentalities” that might otherwise lie outside historical study (x-xi). Some scholars, such as Heinrich Fichtenau in his Lebensordnung des 10. Jahrhunderts, (1984, English translation 1991), embraced the idea of examining the social order as medieval individuals understood it. He was not the first to examine life in the 10th century (Eleanor Shipley Duckett, Death and Life in the Tenth Century, 1967), but he brought many of the theoretical ideas of the 1970s to bear on the surprisingly rich sources of this century. Overlapping with scholars interested in mentality, Fichtenau gave a rich account of the experiences of a variety of 10th-century people as he explained both how they lived and how they understood the world around them. After establishing medieval ideas of ordo and familia, Fichtenau then covered in turn various groups (nobility, secular clergy, monks, and peasants) discussing the manifestations of these two mentalities within each. He ended with a chapter on disorder, a means to examine the ways in which people also mistreated each other. Other general studies of medieval everyday life including Otto Borst’s Alltagsleben im Mittelalter (1983), tried to make the daily life of medieval people come alive for readers, to illuminate what might seem an alien past. Borst wrote that “everyday” consisted of experiences that occurred on all days. Acknowledging that surviving sources generally reflected the elite
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rather than the majority of the medieval population (13), he nevertheless offered in thematic chapters what he believed to be a sort of antidote to the nationalist pride that some past Germans had taken in medieval high culture and the nobility. Covering both medieval world views and occurrences while emphasizing the rich variety and changes from the 11th to 15th centuries, he insisted that medieval everyday life was not timeless. In Harry Kühnel’s Alltag im Spätmittelalter (1984), he and his fellow authors examined the everyday life of late medieval Germany employing the latest methodologies for analyzing material culture as well as considering textual sources. Among the subjects they covered were conceptions and measurement of time, norms and sanctions, city society, peace, social mobility, death, birth, work, food, clothing, shelter, and art. These choices reflect both earlier interests in this field and the topics of subsequent studies, doubtless influenced in part by this richly illustrated publication from the Institut für Realienkunde Österreichs. In his Zwischen Augenblick und Ewigkeit (1989), Gerhard Jaritz hoped to call attention rather than provide solutions to the many problems of researching daily life in the 13th to 15th centuries. He argued that the history of the everyday must necessarily be more than describing and explaining, noting for example that medieval people themselves recognized a difference between holidays and other days, that they, too, would have recognized an “everyday life.” He urged historians also to examine concepts, processes, and structures as a means of explaining daily experiences. (10–11) Jaritz, for example, explored subjects such as communication, the individual and the group, meanings and symbols, and types and names in part to demonstrate the variety of methods one could employ in examining everyday life. Jaritz has also played a leading role at the Institut für Realienkunde des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit, founded in 1969 and based in Krems. The Institut has published proceedings from their congresses held regularly since 1977 concerning many topics related to everyday life and material culture. In, for example, Norm und Praxis im Alltag des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit (ed. Gerhard Jaritz, 1996), the various essays all tackle the fraught question of the degree to which sources reveal norms or expectations versus actual practices. For scholars examining everyday life, this question gets to the heart of how they must interpret evidence in order to learn about a subject almost no medieval text addressed directly. Most agree that they must pay careful attention to the details, conventions, and contexts of their sources in order to distinguish between expectation and practice though the split between the two is rarely tidy. A number of the essays in Jaritz’s collection rely upon material culture as a means of testing and balancing evidence of
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written sources that may reflect norm more than practice. Like most scholars of everyday life, however, they recognize that one must be just as careful in interpreting material evidence as texts. In another related volume, Terminologie und Typologie mittelalterlicher Sachgüter: Das Beispiel der Kleidung (ed. Gerhard Jaritz, 1986), the participants examined the problems in the terminology used for medieval clothing in texts, an example of the difficulties historians of everyday life face in interpreting the evidence available to them. The Krems volumes also cover a wide range of topical subjects. Disziplinierung im Alltag des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit (ed. Gerhard Jaritz, 1999), for example, covered discipline in late medieval cities and in Jewish communities as well as addressing different forms of discipline – royal discipline concerning violence, discipline both as a means of explanation and as a social reality in late medieval city chronicles, and self-discipline in mirrors for princes. In sum, the publications of this group highlight the methodological problems of examining everyday life while suggesting new avenues of inquiry. Associated with this Austrian institute is the society Medium Aevum Quotidianum, founded in 1982, which in addition to publishing a journal of the same name, promotes the study of everyday life and material culture through conferences, publications, and research. During the 1970s and 1980s, American scholar David Herlihy produced books and articles that addressed aspects of everyday life especially as they related to women and family. In Medieval Households (1985) he offered a broader European view of the family than Les Toscans et leurs familles (with Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, 1978). In examining the family through successive eras in Medieval Households, Herlihy touches upon many aspects of everyday life including domestic labor, child rearing, family size, marriage practices, affection between parent and child, and management of familial goods. In Opera Muliebria: Women and Work in Europe, 1990, he examined women’s labor in chronologically arranged chapters that provided a rich picture of the daily experiences of many medieval women. His posthumous collection of previously published essays, Women, Family and Society in Medieval Europe (1995), allows one to see both the breath of Herlihy’s interests and the ways in which they drew from earlier works on everyday life, especially in their concentration upon understudied groups like women and children and in their details concerning society and customs in medieval Italy. In the Festschrift for Herlihy, Portraits of Medieval and Renaissance Living (ed. Samuel K. Cohn, Jr. and Steven A. Epstein, 1996), scholars produced a variety of essays including a few on matters directly pertaining to daily life such as Lisa Bitel’s “Reproduction and Production in Early Medieval Ireland,” 71–90; Giles Constable’s “Was There a Medieval Middle Class? Mediocres
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(mediani, medii) in the Middle Ages,” 301–324; and Lorraine Attreed’s “Poverty, Payments, and Fiscal Policies in English Provincial Towns,” 325–48. A rich collection of essays concerning late medieval England appears in Christopher Dyer’s Everyday Life in Medieval England (1994). Originally published between 1980 and 1990, they reflect the subjects and approaches of this decade. Touching upon economic history as well as issues of identity, power, and material culture, Dyer examined village life and settlement, diet, buildings, wages, the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, and markets. In essays concerning “The Growth and Decline of Rural Settlements” and freshwater fish consumption, he employed archeological evidence. Other important sources for him and historians of England are manorial and parish records, estate surveys, and other documents which allowed him to present findings on changes in diet, peasant buildings, gardens, and orchards. Through analysis of relevant portions of the Domesday Book, he was able to provide rather abundant information on towns and cottages in the 11th century. Dyer admits that a combination of material and documentary evidence is best but only rarely possible when exploring medieval rural life (101). Insistent that a combination of local studies and general concepts provide the best way to examine rural life, he also offered looks at Pendock, Worcestershire; Suffolk; and especially the West Midlands. Since the 1980s, research on aspects of everyday life has blossomed. Listing all recent studies is neither possible nor desirable, but a sampling of recent works will indicate representative subjects and methodologies. Rather than selecting the “most important” studies since it is as yet too early properly to judge their influence, those books and articles discussed below will rather highlight areas that have been of particular interest without addressing large fields with which everyday life has strong connections such as women’s studies, memory, death and dying, and the history of science and medicine. Often archeology provides rich evidence for medieval everyday life not found in written texts; furthermore scholars sometimes weigh archeological finds against the evidence of written sources. (Martina Hartmann, Aufbruch ins Mittelalter, 2003) For western Europe, archeological studies that concern medieval everyday life are much more common than for eastern Europe, in part because Byzantine layers and finds have often been discarded in excavations focused on earlier periods. A collection of essays edited by Ken Dark, however, covers palaces, housing, shops, and religious artifacts in an effort to cast light on Byzantine daily life (Secular Buildings and the Archaeology of Everyday Life in the Byzantine Empire, 2004). Similarly, the interdisciplinary Byzantine Constantinople: Monuments, Topography and Everyday Life (ed. Nevra
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Necipoglu, 2001) provides essays on various topics including ritual, urban planning, architecture, markets, and foreign inhabitants. The authors often combined the approaches of historians, art historians, and/or archeologists in exploring these subjects. Others continue to examine the East through more “traditional” means. Nicolas Oikonomidès, for example, employed literature and inventories among other textual sources in order to understand everyday life in the Byzantine world as seen in his collected essays, Social and Economic Life in Byzantium (ed. Elizabeth Zachariadou, 2004). Studies of everyday life continue to foster interest in those with the least social status in the Middle Ages. Prisoners, jails, guards, and release conditions are some of the subjects Jean Dunbabin discusses in her Captivity and Imprisonment in Medieval Europe, 1000–1300, 2002. Clearly informed by cultural history, Dunbabin in her examination of captivity nevertheless comments frequently upon the daily conditions of the imprisoned and those who put and kept them in and released them from confinement as well as prevailing views of these individuals and the reasons for their detention. She demonstrates a skepticism concerning the information of romances far removed from the approach of Alwin Schultz and Charles-Victor Langlois, noting that such sources are often imaginative. Though she agrees that skepticism may not be a problem for “some postmodern literary critics,” it is a problem for a historian trying to discern probable historical conditions. Like many of her contemporaries she compares the literary sources to other historical documents, in which she discovered enough commonalities to determine that the romances could sometimes yield information about imprisonment (16). If economic history has long overlapped with that of everyday life, in the last thirty years cultural and social history have had many intersections in studies of common and unusual medieval circumstances and experiences. Among those individuals with low status who have interested medievalists are children, whose everyday experiences have been the subject of much exploration. Among those works not already mentioned that discuss children in the Middle Ages is Philippe Ariès’s Centuries of Childhood (1960, English translation 1962), a famous work whose arguments concerning medieval childhood have not held up under scrutiny. After using a small fraction of the available medieval evidence on children, he concluded mainly on the basis of artistic depictions that the concept of childhood did not exist in the Middle Ages. Ample ensuing scholarship covering a range of eras and places has proven this thesis untenable. Barbara Hanawalt in Growing Up in Medieval London (1993), employed a wide range of evidence to learn about the material culture, birth, baptism, mortality, instruction, and apprenticeship of children as well as about orphans, adolescence, and young servants
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in late medieval London. Her use of legal evidence demonstrates its utility to scholars desiring to learn about daily experiences. Taking an expansive chronological view but focusing mainly upon France, Danièle Alexandre-Bidon and Didier Lett explored the daily experiences of children from religious life to education, living conditions to apprenticeship, street children to elite children in their Les enfants au Moyen Âge (1997, English translation 1999). Nicholas Orme, examined later medieval English childhood in his Medieval Children (2001), including chapters on daily experiences such as danger, words, rhymes, and songs, and play. He expanded upon his consideration of English children’s education in Medieval Schools (2006). Many of the essays in the collection Childhood in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (ed. Albrecht Classen, 2005), explore aspects of the everyday experiences of children and particularly the nature of the parent-child relationship (see also the collection of articles edited by Classen in 2007, Old Age in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance). Shulamith Shahar also examined childhood among other aspects of medieval everyday experience. Her books Childhood in the Middle Ages (1990); Growing Old in the Middle Ages (1997); Fourth Estate: A History of Women in the Middle Ages (1983, rev. ed. 2003), all reflect the desire of those examining everyday life to tap into the lives of the many people who lived during the Middle Ages, not simply the male elite for whom the evidence is much more abundant. In each of these works she synthesizes a great deal of scholarship as well as adding new research. Typical of general studies, however, the books focus far more upon the later than the early Middle Ages. Concern with modern social problems has led scholars to explore them in the Middle Ages. For example, the essays “Home and Homelessness in the Middle of Nowhere” by William Ian Miller and “Looking for Home in Anglo-Saxon England” by Nicholas Howe (Home and Homelessness in the Medieval and Renaissance World, ed. Nicholas Howe, 2004, 125–42, 143–63), examined the homeless and what constituted a home in the Middle Ages. In Iceland, Miller determines that the law against homelessness, a capital offense, resulted in part from a desire to identify each person with a household, the primary legal and economic unit. Exploring evidence mainly from the sagas, Miller examines issues such as the qualities of a home, hospitality, outlaws, exiles, laws and beliefs concerning houses, the wild versus the domestic, and contemporary conceptions of home. He notes that “nothing seemed to horrify the Icelandic sensibility more than unattached people” (137). Howe employs the evidence of Old English literature to determine how Anglo-Saxons thought of home. Noting that much poetry suggests that the hall, not a person’s individual dwelling, embodied one’s sense of home, he further points out the dearth of evidence for housing since it was built of
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materials that leave little archeological trace. Typical of early medievalists working on the mundane experiences so rarely addressed in contemporary sources, Howe must use the evidence available to him: in this case literary sources since architectural remains and law codes offer little data. He ably draws a surprising amount of information on building types, ideals of home, and domesticity, though in the end he concludes that legal documents demonstrate that Anglo-Saxons thought of home “through the concept of land rather than the fact of houses” (159). As for more ordinary matters, scholars have discovered a great deal about food and drink from both written and archeological sources. Michel Rouche examined Carolingian caloric consumption and food types by examining monastic records (“Le repas de fête à l’époque carolingienne,” Manger et boire au Moyen Âge, 1, ed. Denis Menjot, 1984, 265–96). Donald Bullough examined the relationships and conflicts that could result from sharing meals and drinking together (Friends, Neighbours and Fellow-Drinkers, 1991). In order to learn about the level of nutrition for groups of varying social status, gender, and age, Kathy L. Pearson examined a wide range of textual evidence in her “Nutrition and the Early-Medieval Diet” (Speculum 72. 1 [1997]: 1–32). Bonnie Effros noted how food and drink affected the development of Christian community in Merovingian Gaul, arguing that clerics understood its profound importance in creating bonds or setting groups apart from one another and in delineating status, authority, and hierarchy (Creating Community with Food and Drink in Merovingian Gaul, 2002). Maria Giagnalovo employed the notebooks of a Tuscan merchant in order to learn about eating and drinking in Avignon in the 14th century (“Manger et boire à Avignon,” Provence Historique 54 [2004]: 463–72). Using Chaucer as a source, David Moses examined the diet of late medieval monks (“Soul Food and Eating Habits,” MAevum 75.1 [2006]: 213–22). Lack of food, particularly during a famine, could become a crisis, but with the difficulties of medieval agriculture hunger was not an unusual phenomenon (Hubert Mordek, “Karls des Großen zweites Kapitular von Herstal und die Hungersnot der Jahre 778/779,” DA 61.1 [2005]: 1–52). Waste disposal was a common problem in the past as now; archeology can cast light on this matter of daily importance (Wim van Neer, Ides Boone, and Bea de Cupere, “Social Status as Reflected in the Food Refuse from Late Medieval Sites in Namur,” RBPh 80.4 [2002]: 1391–94; Jill Hooper, “Waste and its Disposal in Southwark,” London Archaeologist 11.4 [2006]: 95–100). Examining the lifecycle of certain groups of individuals has been a fruitful means to understanding medieval everyday life. Some works are quite broad (Deborah Youngs, The Life-Cycle in Western Europe, c. 1300–c.1500, 2006).
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Others have focused on certain groups. Isabelle Réal, for example, structured her examination of kinship as presented in Merovingian hagiography in part by moving from the stage of marriage through the raising of children (Vies de saints, vie de famille, 2001). In her Queens, Concubines, and Dowagers (1983), Pauline Stafford organized her material according to the lifecycle of the early medieval women she discussed. Similarly, Bridget Ann Henisch, in The Medieval Calendar Year (1999) examined late medieval illuminations of the “labors of the months” in books of hours in order to explore the rhythm of the medieval year. Though shaped by an idealized view of medieval laborers, these depictions of seasonal activities provide “glimpses” of aspects of everyday life in the countryside. Additionally, she included three non-seasonal chapters on portrayals of children, women, and pursuits of pleasure in these images. Festivals were another means of marking the passage of time and pastime for medieval people (Ronald Hutton, “Seasonal Festivity in Late Medieval England,” EHR 120 [2005]: 66–79). Other leisure activities involved games, and scholars have begun to examine their social meanings as Oliver Plessow does in “What the Artefacts Tell: Medieval chess pieces and the interpretation of the social connotations of the game of chess” (The Mediation of Symbol in Late Medieval and Early Modern Times, ed. Rudolf Suntrup, Jan R. Veestra and Anne Bollmann, 2005, 109–41). The games of religious minorities such as the Jews have also been the subject of research (Gerd Mentgen, “Alltagsgeschichte und Geschichte der Juden. Die Juden und das Glückspiel im Mittelalter,” HZ 274.1 [2002]: 25–60). Music and performances were also forms of medieval entertainment. Though most scholarship on music and drama is directed more at musicologists and literary specialists than at the general medievalist, many such studies touch upon everyday life. It is, however, quite difficult to learn about the experiences of performers given the available sources, and late medieval performers are the easiest to examine because of the greater number of extant texts for that period (James Stokes, Musicians and Performance in Lincolnshire,” Early Drama, Art, and Music Review 24.2 [2002]: 121–51). Understanding human interaction with the environment and people’s use of natural resources have also been topics of study relevant to medieval everyday life. As medievalists across the 20th century became more interested in understanding the living conditions of the majority of people, agricultural history, for example, received increased attention (Georges Duby, L’économie rurale et la vie des campagnes dans l’occident médiéval, 1962, in English 1968; Bernard H. Slicher van Bath, The Agrarian History of Western Europe, English ed. 1963; Wilhelm Abel, Agricultural Fluctuations in Europe, 3rd ed., 1978, in English 1980, 1–95). Paolo Squatriti in his Water and Society in
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Early Medieval Italy (1998), examined the relationship between Italians and perhaps their most essential natural resource, water, from 400 to 1000. This approach allowed him to comment on various aspects of everyday life: domestic water supply and usage, hygiene, bathing, laundry, floods, drainage, irrigation fishing, and milling. The use of space has also been the subject of work by medievalists of various disciplines; understanding how medieval people interacted with their natural and created environments has proven a rich area of study. In particular, the use of domestic space received attention in various archeological studies such as Chris King, “The Organization of Social Space in late Medieval Manor Houses” (AJ 160 [2004]: 104–24), as well as in some of the essays from Cadre de vie et manières d’habiter: xiie–xvie siècle (ed. Danièle Alexandre-Bidon, Françoise Piponnier, and Jean-Michel Poisson, 2006): André Bazzana, “Espace privé/espace public: Maisons, ruelles et jardins dans l’habitat andalou,” 293–306; and Danièle AlexandreBidon, “Le confort dans la maison médiévale,” 129–44; Geoff Egan, “Le mobilier et le décor de la maison médiévale à Londres,” 221–27; Gerhard Jaritz, “Entre espace public et espace privé: le décor de la maison urbaine (Europe centrale, XIVe–XVe siècle),” 249–52; Françoise Piponnier, “Dénominations et fonctions des espaces dans l’habitation dijonnaise (XIVe–XVe siècle),” 109–16. Selected Bibliography Alwin Schultz, Das höfische Leben zur Zeit der Minnesänger, vol. 1–2 (1889; Osnabrück: O. Zeller, 1965); Eileen Power, Medieval People (1924; London: Methuen, 1963); Charles-Victor Langlois, La vie en France au moyen âge de la fin du Xiie au milieu du XIVe de l’histoire, vol. 1–2 (Paris: Hachette, 1926–28); Edmond Faral, La vie quotidienne au temps de Saint Louis (Paris: Hachette, 1938); Arno Borst Lebensformen in Mittelalter (Frankfurt: Propyläen, 1973); Robert Delort, Le Moyen Âge: Histoire illustrée de la vie quotidienne (Lausanne: Editions Edita, 1972; English translation 1973); Pierre Riché, La vie quotidienne dans l’empire carolingien (Paris: Hachette, 1973; English translation 1978); Jacques Le Goff, “L’historien et l’homme quotidien,” Pour un autre Moyen Âge (Paris: Gallimard, 1978; English trans. 1980), 335–48; Otto Borst, Alltagsleben im Mittelalter (Frankfurt a. M.: Insel, 1983); Heinrich Fichtenau, Lebensordnung des 10. Jahrhunderts (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, 1992; 1st ed. 1984, English trans. 1991); Alltag im Spätmittelalter, ed. Harry Kühnel (Graz: Verlag Styria, 1984); Gerhard Jaritz, Zwischen Augenblick und Ewigkeit: Einführung in die Alltagsgeschichte des Mittelalters (Vienna: Böhlau, 1989).
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F Feminism A. Definition Over the last century no movement has altered the medieval studies landscape more than has feminism, an approach to the evaluation of women involving research from all disciplines: history, humanities, sciences, social sciences, economics. Feminist scholarship seeks to recover medieval women’s contributions that had fallen into obscurity, to examine the relationship between men and women in patriarchal cultures, and to study the roles of women during the Middle Ages. The impact of feminism upon Medieval Studies can be dramatically demonstrated by a comparison between two medieval readers, popular anthologies that offer translations of primary sources from the Middle Ages on such diverse topics as government, religion, and literature. The 1949 Portable Medieval Reader (ed. Bruce Ross and Mary Martin McLaughlin) contains a letter by a woman of the Stonor family, a selection from Anna Comnena’s chronicle, and an excerpt from Margery Kempe’s autobiography. As for writings addressed to or about women, there is a letter from Abélard to Héloïse, excerpts from The Goodman of Paris’s The Good Wife and from “The Case of a Woman Doctor in Paris,” and various literary selections from the Miracles of the Virgin and from romance literature (e. g., Tristan and Iseult). In contrast, Norman F. Cantor’s 1994 The Medieval Reader covers women much more extensively: it doubles the number of women writers to six, it includes excerpts from Joan of Arc’s trial, and it contains romantic literature and Miracles of the Virgin similar to the 1949 volume; most notably, it has a section entitled “Alienated Segments and Unresolved Problems,” with nearly half of the selections by or about women (the other group that is well represented is Jews). B. Historical Development With the onset of the Renaissance/Early Modern Era, women’s roles in Europe tended to become restricted to the private sphere of the home, with women who published, governed, or held other visible roles viewed with increasing suspicion. Thus, very few printed editions of medieval women writers appeared during the Early Modern Era – in 1501 Hrotsvit’s Opera
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Hrosvitae was published in Nuremberg and in 1566 Hildegard’s Epistolarum Liber was published in Cologne. Although Christine de Pizan’s Les Faits d’Armes et de Chevalerie appeared in a number of editions beginning in 1488, many were printed without listing her name as author. Like Christine, Joan of Arc’s influence became diminished: French official court historians of the 16th century had little to say about their national heroine, and Shakespeare in 1590 in 1 Henry VI depicted Joan as a witch in league with evil spirits. This tendency to exclude women from spheres of power extended to educational systems, so as modern universities in the 19th and 20th centuries created departments organized around nation-states (e. g., German, Italian, and English), women’s contributions from the past were often overlooked. For example, W. P. Ker’s influential surveys of medieval literature made brief mention of Marie de France and Anna Comnena, but no medieval woman writer received the attention given to the men. Political histories were geared toward celebrating “Great Men” as founders of civilizations, so one had to turn to social histories to read about women and their daily lives, such as those by Eileen Power (Medieval People, 1924). One subject that fascinated both academic and popular audiences was the mystical experiences of religious women, particularly Joan of Arc and medieval saints, like St. Catherine of Siena. The Catholic Church responded to public interest in Joan by canonizing her as a saint in 1920. However, academic opinion dismissed the visions of female mystics as “hysteria,” a misogynistic misapplication of science to women (Cristina Mazzoni, Saint Hysteria: Neurosis, Mysticism, and Gender in European Culture, 1996). In recent decades academics have begun to analyze the behavior of medieval female saints in the context of their culture and belief, not as a mental illness (Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women, 1987; Frauenmystik im Mittelalter, ed. Peter Dinzelbacher and Dieter R. Bauer, 1985; Dinzelbacher, Mittelalterliche Frauenmystik, 1992). Feminist scholarship in Medieval Studies paralleled political and civil rights movements in Europe and the United States. Research into medieval women’s contributions and lives developed at about the same time as the suffragette movements of the late 19th century. The amount of scholarship steadily increased as more and more women enrolled in the academy and become lecturers/researchers. Certain subjects quickly became staples. There were the “Great Women” of the Middle Ages, such as the Byzantine princess and writer, Anna Comnena (Georgina Buckler, Anna Comnena, 1929); religious life was, of course, another popular topic (Lina Eckenstein, Woman under Monasticism, 1896; Eileen Power, Medieval English Nunneries, 1922; Evelyn Underhill, Mystics of the Church, 1925).
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The rate of scholarship greatly accelerated with the feminist movement of the 1960s. As feminists theorized about sex/gender and established places in the academy for women, such as feminist presses and women’s studies departments, the number of publications related to medieval women exploded in the 1980s. Popular culture and the arts also drew attention to medieval women – for instance, the film The Lion in Winter (1968) about the relationship between Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry II, and Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party (1979), a work of art that referenced Christine de Pizan and other influential women from the past. Just as the suffragette and feminist movements proved controversial, so, too, has been the academic study of medieval women. No figure better illustrates the historical trajectory of feminism and Medieval Studies than Christine de Pizan, the “first professional writer” and the inventor of “medieval feminism.” This prolific author became one of the first medieval female subjects of modern study (Raimond Thomassy, Essai sur les écrits politiques de Christine de Pisan, 1838). Christine has fascinated feminists by her role in the “querelle des femmes / woman question,” a debate in which Christine defended women against the misogyny of her contemporaries. Thus, it is not surprising that in the 20th century so many academics devoted their research to the writings by Christine (Liliane Dulac, Earl Jeffrey Richards, Charity Cannon Willard). Just as Christine’s defense of women created a backlash against her during the 15th century, there has been a similar modern backlash against Christine and feminism. Gustave Lanson refused to include Christine in his French literary history because he considered her the original mediocre bluestocking (Histoire de la literature française, 1920). Even today critics debate as to whether Christine’s writings have enough merit to be in the canon or whether she is an inferior author being included because “political correctness” demands it (see essays in Politics, Gender, Genre: The Political Thought of Christine de Pizan, ed. Margaret Brabant, 1992). A timeline that summarizes major publications by and about medieval women entitled “Milestones in Medieval Women’s History” appears as Appendix 2 in Women and Gender in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia (ed. Margaret Schaus, 2006). Women Medievalists and the Academy (ed. Jane Chance, 2005) contains entries on feminist scholars and their contributions to Medieval Studies. These two books provide helpful information relevant to the historical development of this subject.
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C. Major Contributors Feminist research can be divided roughly into two categories – (1) gynocritic treatments of medieval women and their contributions and (2) feminist critiques of medieval men and patriarchal institutions. In the 1980s, anthologies of translated primary documents by or about medieval women began to be published. Peter Dronke (Women Writers of the Middle Ages: A Critical Study of Texts from Perpetua to Marguerite Porete, 1984) interspersed translations of medieval women writers in his critical overview, while Katharina M. Wilson (ed., Medieval Women Writers, 1984) and Marcelle Thiébaux (The Writings of Medieval Women, 1987) provided critical introductions to the translations of medieval women writers, covering both religious and secular writers. Elizabeth A. Petroff (ed., Medieval Women’s Visionary Literature, 1986) focused upon those women who related their mystical experiences; although most are women affiliated with the church – St. Perpetua, Hrotsvit, Hildegard, etc. – a few are affiliated with the court, such as Christine de Pizan. Collectively these anthologies established a new gynocentric canon for the Middle Ages. Also, essay anthologies and survey books summarizing and synthesizing historical research were made available. Becoming Visible: Women in European History (ed. Renate Bridenthal and Claudia Koonz, 1976; 2nd ed. 1987; 3rd ed. 1997) was an early women studies book, quickly becoming a standard, that surveyed women in societies from around the world (despite the title) but with a decided emphasis upon Europe and from ancient up through modern times. The essays in Women and Power in the Middle Ages (ed. Mary Erler and Maryanne Kowaleski, 1988) broadened the definition of power beyond such traditional public institutions as governments in examining women from various cultures throughout the Middle Ages. Suzanne Wemple’s Women in Frankish Society (1981) reviewed the changes and continuities of aristocratic women’s powerful roles in Frankish society as it adopted Christianity provided a model for medieval feminist research on a particular culture. Shulamit Shahar’s Fourth Estate: History of Women in the Middle Ages (1981) examined laws as applied to diverse groups of medieval women – nuns and wives, aristocrats and peasants, witches and heretics. Edith Ennen published a monumental historical introduction to significant women in the Middle Ages and examined, above all, women’s roles in the various social classes (Frauen im Mittelalter, 1984; 3rd ed. 1987; English trans. as The Medieval Woman, 1989). Karl Schnith edited a volume with biographies of some of the leading medieval queens and empresses (Frauen des Mittelalters in Lebensbildern, 1997), and Helmut Feld published a useful collection of twenty biographies of the most significant religious women in the Middle Ages (Frauen des Mittelalters, 2000).
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One problem with the historicizing of the Middle Ages is that the epoch, as it has been defined, spans a thousand years and covers countless cultures. This brief article will focus upon the scholarship that casts a broad net, but much of the available research narrows upon a particular figure or topic. When introducing their work to general audiences, medieval scholars – not just those dealing with feminism – inevitably grapple with the doctrine of progress established during the 18th century that still has a stranglehold today. This false assumption holds that the Middle Ages was the Dark Ages, and subsequent history has been one of steady progress, with the history of women illustrating this well: modern women in the West have rights, while medieval women were repressed. Indeed, scholarly studies can reinforce this misconception – e. g., Silences of the Middle Ages (vol. 2 in Georges Duby’s and Michelle Perrot’s series, A History of Women in the West, 1992). This volume claims that women in the Middle Ages were silenced and controlled by a patriarchal church and government, while a revolution was slowly growing among a small group of women writers. Examining the titles of the many books that take medieval misogyny as their subject can also reinforce the opinion that the Middle Ages was a dark time – for example, Katharina M. Wilson and Elizabeth M. Makowski’s Wykked Wyves and the Woes of Marriage: Misogamous Literature from Juvenal to Chaucer (1990) and R. Howard Bloch’s Medieval Misogyny and the Invention of Western Romantic Love (1992). It is undeniable that women in the Middle Ages faced many obstacles. However, Alcuin Blamires’s anthology of misogynist tracts, Woman Defamed and Woman Defended (1992), includes defenses of women, and Blamires later wrote The Case for Women in Medieval Culture (1997), which focuses upon profeminine literature of the Middle Ages, serving as a counterbalance to the misogynous tracts. Feminist critiques of the representations of medieval women by their male contemporaries illustrate the complexity of this subject. The ambiguous evidence resists a reductive reading that men of the Middle Ages saw all women as evil daughters of Eve or, conversely, as angelic daughters of Mary. Joan M. Ferrante’s Woman as Image in Medieval Literature (1975) surveys how male writers of the Middle Ages used women as symbols of masculine hopes and fears. Jenny Jochens (Old Norse Images of Women, 1996) and Sarah Anderson (ed., Cold Counsel: The Women of Old Norse Literature and Myth, 2002) delve into the ways that Scandinavian Christian men depicted ancient pagan goddesses and legendary feminine characters in sagas and eddic literature. Irish writers were faced with a similar situation (see, for instance, Joanne Findon, A Woman’s Word: Emer and Female Speech in the Ulster Cycle, 1997). Rosalind McKenzie points out that while Russian clerics produced misogynist
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literature about the evils of women, chroniclers wrote about the historical figure of Princess Olga as though she were a folklore heroine (“Women’s Image in Russian Medieval Literature,” A History of Women’s Writing in Russia, ed. Adele Marie Barker and Jehanne Gheith, 2002, 16–36). In many instances, male Christian authors, products of patriarchal cultures, had to wrestle with cultural memories of powerful pagan women, both divine and earthly, who were dominant figures from ancient matriarchal societies. These ambiguous images of women from the Middle Ages can appear contradictory to modern readers. The Wife of Bath, the popular character in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, amply demonstrates the difficulties in interpreting portrayals of women. Critical opinion ranges from labeling the outspoken and bawdy Wife – and by extension, her creator, Chaucer – as a humorous “protofeminist” to condemning the Wife as the satiric embodiment of Chaucer’s sexist attitudes (for an overview of conflicting opinions on the Wife, see Elaine Tuttle Hansen, “‘Of His Love Dangerous to Me’: Liberation, Subversion, and Domestic Violence in the Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale,” Geoffrey Chaucer: The Wife of Bath, ed. Peter G. Beidler, 1996, 273–89). Sister Prudence Allen, R.S.M., published two volumes on The Concept of Woman from antiquity to the Renaissance, broadening our concept of how women were viewed by their contemporaries (The Concept of Woman, vol. 1, 1985; vol. 2, 2002). Despite the sexist attitudes of many men in the Middle Ages, the main body of research refutes the opinion that women in the Middle Ages were unable to accomplish anything because of a repressive patriarchy. The most famous challenge to this assumption came in Joan Kelly-Gadol’s essay, “Did Women Have a Renaissance?” (Becoming Visible, ed. Bridenthal, et al., loc. cit., 1st ed.1976; 2nd ed., 1987, 175–201), in which she posits that medieval women had more civil rights than women of the Renaissance/Early Modern Era, since that later era witnessed the rise of the division between public and private spheres in which women were confined to the private sphere of the home. Although scholars have not always agreed with some of Kelly-Gadol’s arguments – such as her claim that the courtly love affairs celebrated in medieval romance literature helped to elevate women in society – nonetheless, her thesis has become a commonly accepted theory. Despite misogynist literature by male clerics, women in the Church carved a space for themselves based upon their readings of the Bible and of church fathers, which are ironically the sources for the misogynist tracts. One such Church Father was Jerome, who claimed that through commitment to Christianity and to chastity, fallen women could become “virile” – equal to men (Barbara Newman, From Virile Woman to Womanchrist: Studies in
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Medieval Religion and Literature, 1995). Women could also empower themselves through allegorical readings about “goddesses,” such as Lady Philosophy (Barbara Newman, Gods and Goddesses: Vision, Poetry, and Belief in the Middle Ages, 2002). Caroline Walker (Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women, 1988) and Albrecht Classen (The Power of a Woman’s Voice, 2007) provide additional evidence that women of the church, if not impervious to misogyny, nonetheless did not subscribe to the view that they were inferior creatures unworthy to serve God. According to Daniel Bornstein and Roberto Rusconi, “Active participation in religious life thus offered women access to power in all its forms, power that was otherwise denied them. By carefully exploiting the institutional church (which barred them from the priesthood and from high ecclesiastical office) and by astutely manipulating religious precepts (which were a principal source of the ideology of female inferiority), women were able to carve out for themselves broad areas of influence” (Women and Religion in Medieval and Renaissance Italy, trans. Margery Schneider, 1996, 2). Examples from medieval Italy provided by Bornstein and Rusconi include St. Catherine of Siena and the “Poor Clares.” At courts, powerful women encouraged positive attitudes about women through their patronage of the arts, with the most famous example being Eleanor of Aquitaine. Thus, writers, such as Marie de France and Chrétien de Troyes, may have been encouraged by their patrons to create the ideal we now call “courtly love” (Joan M. Ferrante, Woman as Image in Medieval Literature, 1975; Joachim Bumke, Mäzene im Mittelalter, 1979; Eleanor of Aquitaine: Patron and Politician, ed. William Kibler, 1976; The Cultural Patronage of Medieval Women, ed. June Hall McCash, 1995; Women and Power in the Middle Ages, ed. Mary Erler and Maryanne Kowaleski, 1988). Some patrons may have been artists themselves. One popular legend – now under attack – holds that Queen Matilda, the wife of William the Conqueror, commissioned and helped embroider the Bayeux Tapestry celebrating her husband’s victory at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Although few works in the plastic arts, except for textile art, have been attributed to medieval women artists, female patrons could dictate the nature of the art. For instance, in 1329 Emilia Pannocchieschi d’Elci was granted funds and permission to construct the convent and church of Santa Marta in San Marco, Italy (Diana Norman, “An Abbess and Painter,” Renaissance Studies 3.14 [2000]: 273–300). The wealth of research available refutes the reductive view that women suffered in silence throughout the Dark Ages, while awaiting some ray of light from the Renaissance. However, it would be equally wrong to suggest that the Middle Ages was a matriarchal golden age. It was an era when numerous women overcame ob-
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stacles to lead productive, successful lives (Claudia Spanily, Autorschaft und Geschlechterrollen: Möglichkeiten weiblichen Literatentums, 2002). Although the scholarship yields many differing opinions about the lives of women in the Middle Ages, all these studies have resulted in remarkable recoveries of the valuable contributions by women of the Middle Ages, which in turn have expanded our knowledge about this epoch (see, for instance, Women’s Lives in Medieval Europe, ed. Emilie Amt, 1993). These recoveries constitute an important part of feminist scholarship. Perhaps the most spectacular find came in 1934 when Hope Emily Allen uncovered a late medieval English manuscript, The Book of Margery Kempe (ed. Sanford Brown Meech, 1940). The first autobiography in English, this book recounts Margery’s personal history of her mystical visions. More recently, June Hall McCash has convincingly argued that Marie de France, most famous for her Lais, was the author of the Vie Seinte Audree (The Life of Saint Audrey, ed. June Hall McCash and Judith Barban, 2006). A similar recovery has occurred with the Hungarian-German chambermaid Helene Kottanner, who composed a journal of her experiences at the Hapsburgian court under Queen Elizabeth between 1439 and 1440 (first edited by Karl Mollay, Die Denkwürdigkeiten der Helene Kottannerin 1439–1440, 1971; English trans. by Maya Bijvoet Williamson, 1998; for a critical examination, see Albrecht Classen, The Power of a Woman’s Voice, 2007). Artistic and literary contributions by Italian women in the Middle Ages are highlighted in the volume Creative Women in Medieval and Early Modern Italy (ed. Ann Matter and John Coakley, 1994). Aside from literature, songs and music of medieval women have also been recovered. For a focus on courtly love, see Medieval Woman’s Song (ed. Anne L. Klinck and Ann Marie Rasmussen, 2002). The significant role of religious women composing hymns in late-medieval Germany is extensively documented by Albrecht Classen (‘Mein Seel fang an zu singen’: Religiöse Frauenlieder der [sic] 15.–16. Jahrhunderts, 2002; for a partial English transl., see id., LateMedieval German Women’s Poetry, 2004; see also his edition of secular women’s songs, Deutsche Frauenlieder des fünfzehnten und sechzehnten Jahrhunderts, 1999). Recovered work from women of the Middle Ages and other epochs has led to speculation about “écriture féminine,” Hélène Cixous’ term for an essentially female style of writing. Although many debate over what role gender expectations and innate sexual characteristics play in determining language, feminists tend to focus upon the manifestations of female subjectivity and experience. Thus, much criticism centers upon autobiographical genres. In medieval literature, there have been a numberous publications on the epistolary genre (Dear Sister: Medieval Women and the Epistolary Genre, ed. Karen Cherewatuk and Ulrike Wiethaus, 1993). Examples include
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Héloïse’s letters to her castrated husband Abélard (Listening to Héloïse, ed. Bonnie Wheeler, 2000), Catherine of Siena’s dictated letters about her mystical visions (Maria Luisa Doglio, trans. Jennifer Lorch, “Letter Writing, 1350–1650,” A History of Women’s Writing in Italy, ed. Letizia Panizza and Sharon Wood, 2000), and private letters by such women as those of the Paston family (Diane Watt, The Paston Women, 2004). In the Middle Ages autobiography typically took the form of religious confession, beginning with St. Augustine’s Confessions. A late medieval autobiographical writer like Margery Kempe – who hired scribes to pen her story – had a long tradition of female spiritual autobiographies to draw upon, and in particular she chose as her model St. Birgitta of Sweden (see Translation of the Works of St. Birgitta of Sweden into the Medieval European Vernaculars, ed. Bridget Morris and Veronica O’Mara, 2000). Even the Alexiad by Anna Comnena contains personal reflections, although ostensibly she was writing a chronicle about her father’s role in the Crusades composed in a style reminiscent of the epic. Anna provides eyewitness accounts about the beginnings of the Crusades and highlights her own involvement, while minimizing the role of her brother and rival to the throne (Anna Komnene and Her Times, ed. Thalia Gouma-Peterson, 2000). During the 1960s, feminist scholarship hovered at the margins of academe, but began to make inroads through women’s studies courses and through components grafted onto traditional courses. Now feminist scholarship has merged into the mainstream of Medieval Studies so that women are no longer studied in isolation. Nowadays, many women’s studies courses/departments have been replaced by gender studies, which examine both masculine and feminine gender roles, sexual orientation, and body theory (see also the article on “Gender Studies” in this Handbook). Now feminism intersects with virtually every postmodern movement. For example, rather than seeing “woman” as an absolute category, “woman” is examined in the context of other factors – ethnicity, race, class. Tova Rosen breaks ground with her study on the medieval Jewish view of women with Unveiling Eve: Reading Gender in Medieval Hebrew Literature (2003), closely paralleled by Elisheva Baumgarten’s Mothers and Children: Jewish Family Life in Medieval Europe (2004). Louise Mirrer calls attention to the hybridity that existed in the Iberian Peninsula in Women, Jews, and Muslims in the Texts of Reconquest Castile (1996). Women in the Medieval Islamic World (ed. Gavin Hambly, 1998) corrects the Orientalist notion that Muslim women throughout time have lived in repression behind a veil and in a harem. Crossing the Bridge: Comparative Essays on Medieval European and Heian Japanese Women Writers (ed. Barbara Stevenson and Cynthia Ho, 2000) examines European medieval
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women writers in context with those from Heian, Japan, perhaps the only culture in the world whose classic literature is dominated by women writers. D. Current Research Because the number of approaches to and publications about medieval women seems to be expanding exponentially, this article is cursory and highly selective; it has only skimmed the surface of a rich, vast topic. The best way to sort through the multitude of materials is to consult reference works that can serve as overviews. For biographies on medieval women from around the world, see Women in the Middle Ages: An Encyclopedia (ed. Katharina M. Wilson and Nadia Margolis, 2004), and for entries on a wide range of topics – patronage, medicine, etc. – see Women and Gender in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia (ed. Margaret Schaus, 2006). Printed materials become dated rapidly, so fortunately The Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship maintains an online bibliography, Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index http://www.haverford.edu/library/reference/mschaus/mfi/mfi.html, in addition to printing its periodical, the Medieval Feminist Forum. The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Women’s Writing (ed. Carolyn Dinshaw and David Wallace, 2003) provides helpful critical essays on medieval women writers. Historical surveys also serve as useful starting points (Lisa M. Bitel, Women in Early Medieval Europe, 400–1100, 2002; Jennifer Ward, Women in Medieval Europe, 1200–1500, 2002). Finally, various publishers devote entire series to medieval women – for instance, Brepols’ Medieval Woman: Texts and Contexts and Boydell and Brewer’s Library of Medieval Women Series. The study of medieval women has attracted scholars from all over the world (see, for instance, Eva Parra Membrives, Mundos femeninos emancipados, 1998). Select Bibliography Lisa M. Bitel, Women in Early Medieval Europe, 400–1100 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Peter Dronke, Women Writers of the Middle Ages: A Critical Study of Texts from Perpetua to Marguerite Porete (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); Jennifer Ward, Women in Medieval Europe, 1200–1500 (London: Longman, 2002); Becoming Visible: Women in European History, ed. Renate Bridenthal and Claudia Koonz (1976; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 3rd ed. 1997); The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Women’s Writing, ed. Carolyn Dinshaw and David Wallace (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index http://www.haverford.edu/library/reference/mschaus/mfi/mfi.html; Women and Gender in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia, ed. Margaret Schaus (New York: Routledge, 2006); Women in the Middle Ages: An Encyclopedia, ed. Katharina M. Wilson and Nadia Margolis (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2004).
Barbara Stevenson
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Folklore in Medieval Studies A. Introduction As an approach or field of inquiry with significance for medieval studies, the beginnings of modern research in folklore are traced to 18th- and early 19thcentury figures such as Johann Gottfried Herder, the Grimm Brothers and the Englishman William John Thoms. The latter scholar first encouraged use of the term “folklore,” (Athenaeum) in order to render a concept that would subsume the various approaches to both study and enjoyment of popular culture. From the start, the archaeological nature of the discipline was recognized, and the collection of pertinent data from among various manifestations of the folk was pursued vigorously. Herein lay a problem broached by later generations of medievalists who wished to incorporate the methods of folklore into their areas of research, i. e., the present collecting of evidence cannot reflect a full record of popular traditions from the past. Since live performance or exercise of living custom was bound up with the evidence of folkloric patterns, it was eventually recognized that a later, written record of a deed or performance could represent only the shadow of an actual event. Despite this critical admission, folklorists have been able to pursue their research based on the supposition that some aspects of an oral or popular culture are retained in written evidence as well. Although much of this documentation must be presumed incomplete, the collection and evaluation of both oral and written putative sources of folklore have been encouraged with the general understanding that even a slight increment to the previous base of accepted knowledge provides ample grounds for speculative research. Contributions from the early generations of folklorists are identified primarily as varying processes of collection. Both Herder and the Grimm Brothers initiated projects whose goal was to assemble as broad an array of folk songs or folk narratives as could be collected from contemporary memory. Herder aimed at the revival of a national German identity, in his view, by means of learning from supposed evidence of earlier folk traditions. His collection of Volkslieder (1778–1779), and Stimmen der Völker in Liedern (1806) are testaments to the spirit of this endeavor. A modern revisionist perspective on Herder’s methods and the international influence of his goals in using folk poetry to rediscover a culture’s past may be consulted at William A. Wilson, “Herder, Folklore and Romantic Nationalism” (Journal of Popular Culture 6 [1973]: 819–35). Although the primary interest of Herder and his contemporaries was focused on the Germanic past, their efforts created a model strong enough to be imitated by other cultures in search of a national
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folk tradition. In the early decades of the 19th century Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm published their first editions of Kinder- und Hausmärchen (1814–1816) and Deutsche Sagen (1816–1818). By 1835 Jakob Grimm added to the field of research in native culture with the completion of his Deutsche Mythologie, seen both at that time and later as a major compendium serving the theoretical and etymological background of Germanic folklore. These early endeavors proved to be influential beyond immediate boundaries, so that by the late 19th and early 20th centuries the example of the Grimms had spawned both imitations and alternate, collective models for accepted medieval lore in other Western and Slavic cultures. Significant examples of these include the collection of Danish folk ballads under the direction of Svend Grundtvig (1824–83) and the well-known, multi-volume English and Scottish Popular Ballads (1864–1871; last rev. ed. 1882–1898) assembled by Francis James Child. Comparable endeavors were initiated in France, Russia, and other Scandinavian cultures. Although similarities in the degree and scope of assembling a localized past record of folk traditions pervaded many research plans until well into the 20th century, the methods of evaluating any data collected varied in keeping with several fundamental premises. Essential differences in methodology centered on a philological vs. an anthropological approach. The former approach, among whose proponents may be counted the Grimm brothers, traced folk beliefs and traditions back to a single point of origin, i. e., folk tales represent a latter day variation on original motifs inherited from an Indo-European background. The alternate, anthropological view, fostered especially by the Englishman Andrew Lang, associated the principle of evolution with popular cultural development. According to this line of thought, one presumes that all cultures are marked by an evolutionary process, at each stage of which predictable yet individual types of custom or habit will naturally arise. The expectations of this method led to an equally comparative approach not only between cultures but also chronologically within individual societies. This model of folkloric development would then project oral motifs and tales as being reinvented or surviving within the popular strata of society, making it possible to study their transformation over an extended period of generations. B. The Early 20th Century and the Finnish Approach Among methodologies of research in folklore during the first half of the 20th century the Finnish school gave rise to the motif or type index of folk tales and folkloric patterns. From the first decade of the 20th century until 1950 the historic-geographic method, by which the Finnish approach is gen-
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erally known, was developed on the basis of Märchen and folk-tale analysis and categorization. The work of Kaarle Krohn and his student Antti Aarne coincided with the foundation of the series “Folklore Fellows’ Communications” (FFC), in which the early leading research undertaken, in keeping with this method on folklore, was published. The influence of the FFC as a forum and outlet for research in the field persisted throughout the last century; indeed, the FFC continues now to serve, by its own definition, as a “refereed monograph series in the fields of folkloristics, comparative religion, cultural anthropology, and ethnology.” This focus has been maintained to the present as exemplified by recent titles on the body, society, and the supernatural in rural Finland (Laura Stark, “The Magical Self,” 2006) and on Moroccan (Maarten Kossmann, A Study of Eastern Moroccan Fairy Tales, 2000), Tamil (Stuart Blackburn, Moral Fictions: Tamil Folktales from Oral Tradition, 2001) or Portuguese folktales (Isabel Cardigos, Paulo Correia, and J. J. Dias Marques, Catalogue of Portuguese Folktales, 2006). The earliest essays in collective volumes and individual monographs published by the FFC (1910–1915) featured investigations on specific folklore collections (Axel Olrik and Astrid Lunding, 1910), catalogues (Aantti Aarne and Oskar Hackman, 1910–1911), and attempts to categorize motivic studies of inherited popular tales (Antti Aarne and Reidar Christiansen, 1912–1914). In 1910 Aarne completed and published in the FFC the first version of his Verzeichnis der Märchentypen (Catalogue of Folktale Types), subsequently translated into English and expanded significantly under the direction of Stith Thompson (1927; 2nd rev. ed. 1961; rpt. 1987). This catalogue served a twofold purpose in folklore research as it could be applied to the study of medieval literature and culture: 1) the principles of assembling such a working list could be expanded to include additional stories or variants of the same from alternate yet related cultural milieux; 2) at the same time, the index could serve as a model or paradigm for predominant types in other genres of popularly transmitted lore. During the first fifteen years or so of its existence the series published not only catalogues of fairy and folk tales and their variants but also individual studies on magic, puzzles and riddles, ethnic and Slavic religions, and the first modern investigations on the Kalevala. The latter were published by Krohn during the 1920s, who also released at this time Die folkloristische Arbeitsmethode (1926; Folklore Methodology, trans. R. Welsch, 1971), his summary discussion of the method that had been developed among the scholars associated from the start with the Bund der Folklore Fellows, or “Folkloristischer Forscherbund.” During succeeding decades the international influence of research promoted by the FFC can hardly be overstated. Both in publications undertaken
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by the FFC series and investigations appearing independently the Finnish approach was evident in American and European scholarly plans. In addition to the above-noted translation and expansion of Aarne’s work on The Types of the Folk-Tale, Stith Thompson published in the FFC, beginning in 1932, his multi-volume Motif-Index of Folk Literature using principles of organization similar to those of the earlier work on Types. In the larger Index the text base was significantly broadened to include not only folk-tales and Märchen, but also – as indicated in the title – ballads, myths, fables, romances, exempla, fabliaux, jest-books, local legends, and proverbial texts. An equivalent depth of focus was noted from the European perspective as well. By the time of Thompson’s start on his Motif-Index the tradition of German folktales had received additional significant attention and attempts at theoretical categorization due to the work of Johannes Bolte. In his collaborative research on folktales Bolte contributed 1) detailed commentaries on the Grimms’ collected tales, and 2) individual monographs on Märchen published in 1920 and 1921 respectively by the FFC (Name und Merkmale des Märchens and Zeugnisse zur Geschichte der Märchen). During its first thirty years the FFC thus established guiding principles for further investigations and enabled the publication of results that would affect the course of research on Folklore and Medieval Studies for years to come. C. Research on Medieval Drama and Folklore The type of expansion into related, additional fields evident in the work of Thomspon and his school was also found in projects initiated during these years and afterward by other scholars who took up independent investigations. Groundbreaking studies of importance to medievalists as well as folklorists were The Medieval Stage (1903) by E. K. Chambers and The Drama of the Medieval Church (1933) by Karl Young. Whereas the earlier study by E. K. Chambers (on The Medieval Stage, 1903) was divided between folk drama and its potential background in one volume, followed by religious drama in a second, Young focused on the liturgy, the Bible, and popular legends as predominant sources for medieval drama. Both Chambers and Young discuss manuscripts as a source for performance practice or as evidence for the development of dramatic habit and taste. The earlier work by Chambers takes its impetus from the “persistence of the deep-rooted mimetic instinct in the folk,” an inborn tendency surviving even after the collapse of the Roman world. After treating the earlier, popular manifestations of drama, Chambers examines religious plays, derived from the liturgy, as further evidence of this instinct in the display of Christian ceremony and ritual. As a synthesis of both religious and non-religious aspects of dramatic
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inspiration, Chambers finally details the gradual evolution of sacred drama into secular presentation. With often rich, accompanying detail he presents a thesis on the secular transformation of religious spectacle in reference to both participants and locales. Chambers concludes his presentation with an overview of early Humanist drama showing the effects of a coalescence of learned and folk elements. His appendices provide financial records for dramatic performances, lists of performers according to guild, as well as reprints of pertinent sacred and popular texts edited from localized manuscripts. Karl Young’s work from thirty years later profited, to be sure, from a wider accessibility to manuscripts and liturgical records. Taking the Roman Mass as a starting point, Young reviews the canonical structure of the liturgy in its typical form from the 10th century, thus coinciding with the beginnings of surviving religious drama. Following this introduction, the eight separate services, which make up the Canonical Office and are observed at specific hours of each day, are examined in their relation to the established mass. Young’s intent is to undertake “an examination of the dramatic elements inherent in the authorized liturgy itself, and in certain seasonal observances which arose within the general liturgical frame-work and which received the sanction of tradition.” Since for Young, “the plays of the Church owe to the liturgy their very existence,” his method of examining dramatic elements in the Mass or the Office could be expanded into scenic representation of designated celebrations on the Passion or the Resurrection. In the same way, Young treats the Nativity and specific narrative events, from both the Old and New Testaments, which he shows to be transformed into dramatic traditions. The appendices to his two-volume work provide – as a further trove of data supplementing that given in Chambers’ work – yet further records on the performance of and attitudes toward medieval drama, hence making available vital information on popular custom and pattern All subsequent textual and critical studies on the confluence of folklore and medieval drama draw on the groundwork completed by Chambers and Young. During the decades following the appearance of Young’s study a number of authentic, dramatic texts were made available in both critical and diplomatic editions covering manuscripts in various vernacular languages as well as in Latin. This editorial work, undertaken by scholars from Eduard Hartl to Hansjürgen Linke, was often accompanied by research into evidence of performance or documents of municipal and church records. Despite the fragmentary nature of these data, they provided folklorists with further examples of occasional authentic performance, thus fulfilling the needs of a discipline attempting to base its evidence on a continuous tradition of performance. With increasingly more work focused on manuscripts
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of secular dramatic traditions – e. g., Shrovetide and Robin Hood plays – research since the 1970s has been divided more evenly between earlier religious and subsequent popular traditions. Evidence for the former was especially documented in revised catalogues from this period. A categorization of German liturgical plays, dealing especially with the Easter and Passion cycles was published in 1970 as Die deutschen Oster- und Passionsspiele des Mittelalters by Rolf Steinbach. A more expansive catalogue based on comparable religious evidence was completed by Rolf Bergmann in 1986 as Katalog der deutschsprachigen geistlichen Spiele und Marienklagen des Mittelalters. Scholarly works with a primary focus on Latin Easter tropes and their dramatic development proved to be a springboard to critical discussion on a broader European base. Hence the study by Helmut de Boor from 1967 on Die Textgeschichte der lateinischen Osterfeiern considered the development of such dramatic traditions in France, England, and Spain in addition to the status in German-speaking regions. In the same vein Sandro Sticca’s The Latin Passion Play: Its Origins and Development (1970), and George B. Bryan’s Ethelwold and Medieval Music-Drama at Winchester (1981) traced the early seeds of religious drama in liturgical contexts with an eye to their subsequent transformation in the following centuries. These and related developments were documented by the ongoing series Bibliography of Medieval Drama, sponsored in the 1970s and 1980s by Emporia State University, Kansas. As a resource the Bibliography covered trends in both religious and popular drama, thus emphasizing the critical attention which folklorists and literary historians had by now assured to all aspects of the medieval stage. The growing focus on popular drama since the 1970s and its emphasis equivalent to that earlier afforded liturgical plays can be seen not only in the number of contributions but also in the type of publications in this field. What earlier counted as evidence of a comedic play or representation of a legendary, popular figure has gradually developed into more recent attempts to categorize dramatic types. Just as liturgical events had been studied by Chambers and Young, among others, and had been defined according to type, concerns of those working on secular drama now tend to cover not only motif but also the categorization of plays and the significance of this concept for a historical development of the genre. These tendencies have become a predominant focus of the series “Ludus, Medieval and Renaissance Theatre and Drama.” In recent volumes of “Ludus” individual essays grouped around a common topic have especially covered issues in folklore as well as religious drama with volumes such as Between Folk and Liturgy (1997), and Carnival and the Carnivalesque (1999). In the latter volume, as an example of recent trends, Peter H. Greenfield’s article on “The Carnivalesque in the Robin
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Hood Games and King Ales of Southern England” (19–28) emphasizes depictions of a popular figure, evidence of Robin Hood in dramatic performances as documented, and the simultaneous connection to customs during a repeated popular season. Eckehard Simon’s book on the tradition of the late medieval German secular play, Die Anfänge des weltlichen deutschen Schauspiels, 1370–1530 (2003), takes even further this method and the earlier work on German popular plays undertaken by Dieter Wuttke and Hansjürgen Linke. Simon examines potential categories of popular performance that developed in the period from the late 14th through the early 16th century. In his consideration of Linke’s categories, earlier postulated for the seasonal Neithart, and Shrovetide plays, Simon is concerned with broadening the discussion on “modalities of performance.” Especially in his presentation on methods and records of performance of the Shrovetide plays Simon provides vital information on locations, processions, staging, and timing of the dramatic presentations. Finally he discusses vernacular plays dealing with saints’ lives that could also have been performed regionally during carnival. Because of its emphasis on actual performance, the genre of drama has yielded especially significant evidence bearing on the juncture of studies in folklore and medieval culture. Critical research on both religious and secular plays during the past two decades as noted points to continued future efforts to examine the practice and performance of medieval drama as a source of folkloric evidence. D. Research on Medieval Lyric/Narrative and Folklore In the fields of poetry, or song, as well as narrative the concepts of popular performance and derivation from folk tradition have shown a degree of critical overlap. The figure of Robin Hood, already noted as significant in dramatic performance, has been widely discussed as a subject of ballad literature. Scholarly attention has focused primarily on efforts to differentiate late medieval examples of the verifiable Robin Hood ballads from those later accretions which added to the earlier authentic base. In general, the initiatives on popular song and ballad begun by Child continued to show his influence for decades after the publication of his work. Long after Child’s pioneering efforts in collecting ballads had been established, methods of analyzing or achieving a critical understanding of ballad literature became and still remains an ongoing task. It is here that a practical conflation with approaches to the narrative or folk tale has taken place. The historic-geographic or Finnish approach, applied earlier primarily to Märchen and folk tales, was used subsequently in ballad research as a means of critical analysis of the corpus collected by Child. Archer Taylor and Holger Olof Nygard made note-
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worthy contributions using this method from the 1930s through the 1950s. Starting in 1959, Bertrand Bronson began the publication of his musical analysis The Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads, a project which broadened the interdisciplinary possibilities of research in folk poetry and narrative. The composition and recitation of narrative poetry and songs subsequently underwent significant fieldwork, the noteworthy figure in this area remaining Albert B. Lord. Starting with the publication of The Singer of Tales in 1960 Lord analyzed the Yugoslav recitation of oral narrative poetry based on formulas and themes. In his first book on this topic Lord applied the formulaic technique especially to Homeric narrative. His later book, The Singer Resumes the Tale (1995), devoted considerably greater focus to medieval narrative poetry and the ballad. Just as Child’s work remained a predominant force in the study of song and ballad, the research and published catalogues by Aarne and Thompson have shown continued applicability in the areas of Märchen and folk tale. In the next generation Richard Dorson expanded in large measure interest in the areas of folklore studies and fieldwork undertaken by scholars. Categorization and collecting have also progressed as models for folk narrative in the work of Lutz Röhrich and Max Lüthi. Both have been involved in assembling editions of folk tales, exempla, and popular stories, these including previously inedited texts and alternate versions of known narrative sources. The number of prose genres considered has grown to include more recent work on proverbs as well as sermons. The motif index of Thompson has remained an invaluable tool as witnessed by its continued use in individual scholarly studies and in recent handbooks. In keeping with Thompson’s definition of the motif as “the smallest element in a tale having the power to persist in tradition,” the significance of this method in the joint fields of folklore and Medieval Studies has relied on the expectations of tradition coupled with the search for new data showing its transformation.
Select Bibliography H. R. Davidson, Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1988); Deutsche Märchen und Sagen (CD-Rom, No. 80) (Berlin: Digitale Bibliothek, 2004); Laurence Harf-Lancner, Les fées au moyen âge (Paris: Champion, 1984); Medieval Folklore: A Guide to Myths, Legends, Tales, Beliefs, and Customs, ed. Carl Lindahl, John McNamara, and John Lindow (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002); Albert Lord, The Singer of Tales (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960); Albert Lord, The Singer Resumes the Tale, ed. Mary Louise Lord (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995); Max Lüthi, Volksmärchen und Volkssage (Bern: Francke, 1975); Lutz Röhrich, Erzählungen des späten Mittelalters und ihr Weiterleben in Literatur und Volksdichtung bis zur Gegenwart, 2 vols. (Bern: Francke, 1962/67); Lutz Röhrich and Erika Lindig, Volks-
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dichtung zwischen Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit (Tübingen: Gunter Narr, 1989); Eckehard Simon, Die Anfänge des weltlichen deutschen Schauspiels, 1370–1530 (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2003); Stith Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk Literature, 6 vols. (Helsinki: FFC, 1932–1936); Karl Young, The Drama of the Medieval Church, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933).
Salvatore Calomino
Formalism A. Definition Formalism holds that some particular fields of study or endeavor constitute a type of closed system, in which interpretation and evaluation of system products are largely, if not entirely, governed by rules inherent in or generated internally by the system itself. One prototype for formalism is the category of mathematical and philosophic models founded on so-called “game formalism,” which holds that mathematical proof is construable as adherence to a set of mechanical rules, much like chess, wherein all that ultimately matters is a result engendered by the following of those rules. Another is the related concept of formal language, consisting of linguistic symbols and the rules for concatenating those symbols. Within such systems, change, if any, is necessarily incremental and comprehensible only with reference to the pre-existing elements and rules, whose vestiges are contained within any “novelty.” In a sense, the field is ahistorical, the system having a history of its own insulated from the larger historical context in which it occurs. Since few fields of human endeavor can be conceived in terms of perfectly rigorous rational or logical systems, formalism is usually a relative term. Those scholars who emphasize in their work the historical continuities of their field, whether law, art, literature, or philosophy, are frequently labeled as formalists by their peers whose research objectives are directed to uncovering innovation, though the former hardly deny all change however evolutionary, nor do the latter presume ex nihilo novelty. Rather, the debate surrounds the degree of historicity or ahistoricity of the subject matter. B. Formalism in Medieval Studies: French Iconography In Medieval Studies, formalism has been most pervasive in the areas of art history (iconology) and literary history (topoi); and, indeed, the two were closely linked during the first half of the 20th century due to the “iconologi-
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cal” program of Kunstgeschichte of the Warburg institute. Before that, the French had made the greatest contribution to medieval art and iconography. The 19th century saw a spate of monographs on most of the major French cathedrals, and from 1830 onward a number of reviews dedicated solely to medieval art appeared, including the Annales archéologiques edited by Adolphe-Napoléon Didron who was captivated like so many of his era with Hugo’s Romanticism. Generally, however, medieval art was viewed simply as a subset of Christian art and iconography, and rarely related specifically to medieval theological, liturgical or legendary texts. The first significant effort at a comprehensive analysis of medieval art qua medieval art manifesting a cultural unity was the creation of Emile Mâle, a schoolteacher and dilettante, who, between 1892 and 1922, completed a classic three-volume work on French art and architecture from the 12th through the 15th centuries (L’art religieux du XIIIe siécle en France: Etude sur l’iconographie du moyen âge et sur ses sources d’inspiration, 1898, rev. and corrected, 1958; L’art religieux de la fin du moyen âge en France: Etude sur l’iconographic du moyen âge et sur ses sources d’inspiration, 1908, 5th ed. rev. and corrected, 1949; L’art religieux du XIIIe siécle en France. Etude sur l’origine de l’iconographie du moyen âge, 1922, rev. and corrected, 1953). For Mâle, “In the Middle Ages form always clothed a thought. One might say that thought worked within matter and formed it. Form can never be separated from the idea that created and animated it.” While largely descriptive, it is true some scholars such as Norman Cantor are far too easily dismissive of a work whose scholarship has influenced such contemporary art historians as Michael Camille. It was Mâle, after all, who in his first volume related the cathedral and the Speculum Maius of Vincent of Beauvais, and treated the former as if it were a summa in stone, the sculpture as though a form of writing, anticipating by several decades some of Panofsky’s work in principle if not in scholarly technique. Nevertheless, there is an undeniable scent of connoisserism to Mâle’s compilations and comparisons, itself representing a sort of intuitive formalism that has prevailed in subsequent French iconographic studies. C. Formalism and German Kunstwissenschaft The more influential school of medieval art history begun by Erwin Panofsky was the direct descendant of the development of a philosophicallygrounded aesthetic counterpoint to the notion of logical formalism, the product of a peculiarly German movement of psychological aesthetics in the determined search for a basis for a true Kunstwissenschaft. The genesis of this “aesthetic formalism” in 19th-century German philosophy lay with Kant’s efforts to provide aesthetic judgment with a certain universality while preserv-
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ing its subjectivity. Hence, defining form as “that which allows the manifold of appearance to be ordered in certain relations,” he added to his pure forms of intuition, which encompassed the a priori idea of time and space, and his forms of thought, regulating perceptual and conceptual structuring of the world, a new notion of Zweckmäßigkeit (purposiveness), representing the sense of internal harmony that we presume to exist. According to Kant, feelings of pleasure or discomfort relate to the apprehension of form; and the harmonious relation of objective form with the subjective structure of cognitive faculties implies that these judgments are universal, being disinterested, nonconceptual and without exterior purpose. Indeed, his third moment of beauty he defined as “purposiveness without a purpose.” However, realizing the limitations of his definition, he proceeded to subdivide beauty into “free” and “ideal,” the latter adhering to a concept and hence uniting harmonious form with content. Kant admitted an ideal basis only to the human form.The consequence of Kant’s somewhat tortuous efforts to define a science of aesthetics was nothing less than a schism within 19th-century aesthetics itself. The idealist component Kant introduced to broaden aesthetics beyond “pure” (i. e., free) arts such as nonprogrammatic music, supported the formulations of Schelling, Fichte, and Hegel, and especially the latter’s unification of matter and Geist in harmonious balance implying the cultural embeddedness and historicity of art. Kant’s initial problem of objective form subjectively apprehended by the cognitive faculties prompted a line concerned first with the subjective aspects of aesthetic contemplation and second, with the attributes of pure form without content. This latter line of thought included Schopenhauer’s will-less aesthetic contemplation, the capacity for which he denominated “objectivity,” and attempted to found upon the physiology of the perceptual act; and the underrated Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776–1841), whose psychologism undertook to define aesthetics as the science of elementary relations of lines, tones, planes, colors, ideas, etc., stripping away all “intrusions” into aesthetic perception, most notably, “content,” and demanding as the perfect frame of mind a state of complete indifference. Herbert influenced a generation of German thinkers, not least Robert Zimmerman (1824–1898), who in his Aesthetik undertook to expand Herbart’s prototypes into an aesthetics founded entirely on form. To these efforts at a purely formalist aesthetics devoid of content, Robert Vischer (1847–1933), son of the more famous Friederich Theodor Vischer (1807–1887), who pioneered an aesthetics founded on symbolization, introduced a sort of “counter-formalism” founded upon Einfühlung (empathy) and symbolization, which process “can be based on nothing other than the pantheistic urge for union with the world, which can by
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no means be limited to our more easily understood kinship with the human species but must, consciously or unconsciously, be directed toward the universe” (Über das optische Formgefühl: Ein Beitrag zur Aesthetik, 1873, trans. Harry Francis Mallgrave and Ikonnomou Eleftherios, Empathy, Form and space: Problems in German Aesthetics, 1873–1893, 1994, 109). Forms are never empty or subject to mathematical reduction, but are judged harmonious or not according to the degree to which they complete or fulfill the perceiver’s own complex mental life. “In the visual arts, it is not a question of content or form but of the power of the image, of its phenomenality.” These two strains, both anti-Idealist, are united in the work of Adolf Hildebrant (1847–1933) who beginning with the Hebartian “visibility” thesis of Conrad Fiedler (1841–1895), suggests that art can only be approached through itself because its essence was the opposite of idealism – i. e., rather than trending from the sensuous to the nonsensuous, from the visible to the invisible, from perception to abstraction, art takes place in the realm of visual imagination or ideas (Vorstellungen) – argued that form should not simply be perceived but should be intensified by art (Das Problem der Form in der bildenden Kunst, 1893). A more rigorous and self-conscious formalism was advanced by the Swiss art historian, Heinrich Wölfflin, who eschewed in the closing lines of Die klassische Kunst: Eine Einführung in die italienische Renaissance (1899) “a mere formalistic appreciation of art,” but maintained as well that all pictures owe more to other pictures than they do to nature. For Wölfflin style and change of style were matters of culture and psychology, both potentially understood as encompassing a sort of Jungian collective memory. But that memory for Wölfflin encompasses formal problems, such that every painting is a sort of variant on its predecessors: “Every artist finds certain visual possibilities before him, to which he is bound. Not everything is possible at all times. Vision itself has its history, and the revelation of these visual strata must be regarded as the primary task of art history.” Hence, Wölfflin has earned the wrath of art historians such as Arnold Hauser, a product of the Vienna school, who pointed to his “unhistorical” approach, read as indifference to sociological explanation, and more generally, for concentrating exclusively on the issue of morphology of visual forms to the exclusion of “meaning” (The Philosophy of Art History, 1958, 147 et sqq.). D. Formalism in Medieval Studies: Kulturwissenschaft and Iconology While confluences of Wölfflin’s formalism and the Warburg program are not hard to find, including an implicit reliance on the Jungian collective memory, iconology can be seen just as easily as a type of counter-formalism better labeled “contextualism,” and located not so much in Kunstwissenschaft
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as in the Kulturwissenschaft. Aby Warburg, scholar and heir to a banking fortune, who invested his inheritance in the library and institute in Hamburg which was to bear his name, advanced a tripartite focus: the continuity of images (iconography per se); the close relation of images to the systematically examined literary text; and the interaction of artistic image with cultural context. In this approach, closely akin to philology, the collective memory is active and self-conscious, not the Jungian unconscious collective that seems more at home in Wölfflin’s formalism. Moreover, also contrary to Wölfflin, it presumes the formal elements of the artwork are understood by the artist as having meaning transcending mere taste or convention. Indeed, Warburg described these formal elements as engrams become exemplars which the artist employs as “maximal values of expressive movement.” Art can be understood as the skill with which the craftsman employs these elements. Hence, the importance of such concepts as “pathos formulae” to Warburg’s analysis. Content and form thus are not easily separable, but must be seen in their mutual illumination, as systemically one. The artist is confronted with a panoply of choices in composition, not as mere epigone in the historicist chain of evolving style reflective of the Zeitgeist, but as an individual often in conflict with that spirit. But to appreciate that artistic achievement, it is necessary to “read” the artwork, in a sort of hermeneutics of formulae. Neither Wölfflin, nor somewhat strangely in light of his concern for pathos formulae, Warburg were interested in medieval art. That field would become the bailiwick of Erwin Panofsky, who in a 1915 essay “Das Problem des Stils in der bildenden Kunst” (Zeitschrift für Ästhetik und allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft 10, 460–67), already had criticized Wölfflin’s effort to separate form and content and in1920 had written an essay exhibiting a more than passing sympathy for Alois Riegl’s Kunstwollen, but defined so as to be no longer synthetic (as, in fact, it was for Riegl), but directed toward the “ultimate meaning residing in the artistic phenomenon (not for us but objectively)” (“Der Begriff des Kunstwollen,” Zeitschrift für Ästhetik und allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft 14 [1920], 321–39). A professor at the new Hamburg University, given his interests, he naturally gravitated toward the Warburg library, until he fled the continent in 1933 for the United States. His program of iconology became essentially a restatement of Warburg’s in an attempt to approach an artwork exegetically, employing “historical methods, tempered, if possible, by common sense. We have to ask ourselves whether or not the symbolical significance of a given motif is a matter of established representational tradition; […] whether or not a symbolical interpretation can be justified by definite texts or agrees with ideas demonstrably alive in the period and presumably familiar to its artists; […] and to
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what extent such a symbolical interpretation is in keeping with the historical position and personal tendencies of the individual master” (“Iconography and Iconology: An Introduction to the Study of Renaissance Art,” Meaning in the Visual Arts: Papers in and on Art History, 1955, 32, in a bracketed remark added to the original 1939 essay, Early Netherlandish Painting, 142, 143, quoted and discussed in Michael Ann Holly, Panofsky and the Foundations of Art History, 1984, 164 and note 18). This does not obviate attention to form: “in a work of art, ‘form’ cannot be divorced from ‘content’: the distribution of color and lines, light and shade, volumes and planes, however delightful as a visual spectacle, must also be understood as carrying a more-than-visual meaning” (“Titian’s Allegory of Prudence: a Postscript,” op. cit., 168). E. Formalism in Medieval Studies: Literature and Topology Unfortunately, as critics have suggested, many of Panofsky’s followers, and, too often, he himself, lost track of these theoretical underpinnings and his iconological approach devolved into simple iconographical deciphering. In fact, when pursued in such formalistic fashion, Panofsky’s iconology bears much relationship to the topological method of the German linguist and literary historian Ernst Robert Curtius (Europäische Literatur und lateinisches Mittelalter, 1948). For Curtius, an admirer of Warburg, medieval literature is an extended dialogue with successive generations of literary texts, expressed in topoi largely inherited from classical and early Christian literature, wherein multi-faceted human experience is expressed symbolically through the encoded system. But as in the case of the Jungian archetypes, to which he himself seemingly acknowledged a debt, there is a certain loss as to individual application. Even more formalistic are those works arguing that the literary text is not merely a dialogue with preceding texts, but is essentially self-reflexive. These include Paul Zumthor’s 1972 Essai de poétique médiéval; Michael Zink’s Roman rose et rose mouge: Le Roman de la rose ou de Guillaume de Dole de Jean Renart (1979); and Roger Dragonetti’s Le mirage des sources: L’art du faux dans le roman médiévale (1987). Like in Derrida’s deconstructionism, writing is ultimately about writing, and hence, historically incommensurate. It was for E. Talbot Donaldson, principally, Charles Muscatine, and Robert Hanning, inter alia and to a lesser extent, to develop the topological approach into a more dynamic Exegetical method, wherein literary traditions were employed consciously and frequently manipulated for the author’s own purposes, and hence as in the New Criticism, meaning lies in the text itself not merely its genealogy. A more formalist approach was advocated by Durant Waite Robertson, Jr., in which the literary topoi are skillfully (or not) manipulated by the medieval author, not
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always in the manner, but always in accordance with the larger harmonious meaning, or convenientia, of their predecessors and the culture as a whole; so that, unlike Warburg’s formulae, the artist is never found in conflict with his culture’s Weltanschauungen, which is no longer unbewusst, but as Patterson has suggested, “neatly if illegibly printed in the marching columns of Migne’s Patrologia,” and in Robertson’s case, more particularly in the Augustinian corpus. Hence, there is a tendency to gravitate away from a hermeneutics of depth, requiring interpretation, and towards a positivizing of Geistesgeschichte requiring merely description, because the content is absorbed entirely into the form. F. Criticism Indeed, this is the most frequently raised criticism of both the iconological artistic and the exegetical literary approaches. As Henri Zerner wrote of the former: “Only the methods and techniques of interpretation permit the attainment of meaning.” Panofsky’s development is to be understood in this sense. He worked to put in place a method of reading, limited to artistic themes and valid only for the Christian West. But his ultimate goal was the iconological level; that is to say, objective immanent meaning. His disciples having lost sight of his theoretical preoccupations, which he himself seemingly neglected more and more, the discipline he established has been transformed into an isolated technique of decipherment. The aim of an iconological level is generally abandoned and, what is worse, the iconographic decipherment itself is too often substituted for meaning (“L’art,” Faire de l’histoire: Nouveau problèmes, vol. 2, ed. J. Le Goff and Pierre Nora, 1974, 188). Such degeneration is not inevitable. In the last decade of the 20th century, studies by scholars such as Michael Camille, while conceding the importance of icons and topoi, have emphasized, contrary to the more static and formalistic approaches, that “visual representations do not have settled significance but are constantly changing.” Furthermore, “Once we see that the transfer of power is a more important factor in the history of art than the tedious transmission of models, and that this is the mechanism by which content is carried down into tradition, the capacity of image-makers constantly to reinvent rather than refer to meaning becomes clear and the more easily will art history become essential to all historical inquiry” (The Gothic Idol: Ideology and Image-Making in Medieval Art, 1989, 114).
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Select Bibliography Michael Camille, Image on the Edge: The Margins of Medieval Art (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992); Norman F. Cantor, Inventing the Middle Ages: The Lives, Works, and Ideas of the Great Medievalists of the Twentieth Century (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1993); Ernst Robert Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, trans. Willard R. Trask (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953); E. H. Gombrich, Aby Warburg: An Intellectual Biography (London: Warburg Institute by University of London, 1970); Michael Ann Holly, Panofsky and the Foundations of Art History (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984); Empathy, Form, and Space: Problems in German Aesthetics, 1873–1893, ed., trans. and introduction Harry Francis Mallgrave and Ikonnomou Eleftherios (Santa Monica, CA: The Getty Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1994); Erwin Panofsky, Studies in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance (Oxford: Oxford University Press); id., Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism: An Inquiry into the Analogy of the Arts, Philosophy, and Religion in the Middle Ages (New York: Meridian, 1956); Lee Patterson, Negotiating the Past: The Historical Understanding of Medieval Literature (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1987); Michael Podro, The Critical Historians of Art (New Haven: Yale, 1982); Earl Jeffrey Richards, Modernism, Medievalism, and Humanism (Tuebingen: Niemeyer, 1983); D. W. Robertson, Jr., A Preface to Chaucer: Studies in Medieval Perspectives (Princeton: Princeton University, 1962); id., Essays in Medieval Culture (Princeton: Princeton University, 1980); Heinrich Wölfflin, Kunstgeschichtliche Grundbegriffe: Das Problem der Stilentwicklung in der neueren Kunst (Munich: F. Bruckmann, 1915).
Scott L. Taylor
French Studies A. Definition The field of Medieval French Literature and Language is extremely broad, built on the contributions of many. From all over the world, scholars have been drawn to France and to its literary traditions. Certainly the great majority of students of this literary tradition have spent at least some time in France and in its libraries, either as students or as scholars. This essay will consider the study of medieval French literature and language in France, Germany and North America. It must be noted that this division of topic by country conceals the many interactions between scholars across national borders. At all times, students of this discipline have studied in foreign universities; as scholars they have maintained contacts, personal and epistolary, with colleagues in other countries.
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B. The French Side of French Studies Not surprisingly, the position of French Studies in France is unequaled; scholars are studying their own literary and linguistic heritage. One starting point for French interest in the Middle Ages is Jean Baptiste de La Curne de Sainte-Palaye (1697–1781), who published a good number of Old French texts as part of the Enlightenment effort to shed light on French literary history. While little of his scholarship is still cited, he merits responsibility for making the French aware of their medieval literary history (see Lionel Gossman, Medievalism and the Ideologies of the Enlightenment, 1968). French scholars of note from the 19th century include Francisque Michel (1809–1887), famous for having first identified in manuscript, and then publishing the Chanson de Roland, the French national epic (1837). Another important name is that of Achille Jubinal (1810–1875), a graduate of the Paris-based Ecole des Chartes. While described as a historian, his contributions to medieval French literary studies are major. He published many texts, the contents of entire manuscripts, for which his editions or transcriptions remain the only printed source. Among the most important ones are Jongleurs et trouvères ou choix de saluts, épitres, rêveries et autres pièces légères des XIIIe et XIVe siècles publiés pour la première fois (1835), and Nouveau recueil de contes, dits, fabliaux et autres pièces inédites des XIIIe, XIVe et XVe siècles, pour faire suite aux collections de Legrand d’Aussy, Barbazan et Méon, mis au jour pour la première fois d’après les manuscrits de la bibliothèque du roi (2 vols., 1839–1842; rpt. 1975). Two truly significant individuals are Collège de France professor Paulin Paris (1800–1881), and more important still, his son, Gaston Paris (1839–1903) who succeeded his father at the Collège de France in 1872. Gaston Paris studied in Germany under Friedrich Diez and maintained an active correspondence with German scholars throughout his life. He “lectured on the Song of Roland as a national monument during the German siege of Paris, 1870” (The Future of the Middle Ages, ed. Paden, 1994, 180; see also Gerard J. Brault, “Gaston Paris [1839–1903],” Medieval Scholarship [1998]: 151–66). After the 1870 defeat of France, French scholars used medieval literature as an instrument of national promotion. The Emperor Charlemagne was one bone of contention between French and German scholars, each group claiming the emperor as their own. This political fight became a scholarly battle as well; German scholars, following Lachmann, established a strong German tradition of scholarship in French. Karl Konrad Friedrich Wilhelm Lachmann (1793–1851) was a German classicist who believed it possible to “recreate” an original text by dint of comparing all the various extant manuscripts for that text and making judicious choices as to which reading to
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follow. In reaction to Lachmann and particularly to what is called the Lachmannian method of textual scholarship, the French sought a different approach. One alternative was developed by Joseph Bédier (1864–1938), a student of Gaston Paris. Bédier demonstrated the merits of using a single manuscript with his edition of the Lai de l’ombre (1890). The Bédierist approach did not seek to recreate an Ur-text, but offered readers a clean (some argue completely rewritten) version of one manuscript witness. While the edition of the Lai de l’ombre was ground-breaking, his work with the Chanson de Roland (1920) was also very important. His renown in the non-scholarly world comes from his reworking of the Roman de Tristan et Iseut (first published in 1900; reprinted repeatedly, most recently in 1996), blending the different medieval sources into a single tale, rewritten in his inimitable French prose (see William W. Kibler, “Joseph Bédier [1864–1938],” Medieval Scholarship [1998]: 253–66). Before becoming a teacher at the Collège de France, where his assigned discipline was “langues et littératures de l’Europe méridionale,” Paul Meyer (1840–1917) first worked at the French Bibliothèque nationale. In 1882, he became director of the Ecole des Chartes. His work in Old French literature is still cited, though it is also sometimes ridiculed, for his scholarship reflects strongly the biases of his epoch. Among his lasting achievements is the founding of the journal Romania (1872–present) and the establishment, with Gaston Paris, of the Société des Anciens Textes Français (SATF), which continues to publish and reprint critical editions of Old French texts. Félix Lecoy (1903–1997), held the chair of medieval French language and literature at the Collège de France from 1947 until 1974. In 1961, he became editor of the important French series, Classiques français du Moyen Age, in which series he published his edition of the Roman de la Rose (1965–1970). Under the editorship of Lecoy, Mario Roques (1875–1961) a student of Gaston Paris and another Collège de France faculty member, published his editions of Chrétien de Troyes, Les romans de Chrétien de Troyes, édités d’après la copie de Guiot (Bibl. nat., fr. 794), vol. I: Erec et Enide, vol. II: Cligés, vol. III: Le Chevalier de la charrette, vol. IV: Le chevalier au lion (Yvain), and vol. V: Le Conte du Graal (Perceval) (1957–1960; multiple reprintings). Lecoy’s scholarly editions of the important works of the French Middle Ages cannot be underestimated, as their multiple reprintings demonstrate. Outside the traditional academic track was Frédéric Godefroy (1826–1897), a self-trained scholar who compiled “the most fundamental dictionary of reference for Old French,” his ten-volume Dictionnaire de l’ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IXe au XVe siècle (Rodney Sampson, “Review of Frédéric Godefoy: Actes du Xe colloque international sur le moyen français,”
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French Studies 59 [2005]: 587–88). Godefroy remained outside the university world his entire life. In 1896 he sought a chair in the Académie française, against the candidacy of Gaston Paris; Godefroy was defeated twentyeight votes to two (42 in Fréderic Duval, “Frédéric Godefroy: Parcours biobibliographique,” Frédéric Godefroy: Actes du Xe colloque international sur le moyen français, 2003, 25–42). Godefroy’s contribution to the discipline was enormous, for his dictionary, published in fascicules between 1879 and 1893 with a Complément published between 1895 and 1902, was the first modern effort to build an Old French dictionary based on citations. Godefroy devoted his life to this project, “pour le bien de la science” in his words, a dictionary so important that it is known today simply as “Godefroy.” The work has been reprinted repeatedly and now exists in CD-ROM format (Editions Champion, Paris). Important names in the 20th century include the Sorbonne professor Jean Frappier, whose doctoral work on La Mort le roi Artu (1936) led to a career, devoted both to 13th-century Arthurian literature, and to a major effort to popularize medieval texts. Frappier published a number of works destined for a general audience (see his Chrétien de Troyes, published with Hatier, 1968) or for teaching professionals (see his Le théâtre religieux au moyen âge: Textes, traductions, analyses, avec des notices, des notes explicatives, des jugements, un questionnaire et des sujets de devoirs, 1935, rpt. 1964). Michel Zink (1945–), currently teaching at the Collège de France, has built his career more as a literary historian than as an editor of texts. His most noteworthy publications are his dissertation, La prédication en langue romane: avant 1300 (1976; rpt. 1982) and his Littérature française du Moyen Age (1992; rpt. 2001, and 2004). Recent publications have brought his arguments to the general audience, as in Nature et poésie au Moyen Age (2006). Long-time faculty member at the Université de Paris IV-Sorbonne, Philippe Ménard (1935–) is now the senior figure among French literary medievalists. Ménard’s dissertation, Le rire et le sourire dans le roman courtois en France au Moyen Age (1150–1250) (1969), was followed by the publication of editions of lyric poetry by Guillaume le Vinier (1970), and by the supervision of a massive edition of the Roman de Tristan en prose (1987–1997). Most recently, he has worked on travel literature, supervising the edition of Marco Polo’s Le Devisement du monde (2001), for example. Important journals published in France that deal with French Studies and medieval literature include Romania (Paris), founded in 1872 by Paul Meyer and Gaston Paris, and the Revue des langues romanes (Montpellier), founded in 1870. Both journals were created in reaction to the French defeat in 1870; both served to remind French scholars of the glory of the French lit-
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erary past. And both served as intellectual if not also political reactions to German periodicals that had begun to appear at roughly the same time, such as the Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, founded in 1877 by Gustav Gröber. The French Ecole Nationale des Chartes, an elite graduate school founded in1821, is known for the quality of its program, providing training in philology, paleography, the edition of texts, and other topics relevant to the research interests of the faculty. Graduates of the Ecole may become manuscript librarians in research libraries or professors at well-respected schools. One graduate of note is Félix Grat, who established the Paris-based Institut de Recherche et d’histoire des textes (IRHT) in 1937. Scholars of medieval French have been well served by the IRHT over the years. Now a branch of the Centre national de recherche scientifique (CNRS), the institute offers scholars a research library in Paris, a bibliographic catalogue, access to photographic and microfilm copies of documents, and the expertise of its staff, important scholars in their own right. French Studies is housed in the “Section romane,” which describes itself with terms that include romance philology, French manuscripts, codicology, medieval literature, hagiography, historic literature and medieval literature. The IRHT has its own series of specialized publications. Scholars of the IRHT have also published works of general interest – one example is the Dictionnaire des lettres françaises: Le Moyen Age (ed. Robert Bossuat, Louis Pichard, and Guy Raynaud de Lage, 1964, re-edited and updated in 1992 by editors Geneviève Hasenohr and Michel Zink). Current trends in France include a renewed effort to popularize medieval French literature for the modern audience, with the publication of facing-page editions and modernized texts (the collection Lettres gothiques is a good example). French scholars appear interested in using modern approaches to their medieval literature, though not with the vigor of American or British scholars. The reverence of French scholars for their teachers makes it difficult for a young French scholar to offer an interpretation that overturns the received wisdom. Some younger scholars have expressed off-the-record frustration about this aspect of French Studies in France. C. French Studies in Germany Germany was a destination for scholars throughout the 19th century, in part because of the strength of the German university system. The study of French was pursued by German scholars with as much eagerness as by French. For example, Friedrich Christian Diez (1794–1876) studied French and Occitan (Provençal), inspired in part by Goethe, whom he had met in
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1818. In 1830 Diez was named to the first chair of Romance Philology at the University of Bonn. Noted among his students: Gaston Paris, Adolf Tobler, and the linguist Wilhelm Meyer-Lübke. Diez was much more a linguist than a French Studies scholar and more interested in Occitan and Spanish languages than in Old French. His work as an historical grammarian and as the author of important and still used dictionaries (e. g., Eymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Sprachen, 1869) marks him as the founder of Romance Studies in Germany (Antoni M. Badia i Margarit, “‘Romania,’ ‘Romanitas,’ ‘Romanistica,’” Estudis romanics 22 [2000]: 7–22, here 14). Wendelin Foerster (1844–1915) was a student of Diez who succeeded Diez as professor of Romance Philology in Bonn; Foerster also taught in Prague and Vienna. His ground-breaking publication of the romances of Chrétien de Troyes is still cited (Christian von Troyes Sämtliche Werke, 3 vols., 1890; reprinted in Romanische Bibliothek as separate volumes); he is described by Pierre Kunstmann as the “père fondateur” of Chrétien studies (http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/epc/chwp/kunstmann, last accessed on Jan. 6, 2009). Foerster was responsible for fifteen volumes in the Altfranzösische Bibliothek (15 vols., 1879–1897), in which he published many Old French romances in addition to those of Chrétien. Gustav Gröber (1844–1911) taught Romance Philology at the University of Strasbourg while Alsace was a part of Germany. He authored the Grundriss der romanischen Philologie (1888–1898), an important and still cited work. His other important contribution was the founding of the Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie (1877–present), one of several learned journals founded in the 1870s. The Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie serves not only as a periodical, but also as the sponsor of the monograph series Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, which published its 347th volume in 2008. Covering the entire field of Romance Philology, the series is an important venue for significant publications by scholars in the discipline of French Studies from all over the world. Philipp August Becker (1862–1947) began his university studies in Strasbourg with Gröber, following these with work in Paris and at the University of Fribourg where he studied Romance Philology. His first teaching position was at the University of Budapest, where he taught for twelve years. In 1905, Becker moved to Vienna to replace Adolf Mussafia. Twelve years later, he moved again, to Leipzig, where he taught until retirement in 1930. He trained a number of students, the most significant of whom may well be linguist Ernst Gamillscheg (1887–1971). Becker’s name is not particularly well-known in the United States, perhaps because his works have not been translated. However, his work on Old French epics (e. g., Die altfranzö-
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sische Wilhelmsage und ihre Beziehung zu Wilhelm dem Heiligen, 1896, rpt. 1974) and on French authors of the late medieval and Renaissance periods is important and worthy of note. An important student of Diez was Adolf Tobler (1835–1910), who spent most of his teaching career at the University of Berlin, where he held the first chair in Romance Studies, starting in 1867. Tobler’s career in French was capped by his work on a major dictionary of Old French, the Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch, eleven volumes, known to this day simply as “ToblerLommatzsch.” Essentially completed by his student, Erhard Lommatzsch (1886–1975), the dictionary appeared in fascicles, starting in 1915. A final fascicule, with additional notes and additions by Hans Helmut Christmann, Richard Baum, Willi Hirdt, and Brigitte Frei was completed in 2002; the dictionary has been reprinted (1955, 1965, 1989) and is now available in DVD and CD-ROM formats. That this work of a 19th-century scholar has been converted to contemporary digital formats proves the importance of this tool for scholars. Karl Bartsch (1832–1888) studied first in Breslau and then at the University of Berlin, though there was not, at that time, a position in French or Romance Studies at that school. On completion of his studies, he worked first as a tutor and then as librarian in the newly founded German National Museum in Nuremberg. In 1871, he took the chair of Germanic and Romance Philology at the University of Heidelberg, where, in 1877, he created a department that included those disciplines. He remains important as the editor of several important anthologies of texts, notably the Chrestomathie de l’ancien français, VIIIe–XVe siècles, accompagnée d’une grammaire et d’un glossaire (1884; at least 12 re-editions, rpt. as recently as 1988) and Romances et pastourelles françaises des XIIe et XIIIe siècles: Altfranzösische Romanzen und Pastourellen (1870, rpt. as recently as 1975). Hermann Suchier (1848–1914) studied in Marburg and Leipzig. His first teaching post was at Zurich before he moved to Halle. His work as an editor of texts, notably that of Aucassin et Nicolette (first published in 1878; reprinted repeatedly, most recently in 1957), and as a literary historian (Geschichte der französischen Literatur von den ältesten Zeiten bis zur Gegenwart, 1900; rev. and expanded 1905; rpt. 1913) makes him a name to remember. Erich Köhler (1924–1981) studied at Leipzig before teaching first at Heidelberg and then at Freiburg. He brought to his studies of epic and lyric a sociological angle which led the way to new interpretations of medieval French literature. His contemporary, Hans Robert Jauss (1921–1997) studied in Heidelberg, working on Marcel Proust before turning to medieval literature. His first teaching position was at Münster, before moving to
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Gießen. In 1966, when Jauss’ former teacher Gerhard Hess became Rector at the University of Constance, Jauss followed, there to continue his work on Rezeptionsästhetik, the aesthetics of reception. Köhler and Jauss worked together on what would become the Grundriss der romanischen Literaturen des Mittelalters (1972–1990), modeled, in part, on Gröber’s 19th-century opus. This monumental bibliographic and critical effort, begun in the late 1960’s, was led by an international team of scholars, with the goal of covering all Romance languages and their medieval literatures. Organized by genre, then by language, the volumes were intended to cover all of medieval literature in the Romance languages. The initial plan was for thirteen volumes, each with two sides, one containing literary-historical analysis written by the leading world scholars in that subject, the second a complete bibliographic entry for each and every work known, the two sides linked by a system of cross-referencing. Though the Grundriss will never be completed, the editorial team having run out of steam, the published volumes represent a remarkable contribution to scholarship and serve as an invaluable aid to the scholar and student. The Grundriss project spun off at least one side project, the publication of Begleitreihe which offered additional analysis and critical approaches to medieval Romance literature. Two of these volumes appeared: Literatur in der Gesellschaft des Spätmittelalters (ed. Hans U. Gumbrecht, 1980) and Mittelalter-Rezeption: Zur Rezeptionsgeschichte der romanischen Literaturen des Mittelalters in der Neuzeit (ed. Reinhold R. Grimm, 1991). D. French Studies in the United States French Studies have an American history longer than one might suspect. Having served American interests in France in the 1770’s and knowing the need for French speakers, Silas Deane “proposed a professorship in French to his alma mater [Yale University] in 1778” (Stacy Schiff, A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America, 2005, 166), an offer that Yale declined. Harvard began to teach French after 1787 and “Yale recognized it officially in 1825” (Schiff, 166). In part, French Studies had a slow beginning in the United States because of concerns about morality: “There were those who reflexively felt [French] should be kept from the ladies. Where the French language went, depravity, frivolity, and indolence were sure to follow” (Schiff, 166). Several decades later, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) worked to establish French and French studies, initially at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine (1829–1834). While teaching in Maine, Longfellow translated C. F. L’Homond’s Elements of French Grammar (1830) for American
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students. Longfellow then moved to Harvard University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he was professor of modern languages from 1836 until 1854. In that capacity, holding the Smith Professorship of Modern Languages and Belles-Lettres, he brought European languages and literatures, including French, to the attention of American students and scholars. Harvard University’s collection of Longfellow papers includes notes on “History of the French Language,” “Dialectes de la langue française,” and “Etat de la langue française en Angleterre,” some of which appeared in print as “The French Language in England” (1840). Longfellow set a high standard for scholarship, but left the academy. The baton soon passed to Aaron Marshall Elliott (1844–1910), who established the art of textual criticism in North America while teaching at Johns Hopkins University. Elliott learned his craft in Europe, where he had studied in Paris at the Collège de France and Institut des Hautes Etudes, before moving on to Florence, Madrid, Tübingen, and Munich in a grand linguistic and scholarly tour (Francesco Carapezza, Ecdotica galloromanza negli Stati Uniti d’America. Atti della Accademia nazionale dei Lincei, 152, Classe di scienze morali, storiche e filologiche: Memoria, ser. 9, vol. 19, fasc. 4, 2005, 598 n. 4). Elliott devoted his life to work on a critical edition of the Lais of Marie de France. He was also instrumental in founding a learned society, the Modern Language Association (MLA). Though Elliott never published his work on the Lais, he trained a remarkable number of scholars in Old French and in editorial technique, including H. A. Todd, E. C. Armstrong, D. L. Buffum, T. A. Jenkins, J.E. Matzke, and W.A. Nitze (Carapezza, Ecdotica galloromanza negli Stati Uniti d’America, 2005, 600). Henry Alfred Todd (1854–1925) also studied in a number of European universities, attending lectures given by Adolf Tobler in Berlin, Ernesto Monaci in Rome, and Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo in Madrid, before spending a year in Paris as a student at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes working with Gaston Paris, Paul Meyer, and Arsène Darmesteter (Carapezza, Ecdotica galloromanza negli Stati Uniti d’America, 2005, 601). Todd was the first foreigner to publish an edition with the Société des anciens textes français in Paris, the Dit de la Panthère (1883). He followed this work with the editio princeps of the Naissance du Chevalier au Cygne (1889), with critical apparatus in English, a significant departure from the press’ practice of publishing only in French (Carapezza, Ecdotica galloromanza negli Stati Uniti d’America, 2005, 603). John Ernst Matzke (1862–1910), of German birth, was another of Elliott’s students, though one who died quite young. Nonetheless, his edition of Les œuvres de Simund de Freine (1909) has stood the test of time;
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it remains the only edition of Simund’s work to date (Carapezza, op. cit., 605). Thomas Atkinson Jenkins (1868–1935) moved from Johns Hopkins to become professor at the University of Chicago, where he built its program in French Studies. His work as a text editor includes the edition of Marie de France’s Espurgatoire Seint Patriz (1903). Edward Cooke Armstrong (1871–1944) replaced Elliott on the latter’s death in 1910, serving as director of the department at Johns Hopkins and as editor of Modern Language Notes (Carapezza, op. cit., 608) before moving to Princeton University in 1917. Among Armstrong’s accomplishments are the establishment of the series “Elliott Monographs in the Romance Languages and Literatures” (Carapezza, op. cit., 608) and the edition of the Chevalier à l’épée (1900), an edition not replaced until 1972. Armstrong was also a key member of the team that edited the Medieval French Roman d’Alexandre (ed. M. S. LaDu, E.C. Armstrong, A. Foulet, 1937–1976). Armstrong was succeeded at Princeton by his student Alfred Foulet (1900–1987), son of peripatetic French scholar Lucien Foulet (1873–1958). Born in Pennsylvania, Alfred Foulet followed his father to Berkeley before going to Paris for study; he completed his doctoral studies in the United States, with an edition of the Couronnement de Renard (1929). Part of the Roman d’Alexandre team, Foulet’s mark on American scholarship was crowned with the publication of On Editing Old French Texts (1979), in which he and co-author Mary Blakely Speer (1942–) offered American scholars guidelines for preparation of critical editions. This volume has received uniform praise in reviews on both sides of the Atlantic. William Albert Nitze (1876–1957) trained at Johns Hopkins and taught at Chicago from 1909 until 1942 (Carapezza, op. cit., 614). Editor of several Old French texts, he is best known for his work on Robert de Boron’s Roman de l’Estoire dou Graal (1927; rpt. 1971, 1983) and the enormous Le haut livre du graal: Perlesvaus (1932; rpt.1972). A student of Nitze, William Joseph Roach (1907–1993) taught at the Catholic University of America before moving to the University of Pennsylvania in 1939. Roach’s work began with publication of the Didot Perceval (1941; rpt.1977), followed by the monumental edition of the Continuation of the Old French Perceval cycle (1949–1983). He was also responsible for student editions of Chrétien de Troyes’ Perceval (1959). The importance of Roach for American scholarship cannot be overstated. In the words of Keith Busby, “L’influence de cet homme […] a été incalculable, non seulement à cause de ses propres travaux, mais aussi grâce à ses nombreux élèves” (quoted in Carapezza, op. cit., 650, n. 114).
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In another quarter, after World War II, the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, became a venue for French Studies, particularly under the leadership of Urban Tigner Holmes (1900–1972), described by Yakov Malkiel as “one of the three or four most conspicuous figures on the American scene” (“Necrology: Urban Tigner Holmes,” Romance Philology 27 [1973]: 62–67). Though Holmes was not a prolific editor (he edited but one text, Adenet le Roi’s Berte aus grans piés, 1946; see Carapazza, op. cit., 669), he wrote a significant number of literary studies relating to Chrétien de Troyes as well as the history of French language and literature (with Alexandre Schutz, A History of the French Language, 1938; rpt.1967), and he trained a remarkable cohort of students, including Jan Nelson, Emmanuel Mickel, Rupert Pickens and William Kibler. Founder of the series University of North Carolina Studies in the Romance Languages and Literatures, Holmes’ mark on French Studies extends well beyond his own work. On the West Coast, the University of California, Berkeley, maintained its importance as a center for French Studies, notably within the broader discipline of Romance Philology. Edward Billings Ham (1902–1965) worked as a professor at the University of Michigan, but may have made his mark as a visiting faculty member at Berkeley while he was on the faculty at California State College (now University) at Haywood. He was a prolific scholar in his own right, though he may be better known today for his students than for his own words. Berkeley was home to linguist Yakov Malkiel (1914–1998), founder of the journal Romance Philology. While Malkiel’s own scholarship was not in French Studies, his journal has been very important for that discipline. Students in the Berkeley program included Peter Florian Dembowski and Karl David Uitti. Another member of this cohort, still teaching at Berkeley, is Joseph John Duggan (1938–), who published his important Concordance of the Chanson de Roland in 1969. This volume gave scholars of the epic access to the entire text in key-word-in-context (KWIC) format, breaking new ground for linguistic and literary analysis of the poem. The Concordance opened the eyes of scholars to the utility of computer-generated data, extremely beneficial in the linguistic analysis of a medieval French text. Peter Florian Dembowski (1925–) has taught at the University of Chicago since 1969, following in the footsteps of Nitze. Dembowski’s personal history is fascinating; part of it chronicled in his Christians in the Warsaw Ghetto: An Epitaph for the Unremembered (2005). He received graduate training in French philology at Berkeley, where he studied with Ham and Malkiel, before taking a teaching position at the University of Toronto (1960–1967) and then at Chicago (1969–). His contributions to French Studies are many, including his editions of Ami et Amile (1969), Jourdain de Blaye (1969; rev. and
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rpt. 1991), Erec et Enide (1994), as well as texts from the later Middle Ages such as Le paradis d’amour and L’orloge amoureus of Jean Froissart (1986). Now professor emeritus, he remains an active scholar. Karl David Uitti (1933–2003) followed his studies at Berkeley with a position at Princeton. Uitti’s importance to the field is apparent on several fronts. A regular contributor to American debates on text editing (see his “A la recherche du texte perdu,” L’hostellerie de pensée: Etudes sur l’art littéraire au Moyen Age offertes à Daniel Poirion, 1995, 467–86), he also was a leader in the use of new technology, notably publishing edited texts on-line. His work with the “Charrette Project” points the way of the future for French Studies – on a web site, scholars and the general public can see manuscript images, transcriptions, lexical, grammatical, and rhetorical-poetic data for the multiple manuscripts of Chrétien de Troyes’ Chevalier de la charette (Lancelot) (see http://www.princeton.edu /˜ lancelot/ss/index.shtml [last accessed on Jan. 6, 2009]). E. Recent Trends Bernard Cerquiglini’s publication, Eloge de la variante: Histoire critique de la philologie (1989), an attack on the traditions of scholarship in France, elicited a spirited response in the pages of the American journal Speculum. In a special issue entitled “The New Philology” (Speculum 65.1 [1990]) Stephen G. Nichols led the charge with his introduction “Philology in a Manuscript Culture” (1–10). Nichols’ argument, “[…] the insistence that the language of texts be studied not simply as discursive phenomena but in the interaction of text language with the manuscript matrix and of both language and manuscript with the social context and networks they inscribe” (9), marks the movement of American scholarship away from philology per se and towards incorporation of new critical theory in approaches to medieval French literature. In the same issue, Suzanne Fleischmann (“Philology, Linguistics and the Discourse of the Medieval Text,” 19–37) argues for the use of linguistic theory to understand Old French texts. Reinforcing the approaches of his fellow contributors, Lee Patterson titles his contribution, “On the Margin: Postmodernism, Ironic History and Medieval Studies” (87–108). For several reasons, this issue of Speculum was a watershed moment in American scholarship. First, it was a concerted reaction to a French challenge; second, the response was published in the highly respected journal of the Medieval Academy of America; and third, from that point on, American scholars moved quickly to change approaches, so that critical theory (albeit French critical theory) invaded scholarship and education.
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F. French Studies in Canada North of the US border, Medieval Studies has long been centered at the University of Toronto, where the Pontifical Institute for Mediaeval Studies (founded in 1929) and the more recent parallel Centre for Medieval Studies (established in 1959) have long attracted students. Medieval French language and literature were part of the University of Toronto curriculum in the 1920’s, taught by Joseph Stanley Will. His successor, William Hilliard Trethewey (1898–1981), trained at the University of Chicago (Ph.D. 1935), published the first volume to appear in the Anglo-Norman Text Society’s publications, La Petite philosophie, an Anglo-Norman Poem of the Thirteenth Century (1939). In the1960’s and 1970’s the faculty in French at the University of Toronto grew to include many medievalists, including Edward A. Heinemann (1942–), noted for his work on Old French epics and the oral tradition; Robert A. Taylor (1937–), author of a major bibliography of Old Occitan literature; Brian S. Merrilees (1939–), editor of numerous Anglo-Norman texts; Peter Grillo (1940–), editor of three volumes of the Old French Crusade Cycle; John Ferguson Flinn (1920–), whose Le Roman de Renart dans la littérature française et dans les littératures étrangères au Moyen Age (1963) is still current; A. Robert Harden (1919–), known for his work on medieval French drama; and his student, Frank Collins (1942–), who began his career with work on Chrétien de Troyes though he is currently more active in the field of semiotics. Other Canadian universities followed the lead of the University of Toronto. Significant centers of study include the Université de Montréal and the University of British Columbia, though the latter is more important for its faculty in medieval history than in medieval French literature. In Montreal, for example, Elisabeth Schulze-Busacker, who earned her doctorate at the Sorbonne in France, has been a leader in French studies, working in the university’s department of Linguistics and Translation. SchulzeBusacker’s book, Proverbes et expressions proverbiales dans la littérature narrative du Moyen Age français: recueil et analyse (1985), updated and improved on Joseph Morawski’s Proverbes français antérieurs au XVe siècle (1925) in important ways. Her research extends across Old French genres; she is also an active scholar of medieval Occitan literature. Exerting great influence was, of course, Paul Zumthor (1915–1995), who ended his career at the Université de Montréal (retiring in 1980). Zumthor received his training in Paris and taught for twenty years at the University of Amsterdam. During the period from 1968–1972, a turbulent moment in university circles, he moved from the Université de Vincennes (France), to Yale University, before arriving in Montreal in 1972. His Histoire littéraire de la France médiévale (VIe–XIVe s.) (1954) is still actively cited; his Langue et technique poétiques à l’époque romane (XIe–XIIIe
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s.) (1963), and Essai de poétique médiévale (1972; rpt. 2000) are scholarly masterpieces. Zumthor brought linguistic theory to literary analysis, bringing his unequaled understanding of the medieval French corpus, ranging from the beginnings of that literature to the Grands Rhétoriqueurs, the subject of his later work. G. Conclusions One significant international trend, beginning after World War II, and particularly noticeable in recent years, has been the growth in the number of topic-specific or author-specific learned societies, each with its own journal. Some of these are international in membership; others restricted more or less to one country. Examples of the former would be the International Arthurian Society (devoted to all matters touching on King Arthur of Britain), founded in 1948 with an annual Bulletin biliographique, the Société Rencesvals pour l’étude des épopées romanes (devoted to study of medieval epic poetry), founded in 1956 and publishing a Bibliographic Bulletin since, and the International Courtly Literature Society (open to all topics that relate to the court, particularly in the Middle Ages), founded in 1973 with its journal Encomia. Each of these societies counts several thousand members. Smaller in size but equally international would be organizations like the Christine de Pizan Society (founded circa 1990), with a regular program of international conferences. An example of the latter, smaller, recent groups, would be the Marie de France Society (founded in 1992), essentially based in North America though drawing members from beyond those confines. These societies have a tighter focus than is the case with organizations such as the Modern Language Association, open to all languages, all disciplines and all time periods. Another highly significant recent development has been the emergence of the Annual Congress on Medieval Studies organized by the Medieval Institute of Western Michigan University, in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in May of each year. The meeting has become the pre-eminent event of its type in the world and is known today simply as “Kalamazoo.” First organized in 1965 as a central meeting for students and faculty from the Universities of Wisconsin, Toronto and all points between, this congress has become a major meeting for any scholar interested in the medieval period. Today, bringing together more than 3000 participants from all over the world, the more than 500 sessions of this conference are a prime opportunity for the exchange of ideas in the area of French Studies, along with other aspects of the Middle Ages. “Kalamazoo” has proved so popular and so important an intellectual venue that the British University of Leeds has copied it, creating a parallel medieval conference in Europe. After a small beginning in 1994, the International
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Medieval Congress in Leeds now describes itself as “the largest conference of its kind in Europe,” drawing roughly 1500 scholars to Leeds in July of each year. Kalamazoo remains the congress for any medievalist, whereas Leeds tends to draw more historians than scholars in other disciplines. French Studies has long engaged scholars, who have seen medieval French literature as a source of delight, national pride, and scholarly inquiry. The discipline extends well beyond the borders of the countries discussed here. As a discipline, French Studies has responded to events in the contemporary world, from wars in the 19th century, to the advent of new technology in the twentieth. This article has focused on the edition of texts, leaving discussions of critical theory to other authors. The reader is invited to consult specific entries on Deconstruction, Formalism, Hermeneutics, Intertextuality, Marxist and Socialist Approaches, Narratology and Literary Theory, and Structuralism, for more information on these topics. More detailed entries can be found for a number of the scholars mentioned in this essay as well. While medieval French literature may seem old to some, it remains alive and well and flourishing in the 21st century. Select Bibliography Francesco Carapezza, Ecdotica galloromanza negli Stati Unite d’America: Atti della Accademia nazionale dei Lincei, 152, Classe di scienze morali, storiche e filologiche: Memorie, ser. 9, vol. 19, fasc. 4 (Rome: Accademia nazionale dei Lincei, 2005), 585–773; Medieval Scholarship: Biographical Studies on the Formation of a Discipline, vol. 2: Literature and Philology, ed. Helen Damico, Donald Fennema, and Karmen Lenz (New York and London: Garland, 1998); Frédéric Duval, ed., Pratiques philologiques en Europe: Actes de la journée d’étude organisée à l’Ecole des chartes le 23 septembre 2005. Etudes et rencontres de l’Ecole des chartes 21 (Paris: Ecole des chartes, 2006); Grundriss der romanischen Literaturen des Mittelalters, ed. Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht et al. (Heidelberg: Winter; vol 1: Généralités, 1972; vol. 2: Les genres lyriques, 1979–1990, still incomplete; vol 3: Les epopées romanes, 1981–2005, still incomplete; vol. 4: Le roman jusqu’à la fin du XIIIe siècle, 1978–1984; vol. 5: Les formes narratives brèves, 1985–1991, still incomplete; vol. 6: La littérature didactique, allégorique et satirique, 1968–1970; [vol. 7, originally dedicated to L’âge de Dante, Boccacce et Pétrarque has become part of vol. 10]; vol. 8: La Littérature en France aux XIVe et XVe siècles, 1988, still incomplete; vol. 9: La littérature dans la péninsule ibérique aux XIVe et XVe siècles, 1983–1985, still incomplete; vol. 10: Die italienische Literatur im Zeitalter Dantes und am Übergang vom Mittelalter zur Renaissance, 1987–1989, still incomplete; vol. 11: La Littérature historiographique des origines à 1500, 1986–1993, still incomplete; vol. 12: Le Théâtre des origines à la fin du Moyen Âge, never appeared; vol. 13: Synthèses, Chronologie, Index, never appeared); Tra filologia e comparatistica: Le riviste e la fondazione della filologia romanza, ed. Maria Luisa Meneghetti, and Roberto Tagliani (Tavarnuzze: Sismel, forthcoming); The Future of the Middle Ages: Medieval Literature in the 1990s, ed. William D. Paden (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1994).
Wendy Pfeffer
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Friendship and Networks A. Introduction Medieval friendship, amicitia (derived in the modern Germanic languages from the Gothic frijõnds [friend] and the Indo-Germanic prãi- [to love], and derived in the Romance languages from the Latin amicitia), whether linked or not with the Christian concept of charity, caritas, has long been studied by medievalists (cf. e. g., the already long contribution G. Vansteenberghe, “Amitié,” DSAM I (1937): 500–29, with many references; cf. also Heinz-Horst Schrey, “Freundschaft,” TRE 11 [1983]: 590–99). Significantly increasing attention to the subject has been evident in the last three decades, not only to the Western Middle Ages but also to Scandinavia and Byzantium (cf. below), through which it has been analyzed from various approaches in an interdisciplinary and comparative manner (fitting in with the renewed points of special interest within contemporary historiography), with current national and international research projects (cf. in this respect the Medieval Friendship Networks project, cf. www.univie.ac.at/amicitia) and an already abundant bibliography as a result. B. The Medieval West Medieval friendship is not understood to be only an emotional-affective relationship between two or more individuals – the “narrow” interpretation characteristic of modern Western culture – but is understood also as a phenomenon that had social, political and cultural interpretations and forms of expression. This means that the focus of medievalists has become broader than the study of the terms amicitia and caritas within a spiritual or philosophical context, which was typical for the first half of the 20th century. Various approaches have led to medieval friendship being differentiated not only substantively, but also to a link being made, through the study of friendship as a socially important and complex phenomenon, with other Medieval social and other manifestations, such as courtly love, spiritual brotherhood, kinship, feudalism, marriage, and the like. Medieval friendship was an important social, political and cultural organizing principle within Medieval (pre-modern) society. It encompassed a broad spectrum of significance and externalized itself as a bond, whether formal or not, that had a socializing function for individuals occupying various levels of the population. ‘Friends,’ together with relations, provided a fundamental support in the struggle for social security; ‘friendship,’ whether formalized or not, not only played a socializing role, but also constituted a central fact within the processes of social
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networking and the formation of states. In addition, it exerted influence as an ideologizing frame of reference upon the cultural and intellectual executives of the clerical and secular elites, with the development of a set of conventions and norms that, integrated into forms of communication, ceremonials, ritual, and informal or formalized etiquettes, shaped human behavior in a fundamental way. The research of past decades has demonstrated that the study of medieval friendship is not without its problems of methodology. The lexicon of the medieval sources that refer to friendship, in particular those in Latin but also in the vernacular languages – the main point of entry for historians seeking to analyze the issue – were acknowledged as being hardly unambiguous, cloaked in limitations, and complex, which has given rise to a fragmented and differentiated picture. Behind the language that points to friendship could lie concealed, depending on the source, author and context, both spiritual, emotional-affective, pragmatic, instrumental, political, formal, homo-erotic, intellectual, etc. relationships of friendship (as well as all possible combinations of the same; cf. below). At the same time, this is a form of expression for group-related cultural, intellectual, and social conventions that can also degenerate into a genre-bound form of communication (Julian Haseldine, “Understanding the Language of Amicitia: The Friendship Circle of Peter of Celle (ca. 1115–1183),” Journal of Medieval History 20 [1994]: 237–60; Gillian R. Knight, The Correspondence Between Peter the Venerable and Bernard of Clairveaux: A Semantic and Structural Analysis, 2002) or into a rhetorical artefact (Walter Ysebaert, “Medieval LetterCollections as a Mirror of Circles of Friendship? The Example of Stephen of Tournai, 1128–1203,” Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Filologie en Geschiedenis/Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire 83 [2005]: 285–300). Design and function of the sources, in other words, play an important role in interpreting the friendship and the options available for this. Furthermore, the loss of sources due to time leads to a selective inventory, further distorting the picture. Finally, account must be taken of the possibility that the lack of linguistic usage referring to friendship does not exclude a source from offering access to the underlying social relationships; this applies in particular to letters (cf. below). Especially the study of what friendship meant within clerical circles has in recent years brought about a growing sense of the complexity evident within this area of study (cf. the interesting and synthesizing approach of those problems in Mullett’s introduction in Margaret E. Mullett and Walter Ysebaert, “Power, Relations and Networks in Medieval Europe,” Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Filologie en Geschiedenis/Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire 83 [2005]: 255–60).
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C. Medieval Friendship in Byzantium and Scandinavia As in the case of the Medieval West, increased interest in friendship can be established for Byzantium and Scandinavia, where the general conditions described above also apply. Specific to Scandinavia, it can be argued that, given the nearly total absence of theorizing texts and letters and correspondence, historiography is aimed especially at the role and importance played by friendship as a socializing phenomenon and as an element of political activities and network formation. ‘Friendship relationships’, as reflected, for example, in the Icelandic sagas – having a vertical structure with reciprocal obligations – and friendship networks formed a foundational element of the social structures and, as evidenced by the development and deployment of political structures and institutions, had a significant effect (cf. e. g. Jon Vidar Sigurdsson, Chieftains and Power in the Icelandic Commonwealth, 1999; Lars Hermanson, Släkt, vänner och makt: En studie av elitens politiska kultur i 1100-talets Danmark, 2000). The study of friendship in Byzantine society was particularly stimulated by an article of Margaret Mullett (Margaret E. Mullett, “Byzantium: a Friendly Society?” Past and Present 118 [1988]: 1–24), who explained the lack of historiography by the absence of Byzantine theoretical treatises on friendship, which left the issue long neglected. Since then there is evidence of catching up, whereby friendship is well studied in relation to other social ties and formalized forms of conduct (spiritual and kinship ties; patron-client relationships; teacher-pupil-relations), with a great amount of attention to narrative sources (such as vitae) and letters and collections of correspondence (cf. Byzantium Matures: Choices, Sensitivities and Modes of Expression (Eleventh to Fifteenth Centuries), ed. Christine Angelidi, 2004; Michael Grünbart, “‘Tis love that has warm’d us’: Reconstructing Networks in 12th century Byzantium,” Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Filologie en Geschiedenis/Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire 83 [2005]: 301–14; Margaret E. Mullett, “Friendship in Byzantium: Genre, Topos and Network,” Friendship in Medieval Europe, ed. Julian Haseldine, 1999, 166–184; Stratis Papaioannou, “Michael Psellos: Rhetoric and the Self in Byzantine Epistolography,” L’épistolographie et la poésie épigrammatique, ed. Michael Grünbart and Wolfram Hörandner, 2003; Franz Tinnefeld, “Freundschaft in den Briefen des Michael Psellos: Theorie und Wirklichkeit,” JÖBG 22 ([1973]: 151–168; for a comparative approach toward a definition of the question, which considers various regions, cf. Margaret E. Mullett and Walter Ysebaert, “Power, Relations and Networks in Medieval Europe,” Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Filologie en Geschiedenis/ Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire 83 [2005]: 255–314).
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D. Sources The vocabulary of friendship may be found in medieval source material of differing types. Depending on their approach, medievalists used different types of sources to study friendship: literary, theoretical, religious-philosophical and iconographic, and normative sources and letters and collections of correspondence lent themselves in particular to research into the way in which friendship and caritas were conceived. Narrative, diplomatic, administrative and juridical sources and letters and collections of correspondence were and are used for the analysis of role, function, practice, and significance of friendship in the societal context. More recent publications increasingly reveal a combined use of the diversity of source materials. It can be said in respect of the evolution of the source materials as such that no sources predating the 12th century have been found in which friendship is specifically and exclusively written of. While there is frequent reflection throughout this period about friendship and love in all sorts of texts (and the vocabulary referring to friendship can be found in the most diverse types of sources), actual treatises on friendship do not appear until the 12th century, in specific those written by Aelred of Rievaulx (De spiritali amicitia) and Peter of Blois (De amicitia christiana). A great deal of reflection on friendship and caritas may be found, however, in older philosophical-religious treatises and in medieval letters, as well as in poetic and literary texts from the late 11th century, where the ideal of friendship is oftentimes linked to (courtly) love. Where one especially finds in both of the former categories of sources theoretical observations about ‘ideal friendship’ (or in relation to God in particular), both chivalric and courtly literature often provide an image of ideal friendships between two individuals – based for the most part on ideal types of wellknown pairs of friends as may be found in these older sources and in Biblical passages. The scholastic tradition and the influence of the courtly ideology led to an increasing number of reflections in the source material from the 13th century onward, including literary sources. The diplomatic, juridical and administrative source material after all employs a choice of words that for the most part directly refers to some social reality but in general is lacking in contemplative reflection. E. Friendship (as an Ideal) in Spiritual, Philosophical and Theological Texts The medieval theoretical concepts, both spiritual and theological, of amicitia and caritas, find their roots in the classical authors, chiefly Aristotle and Cicero, but also Seneca, Lucian, and Plutarch, and in the manner in which the views or models of these authors combined with Biblical passages and Chris-
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tian ideology were further developed by Augustine and other Church Fathers, particularly in the 4th century (e. g., Wolfgang Brinckmann, Der Begriff der Freundschaft in Senecas Briefen, 1964; Eoin G. Cassidy, “‘He who has Friends can have no Friend’: Classical and Christian Perspectives on the Limits to Friendship,” Friendship in Medieval Europe, ed. Julian Haseldine, 1999, 45–67; Ludovic Dugas, L’amitié antique, 1894; Pierre Fabre, Saint Paulin de Nole et l’amitié chrétienne, 1949; Jean-Claude Fraisse, La notion d’amitié dans la philosophie antique, 1984; G. Herman, Ritualized Friendship and the Greek City, 1987; David Konstan, Friendship in the Classical World, 1997; James McEvoy, “Philia and Amicitia: the Philosophy of Friendship from Plato to Aquinas,” Sewanee Medieval Colloquium Occasional Papers 2 [1985]: 1–23; James McEvoy, “De la Philia païenne à l’amicitia chrétienne: rupture et continuité,” Les philosophies morales et politiques au moyen âge: Actes du neuvième Congrès International de Philosophie médiévale I, ed. Bernardo C. Bazan, Eduardo Andujas, and Léonard G. Strocchi, 1996, 136–47; Hélène Pétré, Caritas: Etude sur le vocabulaire latin de la charité chretienne, 1948; Carolinne White, Christian Friendship in the Fourth Century, 1992). Aristotle developed a model of friendship (philia, ) based on the concept of ‘attraction’; what attracts is a sociability, whoever would know friendship must study its object, that is, what is friendly. He argued that friendship manifests itself in three ways: in the form of utility, pleasure and virtue. From this he derived three types of friendship. Only friendship based on virtue represents the paradigm of ‘ideal friendship’; the other two are inherently unstable and transitory in nature because they focus more on the object of the friendship, which was changeable, than on the friendship itself. Ideal friendship was dedicated to the whole person and committed to the joint project of living, not to separate utility or pleasure characteristics. Aristotle thus endowed friendship with an altruistic significance. In its ideal form it was a perfect social bond that brought about unity among the citizens of the same city-state (Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea VIII and IX; cf. e. g. John M. Cooper, “Friendship and the Good in Aristotle,” Philosophical Review 86 [1977]: 290–315; John M. Cooper, “Aristotle on Friendship,” Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics, ed. Amélie O. Rorty, 1980, 301–40; Lorraine S. Pangel, Aristotle and the Philosophy of Friendship, 2003; Anthony W. Price, Love and Friendship in Plato and Aristotle, 1989; Bénédicte Sère, Penser l’amitié au Moyen Âge, 2007 [with an extensive bibliography]; Suzanne Stern-Gillet, Aristotle’s Philosophy of Friendship, 1995). Cicero formulated an analogous school of thought with the image of the ideal friendship based on virtue framed within a Roman civil society and within the ideal of humanitas. Friendship (amicitia) refers to a perfect combination of expressions of wills, tastes and thought, approaching an absolute agreement
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(consensio) on all matters human and divine, accompanied by benevolence (benevolentia) and love (caritas). The ideal of friendship was linked with aeternitas – the purpose of friendship existed in the life eternal (Cicero, Laelius vel de amicitia, ed. and transl. Robert Combès, 1999 [Les Belles Lettres]). The ideas of Aristotle and especially of Cicero had a lasting influence, not only on the concepts of the Church Fathers such as Augustine and Ambrosius (e. g., Ephrem Boularand, “L’amitié d’après saint Ambroise dans le De officiis ministrorum,” Bulletin de littérature ecclésiastique 73 [1972]: 103–23; Eoin G. Cassidy, “Le rôle de l’amitié dans la quête du bonheur chez S. Augustin,” Actualité de la pensée médiévale: Recueil d’articles, ed. Jaques Follon and James McEvoy, 1994, 171–201; Marie A. McNamara, Friendship in Saint Augustine, 1958; Venantius Nolte, Augustins Freundschaftsideal in seinen Briefen, 1938; Tarcisius J. Van Bavel, “The Influence of Cicero’s Ideal of Friendship on Augustine,” Augustiniana Traiectina: Communications présentées au Colloque international d’Utrecht, ed. Jan Den Boeft and Johannes Van Oort, 1988, 59–72), but also on those of monks and theologians of later centuries (among Benedictine and especially Cistercian monks; cf. below), on scholastic doctrine (e. g., Thomas Aquinas, Henry of Ghendt) and on the humanist ideals and ethics of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment (e. g., Ulrich Langer, Perfect Friendship: Studies in Literature and Moral Philosophy from Boccacio to Corneille, 1994). Christianity reformulated the Classical doctrines and added new elements to them, such as the universal character of Christian love, caritas, the purposefulness of the eternal and associativity of the individual love upon God (the love of God was reflected in the friendship with one’s neighbour). Passages from the Old Testament (I. Kings, XVIII–XX, II. Kings, I, dealing with the perfect friendship of David and Jonathan; Chron, XX, 7; Prov., XIII, 20, XIV, 20, XVIII, 24, XIX, 4, 6, XXVII, 5, 6, 9, 10; Eccl, VI, 5–17, XXII, 17–24, XXVII, 1–6, 16–21; Isa., XLI, 8), the New Testament (especially Joh, XV) and the letters of Paul (such as I Cor., 13) influenced the development of Augustine’s views, which linked the personal experience of friendship to the omnipresence of God (Contra Academicos, III. 6, 13; Confessions IV, 9), Cassian, who integrated friendship in a monastic context (Collationes, XVI), and other authors of the early Christian period (cf. especially Carolinne White, Christian Friendship in the Fourth Century, 1992; also, besides the references already mentioned, several contributions in Adèle Fiske, Friends and Friendship in the Monastic Tradition, 1970). Together with the classical texts, these authors in turn were the object of reflection for later monastic and theological writers, leading to a doctrine in which ideal friendship took on a largely spiritual character whereby it was experienced as a power to hold dear, as a power that called up the concept of the image (imago) of God. The accent among the mon-
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astic writers was on the gratuitousness of friendship. Whoever sought any reward other than the friendship itself, did not understand what friendship was, since it was its own reward, its own fruit. Friendship may not have any ‘utility’ but must be sought or desired for its intrinsic value. The friend was a revelation of God’s hidden presence. God stood at the start and the finish of each friendship. By having love for a friend one adored God. Friendship was, in other words, inherently bound to the consideration of God and of divine love (caritas); it is an inseparable part of all contemplative attitude. The passages in the medieval letters and sources that treat explicitly of divine love (cf. for example the De natura et dignitate amoris of William of Saint Thierry, or De speculo caritatis of Aelred of Rievaulx), cannot, therefore, be viewed apart from Christian friendship. While these ideas were already fully developed in the texts of Early Medieval writers, the actual working out of a doctrine took place especially starting from the long 12th century, when one can observe not only a considerable increase in reflections on amicitia and caritas in letters – to such a degree that this period has been referred to as a “Century of Friendship” (Colin Morris, The Discovery of the Individual 1050–1200, 1972) – but also when, simultaneously, the first true treatises on friendship appear. Aelred of Rievaulx’s De spiritali amicitia is a reflection cast in dialogue strongly influenced by Cicero concerning the nature and origins of Christian friendship (see the editions and translations, and e. g., Damien Boquet, L’ordre de l’affect au Moyen Âge. Autour de l’anthropologie affective d’Aelred de Rievaulx, 2005; Pierre-André Burton, “Ælred face à l’histoire et à ses historiens. Autour de l’actualité aelrédienne,” Collectanea Cisterciensia, 58 [1996]: 161–93; Julian Haseldine, “Friendship, Equality and Universal Harmony: The Universal and the Particular in Aelred of Rievaulx’s De spiritali amicitia,” Friendship East & West: Philosophical Perspectives, ed. Oliver Leaman, 1996, 192–214; Letterio Mauro , “L’amicizia come complimento di umanità nel De Spirituali Amicitia di Aelredo di Rievaulx,” Rivista di Filosofia Neo-Scolastica 66 [1974]: 89–103; James McEvoy, “Notes on the Prologue of St. Aelred of Rievaulx’s “De Spiritali Amicitia” with a translation,” Traditio 37 [1981]: 396–411; Brian Patrick McGuire, Brother and Lover: Aelred of Rievaulx, 1994); Peter of Blois’s De amicitia christiana was a not very original and revived interpretation of this (cf. especially Un traité de l’amour du XIIème siècle, Pierre de Blois, ed. and trans. Marie-Magdalène Davy 1932). A further theoretical systematization may be found in Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae (Ia IIae, q. 36, a. 3 et 4). Friendship is presented as “one” form of love, based on four forms of love that are distinguished and combined (amor, amicitia, dilectio and caritas); amicitia is offered as the perfect form: it is rational, stable, spiritual, and reflects the mystic perception of divine love. The systematics of Thomas Aqui-
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nas and the scholastics gave form to the development of a traditional friendship that was offered up by the late medieval commentators and rethinkers of Aristotelian ethics (Thomas Aquinas, Willem Ockham, Johannes Altensteig, John Major and others), next to the Neo-Platonic tradition with its confusion of erotic love and friendship. Both gave rise to a proliferation of texts and treatises during the 13th–15th centuries (cf. James McEvoy, “Amitié, attirance et amour chez S. Thomas d’Aquin,” Revue Philosophique de Louvain, ser. 4, 91 [1993]: 383–408; James McEvoy, “The Sources and the Significance of Henry of Ghent’s Disputed Question ‘Is Friendship a Virtue?’” Henry of Ghent, ed. Willy Vanhamel, 1996, 121–38; James McEvoy, “Grosseteste’s Reflections of Aristotelian Friendship: A ‘New’ Commentary on Nicomachean Ethics VIII. 8–14,” Robert Grosseteste. New Perspectives on his Thought and Scholarship, ed. James McEvoy, 1996, 149–168; Patrick Quinn, “St. Thomas Aquinas and the Christian Understanding of Friendship,” Friendship East & West. Philosophical Perspectives, ed. Oliver Leaman, 1996, 270–79; Bénédicte Sère, Penser l’amitié au Moyen Âge, 2007). F. Friendship in Literature. Friendship appears frequently in literary texts of the Middle Ages, referring to an informal contractual bond with associated reciprocal obligations, in which often mythical friend-pairs are offered as examples (such as Amicus and Amelius, Oliver and Roland in the Song of Roland, Athis and Prophilias), as well as the sublimated form of friendship described in 12th century chivalric romances (especially Danielle Buschinger, Amitié épique et chevaleresque. Actes du colloque d’Amiens, mars 2000, 2002; Reginald Hyatte, The Arts of Friendship: The Idealization of Friendship in Medieval and Early Renaissance Litterature, 1994; Huguette Legros, L’amitié dans les chansons de geste à l’époque romane, 2001). Particularly in the latter, the perception and conception of friendship, in courtly contexts, cannot be viewed separately from the manner in which the concept of courtesy love developed (see C. Stephen Jaeger, The Origins of Courtliness: Civilizing Trends and the Formation of Courtly Ideals, 939–1210, 1985, and id., Ennobling Love: In Search of a Lost Sensibility, 1999). Just in the way in which the language of friendship was used especially in medieval letters (cf. infra), in these sources this also gave rise to discussions of the question as to what degree such usage referenced homo-erotic physical contact, no matter to what degree sublimated (cf. infra). A few studies have also researched the degree to which the Ciceronian concepts related to friendship were appropriated in literary sources (Albrecht Classen, “Friendship in the Middle Ages: A Ciceronian Concept in Konrad von Würzburg’s Engelhard (ca. 1280),” Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 41 [2006]: 227–46, with further references; or Jan M.
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Ziolkowski, “Twelfth-century Understandings and Adaptations of Ancient Friendship,” Mediaeval Antiquity, ed. Andries Welkenhuysen, Herman Braet and Werner Verbeke, 1995, 59–81). G. Friendship in Practice Secular World The idealization of friendship, as it is found in medieval literature and the philosophical and theological treatises, should not draw attention away from the fact that, during all of the Middle Ages, friendship formed the completion of an important social relationship that exerted a structural and organizing influence on society. In pre-modern society, the institutional structures were for the most part inadequate in guaranteeing social cohesion. The consequence was that stability largely depended on personal ties. Friendship was a concept that served to strengthen these ties, as did kinship and other types of relationships and group bonds, whether formalized or not (cf. Gerd Althoff, Verwandte, Freunde und Getreue: Zum politischen Stellenwert der Gruppenbindung im früheren Mittelalter, 1990; Gerd Althoff, Amicitiae und pacta: Bündnis, Einung, Politik und Gebetsdenken im beginnenden 10. Jahrhundert, 1992; id., “Friendship and Political Order,” Friendship in Medieval Europe, ed. Julian Haseldine, 1999, 91–105; Verena Epp, Amicitia: Zur Geschichte personaler, sozialer, politischer und geistlicher Beziehungen im frühen Mittelalter, 1999; Claudia Garnier, Amicus amicis – inimicus inimicis. Politische Freundschaft und fürstliche Netzwerke im 13. Jahrhundert, 2000; Klaus Van Eickels, Vom inszenierten Konsens zum systematisierten Konflikt: Die englisch-französischen Beziehungen und ihre Wahrnehmung an der Wende vom Hoch- zum Spätmittelalter, 2002; Klaus Van Eickels, “Tradierte Konzepte in neuen Ordnungen: Personale Bindungen im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert, “Ordnungskonfigurationen im hohen Mittelalter, ed. Bernard Schneidmüller and Stefan Weinfurter, 2006, 93–125; Jon Vidar Sigurdsson, Chieftains and Power in the Icelandic Commonwealth, 1999). Friendship stood for the promotion of consensus, peace and solidarity. For the individual, friendship signified an expression of a relationship with mutual obligations, solidarity in the form of practical assistance and moral support (cf. besides the mentioned references, also the studies on ‘amis charnels’: e. g. Françoise Autrand, “‘Tous parens, amis et affins’: Le groupe familial dans le milieu de robe parisien au XVe siècle,” Commerce, Finances et Sociétés (XIe–XVIe s.), ed. Philippe Contamine, Thierry Dutour and Bertrand Schnerb, 1993, 347–57; Myriam Carlier, “Solidariteit of sociale controle? De rol van vrienden en magen en buren in een middeleeuwse stad,” Hart en marge in de laatmiddeleeuwse stedelijke samenleving,
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ed. Myriam Carlier, 1997, 71–91; Juliette M. Turlan, “Amis et amis charnels d’après les actes du Parlement au XIVe siècle,” Revue historique de droit français et étranger, 47 [1969]: 645–98). Within the societal context it acted as an instrument for the promotion of social cohesion. The influence of courtly ideology, scholastic tradition and placement of the social context into a judicial framework appeared to lead in the Late Middle Ages to a transformational referential framework among some social and other elites. Friendship acquired a normative and bureaucratic character from the tendency to embody the mutual and reciprocal obligations and ties of friendship in the form of a contract (Claudia Garnier, Amicus amicis – inimicus inimicis: Politische Freundschaft und fürstliche Netzwerke im 13. Jahrhundert, 2000; Michael Hicks, Bastard Feudalism, 1995; Peter S. Lewis, “Decayed and Non-Feudalism in Late Medieval France,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 37/38 [1964–1965]: 157–84). In courtly milieus, one saw a ritualization and formalization of individual codes of behavior and obligatory activities as they might fit into the context of friendship (Klaus Oschema, Freundschaft und Nähe im spätmittelalterlichen Burgund: Studien zum Spannungsfeld von Emotion und Institution, 2006). Clerical Friendship and the Study of Letters and Letter Collections It had been assumed for a long time that in spiritual milieus the perception and experience of friendship more closely approached its idealized, theoretical manifestation (cf. supra) than was the case in the secular, social and political forms of friendship. There seemed to be no room in the abbeys, convents and chapters for friendship as a socializing, socially structuring, organizing principle. A great deal of research in this area is still needed, but it is in the meantime evident that ‘clerical friendship’ was more than a spiritual or religious friendship, and that the language of friendship, adopted by clerics and referring to the practice of friendship relationships within the clerical milieus, pointed to a complex set of underlying social ties and cultural practices (which in many cases were inherently tied to secular society) – insight that to a significant degree was and is gained through the careful study of medieval letters and correspondence. The unique character of letters as documents of the ego that offer the reflection of the relationship between one or more persons has given rise to an extensive stream of publications focused on medieval friendship, chiefly in clerical settings. Letters provide conceptualizations of friendship, ideal or not, any forms of expression of friendship relationships in a discursive framework, and were for a long time regarded as sources that provided insight into what friendship meant in practice. The increase in the number of letters, especially during the long 9th and 12th cen-
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turies (with attention to, for example, Lupus van Ferrières, Alcuin of York, Anselm of Canterbury, Bernard of Clairvaux, Peter the Venerable, Peter of Celle, John of Salisbury, Stephen of Orléans, Peter of Blois, et al.) led to the doctrines and practices relating to friendship and love within the clerical milieus already being intensively studied, with them being cast in widely ranging and sometimes contradictory formulations. The studies of Leclercq (Jean Leclercq, “L’amitié dans les lettres au Moyen Age. Autour d’un manuscrit de la bibliothèque de Pétrarque,” Revue du Moyen Age Latin 1 [1945]: 391–410), Fiske (cf. supra), McGuire (especially Brian Patrick McGuire, Friendship & Community. The Monastic Experience 350–1250, 1988), and Robinson (especially Ian S. Robinson, “The Friendship Network of Gregory VII,” History 63 [1978]: 1–22) seem to have given the most important impetus to this historiographical flood. McGuire in particular has worked out in great depth (for monastic centers up to the 13th century) the relationship between linguistic usage in these letters, on the one hand, and the so-called actual relationship on the other. Based on the content and function of the letters and linguistic usage, McGuire characterized the relationship between the author and the addressee (or in some cases, third parties). Based on this he depicted an evolution whereby the relationships between clerics, depending on the context and the prevailing ideologies and conventions, appear to fluctuate between ideal-Christian friendships to those rather to be characterized as pragmatic. In more recent publications, such a view was both qualified and contradicted. Not only could the language of friendship point to a greater range of forms of social relationships with a horizontal or vertical, spiritual, political-pragmatic, homoerotic, emotional-affective, or spiritual-mystic character (see the many references in Margaret E. Mullett and Walter Ysebaert, “Power, Relations and Networks in Medieval Europe,” Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Filologie en Geschiedenis/Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire 83 [2005]: 255–314; for gay or homo-erotic friendship, see especially John Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century, 1980; John Boswell, The Marriage of Likeness: Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe, 1994; Alan Bray, The Friend, 2003; The Boswell Thesis: Essays on Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality, ed. Mathew Kuefler, 2006; Dion C. Smythe, “In Denial: Same-Sex Desire in Byzantium,” Desire and Denial, ed. L James, 1999, 139–48), but it was also demonstrated that the language of friendship would be used as a form of communication within intellectual groups (Julian Haseldine, “Understanding the Language of Amicitia”). Or, influenced by the genre of the artes dictamines, it could take on a rhetorical character that stood apart from any social reality (Walter Ysebaert, “Medieval Letter-Col-
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lections as a Mirror of Circles of Friendship?”). The understanding that there is no direct link between the language used in the letters and the social relationship between author and addressee has since become definitive. The manner in which friendship and friendship relationships are studied on the basis of medieval letters reflects the historiography of medieval friendship in general. A good example of this is provided by the relationship between Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux and Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny. Based on the language used in the letters that both abbots sent to one another, and those handed down in their collected correspondence, it was originally concluded that their mutual relationship could be characterized as having been one of deepest friendship, an expression of “real Christian friendship,” even if at the time of their holding office there was a serious rivalry between the orders of which they were heads (cf. for example, JeanBaptiste Auniord, “L’ami de Saint Bernard,” Collectanea ordinis cisterciensium reformatorum 18 [1956]: 88–99 (with references to older studies) or Ann P. Lang, “The Friendship between Peter the Venerable and Bernard of Clairvaux,” Bernard of Clairvaux: Studies Presented to Dom Jean Leclercq, 1973, 35–53 (for the context of the competing orders cf. especially Adriaan H. Bredero, Cluny et Cîteaux au douzième siècle: l’histoire d’une controverse monastique, 1985). Goodrich criticized this position with the argument that both authors held a fundamentally different interpretation of the concept of charity, and concluded that each conclusion with respect to the relationship between them drawn directly from their use of words in the letters that referred to caritas and amicitia, was incorrect (W. Eugene Goodrich, “The Limits of Friendship. A Disagreement Between Saint Bernard and Peter the Venerable on the Role of Charity in Dispensation From the Rule,” Cistercian Studies 16 [1981]: 81–97). Lortz had already dismissed the linguistic usages in the letters as merely rhetorical devices (Bernhard von Clairveaux: Mönch und Mystiker: Internationaler Bernhardkongress Mainz 1953, ed. Joseph Lortz, 1955), and Piazzoni argued in an extensive article that conclusions drawn about the relationships between the two, on the basis of linguistic usage in the letters, were impossible from a methodological point of view, and that the presentation of the question was irrelevant from an historiographical point of view (Ambrogio M. Piazzoni, “Un falso problema storiografico. Note a proposito della ‘amicizia’ tra Pietro il Venerabile di Cluny e Bernardo di Clairvaux,” Bullettino dell’Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo e Archivo Muratoriano 89 [1980–1981]: 443–87). Bredero eliminated the so-called relationship of friendship based on a very thorough and detailed study of all related sources, with a view to contextual circumstances (Adriaan H. Bredero, “Saint Bernard in his Relations with Peter the Venerable,” Bernardus Magister: Papers Pres-
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ented at the Nonacentenary Celebration of the Birth of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (Kalamazoo, Michigan), ed. John R. Sommerfeldt, 1992, 315–47). Finally, Gillian Knight studied the letters in a chronological semantic-intertextual framework, arguing that the relationship between Bernard of Clairvaux and Peter the Venerable could only be understood as a textual reflection of an intellectual discourse that must be projected to the 4th century (Gillian R. Knight, The Correspondence Between Peter the Venerable and Bernard of Clairvaux: A Semantic and Structural Analysis, 2002). Notwithstanding the various critical interpretations, the discussion continues to this day about the relationship, whether it is to be interpreted as one of friendship or not, between Bernard of Clairvaux and Peter the Venerable (and others) (cf. further references in Julian Haseldine, “Friends, Friendship and Networks in the Letters of Bernard of Clairvaux,” Cîteaux 57 [2006]: 243–80). H. Friendship Groups, Networks and Circles Studies that have as their subject friendship within the medieval secular world have paid more attention to the socializing and group formational character of friendship, than to individual friendship relationships as such (especially Althoff, mentioned above). As far as friendship within clerical milieus is concerned, just the opposite holds. Starting in the 1980s, the first studies appeared that passed over the individual relationship as a subject of research and took on the study of an author’s friendship relationships in respect of his or her social and cultural living environment, as part of the whole of relationships that could be detected (Marinus Maier, “Ein schwäbisch-bayerischer Freundeskreis Gregors VII.: Nach der Vita Herlucae des Paul von Bernried,” Studien und Mitteilungen zur Geschichte des Benediktinerordens und seiner Zweige 74 [1963]: 313–32; John McLoughlin, “Amicitia in Practice: John of Salisbury [c. 1120–1180] and his Circle,” England in the Twelfth Century: Proceedings of the 1988 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. Daniel Williams, 1990, 165–81; and the already mentioned studies of Robinson, Haseldine, Mullett and Ysebaert). These publications demonstrate the importance of friendship relationships and networks through the structures of classical institutions and illustrate the way in which individual clerics were embedded in various types of networks that had different social, cultural, and political purposes.
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Select Bibliography Gerd Althoff, Verwandte, Freunde und Getreue: Zum politischen Stellenwert der Gruppenbindung im früheren Mittelalter (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1990); Friendship in Medieval Europe, ed. Julian Haseldine (Thrupp/Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1999); Reginald Hyatte, The Arts of Friendship: The Idealization of Friendship in Medieval and Early Renaissance Literature (Leiden and New York: Brill, 1994); Brian Patrick McGuire, Friendship & Community: The Monastic Experience 350–1250 (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1988); Margaret E. Mullett, “Byzantium: a Friendly Society?” Past and Present 118 [1988]: 1–24; Margaret E. Mullett and Walter Ysebaert, “Power, Relations and Networks in Medieval Europe,” Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Filologie en Geschiedenis/Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire 83 [2005]: 255–314; Huguette Legros, L’amitié dans les chansons de geste à l’époque romane (Aix-en-Provence: Université de Provence, 2001); Bénédicte Sère, Penser l’amitié au Moyen Âge (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007); Jon Vidar Sigurdsson, Chieftains and Power in the Icelandic Commonwealth (Odense: Odense University Press, 1999); Carolinne White, Christian Friendship in the fourth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992)
Walter Ysebaert
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G Gender Studies A. Definition From the 1970s onwards and being enduringly influenced by the linguistic turn, the historical study of gender at large has emerged from women’s history and still may to some extant overlap with feminist approaches (cf. “Feminism” in this Handbook) while not being identical to it. Scholars such as Allen Franzen (“When Women Aren’t Enough,” Studying Medieval Women, ed. Nancy F. Partner, 1993, 143–69) even have proclaimed the end of feminism in Medieval Studies due to the advancements of gender studies and queer theory (cf. “Queer Theories” in this Handbook). Generally, gender is understood as the social and cultural construction of sex differences encompassing certain gendered identities, roles, and ideologies. Not only can these vary in different times and (social as well as geographical) spaces but be multiple and even ambivalent within any society and its respective fragmented spheres. Medievalists have participated early and actively in the larger enterprise of historicizing gender systems and have hence inspired diverse, sometimes even conflicting interpretations of how gendered thinking and gendered performances have shaped the historical past (this, however, seems somehow inherent in gendered thinking since early Christianity; cf. Daniel Boyarin, “Paul and the Genealogy of Gender,” Representations 41 [1993]: 1–33; and Jacqueline Murray, “Thinking about Gender: The Diversity of Medieval Perspective,” Power of the Weak: Studies on Medieval Women, ed. Jennifer Carpenter and Sally-Beth MacLean, 1995, 1–26). The subjects range from classic fields of feminist scholarship such as infanticide or labor division to questions of crime and violence, literary production or representations of piety, while one of the most prospering is the study of gender identities (cf. Sarah Salih, “Sexual Identities: a Medieval Perspective,” Sodomy in Early Modern Europe, ed. Tom Betteridge, 2002, 112–30), especially that of “masculinity” (cf. the article in this Handbook).
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B. Gender and Religion Still the primary fields of debating questions of gender are readings in religious or hagiographic literature and romance, both genres particularly foregrounding gendered bodies and related issues. This connects to a tradition deriving from earlier feminist scholarship who have fruitfully rediscovered not only women’s voices in the medieval past through witnesses of women’s spirituality but also uncovered women and women’s bodies’ as images or icons, as passive representations of abstract concepts that is (cf. Joan M. Ferrante, Women as Image in Medieval Literature, 1985; Karl F. Morrison, History as a Visual Art in the Twelfth-Century Renaissance, 1990, 154–95; more recently Kate Cooper, “The Virgin as Social Icon: Perspectives from Late Antiquity,” Saints, Scholars, and Politicians: Gender as a Tool in Medieval Studies, ed. Mathilde van Dijk and Renée Nip, 2005, 9–24; Fiona J. Griffith, “Siblings and the Sexes within Medieval Religious Life,” Church History 77 [2008]: 26–53). Carolyn Walker Bynum, for instance, in her seminal study Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (1987) has particularly fostered the metamorphosis from medieval women’s history to gender history. Focusing on the nature of medieval asceticism and the significance of gender in medieval religion, Bynum comes to unveil the diversity of medieval religious as well as bodily experiences beyond clerical preoccupation usually perceived through canonical texts. In the last decades, the investigation in intersections between gender and religion has flourished in numerous studies, especially concerning questions of sanctity (amongst others cf. Catherine M. Mooney, “Voice, Gender, and the Portrayal of Sanctity,” Gendered Voices: Medieval Saints and Their Interpreters, ed. Catherine M. Mooney, 1999, 1–15; Katherine Allen Smith, “Mary or Michael? Saint-switching, gender and sanctity in a medieval miracle of childbirth,” Church History 74 [2005]: 758–83). Indeed, the saint, whom already in 1978 Alexander Murray had identified as a “man without social class” (Reason and Society in the Middle Ages, 1978, 383–404), appears to lend itself specifically for questioning and testing the gender dichotomy and its related representations. The study of religious, pastoral and hagiographic sources, however, has also brought gender questions to flourish within the field of Medieval Latin Studies (cf. amongst others The Tongue of the Fathers: Gender and Ideology in Twelfth-Century Latin, ed. David Townsend and Andrew Taylor, 1998; and Sex and Gender in Medieval and Renaissance Texts: The Latin Tradition, ed. Barbara K. Gold et al., 1997).
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C. Thinking Sex and Gender in the Pre-Modern Era As another aspect, gender issues have become one of the most vivid fields of explicit interdisciplinary cooperation between medievalists and scholars of Renaissance and early modern history who both engage in shaping the distinctive alterity of gendered thinking in the pre-modern era. One key work that has consequently inspired both Medieval as well as Early Modern Studies is Thomas Laquer’s Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud (1990) in which he questions the validity of the two-sex-model (male/ female) for the study of pre-modern mentality claiming it to have basically developed only in the 18th century. According to his findings, medieval contemporaries did not perceive the female body as fundamentally distinct from the male but rather the former as an imperfect and physically underdeveloped guise of the later. Hence, Laquer argues, there was no distinction between the sexes but only one between genders (“one-sex-model”). Although this proves to be true for a variety of medieval philosophers and scientists, such as Thomas Aquinas or Hildegard of Bingen, medievalists have brought a variety of evidence that confute Laquer’s assumption in its generality. Recent scholarship rather has stressed the diversity of contradicting, co-existing and sometimes plainly ambivalent ways of gendered thinking in medieval times. Joan Cadden, in her telling study Meaning of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages: Medicine, Science and Culture, has posited “a cluster of gender-related notions, sometimes competing, sometimes mutually reinforcing; sometimes permissive, sometimes constraining; sometimes consistent, sometimes ad hoc” (1993, 9–10; also cf. Kathleen Coyne Kelly, Performing Virginity and Testing Chastity in the Middle Ages, 2000). Still Laquer’s ideas have brought forward the understanding that not only gender but sex as well owes its cultural debts and therefore directly aim at basic ideas of earlier gender studies. Since its beginning, the concept of gender has been opposed to that of sex, the latter addressing an anatomic if not even biological component which initially seemed downright graphically palpable in the possession of certain genitals. Yet the transgression of such seemingly biological boundaries has formed one of the most vivid fields of gender studies – and still does so. It is one of the key questions of more recent works to what extent gender and sex actually can be assumed to be so closely related yet discrete. While still a common differentiation in many current studies, critics inspired by Judith Butler’s ground-breaking and controversially discussed books Gender Trouble (1990) and Bodies That Matter (1993) have stressed the performative dimensions of the sex-gender-binary and have challenged it as a new bias that blurs historical perceptions. Gender, Butler argues, by encompassing the most diverse discursive or cul-
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tural practices inescapably fosters the pre-discursive prescription of what is conceived biological, hence what ascribes a person’s sex. Still it remains a rather open and heavily debated question how to cope with both the radical constructiveness of gender and the intractable physicality of the body (cf. Caroline Walker Bynum, “Why all the Fuss About the Body? A Medievalist’s Perspective,” Beyond the Cultural Turn: New Directions in the Study of Society and Culture, ed. Victoria E. Bonnel, 1999, 241–80). This is especially true for studies that question the heteronormative feminity/ masculinity-binary in terms of gay/lesbian or queer studies, cross-dressing or other phenomena of sexual and/or corporeal expression apart from the paths of heterosexuality and gender-binaries. Karma Lochrie, for instance, has suggested that the opposition between “natural” and “unnatural” sex seems to have been much more pervasively binary than that between homosexual and heterosexual intercourse for an estimable period of the European past (Covert Operations: The Medieval Use of Secrecy, 1999, 199). Other recent works utilize “third gender”-approaches in conceptualizing medieval accounts toward eunuchs, virgins, or ascetic celibacy (cf. Jo Ann McNamara. “Chastity as a Third Gender in the History and Hagiography of Gregory of Tours,” The World of Gregory of Tours, ed. Kathleen A. Mitchel and Ian N. Wood, 2002, 199–209). David Nirenberg, when investigating the relations of Christians, Muslims, and Jews in 14th-century Aragon, even finds “a society of six dynamically related genders, rather than of two genders and three religions” (Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages, 1996, 148; on gender ideologies in medieval cultures others than the Christian cf. the first section of articles in the volume Gender and Difference in the Middle Ages, ed. Sharon Farmer and Carol Braun Pasternack, 2003; and Steven Kruger, “Conversion and Medieval Sexual, Religious, and Racial Categories,” Constructing Medieval Sexuality, ed. Karma Lochrie et al., 1997, 158–79; for the often neglected Northern parts of Europe cf. Else Mundal, “Female Impurity and Cultic Incapability: the Influence of Christianisation on Nordic Gender Models,” Christian and Islamic Gender Models in Formative Traditions, ed. Kari Elisabeth Børresen, 2004, 203–18). As Felice Lifshitz has pointedly put it: “Ultimately, indeed ironically, Gender History seeks to disaggregate the very categories ‘men’ and ‘women’ – presumably its very subjects/objects of inquiry – rather than to reify them” (“Difference, [Dis]appearances and the Disruption of the Straight Telos: Medievalology [‘Mediävistik’] as a History of Gender,” Mediävistik im 21. Jahrhundert, ed. Hans-Werner Goetz and Jörg Jarnut, 2003, 295–312: 299; though not from a medievalist’s perspective cf. also the inspiring thoughts of early modern scholar Lynn Hunt, “The Challenge of Gender: Deconstruction of Categories and Reconstruction of
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Narratives in Gender History,” Geschlechtergeschichte und Allgemeine Geschichte: Herausforderungen und Perspektiven, ed. Hans Medick and Anne-Charlotte Trepp, 1998, 57–97). One of the most radical and prominent exponents of the constructivist trends in Medieval (Gender) Studies has lately been Kathleen Biddick who emphatically claims “nonfoundational medieval studies that articulates rather than re-presents the Middle Ages as a historical category” (The Shock of Medievalism, 1998, 85). Indeed, while for the most part accepting gender as a problematic yet indispensable category in historical investigation, recent developments in- and outside of gender related studies have compelled medievalists to consider the ways in which gender not only poses hierarchy and domination between the sexes but interacts with other categories of difference and power as well (cf. amongst others Kimberly A. LoPrete, “Gendering viragos: Medieval Perceptions of Powerful Women,” Victims or Viragos?, ed. Christine Meek and Catherine Lawless, 2005, 17–38; as well as “Queer Theories” and “PostColonialism” in this Handbook). This is why gender issues among other such concepts still lie at the very heart of many recent theoretical debates in Medieval Studies. Ultimately, emphasizing gender as a ground-laying category of historical research implicitly challenges chronology and epoch-boundaries as one of the basic scale types of traditional historiography, which already in 1977 led Joan Kelly to ask (and negate) provokingly: “Did Women Have a Renaissance?” (Becoming Visible: Women in European History, ed. Renate Bridenthal et al., 1977, 137–64; cf. Barbara Stevenson’s discussion of this article under the lemma “Feminism”). More recently, Jo Ann McNamara (“Women and Power Through the Family Revisited,” Gendering the Master Narrative: Gender and Power in the Middle Ages, ed. Mary C. Earler and Maryanne Kowaleski, 2003, 17–30) has argued for a new periodization of European history by the shifting of the gender systems. D. International Research Employing questions of gender in Medieval Studies already has a very strong tradition in both Great Britain and the US (cf. Patrick Geary, “Mittelalterforschung heute und morgen: Eine amerikanische Perspektive,” Stand und Perspektiven der Mittelalterforschung am Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts, ed. Arnold Esch et al., 2000, 73–97), while in France, for instance, Medieval Studies seem to have adopted gender as a category of historical research to far less extent (cf. some more recent pertinent collective volumes, such as Bilan et perspectives des études médiévales 1993–1998, ed. Fédération Internationale des Instituts d’Études Médiévales, 2004; or Les tendances actuelles de l’histoire du
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Moyen Age en France et en Allemagne, ed. Jean-Claude Schmitt, 2002, with only the latter touching gender aspects, significantly under the headline “Pour une histoire des femmes”) – probably due to its strong traditions in the history of mentalities. Some notable exceptions, such as Alain Boureau, Le droit de cuissage (2001), or Régine le Jan, Femmes, pouvoir et société dans le haut Moyen Âge (2001), were followed cautiously by very few scholars who have more explicitly drawn upon the concept of gender in their studies (cf. Isabelle Chabot, “‘Biens de famille’. Contrôle des ressources patrimoniales, ‘gender’ et cycle domestique (Italie, XIIIième–XVième siècles),” La maisonnée dans les villes au bas moyen âge, ed. Myriam Carlier and Tim Soens, 2001, 89–104). The same seems to be true for Italy, where medieval genders seem to be a field farmed predominantly by studies in literature (cf. Ashleigh Imus, “‘Vaga è la donna vaga’: The gendering of vago in the Commedia, the Decameron and the Canzoniere,” Forum Italicum 40 [2006]: 213–33), and Spanish scholarship (cf. Lifshitz 2003, as above, 297; with respective itemizations, as well as the remarkable intersections between Christian and Arabic poetry observed by Vicente Cantarino, “Wa-hiya taklifu ghannat: Genre and Gender in Hispano-Arabic Poetry,” Medieval Lyric: Genres in Historical Context, ed. William D. Jr. Paden, 2000, 255–72). Germanophone medievalists, especially those active in studies in literature (cf. Judith Klinger, “Ferne Welten, fremde Geschlechter: Gender Studies in der germanistischen Mediaevistik,” Potsdamer Studien zur Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung 3 [1999]: 47–61; Genderdiskurse und Körperbilder im Mittelalter: Eine Bilanzierung nach Butler und Laqueur, ed. Ingrid Bennewitz and Ingrid Kasten, 2002), have comparatively late but with sensible verve adopted trends from the AngloAmerican (Lifshitz 2003, as above, 295: “The Second Language of Gender Medievalology is German […]”). Noteworthy inspirations also were taken up from the Netherlands, where medievalists have begun early to put gender on their research agenda but have often been overlooked (cf. Anja Petrakopoulos, “Middeleeuwse vrouwen, gender en macht. Historiografische reflecties in een spiegelpaleis,” Jaarboek voor Vrouwengeschiedenis 16 [1996]: 17–35). This is especially true for publications in Dutch language, such as the noteworthy study of Petra J. E. M. van Dam and Johanna Maria van Winter on the significance of gender for medieval eating habits (“Theorie en praktijk van eetregimes in de Middeleeuwen,” Tijdschrift voor Sociale Geschiedenis 29 [2003]: 385–412). Still, scholarly English remains the lingua franca of medieval gender history. Overall, gender approaches in medieval archaeology, such as Roberta Gilchrist’s important Gender and Material Culture: The Archaeology of Religious Women (1993; cf. also the special forum on Gilchrist’s monograph in Cam-
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bridge Archaeological Journal 5 [1995]; a more recent example of plausible gender awareness in early medieval archaeology is Christina Lee, “Grave Matters: Anglo-Saxon Textiles and Their Cultural Significance,” Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 86 [2004]: 203–21), have gotten few notice outside its discipline. In this respect interdisciplinary cooperation still has remained relatively dense although there is a vivid discussion on this field within medieval archaeology which not only plainly employs but also engages in critically reviewing and testing earlier and recent debates in gender theory (Marie Louise Stig Sørensen, Gender Archaeology, 2000, provides a useful introduction; for more specifically medieval questions, cf. Roberta Gilchrist, “Ambivalent Bodies: Gender and Medieval Archaeology,” Invisible People and Processes: Writing Gender and Childhood into European Archaeology, ed. Jenny Moore and Eleanor Scott, 1997, 42–58). The same is comparably true for Medieval Byzantine Studies, although scholars in this field have recently published remarkable investigations in the political implications of gender in Byzantine imperial politics (cf. amongst others Judith Herrin, “The Imperial Feminine in Byzantium,” Past and Present 169 [2000]: 3–35; or Ruma Niyogi, Gender, Politics, and Rhetoric in Byzantium, 1025–1081, 2005), especially in the role of eunuchs in higher positions of Byzantine governance (cf. Women, Men and Eunuchs: Gender in Byzantium, ed. James Liz, 1997 – with an instrumental introductory chapter by James Liz, “Women’s Studies, Gender Studies, Byzantine Studies,” XI– XXIV). Though the study of monasticism, asceticism, and sanctity leaves indications for fruitful encounters (such as Paul Halsall, Women’s Bodies, Men’s Souls: Sanctity and Gender in Byzantium, 1999), which indeed thankfully have been taken up by scholars of western Christianity (cf. Gender in the Early Medieval World: East and West, 300–900, ed. Leslie Brubaker and Julia Mary Howard Smith, 2004), basic comparative questions dealing with gender in western and eastern Christianity, aside from examples of extraordinary religiousness (sanctity etc.), have been touched upon neither extensively nor even more explicitly. Still, “gender” in Medieval Studies figures far too often as a simple synonym for “women” – an observation being true for probably most other fields of historical research as well (some scholar once called that phenomenon “add women and stir”). But, as sketched above, there is more to the concept of “gender,” and an increasing number of highly inspired studies being constantly published prove that.
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E. Getting Started So far, there is no explicit least monographic introduction to the field of medieval history and literatures specifically concerned with matters of gender (except the notable attempt of Bernd-Ulrich Hergemöller, Masculus et Femina: Systematische Grundlinien einer mediävistischen Geschlechtergeschichte, 2001; 2nd rev. ed., 2005), while an almost overflowing pool of scholarly, introductory and more popular monographs and collections on medieval women has accumulated in the last forty years. The increasing interest of the last two decades in the histories of medieval sexuality, as one of the most basic practices of doing gender, has also brought up a series of publications of considerable depth as well as digestible synthesizes for introductory purposes. The first place to go when starting research in this specific field might be the Handbook of Medieval Sexuality (ed. Vern L. Bullough and James A. Brundage, 1996; 2nd rev. edition, 2000; cf. especially Joyce E. Salisbury’s chapter “Gendered Sexuality,” 81–102; for a comprehensive survey of recent scholarship, see the Introduction and numerous contributions to: Sexuality in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times, ed. Albrecht Classen, 2008). Also Katherine Crawford’s recent textbook European Sexualities, 1400–1800 (2007), which frequently glances back far into the Middle Ages, can turn out to be useful once in a while. A good starting-point to the diverse fields of research touched by gendered aspects should be Women and Gender in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia (ed. Margaret Schaus, 2006) and the second volume of the Greenwood Encyclopedia of Love, Courtship and Sexuality Through History (6 vol., 2007), while a useful tool in bibliography is provided by the online-databases Feminae (http://www.haverford.edu/library/reference/mschaus/mfi/mfi.html, hosted by Margaret Schaus as well) and Matrix (http://monasticmatrix.usc. edu), the latter however focusing on medieval religious women. There is no scholarly journal specifically focusing on medieval gender systems, but all major periodicals active in historicizing gender, such as Gender & History or the Journal of the History of Sexuality, do regularly publish articles on medieval history. Select Bibliography Caroline Walker Bynum, “Why All the Fuss About the Body? A Medievalist’s Perspective,” Beyond the Cultural Turn: New Directions in the Study of Society and Culture, ed. Victoria E. Bonnell (Berkeley et al.: University of California Press, 1999), 241–80; Joan Cadden, Meaning of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages: Medicine, Science, and Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); Mary C. Earler and Maryanne Kowaleski, ed. Gendering the Master Narrative: Gender and Power in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003); Gender and Difference in the Middle Ages, ed. Sharon Farmer and Carol Braun Pasternack (Minneapolis et al.: University of Minnesota
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Press, 2003); Felice Lifshitz, “Difference, (Dis)appearances and the Disruption of the Straight Telos: Medievalology (‘Mediävistik’) as a History of Gender,” Mediävistik im 21. Jahrhundert, ed. Hans-Werner Goetz and Jörg Jarnut (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2003), 295–312; Nancy F. Partner, ed. Studying Medieval Women (Cambridge, MA: Medieval Academy of America, 1993); Joan Wallach Scott, “Gender: A Useful Category of Analysis,” American Historical Review 91 (1986): 1053–75.
Hiram Kümper
German Studies A. Definition While German scholars dominated the field in the 19th century and continued well into the 20th – even after World War II –, scholars from other nations were also busy building on the ground-breaking efforts of their German colleagues and, beyond that, establishing their own identities and approaches which came into full fruition, in the United States, especially, in the last quarter of the 20th century and the first years of the 21st. This essay will concentrate on the development of the field in Germany and, to a lesser extent in the United States, Great Britain and France. The number of significant scholars in the field – on both sides of the Atlantic and past and present – is immense. If an attempt were to be made to include the names of even just “a lot” of the individuals, this essay would degenerate into a mere list. In the 19th century in Germany and Austria alone, for example, such a list would comprise at least one hundred names from Johann Christoph Adelung to Ignaz Vinzenz Zingerle. Thus more attention will be directed toward the establishment of the discipline, the schools of thought, controversies, indeed disputes, and will demonstrate the slow, but inexorable development from a narrow philological viewpoint of a text to the exciting, multifaceted literary approaches continuing to unfold in the present. Only those individuals will be singled out by name whose work truly played a significant role in the development of the field. The scholars of the 20th century, who will be singled out, will be considerably fewer in number, not because this essay is epigonic in nature, far from it – for are we not all like dwarves on the shoulders of giants? Nonetheless, rather than citing the names of individual scholars, especially of more recent times, for the important scholarly contributions that they have made and, in some in-
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stances, continue to make, this essay will concentrate on the research impulses that inform their work, but which, again, would not have been possible without the pioneering work of their 19th- and 20th-century forebears. B. The Corpus The periodization of medieval German literature (ca. 750 – ca. 1400) is as follows: The Old High German Period (ca. 750 – ca. 1050) is not only a stage in the development of the German language, but also in the process that ultimately culminates in a distinctively German literature. The beginnings are, however, mainly a continuation of the impulses of late antiquity and early Christianity. The extant literature can be seen as a voice trying to define itself primarily within the Christian missionizing context, seeking to mediate between the new and foreign on the one hand and the traditional and familiar on the other. With one significant exception, vernacular writings from this period are primarily religious in nature. Most, if not all, had surely enjoyed a pre-literary existence. Aside from many glosses and simple prayers the literature of this period offers fragments of Biblical epics and a heroic song (Hildebrandslied, ca. 800) in alliterative verse, as well as a complete Life of Christ (Heliand, ca. 830), in Old Saxon, also in alliterative verse, and, most importantly, Otfried’s Evangelienbuch (ca. 870). Middle High German literature (ca. 1060 – ca. 1400) can be subdivided into three not completely discrete eras: a) Early Middle High German (ca. 1060 – ca. 1160) comprising over ninety works primarily of a religious content; b) The Classical Period (ca. 1160 – ca. 1250) comprising the great romances of Wolfram von Eschenbach, Gottfried von Straßburg, and Hartmann von Aue, the heroic epic, the Nibelungenlied, and the first flourishing of German courtly love lyric, (Minnesang), including Neidhart (von Reuental) who made this very subtle genre even more so by appearing to coarsen it; and c) Late Middle High German (ca. 1250 – ca. 1400) comprising the sometimes very lengthy, often extremely tedious didactic works as well as shorter didactic and poetic pieces of great originality, e. g., Helmbrecht (ca. 1280), masterpieces of German mysticism, and one of the most original poets of the Middle or any other age, Oswald von Wolkenstein. Of course there are many more works, authors and genres. But before a broader public could become acquainted with any of them, editions had to be produced. C. The Beginnings Long before the establishment of systematic editorial procedures in the 19th century, portions of the Old High and Middle High German corpus were published. The earliest complete text is an edition of Williram’s (d. 1085)
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paraphrase (ca. 1060) of the Song of Songs (Paullus Merula, Willirami Abbatis in Canticum Canticorum Paraphrasis genuina, prior Rhythmis Latinis. Altera veteri lingua Francica; addita explicatio lingua Belgica et notae quibus veterum vocum Francicarum ratio redditur, 1598). With respect to this Leiden Williram, it should be noted that the text is based on a lost Old High German original and is the result of an unknown scribe’s attempt to render the East Franconian of the original in his local Old Dutch dialect. And while it is true that the previous year, 1597, also witnessed the publication of a fragmentary section (lines 19–78) of the ca. 1080 Annolied (Bonaventura Vulcanius, De literis et lingua Getarum sive Gothorum, 1597), Vulcanius’s work is of prime importance not for the appearance of several lines from an Early Middle High German work, but rather that he was the first to make available the translation of the Gospels in Gothic, as well as the first who connected this version with the name of Ulfilas. It is to Martin Opitz (1597–1639) that we owe the only complete copy (878 lines in 49 strophes of unequal length) of the Annolied (Incerti poetae teutonici: Rhythmus de Sancto Annone colon: Archiepiscopo, 1639). Interestingly both appear to be based on different redactions of the same manuscript which is, unfortunately, lost. Other works like the Nibelungenlied and the Klage saw several editions, either complete or fragmentary, by such individuals as Johann Jakob Bodmer (1757 – fragmentary using ms. C), Christoph Heinrich Myller (1782 – using mss. A and C), Friedrich Heinrich von der Hagen (1807 – mainly mss. A and C, with some consideration of mss. B and D; and again, somewhat more scientifically, but still inadequate, in 1816 and 1820 according to ms. B), August Zeune (1815 – using mss. A and C, with occasional consideration of ms. B.). No doubt reflecting the nationalistic attraction of the Nibelungenlied, Zeune published a “Zelt- und Feldausgabe” (edition for use in the tent or field) in a smaller format which the soldiers could carry with them into the war against Napoleon. Other works which were edited (after a fashion) prior to Karl Lachmann were Minnesang (Johann Jacob Bodmer and Johann Jacob Breitinger, 1759), Hartmann von Aue’s Arme Heinrich (Christoph Heinrich Myller, Samlung deutscher Gedichte aus dem XII., XIII. und XIV. Jahrhundert, vol. 1, 1784, 197–208) and Hartmann’s Iwein (Christoph Heinrich Myller, Samlung deutscher Gedichte aus dem XII., XIII. und XIV. Jahrhundert, vol. 2, 1784/1785). All of these editions were for their time important and the Opitz edition is still being used today, to be sure in place of the lost manuscript. Nonetheless the range of quality among the various early editions even among those by one editor, e. g. von der Hagen, was quite large and did not begin to approach that of the editions which would soon follow. The response of the
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readers to these editions was varied from Goethe’s early disinterest in the Nibelungenlied to his enthusiasm for it in later life to the outright rejection of the great epic by no less a personage than Frederick the Great, whose reaction to Myller’s edition is well known: “In my opinion, such ‘poems’ are not worth a rap and do not deserve to be lifted from the dust of obscurity. In my library at any rate, I would not tolerate such miserable stuff but would toss it out!” D. The New Discipline As crisp, clear, and unambiguous as the above declaration of Frederick the Great might be and as appropriate as the sentiment expressed in it might have been for Myller’s edition, the time of the emergence of German Philology as an independent discipline was at hand and the value of medieval German literature would soon be recognized on the basis of reliable and scientifically edited texts. The area of Medieval German Studies is, however, quite complex and cannot be understood properly without at least a glance at the discipline of which it is an offspring, Classical Philology. With the publication of Richard Bentley’s (1662–1742) Epistola ad Millium, appended to the 1691 edition (editio princeps) of the Oxford Malalas, a new era of critical, philological methodology began. This slender tract (fewer than one hundred pages) is a masterpiece of brilliant emendations and corrections and displays the author’s complete familiarity with ancient grammarians, drawing on their works to bolster his readings. He was in close contact with the great German Classical scholar, Johann Georg Graevius (1632–1703), who was a professor in Utrecht and for whom he collected all the fragments of Callimachus, half of which were unknown at that time – even to Graevius – and contributed them to the latter, making Graevius’s Callimachus a model edition. In the Netherlands, in general, Bentley was held in great esteem, but in Germany it was primarily Friedrich August Wolf (1759–1820) who hailed him and, according to Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, viewed himself as a sort of Bentley teutonicus, a conceit that was carried on by Karl Lachmann and others of his students. If, as is claimed, in the beginning was the word, i. e. the text, then immediately thereafter came Karl Lachmann (1793–1851), who, although a Classical philologist by training, together with Jacob Grimm (1785–1863) fashioned and defined the area of German philology (the only “German Studies” at the time). Without his (Lachmann’s) editorial work the evolution of the discipline to its present form would be quite unthinkable. As the initiator of textual criticism in German philology as well as being one of the
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greatest textual critics in the history of Classical philology, Lachmann’s approach utilized the “genealogical” or “stemmatic” method which compared all textual witnesses of a work and drew up a “family tree,” so to speak, mainly by comparing variants, i. e. errors and omissions. After discarding all repetitions, the text is reconstructed (with emendations) from the remaining agreements among the witnesses. This text would then represent the “archetype,” i. e., the lost copy from which all the witnesses descend. During the time he was a student in Göttingen, Lachmann attended lectures on older German literature delivered by Georg Friedrich Benecke (1762–1844), professor of English and older German. This experience left a lasting mark on him – as well as leading to a later collaboration with the great scholar –, and he spent the rest of his life dedicated both to Classical and German philology. In addition to his pioneering work in the new discipline, he also continued to be active in the area of Classical philology, among other things editing the works of Propertius and Lucretius. Although Lachmann was involved with several editorial undertakings in Classical Latin, the Bible, and Middle High German, the discipline of German Philology can really be said to begin with his treatise Über die ursprüngliche Gestalt des Gedichts von der Nibelungen Noth (1816). In this work, Lachmann applied Friedrich August Wolf’s theory, set forth in his well-known Prolegomena ad Homerum (1795) on the origin of the Homeric epics, to the Nibelungenlied (Liedertheorie). Wolf postulated that the Iliad and the Odyssey were not the work of one poet, but rather of a series of poets or singers who composed short pieces which were then later ordered, edited, and combined into the epics known by subsequent ages as being composed by Homer. In his consideration of the Nibelungenlied, Lachmann had two major concerns: the identification of the primary manuscript, which, in his opinion, would be the least complete – something that would speak for its greater age; and determining the structure of the epic. With regard to the first concern, he determined that there were three genealogical groups, aligned according to the three main manuscripts, A, B, and C, for all textual witnesses known at that time. Because of its lack of polish and apparent lacunae, he considered manuscript A to be the earliest and, therefore, primary manuscript (an assumption that would later be refuted as would the concept of three genealogical groups; today they are viewed as representing two redactions: the – nôt group and the – liet group, so named after the last lines of the epic: “daz ist der Nibelunge liet” [C], or “daz ist der Nibelunge nôt” [AB]). By 1836 in his Anmerkungen zu den Nibelungen und zur Klage, Lachmann had refined his Liedertheorie to the extent that he determined there were twenty individual “Lieder” or rhapsodies that made up the structure of manuscript A.
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From the beginning, Lachmann’s views were questioned, most notably by Friedrich Heinrich von der Hagen (1780–1856), the first academic to hold the professorship for German Language and Literature in Berlin. As noted above, von der Hagen, himself, had published editions of the Nibelungenlied in 1807, 1816, and 1820. Unfortunately the editions, but especially the earliest, were not characterized by scholarly or any other kind of rigor. The 1807 edition received little positive notice from the scholarly community, and in 1809 Wilhelm Grimm wrote about it: “It [the edition] is a modernization, which is worse than the original, and yet not at all modern.” As a result, von der Hagen’s protests failed to gain any significant support. A brief glance at the events which took place after Lachmann’s death with regard to the Nibelungenlied will provide a fascinating glimpse into the development of German philology in general in the 19th and early 20th centuries. For after his death, a scholarly struggle over his theories – concerning both the primary manuscript and the genesis of the epic – ensued, characterized by unusual vituperativeness and ad hominem attacks, the so-called Nibelungenstreit. The dispute centered around those followers of Lachmann like Karl Müllenhoff (1818–1884) who not only advocated the primacy of manuscript A, but also applied Lachmann’s Liedertheorie to the epic Gudrun, and “dissidents,” like the Heidelberg professor Adolf Holtzmann (1810–1870) and Friedrich Zarncke (1825–1891), professor at Leipzig who claimed primacy for manuscript C. Holtzmann’s Untersuchungen über das Nibelungenlied (1854) not only advocated manuscript C, but rejected the Liedertheorie to boot! He was joined later in the same year by Zarncke, who modified his support somewhat when Karl Bartsch (1832–1888) was the first to champion manuscript B (1865) as the primary manuscript. We owe to Bartsch the most widely-used critical edition of the epic to the present day. Supporting Bartsch’s conjecture as to the primacy of B was Wilhelm Braune’s (1850–1926) study, Die Handschriftenverhältnisse des Nibelungenliedes (1900). He posited the stemma in which, as mentioned above, the three main manuscripts form two branches *AB and *C and all derive from one original *x. In 1963, in his Beiträge zur Handschriftenkritik des Nibelungenliedes, Helmut Brackert subjected Braune’s theory to a rigorous examination. Brackert concluded that the presupposition upon which Braune constructed his stemma, namely that there was an original (*x), was simply not verifiable. Brackert’s equally controversial position theorizes that there never was one single work that could be considered the original Nibelungenlied. The common text appearing to lie behind the transmitted texts is, in actuality, just one of several versions. As might be expected, Brackert’s
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theories were also quite controversial. Although most scholars agreed that Brackert had successfully dismantled Braune’s stemma, his conclusion that there can thus be no ‘original’ provoked much discussion. While agreeing with Brackert about the inadequacy of Braune’s stemma, Joachim Heinzle’s observations are typical of some of the scholarly reservations: “We can infer an original in the sense that the Nibelungenlied tradition goes back to an original or basic text, in whose author we may see the poet of the Nibelungenlied. *AB and *C are revisions of this basic text, which is fairly well preserved in *AB whereas *C represents a systematic reworking, which in turn, however, influenced the total *AB tradition secondarily. In general, one has to take into consideration also the repeated impact of oral epic tradition on the written, but it is not the rule as Brackert thought. We have to see the written tradition as essentially closed. In spite of these facts, it is just as impossible to reconstruct the basic text, which probably originated in Passau around 1200, as it is to reconstruct the *AB-version” (The Nibelungen Tradition: An Encyclopedia, 2002, 210). The other Lachmann hypothesis, the Liedertheorie, was also disposed of in the new century. In his classic work Lied und Epos in germanischer Sagendichtung (1905), Andreas Heusler (1865–1940) convincingly demonstrated the untenableness of Lachmann’s theory. Heusler differentiated between “lay” and “epic” as follows: “A lay does not relate [just] an episode, but rather a cohesive narrative. The epic narrative and the lay content are the same,” or put more concretely: “According to [Lachmann’s] theory, the epic stands in the same relationship to a lay as a group of trees to an individual tree […]. In reality, however, the epic stands in relationship to a lay as a grown person to an embryo.” Heusler’s refutation of the Liedertheorie, while viewed by some scholars as too rigid, was nonetheless the final nail in the Lachmannian Nibelungen coffin. We will return to the Nibelungenlied when discussing the turn from philological to literary studies. However completely Lachmann’s Nibelungen hypotheses were disproved, his other critical and methodological achievements have stood the test of time. Not only did he provide an exemplary edition of the works of Wolfram von Eschenbach (1833), but also, together with Georg Friedrich Benecke, Hartmann von Aue’s Iwein (1827) which forms the basis for all subsequent editions to the present. In this connection mention must be made of Benecke’s dictionary to Iwein (Wörterbuch zu Hartmanns ‘Iwein’, 1833). Indeed there is scarcely a major work from the Classical Middle High German period with which Lachmann did not occupy himself – with the notable exception of Gottfried von Straßburg’s Tristan. He also began work on an edition of Minnesang which was, however, completed by his longtime
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associate and admirer Moriz Haupt (1808–1874), who, too, must be recognized as playing a most important role, possibly as important as Lachmann’s, in the establishment of German philology. Like Lachmann, he was a follower of the theory of the Classical philologist, Gottfried Hermann (1772–1848), who maintained that the accurate knowledge of the respective language(s) – in his case Latin and Greek – was the only path to an understanding of the ancient world (language as the only correct way to knowledge). (In other words such “tangential” subjects as archeology, history and the like play no significant role in Classical philology. This is in opposition to August Böckh [1785–1867] whose expansive view of Classical philology can be summed up as “language as one way among others.” The “BöckhHermann dispute” – much like the Nibelungenstreit in German philology – dominated the discussion in Classical studies in the 19th century.) Thus it is no surprise that he (Haupt) defended Lachmann’s text-critical methods, especially with regard to the Nibelungenlied (third and fourth editions of Lachmann’s text, 1852, and 1867). As mentioned above, Haupt published the edition of Minnesangs Frühling (1857) which Lachmann had started. In addition, he edited and published the following: Hartmann von Aue’s Erec (1839) and his Lieder, Klage, and the Arme Heinrich (1842); Rudolf von Ems’s Guten Gerhard (1840); Konrad von Würzburg’s Engelhard (1844); the Winsbeke (1845); Gottfried von Neifen’s Lieder (1851); the poetry of Walther von der Vogelweide (1853, and 1864); Neidhardt von Reuental’s Lieder (1858; modern scholarship no longer refers to this poet as ‘von Reuental’, which is only his nom de plume); and Moriz von Craon (1871). To be sure, most of these editions had to be completely reedited in the 20th century – and Minnesangs Frühling – already in the early 1900s. In the newest edition (Hugo Moser and Helmut Tervooren, Des Minnesangs Frühling, 1977) the entire editorial procedure was changed from the basic principle of emendation, conjecture, and reconstruction of the “archetype” to that of the “Leithandschrift,” a principle that Werner Schröder also employed with his monumental edition of Wolfram’s Willehalm (1978). These editions, plus several others, as well as important studies, e. g. Brackert’s observations about the Nibelungenlied manuscripts, demonstrate the gradual loosening of the philological bonds imposed upon the discipline by Lachmann and his followers. (We will have occasion to mention these later when discussing “New Philology” in the medieval German context.) Nonetheless, it must be pointed out, and forcibly so, that the more recent developments would have been unthinkable, without the pioneering accomplishments of Lachmann and others!
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E. Noteworthy Editions of Smaller Works (including Old High German) in the 19th Century Of course editing activity was not limited to the well-known epic and lyric works of the Middle Ages. Many text editions were made which offered, in addition to excerpts from larger works, complete texts of smaller works, especially those from the Early Middle High German period as well as the few monuments in Old High German and Old Saxon, and collections of courtly love lyric. Some of the more noteworthy collections are: Karl Bartsch, Deutsche Liederdichter des zwölften bis vierzehnten Jahrhunderts (2nd ed. 1878, rpt. 1966); Karl Bartsch, Die Schweizer Minnesänger (1886, rpt. 1964); Eberhard Gottlieb Graff, Diutiska: Denkmäler deutscher Sprache und Litteratur aus alten Handschriften, vol. 1 (1826), vol. 2 (1827), vol. 3 (1829); Heinrich Hoffmann (von Fallersleben), Fundgruben für Geschichte deutscher Sprache und Litteratur, vol. 1 (1830), vol. 2 (1837); Hans Ferdinand Massmann, Deutsche Gedichte des zwölften Jahrhunderts und der nächstverwandten Zeit, part 1: Die Straßburg-Molsheimische Handschrift, and part 2: Aus Wiener Handschriften (1837); Theodor G. von Karajan, Deutsche Sprach-Denkmale des zwölften Jahrhunderts (1846); Joseph Diemer, Deutsche Gedichte des XI. und XII. Jahrhunderts (1840, rpt. 1968); Karl Goedeke, Deutsche Dichtung im Mittelalter (1854); Oskar Schade, Geistliche Gedichte des XIV. und XV. Jahrhunderts vom Niederrhein (1854); Oskar Schade, Veterum Monumentorum Theotiscorum Decas, Diss. Halle/Saale (1860); Oskar Schade, Altdeutsches Lesebuch (1862); Karl Müllenhoff and Wilhelm Scherer, Denkmäler deutscher Poesie und Prosa aus dem VIII.-XII. Jahrhundert, vol. 1 (1864, 2nd ed. 1873, 3rd ed. 1892 by Elias Steinmeyer, rpt. 1964); Wilhelm Braune, Althochdeutsches Lesebuch (1875, 17th ed. 1994); Wilhelm Braune, Althochdeutsche Grammatik (1886, 14th ed. 1987); Paul Piper, Lesebuch des Althochdeutschen und Altsächsischen (Die Sprache und Litteratur Deutschlands bis zum zwölften Jahrhundert, 2. Theil) (1880); Paul Piper, Die geistliche Dichtung des Mittelalters, 1: Die biblischen und die Mariendichtungen (1888, rpt. 1986); Albert Waag, Kleinere deutsche Gedichte des XI. und XII. Jahrhunderts, (1890, 2nd ed. 1916). Waag’s edition has been reedited twice: an East German edition by Hans Joachim Gernentz, Kleinere deutsche Gedichte des 11. und 12. Jahrhunderts: Nach der Ausgabe von Albert Waag (1970, 3rd ed. 1977); and a West German one by Werner Schröder, Kleinere deutsche Gedichte des 11. und 12. Jahrhunderts: Nach der Ausgabe von Albert Waag, 2 vols. (1972). The latter two editions, especially Schröder’s, were made as a “protest” against the magisterial accomplishment of Friedrich Maurer, Die religiösen Dichtungen des 11. und 12. Jahrhunderts: Nach ihren Formen besprochen und herausgegeben, 3 vols. (1964, 1965, 1970). This became a fairly contentious issue among some scholars at the time in that Maurer maintained that the strophic form
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of Early Middle High German religious literature (ca. 1060 – ca.1160) was composed of strophes of unequal length employing essentially the Otfridian long line (ca. 870) with internal rhyme, as opposed to short line rhyming couplets, the “new” form of Middle High German poetry. In volume three Maurer presents those works which no longer offer evidence of the longline structure. The foreword to the third volume, in which Maurer discusses the criticism the first two volumes encountered, primarily from Werner Schröder, reflects that the “battle” was still going on. Although, ironically enough, Maurer, in his refutation of Schröder, makes his claim even more compelling. F. Other Disciplinary Developments in the 19th Century In addition to textual criticism and the establishment of a more or less reliable scholarly corpus, three outstanding journals were founded: Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum (1841) by Moriz Haupt; Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie (1868) by Julius Zacher; and the Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur (1873) by Hermann Paul and Wilhelm Braune. All three journals are still thriving today. And, of course, they have been joined by many more in all parts of the world. Large-scale dictionaries of Middle High German were also produced: Georg Friedrich Benecke, Wilhelm Müller, and Friedrich Zarncke, Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 4 vols. (1854–1866; = BMZ); and Matthias Lexer, Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch, 3 vols. (1872–1878). The BMZ is truly a colossal achievement. While it has an abundance of contextual examples taken from 250 sources, it can be difficult to work with due to its arrangement according to word stem rather than the alphabet arrangement. And what started out to be an alphabetical index to the BMZ became the massive three-volume Lexer that not only collates its alphabetical entries with the word stem ones in the BMZ, but also has included many more sources (720) and a substantial supplement section – in the modern print version over 400 pages. Excerpted from the Handwörterbuch – mainly for the convenience of students – was the venerable Taschenwörterbuch, the so-called ‘kleine Lexer’ (1882) which went through numerous reprintings and revisions well into the 1990s. It has now been thoroughly revised by Beate Hennig (Kleines mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 1993, 5th ed. 2007). The two dictionaries together with supplementary materials linked to the original sources mentioned in the dictionaries are available as a CD-Rom (Mittelhochdeutsche Wörterbücher im Verbund, 2002). It is produced by a team of scholars led by Professor Kurt Gärtner of the University of Trier. The ultimate goal of the project, which is also being carried out in part at the University of Virginia, is to produce an-
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other printed dictionary – to be completed by 2025. More information about the project can be found at: http://www.mwb.uni-trier.de/index.php?id= 6907. G. University Professorships in the 19th Century The discipline slowly established itself at German universities. The number of Chairs dedicated to German philology before the full effect of Lachmann was felt was small. Some of the more important of the early Chairs and their holders were: Benecke, Professor of English and “Old German” in Göttingen (1805); Jacob Grimm, Professor in Göttingen (1830) and in Berlin (1841); Wilhelm Grimm, Extraordinary Professor (1831) then Ordinary Professor in Göttingen (1835), and in Berlin (1841); von der Hagen moved from Berlin as an Extraordinary Professor (1810) to Breslau and back to Berlin as an Ordinary Professor (1824); Haupt, Ordinary Professor in Leipzig (1843) and Berlin (1853); Karajan, Ordinary Professor in Vienna (1850); Lachmann, Extraordinary Professor of Classical and German philology in Berlin (1825) and Ordinary Professor (1827). The first “Deutsch-Philologische Seminar” (=department or institute) dedicated to German Studies was instituted in 1858 at the University of Rostock. By the end of the century, however, Chairs and Seminars were to be found at all universities in Germany and Austria. A major reason for the acceptance of Altgermanistik, aside from the scientific editorial procedures which were set in place or the enthusiasm which the leading professors instilled in their students, was that the German Middle Ages and its literature, particularly the Nibelungenlied (as indicated above) filled a patriotic need of the Germans who until 1871 were united in language only. From the wars of liberation in the 19th century to the periods of the First World War, the Weimar Republic, and World War II in the twentieth, the Nibelungenlied was viewed more as a nationalistic artifact than as a work of genius in its own right, which hindered any serious literary analysis of it until well after World War II. Essentially, medieval German literature was viewed not so much as literature, but rather either as a philological or nationalistic laboratory exhibit. H. The 20th Century (and Beyond) If one can characterize the 19th century as the era of a new beginning, the 20th is somewhat more elusive regarding convenient, all-encompassing designations. In addition to the obvious, the two World Wars greatly hindered the productive analysis and study of medieval German literature. If nothing else, at least two generations of young scholars either had their studies severely interrupted or they were killed. Philological inquiry together with
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source studies still held the dominant hand through World War II. However, whether that was because the subject matter was “objective” and, thus, nonpolitical, i. e., controversial or whether it was because philological investigations had not run their course is difficult to say. I suspect it was a combination of both. One important contribution to the discipline was made in the area of word-field investigations by Jost Trier (Der deutsche Wortschatz im Sinnbezirk des Verstandes: Die Geschichte eines sprachlichen Feldes, 1931). His work remained influential well into the latter part of the century. However, some important literary and cultural analyses were also undertaken. Hans Naumann (1886–1951) is an interesting, if unfortunate case in point. He produced major studies on Germanic history and culture, medieval culture, and folklore. Höfische Kultur (1929) and Der staufische Ritter (1936) are two noteworthy contributions. He was, however, an adherent of National Socialism and was unable to separate his later writings, especially, from his ideology. But perhaps one of the most important contributions and a topic which Naumann might have taken up with more resolve had the political situation been different was written before World War I “Ministerialität und Ritterdichtung” (Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum 52 [1910]: 135–68) by Paul Kluckhohn. Kluckhohn’s short but seminal work opened up an area of research that introduced social factors for consideration, namely the role that the ministerials played in the creation of chivalric literature that received its greatest attention only well after the end of the World War II, first in Romance Studies with Erich Köhler (Ideal und Wirklichkeit in der höfischen Epik, 1956; 2nd ed. 1970) followed in German Studies by Joachim Bumke (Ministerialität und Ritterdichtung, 1976; and Studien zum Ritterbegriff im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert, 1964, 2nd ed. 1976). The thesis was applied to the Arthurian romances of Hartmann von Aue by Gert Kaiser (Textauslegung und gesellschaftliche Selbstdeutung, 1973, 2nd ed. 1978). Influential for Bumke and Kaiser were the many writings on the ministerials and medieval German society of the eminent historian Karl Bosl. Developments after World War II gradually shifted away from an almost exclusive concentration on medieval works as philological artifacts to consideration of them as literary ones. The late 1940s and the 1950s witnessed the reemergence of Altgermanistik as discipline worthy of international respect, and the 1960s and 1970s were the “golden age” of medieval German research. From Hugo Kuhn and his pioneering essay on the formal structure of Hartmann’s Erec (1948) to Gert Kaiser’s abovementioned socio-historical study on Hartmann’s Arthurian romances, new critical vistas were being opened and the emphasis had shifted irrevocably from exclusive concern with textual criticism. Perhaps the one work which, in my opinion at any rate, was
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decisive in the struggle to view medieval literature as literature was by Friedrich Maurer (Leid: Studien zur Bedeutungs-und Problemgeschichte, besonders in den großen Epen der staufischen Zeit, 1951, 3rd ed. 1964). Maurer’s study came as a breath of fresh air in the area of Medieval German Studies, especially in Nibelungenlied research, and while Maurer was a philologist of the first order, he thought it possible to grasp authorial intention in a medieval literary work and arrive at a consistent interpretation by utilizing the basic philological tool of the word study. And as such, his examination represents a decisive break with the thrust of medieval German research in Germany up to that time. Well into the 1980s the major impulses in research methodologies came from Germany, perhaps most conspicuously: Reception studies. The name most closely linked with reception in Medieval German Studies is Ulrich Müller, who in the late 1970s and 1980s held a series of conferences in Salzburg which served to define the methodology – understood in English more as “medievalism” than the theoretical proposals of Hans-Robert Jauss and Wolfgang Iser. The fruitful interface of the latter’s ideas with concerns in German studies occurred during the “orality-literacy” debate, about which more below. Other areas which had their start in Germany would include Gender and Cultural studies which were more or less conceived as part of the already-existing socio-cultural approach. Last but certainly not least is the Institut für Realienkunde des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Krems (http://www.imareal.oeaw.ac.at/) whose research focus is Material Culture and daily life in the Middle Ages. Perhaps a brief mention about the phenomenon known as “New Philology” would be in order at this point. As has been pointed out in other essays in this volume, volume 65/1 (1990) of Speculum was devoted to the “New Philology” and was hailed as the cornerstone of a new way of looking at medieval literature without being encumbered by the various modes of thought of traditional philology. Manuscript texts are perceived to have an “openness,” a unique variability (or mouvance). Of course, the “New Philology” could have implications for Medieval German Studies, which relies on texts, many of which were produced using the methods of Lachmann or his followers, i. e. reproducing the stemma or archetype. To determine how or if “New Philology” affected Medieval German Studies, Horst Wenzel and Helmut Tervooren edited a Special Volume of the Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie (116 [1997]), “Philologie als Textwissenschaft: Alte und neue Horizonte.” A nuanced discussion of the volume and of the “importance,” if any, for Germanists is provided by D. H. Green in The Modern Language Review (94.4 [1999]: 1145–47). In addition to demonstrating clearly that the “newness” of the “New Philology” is, in most cases in German studies, at any rate, not all
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that terribly new, Green also raises the issue of the apparent absolute concentration on the “manuscript” and the ignoring of other methods of transmission or reception, namely oral. The question or “Orality” and “Literacy” will be discussed below. To the other examples he cites indicating the anticipation of “New Philology” in Medieval German Studies, e. g., the research areas of reception studies and analysis of the roles of patrons (Joachim Bumke, Mäzene im Mittelalter: Die Gönner und Auftraggeber der höfischen Literatur in Deutschland 1150–1300, 1979), one could also add the results of Helmut Brackert’s above-mentioned research on the manuscripts of the Nibelungenlied as anticipating the manuscript uniqueness aspect of “New Philology.” I. Medieval German Studies in the Diaspora Until relatively recently, Medieval German Studies in non-German speaking countries tended to be quite conservative in their methodologies, mirroring the time-honored text-critical approach. Of course, there were some brilliant scholars outside of Germany who contributed philological and literary studies of high quality, but who were not pioneering in their methodologies and, thus, did not influence the discipline as a whole. One who might have been able to make a difference was the French scholar, Ernest Tonnelat (La chanson des Nibelungen, 1926), who provided a new close reading of the Nibelungenlied, focusing on the style and character descriptions. Unfortunately, Tonnelat’s theories could not overcome the dominance of Heuslerian thought. Among Dutch scholars who have also made noteworthy, if not suitably acknowledged, contributions to the field is Hendricus Sparnaay. His Hartmann von Aue: Studien zu einer Biographie (2 vols., 1933, 1938), while now somewhat out of date, still has much to offer in terms of the biographical material collected in the volumes. In addition to much work on Hartmann von Aue, Sparnaay wrote the unique monograph (Karl Lachmann als Germanist, 1948) which offers a remarkable depiction of Lachmann and convincingly demonstrates that he truly deserves to be viewed as a giant of the discipline. One important branch of research that began with the seminal essay of the German historian Herbert Grundmann (“Litteratus-illitteratus. Der Wandel einer Bildungsnorm vom Altertum zum Mittelalter,” Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 40 [1958]: 1–65) concerned the notion of literacy and the modes of reception of literature in the Middle Ages. The attraction of this avenue of inquiry (but not “medievalism” as advocated by Müller) resonated especially with scholars in the United States and Great Britain. The American scholar Franz Bäuml was a pioneer in this endeavor and was the first to apply the theories of Jauss and Iser to his work in “oral-formulaic theory” (for an excellent appreciation of Bäuml’s achievement as well as a compre-
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hensive overview of pertinent research on the topic see: Ursuala Schaefer, “Alterities: On Methodology in Medieval Literary Studies,” Oral Tradition 8.1 [1993]: 187–214). And although British researchers have been more philologically and text-critically oriented, within the group of the many productive scholars one, especially, stands out, Dennis H. Green. His The Carolingian Lord: Semantic Studies on Four Old High German Words. Balder, Fro, Truhtin, Herro (1965) was to Medieval German Studies in English what Maurer’s Leid was in German. Along with like-minded scholars in Germany (Alois Wolf) and the United States (Michael Curschmann), Green took up the topic of “orality” and “literacy.” Green provides insight into his thinking in his 1989 plenary lecture to the Medieval Academy of America (“Orality and Reading: The State of Research in Medieval Studies,” Speculum 65 [1990]: 267–80). In this lecture he, too, acknowledges the debt owed to Franz Bäuml. He writes: “Franz H. Bäuml, to whom we owe the first applications of the Parry-Lord theory to medieval German, now stresses more the need for research into the interrelationship between literacy and orality, while Michael Curschmann, whose work on the theory was always critical of it, now writes on the different dimensions of hearing, reading, and seeing” (269). The culmination of his research can be seen in Medieval Listening and Reading: The Primary Reception of German Literature, 800–1300 (1994). (For a thorough and critical review not only of Green’s work but also its place within that strand of research, see: David F. Tinsley, Speculum 71 [1996]: 952–54.) Medieval German Studies – actually German Studies in general – in North America, as in other countries in the diaspora, was dominated by textcritical, philological methodology until well after World War II. (For a brief overview of the establishment of German Studies, in general, and Medieval Studies, in particular, in the United States see: Francis G. Gentry, “Medieval German Literary Research from the Late Nineteenth Century to the Present,” German Studies in the USA: A Historical Handbook, ed. Peter Uwe Hohendahl, 2003, 275–84.) Colleagues in the area of modern German literary studies, however, were able to emancipate themselves much earlier, due, in part, to the emigration of many literary scholars from Germany in the 1940s, 1950s and into the 1960s who were able to convey to their students the excitement of literary research then in full swing in Europe and to train them correspondingly. But the post-WWII years did not see an influx of such scholars interested in Medieval German Studies to this country – prominent exceptions would be Julius Schwietering who spent part of 1954 at the University of Chicago (Illinois) and Joachim Bumke who spent several years at Harvard (Cambridge, MA) in the 1960s. Thus, the comparable catalyst for much of the change in modern German Studies research in the 1950’s
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and 1960’s was missing. Some German colleagues did, of course, come to America and enjoy distinguished careers, e. g., Otto Springer (Tübingen, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia), Michael Curschmann (Munich, Princeton University, Princeton), Ingeborg Glier (Munich, Yale University, New Haven), and Ernst Dick (Münster, University of Kansas, Lawrence). “Medieval German Studies in the United States had to travel a long road from its beginnings as a field in which only research into the structure of the language counted, a view which continued well into the second half of the 20th century. And even though by the late 1950s/early 1960s when the discipline had managed to free itself of its philological shackles, American medieval scholarship was, by and large, conservative and quite provincial” (Gentry, 282). However, by the 1980s and especially 1990s, Gender Studies, Queer Studies, consideration of the body, and the problem of the “other,” all these and more became part and parcel of the critical apparatus of those who were in the first “medieval wave” as students in the 1960s and which they passed on to their students, who, likewise, continue to pass on to theirs. The contact and cooperation with German colleagues, long lost, has been restored and significant research impulses (precisely in the areas just mentioned) are emanating from this side of the Atlantic and are stimulating research endeavors in German-speaking areas of Europe. Medieval German research in North America has come of age. J. Postscriptum One of the great accomplishments on medieval German research has been the almost continuous production of one-volume or multi-volume literary histories. These are valuable handbooks for the present-day student and scholar alike. Some of the more useful ones are: (1) Gustav Ehrismann, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur bis zum Ausgang des Mittelalters, 2 vols. in 4 parts (1918–1935; rpt. 1965/1966) – still an indispensable reference work – the bibliographies are complete until the date(s) of publication, all known manuscripts and manuscript fragments are recorded. (2) Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon, ed. Wolfgang Stammler and Karl Langosch, 5 vols., (1933–1955; has been superseded by no. 7 below. But it is still of historical interest). (3) Julius Schwietering, Die deutsche Dichtung des Mittelalters (1932; rpt. 1957); (4) Gechichte der deutschen Literatur, ed. Helmut de Boor and Richard Newald, 4 vols. in 5 parts (1949–1987; de Boor: vol. 1–3/1; I. Glier: vol. 3/2; H. Rupprich: vol. 4/1).
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(5) Geschichte der deutschen Literatur von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart, ed. Ewald Erb, 2 vols. in 3 parts (1963/1964; of historical interest – presentation from a Marxist viewpoint). (6) Karl Bertau, Deutsche Literatur im europäischen Mittelalter, 2 vols. (1972/ 1973). (7) Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon, ed. Kurt Ruh et al., 14 vols. (complete 2nd rev. ed. 1978–2007; an enormous undertaking, completely revising the earlier edition, adding new authors and works as well including the Latin literature produced in Germany during the Middle Ages). (8) Joachim Bumke, Mäzene im Mittelalter: Die Gönner und Auftraggeber der höfischen Literatur in Deutschland 1150–1300 (1979). (9) Max Wehrli, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur vom frühen Mittelaiter bis zum Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts (1980; the best, in my opinion, one-volume literary history available). (10) Geschichte der deutschen Literatur von den Anfängen bis zum Beginn der Neuzeit, ed. Joachim Heinzle, 3 vols. in 6 parts (1984–2004; Wolfgang Haubrichs: vol. 1/1; Gisela Vollmann-Profe: vol.1/2; L. Peter Johnson: vol. 2/1; Joachim Heinzle: vol. 2/2; Johannes Janota: vol. 3/1; Werner WilliamsKrapp: vol. 3/2). Of course the list can be expanded almost infinitely. The above represent, however, the best of the literary histories that are available, that is, literary histories that provide literary, historical, and cultural material in a coherent context. There are, to be sure, many “companions” or essay collections, but since Heinzle few, if any, literary histories that are worthy of note. Select Bibliography Jacob Grimm, Reden und Abhandlungen (Berlin: Dümmler, 1864, 2nd ed.1879); Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Geschichte der Philologie (Leipzig: Teubner,1921); Hugh Lloyd-Jones (trans.), History of Classical Scholarship (London: Duckworth,1982); Germanistik und deutsche Nation 1806–1848, ed. Jörg Jochen Müller et al. (Stuttgart: Metzler,1974); Jürgen Forhmann, Das Projekt der deutschen Literaturgeschichte (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1988); Wissenschaftsgeschichte der Germanistik im 19. Jahrhundert, ed. Jürgen Fohrmann, and Wilhelm Vosskamp (Stuttgart and Weimar: Metzler, 1994).
Francis G. Gentry
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H Heraldry A. Definition Heraldic signs are personal, enduring, colored identifying symbols of a family or a particular body, which are incorporated into the medieval defensive weapons of shield and helmet. As dynastic emblems, they emerge from the middle of the 12th century. Crests arose from the necessity of distinguishing the troops fighting in mass battles, and to make the contingents recognizable from a distance. Systematized battle standards were used during the crusades in particular, in order to differentiate between large groups of knights. The Greeks and Romans, too, had organized their troops with the aid of banners and standards. However, the medieval heraldic system was a novelty which cannot be directly derived from the standards of antiquity or Germanic shield symbolism. Initially, the choice of various patterns and figures was strongly determined by personal motifs. They became coats of arms in the more narrow sense when they became permanently associated with the family of their knightly bearer, and became hereditary. They then became exclusive symbols of identity and lordship, without a direct connection to matters military. The medieval tournament had a decisive influence on the development of heraldry. The great courtly combats offered participants the chance to portray themselves and their chivalric paraphernalia in the best possible light. Furthermore, the crests were necessary in battle situations, in order to identify the squadrons and keep them separate as they charged. The office of the herald developed in connection with the tournaments. He stood in the service of the noble tournament participants, where his knowledge of weapons and arms was indispensable during the preparation and staging of the show fights. Coats of arms quickly came into use as distinguishing marks in other sections of society, too. While they were at first only used by the higher and lower nobility, from the 13th century on they were also used by the patricians, craftsmen and clerics, as well as corporate bodies such as dioceses, orders, abbeys, towns and guilds. The zenith of heraldry came during the mid-13th century and the beginning of the 17th. The heraldry which was invented for battle and tournament in the Middle Ages lives on today in the coats of arms of families, states and towns.
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B. History of Research There has been extensive international research into heraldry, and the results are almost impossible to keep track of. If one discards the heraldic records and literature of the Middle Ages, and the first attempts at systemization in the 14th and 15th centuries, then heraldic research proper only began in the modern period. In the 16th and 17th centuries, large collections of arms and studies of the laws of heraldry were produced, which often also treated questions of regulation, systemization, and the description of crest (Bartholomaeus Cassaneus’s Catalogus gloriae mundi, 1529; Cyriacus Spangenberg’s Adelsspiegel, 1591; Silvester de Petra Sancta’s De symbolis heroicis, 1634; Claude François Ménestrier’s Le Véritable art du blason, 1659; Philipp Jacob Spener’s Insignium Theoria seu operis heraldici pars generalis, 1690; Johann Christoph Gatterer’s Abriss der Heraldik, 1773). Academic heraldry began in England with the work of James Dallaqay (Inquiries Into the Origin and Progress of the Science of Heraldry in England, 1793), in Germany with the research of Christian Samuel Theodor Bernd (Handbuch der Wappenwissenschaft, 1836), Leopold Freiherr von Ledebur (Streifzüge durch die Felder des Königlichen Preußischen Wappens, 1842) and Hermann Grote (Geschichte des welfischen Stammwappens, 1862). Johann Baptist Rietstap’s Armorial général (1884–1887), in which thousands of European crests are described, formed a decisive breakthrough. The period around 1900 was particularly fruitful for academic heraldry, and saw not only the founding of national heraldic societies, but also numerous important academic works, for instance those of Louis Bouly de Lesdain and Jacques Meurgey de Tupigny in France, of Maximilian Gritzner and of Gustav Adelbert Seyler in Germany. The latter’s Geschichte der Heraldik (1890) is a standard work which is still useful today, paying particular attention to the emergence of heraldry in the Middle Ages and analyses rich and diverse sources, including medieval epics. With its wide range of historical documents and examples from medieval material culture, it is still indispensible for the modern medievalist. The 20th century, in which heraldry has long become established as an exacting auxiliary historical discipline, produced not only countless profound monographs and textbooks but above all great historical surveys, in which the history of heraldry, its rules, and its artistic forms and expressions were thoroughly categorized. The Lehrbuch der Heraldik by Donald L. Galbreath and Léon Jéquier (1978), the handbook Heraldik: Wappen – ihr Ursprung, Sinn und Wert, ed. Ottfried Neubecker (1977) as well as Michel Pastoureau’s Traité d’héraldique (1977, 4th ed. 2003) are viewed as standard works. They all deal thoroughly with the form and significance of medieval coats of arms, and are richly illustrated. They also show how heraldry can be made fruitful as a source for cul-
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tural and sociological studies. Shorter introductions to the subject are provided by, among others, Václav Vok Filip (Einführung in die Heraldik, 2000), Adolf Matthias Hildebrandt (Handbuch der Heraldik, 1887, 19th ed. 1998), Thomas Woodcock and John Martin Robinson (The Oxford Guide to Heraldry, 1988), Arthur Charles Fox-Davies (A Complete Guide to Heraldry, 1969), Michel Pastoureau (Les armoiries, 1998) as well as Claude Wenzler (Le Guide de l’héraldique, 2000). The best German language textbook currently available is by Georg Scheibelreiter (Heraldik, 2006). In addition, many countries have a long tradition of publishing heraldic journals with valuable single studies, e. g., Archivum heraldicum (since 1953) in Switzerland, Der Herold: Vierteljahrsschrift für Heraldik, Genealogie und verwandte Wissenschaften (since 1869) and Adler: Zeitschrift für Genealogie und Heraldik (since 1874) in Germany, The Coat of Arms (since 1950) in Great Britain and the Revue française d’héraldique et de sigillographie (since 1938) in England. The comprehensive German and Austrian research on heraldry is described in various bibliographies, for instance the Bibliographie zur Heraldik by Eckart Henning and Gabriele Jochums (1984), French literature being described in Gaston Saffroy’s five-volume Bibliographie généalogique, héraldique et nobiliaire de la France (1968–1988). Journal articles on genealogy and heraldry are documented in the Göttingen catalog Der Schlüssel (ed. Wolfgang Ollrog and Dieter H. G. Gerlach, 1986), where a well-differentiated index helps the reader. Since 1953 the Archivum Heraldicum has regularly published up to date selective bibliographies for individual countries. C. Major Contributors Only a few central themes and questions of the comprehensive academic literature can be dealt with here. From its beginnings, heraldic studies have concerned themselves with the origins of heraldry. Older scholarship attempted to derive the crest from the civic symbols of classical antiquity, the military symbols of the Eastern armies which the crusaders encountered, and from the runes and house symbols of the Germanic tribes (cf. Bernhard Koerner, Handbuch der Heroldskunst, 1920–1928; Otto Höfler, Zur Herkunft der Heraldik, 1962). All these theories have been superseded. Instead, modern scholars assume that the coat of arms primarily developed in connection with medieval tournaments and pitched battles, in order to identify individual groups of fighters (cf. Christian U. Freiherr von Ulmenstein, Über Ursprung und Entstehung des Wappenwesens, 1941; Lutz Fenske, Adel und Rittertum im Spiegel früher heraldischer Formen und deren Entwicklung, 1985; Michel Pastoureau, Les armoiries, 1998, 24–37). The question of the meaning of coats of arms has also always been regarded as central. Modern heraldic scholars
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approach the symbolism of individual crests with great caution, always paying attention to historical, art historical, and regional considerations. The interpretation of historical coats of arms is extremely complicated, and generally, medieval crests had no deeper meaning, being simply inherited dynastic identifiers, which often merely portrayed the name of a family as a graphic, or indicated loyalty to a superior lord. The reconstruction of a subtle meaning remains highly speculative in such cases – or is simply anachronistic (Adolf Matthias Hildebrandt, Handbuch der Heraldik, 1998, 131–133; Michel Pastoureau, Les armoiries, 1998, 71–76; Georg Scheibelreiter, Heraldik, 2006, 146–51). The origins and expression of medieval heraldry is relatively well accounted for. There are many regional studies and histories of individual motifs, as well as comprehensive surveys which show, among other things, how unstable and dependent on the needs of their bearer coats of arms initially were (Paul Ganz, Geschichte der heraldischen Kunst in der Schweiz im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert, 1899; Egon Freiherr von Berchem, Donald L. Galbreath and Otto Hupp, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Heraldik, 1939; Evan John Jones, Medieval Heraldry, 1943; Anthony R. Wagner, Heralds and Heraldry in the Middle Ages, 1956; Lutz Fenske, Adel und Rittertum im Spiegel früher heraldischer Formen und deren Entwicklung, 1985; Michel Pastoureau, Les armoiries, 1998, 24–37). Heinz Waldner offers a reliable documentation of the earliest European coats of arms (Die ältesten Wappenbilder, 1992). An overview of the stylistic history of heraldry and its dependence on the tastes of the day and the art historical context can be found in Walter Leonhard (Das große Buch der Wappenkunst, 1976). As well as this, there are countless specialist studies on important aspects of medieval heraldry, such as the use of animals, or particular contexts of usage (Bruno Bernhard Heim, Wappenbrauch und Wappenrecht in der Kirche, 1947; Georg Scheibelreiter, Tiernamen und Wappenwesen, 1976; Carl-Alexander von Volborth, Fabelwesen der Heraldik in Familien- und Städtewappen, 1996). Little has been established about the literary heraldry of the Middle Ages. The romances of Wolfram von Eschenbach and Konrad von Würzburg have been most frequently studied (Arnold Galle, Wappenwesen und Heraldik bei Konrad von Würzburg, 1912; Manfred Zips, Das Wappenwesen in der mittelhochdeutschen Epik bis 1250, 1966; Gerard J. Brault, Early Blazon, 1972; Michel Pastoureau, Introduction à l’héraldique imaginaire (XIIe–XVIe s.), 1978; Claus D. Bleisteiner, Heraldik im ‘Trojanerkrieg’ Konrads von Würzburg und ihre Reflexion des Wappenwesens seiner Zeit, 1999; Heiko Hartmann, Heraldische Motive und ihre narrative Funktion in den Werken Wolframs von Eschenbach, 2002; id., Grundformen literarischer Heraldik im Mittelalter am Beispiel der ‘Krone’ Heinrichs von dem Türlin, 2006). It has been shown that medieval authors made precisely targeted use of imaginary coats
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of arms, in order to characterize and individualize figures, to relate them to kin groups, and in general to make the work more plastic and more vivid. Authors also used real coats of arms, in order to make multi-layered connections between their fictional figures and contemporary people – mostly exemplary kings and princes – thus giving them more prestige and historical depth. A comprehensive documentation of literary coats of arms and their poetological function in European medieval literature is an urgent task which remains for future scholars. D. Current Research A tendency towards analysis of coats of arms using, for example, theories drawn from media studies, semiotics, sociology, and symbol theory can be observed in recent scholarship. German literary studies, in particular, have developed demanding sign theories with which to describe the function of crests within literary texts. Haiko Wandhoff’s studies on the relationship between texts and images in courtly literature view the use of coats of arms as part of a narrative technique of visualization (Der Schild als Bild-Schirm, 2002). He sees them as windows into the world of the text, through which readers or listeners are drawn into the medium. Wandhoff interprets coats of arms as part of a courtly poetics of visibility, which is intended to produce optical impressions on the recipient, and thus to communicate the text as multimedia. The journal of the German medievalists association (Das Mittelalter) dedicated an interdisciplinary thematic issue, with contributions from historians, literary scholars and art historians, to the subject (vol. 11, 2006: Wappen als Zeichen). Further sign-theoretical approaches have been produced by e. g. Waltraud Gut (Schwarz auf weiß, 2000) and Ludwig Biewer (Wappen als Träger von Kommunikation im Mittelalter, 2003). The meaning of weapons in connection with literary presentations of the body was investigated by Hans Belting (Wappen und Porträt, 2002) and Walter Seitter (Das Wappen als Zweitkörper und Körper-Zeichen, 1982). Beside these ambitious semiotic analyses, the international heraldic research continues to value the indispensable, positivistic work of collection, documentation and interpretation of historical and contemporary coats of arms in repertories and periodicals, and thus makes an important contribution to the preservation and transmission of a cultural phenomenon which has remained vibrant for hundreds of years, and creates individuality and identity using aesthetically valuable symbols.
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Select Bibliography Gustav Adelbert Seyler, Geschichte der Heraldik. Wappenwesen, Wappenkunst und Wappenwissenschaft, 2 vols. (Nuremberg: Bauer & Raspe, 1885–1889); Adolf Matthias Hildebrandt, Handbuch der Heraldik. Wappenfibel (Neustadt an der Aisch: Degener, 1887, 19th ed. 1998); Paul Ganz, Geschichte der heraldischen Kunst in der Schweiz im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert (Frauenfeld: Huber, 1899); Beiträge zur Geschichte der Heraldik, ed. Egon Freiherr von Berchem, Donald L. Galbreath and Otto Hupp (Berlin: Verlag für Standesamtswesen, 1939); Anthony R. Wagner, Heralds and Heraldry in the Middle Ages: An Inquiry into the Growth of the Armorial Function of Heralds (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1939, 2nd ed. 1956); Gérard J. Brault, Early Blazon. Heraldic Terminology in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: With Special Reference to Arthurian Literature (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972); Ottfried Neubecker, Heraldik: Wappen – ihr Ursprung, Sinn und Wert (Frankfurt am Main: Krüger, 1977); Donald L. Galbreath and Léon Jéquier, Lehrbuch der Heraldik (Munich: Battenberg, 1978); Michel Pastoureau, Traité d’héraldique (Paris: Picard, 1979, 4th ed. 2003); Thomas Woodcock and John Martin Robinson, The Oxford Guide to Heraldry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988); Michel Pastoureau, Les armoiries (Turnhout: Brepols, 1998); Claude Wenzler, Le guide de l’héraldique: Histoire, analyse et lecture des blasons (Rennes: Editions Ouest France, 2002); Georg Scheibelreiter, Heraldik (Vienna and Munich: Oldenbourg, 2006).
Heiko Hartmann
Hermeneutics and Textual Criticism A. Definition The word hermeneutics derives from the Greek verb hermeneuein meaning translation, interpretation or explanation. Aristotle’s simple definition took it as “a concern with linguistic action on things” (Rita Copeland, Rhetoric, Hermeneutics, and Translation in the Middle Ages: Academic Traditions and Vernacular Texts, ed. Minnis, 1991, 18). Historically, it has been applied to the general principles of Biblical exegesis. In ancient Judaic-Talmudic and Christian traditions, hermeneutic analysis aimed primarily at uncovering the sacred book’s divinely-revealed values and truths – analysis of its allegorical “secondary speech,” so to say (Hennig Brinkman, Mittelalterliche Hermeneutik, 1980: “Zweite Sprache,” 260). Recently, scholars have supplemented the study of allegory with that of grammar and rhetoric. The sophisticated medieval understanding of grammar is closely linked to the medieval philosophy of language. Exegesis, rooted in grammar and a philosophy of language, is an integral part of this continuity – both of Scripture and of secular works. The purpose is to illuminate the ontology of discourse, whether fictional,
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parabolic or historical. As Patrick Gallacher and Helen Damico confirm, in Hermeneutics and Medieval Culture (1989, 6), “A classic function of interpretation is to discover new meaning in a particular text or to restore a meaningful context to a work no longer fully understood.” St. Augustine observed, in his extraordinary treatise De doctrina christiana (De vera religione, ed. K. D. Daur and J. Martin, 1962, III, i, 1), that Scriptural ambiguity lay in the words themselves, whether metaphorical or translated. For this Church Father, divine signs and allegory are inseparable, and language remains the path to sacred truth: its revelation need not proscribe heathen knowledge, though genuine revelation must arise uniquely from Christ, the true teacher. More broadly speaking, hermeneutics, essentially an 18th-century development, belongs under the heading of epistemology and metaphysics: it is the scholarly discipline that studies the character of and presumptions in the interpretation of expression within the human sphere. The densely-semiotic and conflicted term may in the end be indefinable (Kurt Mueller-Vollmer, The Hermeneutics Reader: Texts of the German Tradition from the Enlightenment to the Present, 1985, x). This article will focus principally on concepts related to philosophy, theology, medieval literature and textual criticism, but not on those principles that apply hermeneutical methods as a tool of analysis in the fields of law, legal, jurisprudence or computer science. Coverage will include (in order) illustrative biblical imagery and examples; medieval exegesis and allegory in general; biblical hermeneutics; interpretation and intentionality; commentary, translation and appropriation; medieval poetics; and, finally, the contemporary complexities of editing medieval texts. Pervasive allegory in Dante’s Divina Commedia will permit us to lay a bridge to textual criticism and the traditional discipline of medieval philology (to create so-called definitive and valid texts), but before that we concentrate on medieval Latin and vernacular topics (on textual criticism cf. David Greetham, Textual Scholarship: An Introduction, 1994, 295–346). Under this rubric come comparative literature (and its twin, translation theory), and metacritical studies (although this latter applies more to the modern and postmodern eras). B. An Image: “La Belle Captive” In his exhaustive treatise on exegesis in the medieval period, Henri De Lubac provides a powerful statement (Medieval Exegesis: The Four Senses of Scripture, 2 vols., trans. Marc Sebanc (I) and E. M. Macierowski (II), 2000, I. 211–24) on one resonant and frequently-cited biblical metaphor that carries over to translation and interpretation. Like Augustine’s argument about
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“Egyptian gold” (De doctrina christiana II, xxxx, 28), the image stressed here is that of the vile and illicit pagan woman (i. e., heretic), who is captured by the skillful arms of desire: her head is shaved, her nails are pared and all poisonous members are cleansed and superfluous dress removed. This imagery recalls 5th-century philosopher Martianus Capella’s character Grammar (in De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii) who uses a “pruning knife” to excise learners’ errors (II, iii, 64–65). Now-disinfected classics retain their graceful and elegant musicality. The art of translation and the craft of editing a text rely upon a similar strategy – apprehending the beautiful and legitimate truth that lies beneath, though perhaps she ought not be too sanitized. Like perfection, complete consistency surely belongs to the superhuman sphere. C. Illustrations Perhaps a few examples of hermeneutics in action (solving puzzles, bringing clarifications) are in order: one of the best and most illustrative examples lies in the 19th-century view that the Old Testament Pentateuch derives from a composite source – the Jahweh and the Elohim as vying redactions of Genesis, then the Deuteronomy and Priestly codes, like overlays, supplying even further textual versions (Gerald Bruns, Hermeneutics Ancient and Modern, 1992, 277 f). Exodus 34:30 (Covenant restored) describes Moses as being “radiant,” and the word was rendered in the Latin Vulgate as cornuta, which is why most medieval visual representations of the prophet depict him with horns. New Testament readers have no doubt long wanted to reconcile the variable accounts of Christ’s Ministry and Passion, told in four different ways by the evangelists. Elsewhere, in Romans 5:1, Paul writes that Christians, as a result of their “justification by faith,” are told that they in fact “have peace with God” (Vulgate) or that they “are to have peace with God.” The choice depends on either the Greek indicative (echomen) or the hortatory subjunctive (echemen) found in the different manuscript traditions. Dutch Biblical scholar and humanist Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536) tells a story of a priest who fancied the ludicrous and nonsensical Latin mumpsimus reading over the correct sumpsimus (“let us take or choose”). Indeed, a single word variant can significantly alter a given text’s meaning. Biblical scholar, theologian and critic William Warburton (1698–1779) set himself on the level of Shakespeare, for instance, by correcting “good” to “god” in the text of Hamlet (Act II, sc. 2).
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D. Medieval Exegesis While Hermes the ancient Greek messenger of the gods and divinity of boundaries was early portrayed as a cunning and crafty rogue, certain theorists saw him as the one who translated or interpreted the vague and complex messages from on high. The deity, like the Roman Mercury, was a go-between who made all language intelligible. At the most fundamental level, among patristic theologians (as De Lubac argues cogently, I, 66–74 and passim) four major modes of hermeneutics came to light around 400 A.D.: the literal (or historical), moral (or tropological), allegorical, and anagogical (or eschatological). The first two (human-related) are complemented by the historical and etiological senses (Mauricio Beuchot, La hermenéutica en la Edad Media, 2002, 28). Aquinas added another category – parabolical (Jesse Gellrich, The Idea of the Book: Language Theory, Mythology and Fiction, 1985, 67). Medieval exegesis of some passages in the Bible aimed, following these classic paths, to bring the true meaning of Scripture closer to its pristine originality: the hope was to retrieve the Holy Spirit’s verbal presence in the texts, without historical corruption. God’s words, in order to be understood and interpreted, need to be read and re-read repeatedly, using these modes, as St. Thomas Aquinas (1224/25–1274) might have expressed it. Of the fourfold way, the historical or literal interpretation first emphasizes that a biblical text is to be explained according to the essential meaning expressed in its grammatical structure and historical milieu. Authorial intentionality and belief in divine inspiration are the significant measures for the literalist approach – favored by biblical students of the patristic, medieval and Reformation eras. Yet medieval scholar Eugene Vance (Mervelous Signals: Poetics and Sign Theory in the Middle Ages, 1986, 232) has shown that Augustine viewed literal readings as perversely carnal, and that, according to Dante, only charitable hermeneutics avoids vice and error (Vance, 253). Moral interpretation is characterized by retrieval-like exegetical assumptions following axiomatic lessons, a mode that draws from various parts of the Bible and often employs allegorization. On the other hand, allegorical or tropological interpretation, divinely-inspired, construes biblical narratives as referring to another level behind or beyond immediate textual situations. One kind of allegorical explanation is biblical typology, according to which the key elements (figures, events and principal objects) of the Old Testament are taken as anticipations (“types”) or foreshadowings of New Testament persons, events or matters. This mode was doubtless inspired by the example, found in Matthew’s Gospel (12:40), reporting the words of Jesus analogizing Jonah’s three days and three nights in a whale’s belly with Christ’s own experience in time after physical death, and before the Resur-
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rection (de Lubac, I, 123). Further, as medieval literary critic and philosopher Brian Stock has explained (Augustine the Reader: Meditation, Self-Knowledge, and the Ethics of Interpretation, 1996, 167–68), the bishop of Hippo proposes the book of Exodus not as a prefiguration of Corinthians 10:1–11, but rather as a subtle allegorical rearrangement. Finally, with the anagogical or mystical level, also divinely-inspired, scholars examine biblical events insofar as they might prefigure the life to come. Allusions to secret metaphysical or eschatological meanings are unearthed. For example, authors of the Jewish Kabbala sought to unveil the mystical significance of numerical values found in Hebrew letters and words. E. Medieval Allegory Allegory derives from the Greek allegorein or allos-agoreuin, “other speak.” Before Dante’s intellectual and spiritual elaborations in Italian, allegory in the high medieval vernacular blossoms with the 13th-century Old French Roman de la Rose, composed by Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun. To understand the subject (too broad to be fully treated here), one may think of Lady Liberty in New York City as a prime example of an abstraction meaning not necessarily the statue itself but a principle and goal of human endeavor, a symbol as well of Franco-American friendship. The signifier (the statue) is not the same as the signified (liberty). To comprehend the vitality of allegorical meanings in Dante’s Divina Commedia, Joseph Mazzeo observed authoritatively, “[…] figural and typological interpretation, exemplaristic analogies between the creation and the Creator, between this world and a transcendental one, the belief in correspondences and affinities between orders of being, are all essentially poetic ways of looking at the world, ways conducive to metaphorical plenitude and exuberance” (“Medieval Hermeneutics: Dante’s Poetic and Historicity,” Religion & Literature 17 (1985): 1–24, here 15). Where Dante’s deployment of “other-speaking” allegory in his great Commedia takes on a powerful theological and historical tenor even while gambling with what was considered at the time “mendacious” poetic allegory. The Florentine’s poem, profoundly concrete, realistic and honest, with its endless metaphoricity, yet with a plenitude of historico-biographical underpinnings, shows how one “flawed human soul called ‘Dante’ is gradually educated, first by reason (referred to as ‘Virgil’), and then by theological certainty (code name ‘Beatrice’)” (Robert and Jean Hollander, Dante Alighieri, Inferno, 2nd ed. 2002, xxix).
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F. Biblical Hermeneutics In the early-medieval and patristic era, by the studious collating and careful study of biblical texts, Jerome, Basil and Augustine each attempted to avoid the heavy hand of the older Judaizing interpretation (too literal), as well as the proliferating figurations of the more recent Hellenizing insights. Similarly, while we do see some reflection of this activity on the part of authors in the high medieval period, it is the work of Renaissance humanists who sought to establish scientifically-reliable texts of classical antiquity: for their pioneering work on the Iliad and the Odyssey, for example, one might say they applied an “anonymous hermeneutics” to determine the authentic Homeric “originals.” As we will see, it was Karl Lachmann (1793–1851) who in the end developed a standardized methodology for producing ancient texts. As noted, the modern principles of hermeneutics actually date from the Enlightenment and after. It originated in attempts to resolve conflicting interpretations of texts. Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834; “The Hermeneutics: Outline of the 1819 Lectures,” trans. H. Wojcik and R. Haas, New Literary History 10 [1978/1979]: 1–16) and Wilhelm Dilthey (1833–1911; Selected Works, vol. IV, Hermeneutics and the Study of History, trans. Makkreel and Rodi, 1996) are credited with advancing the discipline within and for the new cultural sciences (Geisteswissenschaften, i. e., the humanities), to rival the field of natural sciences. Foundational hermeneutical strategies for resolving textual obscurities and contradictions – the obvious textual sign and its deeper meaning – may be said to begin, as Dilthey observed, with the post-Reformation. Scripture had acquired that “dense mist” of obscurities and ambiguities Augustine described (De doctrina II, vi, 7). This is the era when Catholics (favoring the traditional spiritual sense) and Protestants (new literalists) bickered over versions of the Bible (see Greetham, Textual Scholarship, 1994, 297–305). A contemporary of Schleiermacher, classical philologist P. A. Boeckh (1785–1867; On Interpretation and Criticism, 1877, ed. and trans. Prichard, 1968) devised four types of interpretation that lead to understanding: grammatical, historical, individual and generic (Kurt Mueller-Vollmer The Hermeneutics Reader: Texts of the German Tradition from the Enlightenment to the Present, 1985, 136). But it fell to Schleiermacher – with his emphasis on grammar, language, individual sensibility and psychology – to establish an intuitive or psychological methodology of reliving an author’s aesthetic consciousness (via the historical and cultural context), thus allowing an interpreter to understand a text better than its author (see further E. Donald Hirsch, Jr., Validity in Interpretation, 1967, 86–89 and 199). As Schleiermacher himself states, “it is the primary task of interpretation not to under-
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stand [… the] ancient text in view of modern thinking, but to rediscover the original relationship between the writer and his audience” (5–6). Yet historian Karl Morrison opines (the “Hermeneutical Gap,” in “Interpreting the Fragment,” 1989, 30–31) that medieval authors were inclined to digest Scripture inwardly, i. e., by meditating within the “eye of the heart,” a step that often deemed authorial intentions irrelevant. For philologist Leo Spitzer (1887–1960), Schleiermacher’s hermeneutical “comparative” methodology should be combined with the “divinatory” because of its two modes, “grammatical” and “psychological” (this latter Spitzer linked to the “philological circle;” Linguistics and Literary History, 1969, 19, and 33 f). G. Interpretation and Intentionality The hermeneutical circle, neither personal nor general, takes understanding as the relationship of tradition in motion, toward, as it were, the interpreter: the circle is not methodological but is inscribed within “the ontological structure of understanding” (Bruns 281–283). Placed in relation to the hermeneutical circle, the philological circle implies an analysis of the whole text’s aesthetics, then its parts, then its whole again, not unlike the parsing of a Latin sentence. Spitzer illustrates this process deftly in his famous explication of Marie de France’s Prologue to her Lais (Spitzer, “The Prologue to the ‘Lais’ of Marie de France and Medieval Poetics,” Modern Philology 41 (1943); but see now Jeff Rider, “Whence? Wither?” Exemplaria 3.1 [1991]: 261–65). As the philologist asserts, “Our to-and-fro voyage from certain outward details to the inner center and back again to other series of details is only an application of the principle of the ‘philological circle’” (Linguistics and Literary History, 19–20). In this sense, hermeneutical analysis would seem to mimic the complex but paradigmatic voyage of Odysseus: to reach home is to grasp and reveal the true essence of a given text. The process produces knowledge. Symbolic techniques for Holy Scripture may be applied in the field of iconology as well, as medieval art especially lends itself to the kind of hermeneutical decoding involved in these analyses. But in the sense that hermeneutics may be said to search for what modernists term the “master narrative,” the discipline embraces an aesthetic not of contradiction or ambivalence, rather one of harmony. As Copeland points out in her important monograph, Rhetoric, Hermeneutics and Translation, hermeneutical methodology goes back at least to Aristotle’s notion of practical and applied hermeneutics for rhetorical purposes (application to appropriate circumstances, like “subject, audience, and moment” – Copeland, 19). Harmonizing the master narrative par excellence, as Robert
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Kaster (Guardians of Language: The Grammarian and Society in Late Antiquity, 1988, 169–97) has demonstrated convincingly, was the happy task of ancient grammarians, like St. Augustine’s contemporary Servius, whose lengthy commentary became an intimate part of the Virgilian canon; such glosses sought to clarify textual obscurities, and, in so doing, availed themselves of similar hermeneutical undertakings to resolve uncertainties and inconsistencies. Competing claims of the poet’s words or written words (verba, scriptum) were weighed against his meaning or will (voluntas). The textual intention of the whole poem in relation to its parts, its historical context, key-word definitions, poetic passages from the same text or from contemporary or near-contemporary poetry – all these may confirm and corroborate the interpretation of the poem or text as a whole (Kathy Eden, Hermeneutics and the Rhetorical Tradition: Chapters in the Ancient Legacy & Its Humanist Reception, 1997, 21–22). H. Rhetoric, Hermeneutics and Translation More recently, the study of hermeneutics has focused on the role of rhetoric, translation and interpretation. In Copeland’s detailed study, while it treats mostly the later medieval period, she has explored how hermeneia, interpretatio, translatio and ethimologia became linked in medieval terminology, as translation itself was often taken as a form of exegesis, and how adaptation of elucidating commentary qua textual paraphrase came to represent a standard mode of vernacular translation (87–102). Following Cicero’s formula of privileging not the source but the target language and culture, simple paraphrase became elevated in the Middle Ages to textual commentary, and this was associated with a new-style rhetoric (30–40). Copeland illustrates as well the process of reconstructive inquiry and advanced recuperative investigation, which used rhetorical and grammatical glossing, as developed in the 7th century by Isidore of Seville (57–60; 87–89). The secular tradition of exposition or commentary (enarratio), Copeland declares, “interprets, reconstructs, revalorizes a world of ancient literature and learning from whose original intellectual and cultural framework the Middle Ages is increasingly distanced […]. Enarratio comes to represent a dynamic [and] re-creative engagement with the language of tradition.” (61) Copeland proclaims early on that “[m]edieval vernacular translation at once serves, then mediates, and like an oppositional rival, displaces, and thus appropriates the originary, authoritative text” (4). In her chapter on translation and interlingual commentary, regarding medieval hermeneutical practice in Latin specifically, she states that it not only participates in the favorable language of classical elegance, it embodies a “myth of continuity,”
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guaranteeing “its own cultural privilege” to those who employ that discourse (105). Whereas, Copeland writes, “vernacular exegesis and paraphrase introduces the factor of an interlingual movement, the rendering of text and commentary in a new language, or more precisely, in diverse new languages which are outside the official culture of academic discourse […].” (106) At once contesting, then substituting by displacement the authority of Latin, the “vernacular challenges the symbolic order of continuity by breaching the very order that had suppressed historical difference and had contained the disruptive force of exegesis itself.” (ibid.) Simply, a translated text means the original loses authority. Copeland sees vernacular translation as “appropriating the texts which it proposes to serve” (ibid.). I. Commentary, Translation and Appropriation However neglected today, hermeneutics and translation have often been associated, since the first obvious step in analyzing a text in another language is to grasp the meaning of the lexicon, whether Hebrew, Greek or Old Norse. As the 12th-century lexicographer Uguccio tersely noted, translatio est expositio sententie per aliam linguam (Magne derivationes, s.v. glossa; A. J. Minnis, The Medieval Boethius, 1987, 106). The inspired German thinker Walter Benjamin (1892–1940), in his “Task of the Translator” (first trans. into English in 1969; “Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers,” 1955; “The Task of the Translator: An Introduction to the Translation of Baudelaire’s Tableaux Parisiens,” ed. Arendt, 1968, 69–82), sets an impossible, messianic goal for any serious approach to translation – a quest for perfect, pure and universal language leading up or back to God’s memory. The work fulfills or completes the original, he argues, as language is viewed as a heap of fragments of a broken vessel which, reassembled in a work of art or a translation, reveal inner Platonic integrity and, one might say in today’s technological jargon, synergy (Willis Barnstone, The Poetics of Translation: History, Theory, Practice, 1993, 242–59). Strategies here may range from formal or verbal equivalence to functional or dynamic equivalence, not to mention paraphrase (Herbert Samworth, “The English Bible and its Translators (Part Six: From the King James to Modern Translations),” Glosses: The Bulletin of the Scriptorium 4.2–3 [1999]: 3). In the quest for sublime absolutes, humans (even scholars) search for something like Pygmalion’s “ivory girl” – here the Belle captive rejoins Benjamin’s “reine Sprache” (“Die Aufgabe des Ubersetzers,” id., Illuminationen, 1923 [rpt. 1955]; here cited from “The Task of the Translator: An Introduction to the Translation of Baudelaire’s Tableaux Parisiens,” Illuminations: Essays and Reflections, ed. Hannah Arendt, 1968, 69–82, here 71).
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Just as Servius exploited via exhaustive commentary upon the irresistible works of Virgil in order to elucidate their deeper and archaic meanings, one might take a small but powerfully illustrative example of hermeneutics at work, the 12th-century French Eneas romance, which offers us a halcyon but not insignificant “eloquent appropriation” of Virgil’s “hypotext.” This romance “serves” Virgil by vernacularizing the Latin (Uitti and Freeman, 159). Old French scholar Karl Uitti (1935–2005) himself, ever aware of the hermeneutic principle of elucidation and interpretation, proposes elsewhere (Chrétien de Troyes Revisited, 1995) that the new 12th-century vernacular genre, romance narrative, because of its hermeneutic challenges, is analogous to the obscurities in the all-embracing commentaries on the Trinity written by scholastic philosopher Peter Abelard’s (1079–1142): “Romance narrative thrives on containing apparent contradictions,” insofar as its context “legitimizes the genuineness of these individuals’ lives [i. e., the lovers]” (25). On another, more disputational and scholarly level, but dealing as well with the overall interpretation of romance, the contentious clash over the deeper meaning of Chrétien de Troyes’ Grail story – whether inspired by Christian symbolism or Jewish allegory – set Urban Tigner Holmes and Jean Frappier at hermeneutical crossed swords for over a decade (see for instance Frappier, “Le Conte du Graal est-il une allégorie judéo-chrétienne?” Romance Philology 16 [1962–1963]: 1–31). Coming back now to the subject of appropriation, as Maria Fabricius Hansen might allow (The Eloquence of Appropriation, 2003, esp. 167–80) in her study of early Christian spolia (plunder), the medieval anonymous Eneas romancer intentionally reshapes Virgil’s masterwork into his own creation. She writes: “[The] ideal of borrowing from a multiplicity of sources with the aim of transforming the gathered material to a coherent but new and different whole, seems precisely to have been at stake in building with spolia” (19). One can make the same observation about the “Romance of Eneas” as a synthesizing translation that “re-uses” and inverts the text of Virgil (and many other sources as well). Diverging with flourish – as in Book I with a special treatment of the Judgment of Paris episode; in Book IV with Dido’s deathbed pardon of Eneas; or having the rejoicing Trojans drink from the Tiber, Book VII – the medieval poet faithfully translates here, as if in a mode of collusion or confluence, whereas elsewhere, and for the most part, he embellishes, and his eclectic strategies result in a completely new work, filled with heterogeneity. The romancer, taking full ownership of Virgil in every sense of the word, is, one might say, reusing “classical columns” correctly here, to build his own Romanesque “church.” His interpretive imitation is a real innovation, just like his egregious and exceptional female heroine, Lavine. By lift-
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ing and integrating elements from a wide variety of extraneous texts (for us moderns anyway, e. g., glosses from Servius, characters and mythological episodes from Ovid or descriptions from Pliny), the Old French author has reiterated the hermeneutical act, smoothing out his narrative to recreate a new and appealing story in the vernacular for his patrons. In addition, his convoluted weaving (so much more subtle than anything Mary Louise Pratt (“The Traffic in Meaning: Translation, Contagion, Infiltration,” Profession 2002, 25–36) might imagine for her 18th-century Peruvian problematic text) is still being undone by modern critics using a hermeneutical methodology on the fabric. Similarly, the 12th-century authors of Old French adaptations from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, freely amplified and rewrote Ovid’s tragic tales for a new audience (see Cormier, Three Ovidian Tales of Love, 1986). J. Medieval Poetics On the subject of 12th-century vernacular poetics, Walter Haug (Vernacular Literary Theory, 1997 [orig. Literaturtheorie im deutschen Mittelalter, 1985, 15]) has argued for their emergence with new narrative forms of fictionality, i.e., not arising from the Latin rhetorical tradition (that gave birth to Christian predication forms), but rather from the classics of antiquity. Haug claims to identify the distinctive and experimental qualities of 12th- and 13th-century vernacular literature. More focused on logical argumentation (dialectics) in historical development, Haug then applies a more literary hermeneutic analysis to Chrétien de Troyes’s first romance, Erec et Enide, concluding that the closing sequence, the so-called “Joie de la Cort” episode, is quasi-allegorical not typological, because it parallels the opening sequences of the romance (ibid., 97). While he is at it, Haug attempts to draw out of Chrétien’s Prologue a narrative theory, a new fictional approach (100), and, in the end, he deduces poetry’s function as entertainment vs. instruction – to please (delectare, cf. 123) vs. to teach (docere, cf. 125–127; see also Augustine, De doctrina IV, xvii, 34). In a hermeneutical mode as well, medieval French scholar Douglas Kelly (The Art of Medieval French Romance, 1992, 85) observes, “[…] a given romance may well be clear and precise, original and inspired – yet false or defective in the eyes of others. Medieval romance is a great dialectic between idealism and human perception. Expressing that perception in matiere [matter, content] is the art of bringing the unknown past into a meaningful present context. It is the invention and reintegration of presumed historical origins.” Haug, like Kelly, aims to establish a poetics of medieval narrative by drawing on theoretical statements by authors in their medieval texts. Else-
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where Haug exhorts medieval scholars to take literary fiction as a possible path to the truth (for example in Die Wahrheit der Fiktion, 2003). K. Textual Criticism Let us turn finally and specifically to the scholarly editing of medieval literature, whether Latin or vernacular, which often presents just as challenging a task as biblical hermeneutics, though perhaps less spiritually rewarding. Discernment and common sense must prevail amidst the swirl of hermeneutical theories on the subject. Textual criticism aims to devise and apply rules that allow an editor to select the most accurate text among variant readings. Superior textual editors are born, not made, it seems, for the discipline is not a science but an art, as Alfred Foulet and Mary Blakely Speer remind us (On Editing Old French Texts, 1979), while echoing 1955 remarks by Edmond Faral. Perhaps born editors possess that “science of the spirit” (Geisteswissenschaft) that Schleiermacher advocated. Famed bibliographical scholar Fredson Bowers (1905–1991) defined the term textual criticism as “a general term for the application of logical method to analyzing the relationship between preserved and inferential forms of the text, followed by the application of various techniques, including critical judgment, designed to establish what will ordinarily be the single definitive form of the text” (Foulet and Blakely Speer, 2; cf. Greetham, Textual Scholarship, 394–99). While this definition may well apply to Shakespeare, Milton or even James Joyce, “a single definitive form” cannot resolve the problems faced by medievalists (on manuscript editing see Greetham, 272–83). Indiscriminate, corrupt and generally irrelevant editions of medieval texts preceded objective and scientific methodologies of the 19th and 20th centuries. Controlled and non-subjective strategies must outweigh divinatory, analogical or overly conjectural approaches. As Jeff Rider expresses it cogently, “[h]istory and philology have […] formed the propaedeutic disciplines of the study of medieval literature, which attempts to reconstruct as fully and as authentically as possible the text’s original inscription and to imagine as fully and as authentically as possible its original context” (“Whence? Wither?” 249). The critical circle that encloses an author’s text, a scribe and an audience must be tread nimbly and cautiously, to paraphrase philologist Karl Lachmann (cf. Greetham, loc. cit., 320–23, 347–72). Lachmann’s formula of recension maintained that agreement in error implied identity of origin. He created a stemma for Lucretian manuscripts, and the edition – not based on a “best single manuscript” – but rather on the significance of common errors in several manuscripts became, as did his subsequent edition of the New Testament, milestones for classical and Biblical studies. One may summarize
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very briefly Lachmann’s principles as follows: agreement by all authorities even if from different regions validates attestation (which nullifies particular witnesses), and uncertain readings are those not universally attested in the same region. L. The Critical Edition Consequently, and following now classical scholar E. J. Kenney’s authoritative guide (“Textual Criticism,” Encyclopaedia Brittanica, 2006), modern editors of critical editions move from a) recension, to b) examination and thence to c) emendation, a process that harbors the habitus (or relevant information and evidence on the “witnesses” and circumstances) of one’s chosen text and its author (where possible). Examination involves an appropriate search for authentic variants while implementing an historical analysis of language, style, period, genre and so forth. “Conjectural emendation” may follow, especially when the critic must use intelligent and discriminating guessing, all the while “balancing possibilities” (Kenney). The directing principle, as recommended by 18th-century New Testament editors, is: difficilior lectio potior (“the more difficult reading is to be preferred”). As Karl Morrison suggests, process and mediation lead not to facts but to understanding (“Sounding Hermeneutics: Two Recent Works,” Speculum 73 [1998]:787–98, here 797). Contemporary with Lachmann’s innovations, more conservative methods were developed, in Belgium, for example, by the Jesuits known as Bollandists, by the Benedictines in France known as Maurists, and by the French priest, Jacques-Paul Migne (1800–1875), whose extraordinary energy resulted in the Patrologia Latina (1844–1855; now available in full-text electronic version), plus four volumes of indexes (1862–1865; now digitized). The Latin Patrologia comprises in 221 volumes the works of the Church Fathers from Tertullian in 200 AD to the death of Pope Innocent III. in 1216. In addition, Migne edited the Patrologia graeca (81 vols., 1856–1861; a second series contains the Greek text with Latin translations (166 vols., 1857–1866). This activity was paralleled by a scientific team that produced, using (toward the end, from ca. 1880) Lachmann’s formula, the Monumenta Germaniae Historica. In France, the editorial labors of Gaston Paris and Paul Meyer on medieval French texts led to a renewed emphasis on the importance of common scribal errors. This initiative was reinforced by what has been called the “Roques rules,” an empirical prescriptive recipe devised by Mario Roques, dating from 1925–1926, to reconstruct, wherever possible the Ur-text or honor the best available manuscript (Foulet and Blakely Speer, On Editing Old French Texts, xiii). Rational and scientific textual criti-
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cism, deferential to the “author’s literary creation” allowed Gaston Paris to create, with his landmark and trend-setting edition of La Vie de St. Alexis (1872, 6th ed. 1965), a possible text as it might have existed in the period (ibid., 8–12). To illustrate, let us compare just one line, the opening verse of this poem (“Life was good in ancient times”) as found in Paris’ reconstructed edition (often called recensio), that drew on the text’s seven surviving manuscripts, and in a more recent one, edited by English scholar Christopher Storey, who chose a single manuscript: Bons fut li siecles al tems ancïenor […] (Paris) Bons fut li secles al tens ancïenur […] (Storey)
The differences are minute but crucial. Paris’ “archetypal” text has been superseded by Storey’s reproduction of the text “just as it is.” Moreover, endless attention to what the literary theorist E. D. Hirsch named the “shared experiences, usage traits, and meaning expectations,” (Validity in Interpretation, 1987, 131–32) can hardly ever help us know exactly what the anonymous poet or the scribe of the St. Alexis wished to convey by this particular sequence of linguistic signs. We have lost the keys to the text’s pristine, originary meaning: the text and its context are all we have at present. The author’s original intention in this instance cannot be discerned – no matter how convincing or thorough the philological circle – but the indeterminacy of textual meaning arises more from the historicity of the text than from the historicity of modern understanding (Anthony Yu and Larry Bouchard, “Literature and Religion,” Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. Lindsay Jones, 2005, 5466–76). Thus, an author’s purpose obviously cannot be a major concern for medieval texts, so that an “authoritative edition” takes on a different meaning for the medieval philologist. Arbitrary or conjectural emendation can be taken to perilous extremes as well, so that the resulting mosaic might actually represent another version of the text (Foulet and Blakely Speer, 15). Bédier reconstituted Jean Renart’s masterful Lai de l’Ombre (1913, following 19th-century standards), then re-edited it using his revolutionary art of editing texts (see Romania 54 [1928]: 161–96, 321–56). But, in the final analysis, modern scholarship has determined that Bédier, his nemesis Dom Quentin and Lachmann’s doctrines are too subjective, too systematic and too controlled (Foulet and Blakely Speer, 19). Laboring without the spark of mythical powers, yet like the mythological Hermes, today’s textual critic takes as a guiding editorial principle the need to buttress the “divine” readers’ understanding of the text’s base manu-
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script. The editor’s maxims should be “knowledgeable work, judgment, commitment” (Karl Uitti, “Medieval Specificity: Editing, Continuing, Reading, Inventing: Poetico-Literary Dimensions and the Critical Editing of Medieval Texts: The Example of Old French,” What is Literature?: France, 1100–1600, ed. François Cornilliat et al., 1993, 146; cf. Hirsch, 139–44). In this ever-fluid and unstable environment (like the manuscript variants themselves, i.e., mouvance), emendations bear, therefore, on the dubious grammatical or lexical constructions which comparison with the other relevant manuscripts of the text as well as of Old French show to be attributable in all likelihood to scribal slips. Preferred readings of the chosen manuscript (should be the least individualistic) must make good structural and syntactical sense – the best version of an original, i.e., a real text, should be reproduced, one that ideally a medieval reader might have enjoyed, as French philologist F. Lecoy asserts (Jean Renart, 1983, vi-vii). Scholars are still debating today which method works best, for despair will lead only to nihilism. But, Old French scholar Peter Dembowski avers succinctly that “[t]he editor’s responsibility should not be abrogated in favor of any seemingly satisfying theory. The first duty of any editor is not to be absolutely consistent with this or that theoretical stance but to make the text readable for another reader” (“The ‘French’ Tradition of Textual Philology and Its Relevance to the Editing of Medieval Texts,” Modern Philology 90, 4 [1993]: 512–32, 529). This was, by the way, the guiding principle of the edition and translation of Three Ovidian Tales of Love (ed., trans. Raymond Cormier, 1986). Foulet and Blakely Speer simply phrase the procedure this way: “One must conserve the most possible, repair the least and restore in no way” (ibid., 20). As French scholar Philippe Ménard surmises (“Problèmes de paléographie et de philologie dans l’édition des textes français du Moyen Âge,” The Editor and the Text, ed. Philip Bennett and Graham Runnalls, 1990, 8) caution and prudence must be invoked when faced with manuscript conflicts and/or a copyist’s errors. Neither blind adherence (i. e., excessive conservatism) nor too-facile (i.e., excessive intervention) interpolation of a text will succeed. As he notes, “En tout domaine rien ne vaut la clarté” (10; Clarity must be the rule in all cases). Perhaps, finally, it is the image of the “Belle Captive” – bathed and clothed by “Radiant Textuality” (Jerome McGann, Radiant Textuality: Literature after the World Wide Web, 2001) – that heuristically embodies today the definitive edition. And this brings “new meaning,” an illuminated ontology, to edited texts. Hermeneutical methodology today remains very much alive and relevant. Whether it is with the applications of CASE (Computer Assisted Scholarly Editing; see Greetham, 360; and Peter Shillingsburg, Scholarly Editing in the Computer Age: Theory and Practice. [Edi-
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torial Theory and Literary Criticism], 1st ed. 1986, 3rd ed. 1993), or especially for the late Karl Uitti, she (it – the text’s meaning and access) would consist of a reconstructable electronic hypertext with archived forms of all the manuscripts, variants and reworkings – exemplified by his exuberant Charrette Project (quondam Princeton, hunc Baylor U.; see Uitti, 166–74). As the Princeton don declared back in 1993, “The critical edition is here to stay […]” (166). Select Bibliography Pascale Bourgain and Françoise Vieillard, Conseils pour l’edition des textes mediévaux, Fascicule III: Textes Littéraires (Paris: Comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques/ École nationale des chartes, 2002); Walter Haug, Vernacular Literary Theory in the Middle Ages: The German Tradition, 800–1300, In Its European Context, trans. Joanna M. Catling (orig. in German, 1985; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); Hermeneutics and Medieval Culture, ed. Patrick J. Gallacher and Helen Damico (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1989); Geschichte der Textüberlieferung der antiken und mitteralterlichen Literatur, ed. Herbert Hunger, 2 vols. (Zürich: Atlantis, 1961–1964); E. J. Kenney, “Textual Criticism,” Encyclopædia Britannica (2006; Encyclopædia Britannica Online: 17 Mar. 2006 http://search.eb.com/eb/article-9108631); Ralph McInerny, ed., trans., “How Words Mean: Exposition of On Interpretation, 1–5,” in Thomas Aquinas, Selected Writings (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1998), 456–81; Martianus Capella, The Marriage of Philology and Mercury, trans. William Harris Stahl et al., vol. 2, in Martianus Capella and the Seven Liberal Arts, 2 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971–1977); La Vie de Saint Alexis, Texte du Manuscrit de Hildesheim (L), ed. Christopher Storey (Geneva and Paris: Droz and Minard, 1968); Sebastiano Timpanaro, La genesi del metodo del Lachmann (Florence: F. Le Monnier, 1963).
Raymond J. Cormier
Historical Studies A. Definition The field of medieval Historical Studies traditionally refers to the study of European history from the decline of the Roman Empire in the West (c. 500 C.E.) to the beginning of the early modern era (c.1500 C.E.). The idea of a medieval period, or “Middle Ages,” as a distinct period in European history originated during the Italian Renaissance as humanists conceptualized this period as a bridge between the classical and early modern worlds. Although the idea of a Middle Ages began as a European construct, similar periods in the histories of China, India, and the Islamic world are increasingly studied as distinct in their own right. Consequently, the study of the history
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of the Middles Ages has grown to encompass a much larger world view than simply the traditional, though still dominant, study of medieval Europe. B. Areas of Study and Language Competencies The research interests of modern historians of medieval Europe fall into several major areas. They include the more traditional fields of political, intellectual, cultural, ecclesiastical, and military history, as well as relatively newer fields like the history of mentality, everyday life, hagiography, and gender. Because the Middle Ages cover roughly one thousand years, historians are also often considered specialists in either the early (ca. 500–1000 C.E.) or late (ca. 1000–1500 C.E.) medieval period. Although the majority of research on the Middle Ages has been done by Western scholars who focus on Europe, the study of the neighboring worlds of Islam and the Mediterranean (including North Africa) have also long been considered important areas of study. The growing popularity of world history as a distinct field has also contributed to the increased study of medieval China and medieval India. Knowledge of multiple languages, both medieval and modern, is essential for historians doing original research on the Middle Ages. Latin is the most important language for historians of medieval Western Europe, as is Byzantine Greek for those who focus on Byzantium and other parts of medieval Eastern Europe. Arabic is an important language for scholars of medieval Spain, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East. A host of regional languages are necessary for more detailed study of particular areas. Scholars of medieval France often work with documents in Old French, Provençal, and Occitan, whereas in Spain one might work with Catalan, Galician, or Basque sources. Those studying medieval England might have the need to understand both the old and middle forms of English, while those studying medieval German might learn both Old and Middle German as well as the high and low dialects of each language. Similar medieval vernacular languages are often important for the study of medieval Italy (Sardinian, Venetian, and Tuscan), Ireland (Gaelic), and Eastern Europe. Important languages for those studying the medieval Middle East and Central Asia include Arabic, Persian (and its predecessor Middle Persian), as well as various Turkic languages. Middle Chinese is useful for those studying medieval China as is Hindi and Urdu for those studying medieval India. Considerable new research is published each year in English, French, German, and Italian, whether in books or specialized journals. Rarely is such material translated into other languages, making knowledge of these languages important for modern scholars to keep up with the latest research in their fields. Additional modern languages may be necessary for highly specialized research.
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C. Historians of Medieval Europe, ca. 1500–1800 During the Middle Ages history was commonly divided according to Biblical schemes. For example, some medieval European scholars divided history into six ages based on the six days of creation in the Bible. The Italian humanist Flavio Biondo was apparently the first to use the term “Middle Ages” to refer to the period from the end of the Roman Empire until his time in the early 15th century. In contrast to their medieval predecessors, early Renaissance historians who were motivated by their love of the classical age divided history into three parts including the ancient world, the Middle Ages, and their own age. In this scenario, the Middle Ages served as a bridge between their beloved classical world and the Renaissance or modern age. Consequently, because the achievements of the Middle Ages had little appeal to Renaissance scholars, the period became commonly referred to as a “Dark Age” or simply, “the Dark Ages.” From this point on the Middle Ages were increasingly understood as a distinct period, covering a timeframe from roughly 500 C.E. to 1500 C.E. Negative views of the Middle Ages were also widely held during the Protestant Reformation. Protestant reformers, like Renaissance humanists, also had an appreciation of the ancient world. Yet their focus was not on classical authors, but rather on the birth of Christianity and the life of the primitive church, which many reformed churches claimed to imitate. As a result, the Protestant belief that the medieval Catholic Church had become corrupted and no longer resembled the primitive church of early Christianity became a major justification for the Protestant Reformation. Enlightenment era thinkers and writers also embraced the Renaissance view of the Middle Ages as “Dark Ages” on account of their rejection of traditional religious, social, and political beliefs in favor of an “age of reason” (see the entry on “Enlightenment” in this Handbook). Thinkers like Voltaire were representative of the Enlightenment era view of the medieval world as a place of endless feudal wars with scholasticism and the church as the enemies of reason. A reflection of this hostility, especially to organized religion, is found in English historian Edward Gibbon’s classic work The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, with its six volumes published between 1776 and 1788. For Gibbon, the Roman Empire in the West had collapsed as a result of Germanic invasions and finally ended with the death of the last Emperor in 476 C.E. Thus began the Middle Ages, according to Gibbon, as the focus of Gibbon’s work then shifted from the West to the East and the development of the Byzantine Empire. Gibbon’s dating of the end of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Middle Ages in Western Europe has been enormously influential among scholars, as his periodization was not
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seriously challenged by scholars until the 20th century and continues to influence popular understandings of the transition from the ancient Roman world into the medieval period. D. Historians and Historiography, ca. 1800 to Present Many during the 19th century, although not all, found a new appreciation for the Middle Ages. The industrial age was in full swing and the threat of urbanization and pollution to traditional norms of life provoked a backlash among the so-called Romantics of the period. The Romantics rejected the modern age and instead promoted what they understood as distinctly medieval virtues in their art, literature, and nationalism. This new and more positive image of the Middle Ages also extended to 19th-century historians, although for different reasons. Modern historiography effectively began with efforts of the highly influential late medievalist/early modernist Leopold von Ranke (1795–1886), whose stated goal was to write history the way it was. His purpose was to understand past cultures as they understood themselves. Hence, he rejected the teleological view that modern societies are superior to older societies and, consequently, refused to accept the idea that the Middle Ages were inferior to the Renaissance. The new popularity of the medieval world during the 19th century resulted in the production of many important historical projects that continue to have an impact on various fields of medieval history. Certainly one of the most impressive projects was the Monumenta Germaniae Historica (MGH), an enormous collection of edited sources with an emphasis on German history from the end of the Roman Empire until 1500 C.E. The MGH is divided into five major areas including the Scriptores, Leges, Diplomata, Epistolae, and Antiquitates, as well as thirty-three sub-series covering a wide range of medieval historical documentation. The MGH was inspired by the Prussian reformer and nationalist Heinrich Friedrich Karl Freiherr vom Stein who, in 1819, established a society for its creation with its first volumes published in 1826. The project benefited enormously from the leadership of Georg Heinrich Pertz who took over as editor in 1826 and remained so until 1874. During this period the best scholars from Germany, and many other nations, contributed to the MGH’s many scholarly editions. In 2004 the entire collection of the MGH was placed online in photo-digital reproduction at the MGH web page at http://www.mgh.de. The scholarship of French historian Joseph Francois Michaud (1767–1839) was foundational for the so-called “golden age” of Crusades Studies. Among his most influential works were his multi-volume History of the Crusades (1st ed., 3 vols., 1812–1817; 6th ed., 6 vols., 1841), which served
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as one of the most important historical approaches to the study of the crusades during the 19th century. Michaud followed this achievement with a four volume collection of sources titled the Bibliothèque des Croisades (1829) containing French translations of several European and Arabic chronicles of the Crusades. Finally, as a member of the renown Academy of Inscriptions, Michaud was instrumental in the creation and publication (published in Paris from 1841 to 1906) of the sixteen volume Recueil des Historiens des Croisades (RHC), which remains the most important collection of crusades sources in their original languages to the present day. The entire collection of the RHC, consisting of thousands of pages of sources in the original languages is made available online through the Bibliotheque nationale de France’s Gallica project at http://gallica.bnf.fr. Yet another important source collection was constructed during the 19th century by the French priest and scholar, Jacques-Paul Migne. Beginning in 1844, Migne oversaw the publication of the first volumes of the Patrologia Latina (PL), a monumental collection of 217 volumes covering over one thousand years of Latin sources from Tertullian to Pope Innocent III. It remains among the most influential source collections for the study of medieval history and the entire collection is now available on CD-ROM at some research libraries and an electronic version is available online for paid subscribers. In the mid-19th century the Communist Manifesto was published by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (Feb. 21, 1848). Although the work was a political call to action which sought to justify a revolution by workers, it had an important impact on how later adherents of Communism would view the past. Marx and Engels argued that economics was the driving engine of history and that until their time human societies had been defined by the exploitation of the common worker by a small elite minority. In the case of the Middle Ages this meant that the aristocracy and clergy had unfairly subjugated the peasantry, representing the vast majority of the population, to a harsh servitude. The Belgian historian Henri Pirenne (1862–1935) influenced how scholars understood the birth of the Middle Ages as a result of the so-called “Pirenne Thesis.” Pirenne argued in his now classic work Mohammed and Charlemagne against the traditional view (advanced by Edward Gibbon) that Germanic barbarians had caused the fall of the Roman Empire and that the removal of the last western Roman Emperor from the Imperial throne in 476 C.E. effectively meant the end of the Roman Empire. According to Pirenne, the real break in Roman history occurred in the 7th century as a result of Arab conquests which shifted European civilization to the North and away from the Mediterranean. Pirenne’s works were also highly influential
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in subdividing the roughly one thousand year medieval period into what are today known as the Early, High, and Late Middle Ages. Princeton scholar Dana Carleton Munro (1866–1933) published in a number of areas concerning the Middle Ages. Among his more popular or influential works are A History of the Middle Ages (1902), The Middle Ages and Modern Europe (1903), Medieval Civilization (1907), and The Middle Ages, 395–1272 (1921). His superior scholarship was recognized by his peers when he became president of the American Historical Association in 1926, and he was honored by his former students, many of whom went on to teach in universities themselves, in 1928 with the publication of a collection of essays titled The Crusades and Other Historical Essays Presented to Dana C. Munro by his Former Students. Munro died in 1933 before finishing what would have been his “magnum opus,” a history of the crusades based on an exhaustive and critical use of contemporary sources and field work in the Near East. Charles Homer Haskins (1870–1937) was considered America’s first medieval historian (a curious distinction in light of Dana Carleton Munro’s earlier career) and also served as an advisor to US President Woodrow Wilson (a relatively common role for prominent historians in that period). Haskins focused primarily on institutions, but his most influential work had to do with his argument in favor of a 12th-century renaissance. In his 1927 work The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century, Haskins examined art, science, philosophy, architecture, literature, and the rise of universities to argue that this was a period of unique innovation and creativity. Haskins had also won respect for his earlier work Norman Institutions (1918) which contributed fundamentally to our understanding of medieval Normandy. Later scholars honored Haskin’s work on the Middle Ages by founding the Haskins Society in 1982, an international scholarly organization dedicated to the study of Viking, Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, and early Angevin history. Haskins’s best known student was medieval historian Joseph Strayer who began teaching at Princeton University in the 1930s. During his career he served as chair of the history department for twenty years and president of the American Historical Association in 1971. Strayer’s greatest influence on Medieval Studies undoubtedly comes from the large number of American medievalists teaching in universities that studied with him during his lengthy career. German historian Carl Erdmann (1898–1945) has been considered as one of the most influential and important German scholars of medieval political culture in the 20th century. Erdmann is perhaps best known for his often cited 1935 work on the origins of the crusades Die Entstehung des Kreuzzugsgedankens (The Origins of the Idea of Crusade, trans. M. W. Baldwin and
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Walter Goffart, 1977). Erdmann argued that the crusades represented an attempt by the Papacy to bring peace to Western Europe through redirecting the violent energies of knights and other combatants to the East. Erdmann’s 1938 work on 11th-century correspondence between secular and ecclesiastical elites titled Studien zur Briefliteratur Deutschlands im XI. Jahrhundert also won him considerable praise. Erdmann also worked as a researcher for the prestigious Munich based institute of the Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Dutch historian Johan Huizinga (1872–1945) was a pioneer in the field of cultural history. He wrote widely on a number of topics including not only medieval history, but also American and early modern Dutch history. His most important work of medieval history was his popular 1919 book The Autumn of the Middle Ages, which rejected the idea of a Renaissance in the later Middle Ages and instead viewed the period as one of pessimism and decadence. French historian and medievalist Marc Bloch (1886–1944) had an enormous impact of modern understandings of historiography and feudalism. In 1929 Bloch and Lucien Febvre founded the journal Annales d’histoire économique et sociale (now called Annales: Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations). The name of the journal became the basis for the name of the so-called Annales School of Historiography, which combined history with geography and sociological approaches to understanding the past and rejected the traditional 19th-century emphasis on politics, diplomacy, and war. Instead of focusing on particular events, Bloch and Febvre focused on long-term historical structures known as la longue durée. In 1941 Bloch also authored a popular historiographical work Apologie pour l’histoire ou metier d’historien (translated into English in 1953 as The Historian’s Craft) that is still used widely in undergraduate historiography classes today. Concerning specifically medieval history, Bloch’s influence was most seen on mid-20th-century understandings of feudalism. In his 1939 work Feudal Society, Bloch argued that in addition to a hierarchal relationship between lords and vassals in medieval feudal systems, there was a similar relationship between lords and peasants, an argument that had not previously been made. Bloch’s thesis was been discredited for many as the concept of feudalism itself has come under intense scrutiny by historians. In 1974, U.S. historian Elizabeth A. R. Brown, in “The Tyranny of a Construct: Feudalism and Historians of Medieval Europe” (American Historical Review 97: 1063–88), rejected the term feudalism arguing that medieval economic and social systems were far too complicated for the term to have any real meaning. French historian Fernand Braudel (1902–1985) was a student of Annales co-founder Lucien Febvre and became a prominent annales historian
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in his own right. He was best known for his monumental work La Méditerranée et le monde méditerranéen a l’époque de Philippe II. Although Braudel reportedly wrote the work from memory while he was a prisoner of war in Germany in the early 1940s, La Méditerranée soon became the defining work of the Annales School and was widely praised for its consideration of outside disciplines (including economics, anthropology, and geography) over the longue durée of medieval Mediterranean history. Certainly one of the most popular medieval scholars during the 20th century was British historian Sir James Cochran Stevenson Runciman, better known as Steven Runciman (1903–2000). He was best known for his work on Byzantium and the Crusades, we well as his linguistic abilities. He reportedly began learning French at the age of three and by the age of eleven he had learned Latin, Greek, and Russian. Later in his life, he picked up various Islamic languages that greatly informed his many scholarly works about the Middle Ages including The History of the Crusades (3 vols., 1951, 1952, and 1954), The Medieval Manichee: A Study of the Christian Dualist Heresy (1947), The Sicilian Vespers: A History of the Mediterranean World in the Later Thirteenth Century (1958), The Fall of Constantinople 1453 (1965). Runciman was most influential on modern understandings of the crusades and he did not portray the crusaders with sympathy. For Runciman, the crusaders destroyed the last bastion of Antiquity, Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire. One of the most distinguished living historians of medieval Byzantium is Angeliki E. Laiou, who is currently Dumbarton Oaks Professor of Byzantine History at Harvard University. Laiou is also a former director of the Dumberton Oaks Research Library and Collection, an international center for scholarship providing resources for the study and publication of scholarly works in Byzantine history. She is also the author of a dozen books and several dozen articles on Byzantine history covering topics ranging from gender to the crusades. Perhaps her most important recent work is The Economic History of Byzantium (2002) for which she served as editor in chief for its three volumes. Irish historian Peter Brown (b. 1935), who began his career as a medieval historian, is without question the leading historian of the period known as late antiquity, a field that overlaps with the medieval period and did not exist until he defined it in The World of Late Antiquity A.D. 150–750 (1971), and The Making of Late Antiquity (1978). Brown’s many works led to the establishment of late antiquity as a distinct period from roughly 200 C.E. to 800 C.E. that focuses on the transformation of the Roman world into the medieval world in both the East and the West. Brown is also well known for his seminal work Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (1967, and 2000), which is still
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considered by many to be the best available work on the life of Augustine. Brown has also made an impact on modern understandings of the development of the cult of the saints (see The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity, 1981), about which he argues that such cults were not carry overs from the pagan past. The annales historian Georges Duby (1919–1996) ranked among the most influential of French medievalists for his work on the first three centuries of France under the Capetians (ca. 10th to 13th centuries). Duby’s colleague, French historian Jacques LeGoff (b. 1924), also won international renown for his work on medieval Europe. LeGoff is another Annales historian who since 1977 has dedicated himself to researching the historical anthropology of Western Europe in the Middle Ages. LeGoff held that medieval Europe was a distinct civilization from the ancient Roman world and, although the Annales School is not known for its appreciation of biographies, he is also well know for his biographies of Louis IX and Francis of Assisi. Oxford University historian Richard W. Southern’s (1912–2001) 1953 book The Making of the Middle Ages won him considerable respect early in his career and became a classic history of the Middle Ages covering the 10th to 13th centuries. He followed up this work with other well received efforts including Western Views of Islam in the Middle Ages (1962) and Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages (1970). Jonathan Riley-Smith (b. 1938), also of Oxford University, found even greater success with his work on the crusades which revolutionized modern crusades historiography. As the author of more than a dozen books on the crusades, Riley-Smith has convincingly argued that greed as the primary motivator of the crusaders is unlikely and misleading, as genuine religious devotion seems to have been an even greater motivator. Riley-Smith has also been a chief advocate of expanding modern understandings of the crusading movement to include similar efforts in places other than the Holy Land. He argues that crusading against Muslims, pagans, and heretics also took place in Spain, the Baltic, Italy, and France. Several medievalists have studied under Riley-Smith at Oxford and have gone on to teaching positions at major research institutions around the world. They include scholars such as Peter Edbury, Norman Housley, and Michael Lower who have carried Riley-Smith’s perspectives into the scholarly world. University of Southern California historian Judith Bennett is one of the leading scholars of the history of gender during the Middle Ages. Bennett has published extensively on the subject with seven books and more than two dozen articles that have helped to define the field. Perhaps her best
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known work is her account of the extraordinary life of Cecilia Penifader, an English single woman living in the early 14th century in A Medieval Life: Cecilia Penifader of Brigstock, c. 1297–1344 (1998). University of Minnesota historian Ruth Mazo Karras is another leading historian of gender and sexuality. While she has published on a broad number of topics within her area of interest, her more recent efforts focus on the formation of masculine identity in the later Middle Ages. Her recent books include From Boys to Men: Formations of Masculinity in Late Medieval Europe (2003), and Sexuality in Medieval Europe: Doing Unto Others (2005). E. Major Journals for Medieval Historians There are a number of important peer reviewed journals, both interdisciplinary and focused solely on history, in which historians of the Middle Ages publish their research. Speculum has been published quarterly by the Medieval Academy of America since 1926 and is the first scholarly journal in North America devoted exclusively to the Middle Ages. Traditio, a leading journal of ancient and medieval history, thought, and religion has been published since 1945 by Fordham University. The interdisciplinary journal Viator has been published since 1969 under the direction of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. UCLA also has a graduate journal, Comitatus, dedicated to Medieval Studies and it is gaining increasing respect as a place for graduate students to publish. Duke University Press annually publishes three issues of its Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, while Blackwell Publishing issues its Early Medieval Europe quarterly. Mediaevistik: International Journal of Interdisciplinary Medieval Research, ed. by Peter Dinzelbacher and Albrecht Classen (by himself since 2010), is published in Frankfurt, Germany and accepts submissions on an ongoing basis in German, English, French, and Italian. The Medieval Review (formerly the Bryn Mawr Medieval Review) has published reviews in all areas of Medieval Studies dating back to 1993. There are some journals focused more narrowly on medieval history (as opposed to literature, philosophy, etc …) including The Journal of Medieval History and The Medieval History Journal. Additionally, there are a number of journals devoted to more specific medieval historical themes including The Journal of Medieval Military History (published by De Re Militari: The Society for Medieval Military History), Crusades: The Journal of the Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East, Gender & History, and Golden Horn: Journal of Byzantium.
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F. Major Organizations for Historians of the Middle Ages The Medieval Academy of America, founded in 1926, is the leading organization for historians of the Middle Ages in North America. Other important North American organizations include the American Academy of Research Historians of Medieval Spain, founded in 1974 to promote the study of medieval Spain; and the Southeastern Medieval Association which promotes the study of the Middle Ages in the southern United States. There are also more than seventy Medieval Studies centers based at various colleges and universities in the U.S. and Canada and dozens more at higher education institutions in the United Kingdom and continental Europe. The Australian and New Zealand Association for Medieval and Early Modern Studies was founded in 1996 to promote Medieval and Early Modern Studies in the Pacific, as was the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Sydney (established in 1997). The Société Internationale des Médiévistes, Paris was founded in 2003 to assist academics in Paris doing research on the Middle Ages and regularly hosts symposiums on a number of medieval topics. In Germany, the Medieval Institute at the University of Freiburg was established in 1965 to promote and coordinate research and teaching in all fields related to the study of medieval civilization. G. Major Conferences The largest gathering devoted to Medieval Studies in general, and Medieval Historical Studies in particular, is without doubt the annual International Congress on Medieval Studies hosted at the University of Western Michigan in Kalamazoo. The conference is usually held at the beginning of each summer and is attended by more than three thousand scholars and students of all fields related to the Middle Ages, as well as a considerable number of novelists and interested persons unaffiliated with a college or university. The relatively informal atmosphere at Kalamazoo makes it an excellent place for collaboration and collegiality among scholars. A similar event, which serves as a type of European counterpart to the Congress at Kalamazoo, the International Medieval Congress, is held in the United Kingdom each year and is hosted by the University of Leeds. Although neither conference is specifically devoted to the field of history, historians are heavily represented in the listings of those presenting papers and these conferences are among the most important gatherings for historians of the Middle Ages. There are, of course, several dozen other conferences and gatherings taking place throughout the world in which historians devoted to medieval history might present their research. Some include the annual meetings of the Medieval Academy of America, the Midwest Medieval History Conference, the American His-
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torical Association, the Center for Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto, and the annual symposium of the International Medieval Society, Paris. Select Bibliography Fortunately, a high number of works dealing with Medieval Historical Studies have been written by medievalists. One of the more interesting is the late Norman F. Cantor’s Inventing the Middle Ages: The Lives, Works, and Ideas of the Great Medievalists of the Twentieth Century (New York: William Morrow, 1991) which argued that romanticized modern notions of the Middle Ages (as a place of knights, ladies, saints, wars, tournaments, etc …) are a conceptual invention of 20th-century scholars influenced by their particular backgrounds and modern events (World War II, for example). The 2005 work Medieval Concepts of the Past, ed. Gerd Althoff, Johannes Fried, and Patrick J. Geary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002) examines how the history of the Middle Ages is being restructured by medieval historians in Germany and the United States in the light of cultural and social-scientific investigations into ritual, language and memory. Ernst Breisach has written a useful review of historiography from the ancient Greeks to the present in his work Historiography: Ancient, Medieval, & Modern (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1983, 1994), and another work examining the impact of rhetoric on the study of medieval history in Classical Rhetoric and Medieval Historiography (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University,1985). Johns Hopkins University historian Gabrielle M. Spiegel’s book The Past as Text: The Theory and Practice of Medieval Historiography (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997) examines the impact of postmodernism and how it has challenged historians to look at historical texts in a new way. Kathleen Canning’s work Gender History in Practice: Historical Perspectives on Bodies, Class and Citizenship (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2006), examines the field of gender history from its origins in the 1980s until the present – a process in which Canning herself has held a major role as an author, a teacher and an editor. For information on women in Medieval Studies see Women Medievalists and the Academy, ed. Jane Chance (Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2005). Marc Bloch’s 1953 work The Historian’s Craft (New York: Knopf, 1953) investigated the techniques of historical inquiry to help the beginning researcher, whether focusing on medieval history or other periods. Bloch’s work has been widely distributed and is commonly assigned in college level historiography classes. A revised and updated edition of Louis John Paetow’s classic 1931 work A Guide to the Study of Medieval History (Millwood, NY: Kraus, 1980) was made available in 1980 and was followed in 1981 with the release of Gray Cohen Boyce’s Literature of medieval history, 1930–1975: A Supplement to Louis John Paetow’s A Guide to the Study of Medieval History (Millwood, NY: Kraus, 1981). R. C. van Caenegem’s Guide to the Sources of Medieval History (Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company, 1978) provides a useful review of five areas of medieval history, including the typology of medieval history, libraries and archives, collections and repositories of sources, reference works, and a bibliographic introduction to the auxiliary sciences of history. Historian James M. Powell’s work Medieval Studies: An Introduction (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1992) is designed to provide the advanced student with an introduction the world of Medieval Studies by offering essays by various authors on all aspects of Medieval Studies including paleography, diplomatics, chronology, literature,
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music, archaeology, law and science. For information about particular medievalists, historians or otherwise, see Répertoire international des medievalists (Turnhout: Brepols, 1995).This work provides the names, addresses, and fields of specialization for 16,000 medievalists worldwide.
Andrew Holt
Historiography of Medieval Medicine A. General Definition There are many fundamental, practical and theoretical differences between what is laterally understood by the term ‘medicine’ and how it was defined in the Middle Ages. The difficulty in this regard arises out of the lack of useful contemporary definitions. Accordingly, 20th-century scholarly contributions to the history of medicine tend to be academically judged largely in terms of their accuracy and scope and, crucially, in terms of how the term ‘medicine’ is understood by the researcher. We should not be surprised to learn, then, that one of the major issues in the study of medicine in the Middle Ages is precisely that of nomenclature; simply, the term ‘medicine’ and what that implies cannot be as easily or cleanly applied to the medieval period as it is used post-Enlightenment. When considering both the historiography of medieval medicine and the practice of medicine in the Middle Ages, then, it is necessary to regard both categories as fluid, with boundaries sufficiently blurred to overlap into the academic sciences and folklore (herbalism, for example) and pseudo-sciences (astrology, physiognomy and palmistry); manuscript and book history; theories of textual production and dissemination; university history; the study of practitioners, both learned and local; and social history. The problems of definition have always been pivotal for the major contributors in the field, most notably in the now-famous exchange between George Sarton and Henry Sigerest. Sarton, in a paper titled “The History of Science versus the History of Medicine” (Isis 23.2 [1935]: 313–20), challenged medicine as a science; this elicited a response from Sigerist in “The History of Medicine and The History of Science” (Bulletin of the History of Medicine 4 [1936]: 1–13), in which, as well as noting that medical history is a field of study in its own right, he agreed that much of the work hitherto carried out on the history of medicine was amateurish. The debate on the valid-
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ity of medical history as a branch of science continues to some extent; Gert Brieger notes, however, that the historiographical work has now become more sophisticated and reliable (“Guest Editorial: The History of Medicine and the History of Science,” Isis 72.4 [1981]: 537). Perhaps one of the most helpful definitions of medieval medicine is that of Linda E. Voigts, who asserts that medical texts are the records of “the theory and practice of what was both science and craft … [which] survives, for the most part, in fourteenthand fifteenth-century manuscripts [and] includes both highly learned and popular, traditional material” (“Medical Prose,” Middle English Prose: A Critical Guide to Major Authors and Genres, ed. A. S. G. Edwards, 1984, 315–35). Elsewhere, the same author notes that “in practical terms, then as now, [medicine] was largely perceived less as an attempt to understand the natural world than as a technology for maintaining or restoring health” (“Scientific and Medical Books,” Book Production and Publishing in Britain, 1375–1475, ed. J. Griffiths and D. Pearsall, 1989, 345–402). The historiography of medieval medicine, then, in its broadest terms, involves the consideration of writings – and the application of learning in the practical sense – of varying sophistication. As Rossell Hope Robbins wrote: “Allowing for the distinction between the graduate doctor and the leech … as far as the actual craft of medicine itself was practiced, both classes would be relying on essentially the same manuscript authorities” (“Medical Manuscripts in Middle English,” Speculum 45.3 [1970]: 393–415). Medical practice, it would seem, had a considerable theoretical grounding, whether treatment was administered by the leech doctor, the barber surgeon, or the university-trained physician. European medical theory of the Middle Ages was largely based on the writings of Hippocrates (c. 470–360 BC). Generally credited as the father of modern medicine, Hippocrates professionalized medical practice, linking it to philosophy but divorcing it from religion and superstition. He also wrote in detail on proper conduct and practice for physicians. His most enduring legacy in the Middle Ages, however, was his theory of the humors. This medical theory centered on the balance between the four humors (blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile), in turn connected to the four elemental “qualities” (hot, cold, dry and moist); wellbeing was thus dependent on balance, and much medieval medical healing was concerned to restore imbalances in the bodily humors, which could be achieved by regulating the diet, for example, or through an intervention like bloodletting. Pearl Kibre’s work on Hippocratic reception in the Middle Ages is standard: Hippocrates Latinus: Repertorium of Hippocratic Writings in the Latin Middle Ages (1985). Equally influential, in terms of medical theory and practice in medieval Europe were the writings and thoughts of Galen, whose treatises perpetu-
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ated the Hippocratic method; in particular, the work of Vivian Nutton (in particular, his edited volume Galen, Problems and Prospects, 1981, and his monograph John Caius and the Manuscripts of Galen, 1987) is crucial with regard to Galen’s reception in the Middle Ages. However, European medical theories were frequently coupled with a belief, central to Arabic treatises, that astrology had a part to play, with each house of the zodiac assumed to exert influence over a particular body part; contemporary ‘vein men’ illustrations show Aries having dominance over the head. Aries, in terms of qualities, was considered “a fiery, hot and dry sign” (Irma Taavitsainen, “Science,” A Companion to Chaucer, ed. Peter Brown, 2000, 378–396). Medicine was, thus, inextricably linked to astrology and astronomy, and a belief in the influence of the skies on humans in a holistic manner. The early work of Donald Campbell, Arabian Medicine and its Influence on the Middle Ages (1926; rpt. 2001) is testament to the influence of Arabic ideas on Europe’s medical people; similarly, Kibre’s study “Giovanni Garzoni of Bologna (1419– 1505), Professor of Medicine and Defender of Astrology,” Isis 58 (1967): 504–14 demonstrates that medical theory, even at the scholastic level, was inextricably linked to cosmology. Further, the research carried out by Allan Chapman, “Astrological Medicine,” Health, Medicine and Mortality in the Sixteenth Century, ed. Charles Webster (1979, 275–300), explains the principles of medieval astrological medicine as a background to developments in the Renaissance. Religion, too, had its influence on medicine; the role of the medieval church – linked, naturally, to the role of the hospital – has been the subject of several studies, including Eugene A. Hammond’s “Physicians in Medieval English Religious Houses,” Bulletin in the History of Medicine 32 (1958): 105–20. The history of 20th-century scholarship on medieval medicine has generally taken two approaches: a concern with medical texts and books, of varying academic interest but nonetheless widely read, disseminated, copied, and translated throughout Europe, and an attempt at classification of the texts circulated therein; and the social history of medicine: the identification of sites of hospitals and doctor’s rooms; persons involved in medical practice; the analysis and impact of epidemics like the Black Death and influenza; and gender, politics, and class studies. It is perhaps due to this dichotomous approach that it is frequently argued that students of the Middle Ages lack “reference works” that provide a “reliable history of medicine” (Jonathan Erlen, “Book Review: A Dictionary of the History of Medicine,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 56.2 [2001]: 183). Nonetheless, the absence of a defining study, encyclopedia or dictionary dedicated to the history of medicine, rather than highlighting the difficulties connected to definition and
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concentration, instead serve to demonstrate the richness and diversity of the field. Moreover, this absence has the effect of foregrounding the many specific and unique contributions that have been made by individual scholars to the many different aspects of historical medicine over the course of the 20th century which, taken together, build an impressive repertoire of writing and research on this multifaceted topic. B. History of Research The focus of much research into medicine in the Middle Ages is on the people responsible for the practice of medicine, and appropriately, perhaps, it is with this that the history of research into medicine in the 20th century begins. The publication of two important scholarly resources for medieval medicine: John Flint South’s Memorials of the Craft of Surgery in England (ed. D’Arcy Power, 1886), and Sidney Young’s Annals of the Barber-Surgeons of London (1890), enabled further study by giving researchers access to important documents, while at the same time igniting interest in the theory and practice of medicine in medieval Europe. These quickly became standard reference works, and precipitated further investigation into the records of doctors, surgeons, and other medical men. Ernst Wickersheimer’s two-volume Dictionnaire biographique des médecins en France au moyen âge (1936; rpt. 1979) provides a similar survey of practitioners in medieval France, and is updated by Danielle Jacquart’s Dictionnaire biographique des médecins en France au Moyen Âge. Tome 3: Supplément, (1979). A different perspective on medieval France is Isaac Alteras’s “Jewish Physicians in Southern France during the 13th and 14th Centuries,” The Jewish Quarterly Review 68.4 (1978): 209–23, which uses notarial records to provide a list of practitioners living in ten major towns in the south of France. Alteras notes that these pockets of medical men “developed an activity that produced much original literature and translations from Arabic into Hebrew and Latin” (209). Further focus on the English medical community of the Middle Ages came mid-century in the work of Charles H. Talbot and Eugene A. Hammond, The Medical Practitioners in Medieval England: A Biographical Register (1965), a directory of specific practitioners from the more learned to the barber-surgeons and empirics, and dating from Anglo-Saxon times up to the mid-16th century. Richard T. Beck’s The Cutting Edge: Early History of the Surgeons of London (1974) has a similar focus, as does Robert S. Gottfried’s Doctors and Medicine in Medieval England, 1340–1530 (1986), which broadens its subject matter to consider apothecaries. 20th-century history of scholastic medicine is somewhat divided between studies conducted by practitioners of medicine – or medical professionals –
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at the beginning of the century, and the professional study of the history of medicine, begun quite late in the century. Scholarly work on the sources for the history of medicine was facilitated in no small part by Charles Joseph Singer, a professor in the history of medicine at University College London, and his many publications on Galen, the history of biology and the history of science. It was the work of his wife, Dorothea Waley Singer, however, that allowed the scholarly community unprecedented access to the medical and scientific books held in British and Irish libraries. The results of her endeavors are a card-catalogue (held at the British Library but available, too, on microfilm, and numerous publications: “Survey of Medical Manuscripts dating from before the Sixteenth Century,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 12 (1918–1919): 96–107; and with Annie Anderson, Catalogue of Latin and Vernacular Plague Texts in Great Britain (1950). A similar work resulted from the collaborative writings and research of Pearl Kibre and Lynn Thorndike. Their Catalogue of Incipits of Mediaeval Scientific Writings in Latin (1937) remains a standard tool for works of medicine in Latin. Much early work, then, centered on the tradition of Latin scholastic texts in the Middle Ages; for example, George W. Corner’s Anatomical Texts of the Earlier Middle Ages (1927) contains a revised Latin text of the Anatomia Cophonis. Lynn Thorndike’s Science and Thought in the Fifteenth Century (1929) is a survey of manuscript sources for the history of medicine and surgery. Recently – more specifically in the last two decades – academic interest in medicine and medical texts of medieval Europe has shifted to include work on vernacularization; as Keiser notes, “the demand for scientific and practical writings in the English language seems to have become more urgent in the second half of the fourteenth century, and the response … was the production of an extensive corpus of works” (1999, 3595). That demand was mirrored throughout Europe as the producers and readers of medical texts and books embarked upon a massive and important project to translate books out of Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Arabic. William Cossgrove’s introduction to a dedicated volume of Early Science and Medicine (“The Vernacularization of Science, Medicine, and Technology in Late Medieval Europe,” 3.2 [1998]: 81–87) succinctly explains the situation with regard to medicine as being complex, since “this discipline was both a subject of scholastic study and a practice carried out by healers without formal training, so we find medical texts in vernacular languages, presumably aimed at bridging the gap between learned and popular medicine, which coexisted with far more numerous Latin medical treatises throughout the Middle Ages” (82). However, with the spread of literacy came the translation of the great encyclopedias and works, like those of Bartholomaeus Anglicus and Albertus Mag-
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nus, into various vernacular languages and, too, the compilation and even composition of new texts in vernacular languages. One of the most common subjects of medical tracts in the Middle Ages in Europe is phlebotomy, or bloodletting. Because of the belief that astrology / astronomy had a profound influence on all aspects of human existence, particularly connected to medical treatment and diagnosis, many bloodletting tracts are subsumed into longer treatises on the zodiac, into lunary and calendar texts, sometimes going unnoticed since as text might be classified as ‘scientific’ as opposed to medical. On bloodletting and diet see Linne R. Mooney, “Diet and Bloodletting: A Monthly Regimen,” Popular and Practical Science of Medieval England, ed. Lister M. Matheson (1994), 245–61. Medical charms and recipes – connected in some ways to herbalism and herbal lore – present problems in terms of classification, largely because of their closeness to prayers, culinary recipes, and the occult; they present difficulties too in terms of cataloguing because of the sheer numbers that survive, copied either as collections in various types of manuscripts, or preserved individually either in longer tracts or on flyleaves and as marginalia. There is also some overlap into the occult and magic, as acknowledged by the work of John Henry Grafton Grattan and Charles Singer, Anglo-Saxon Magic and Medicine (1952). Again, though, the impetus to list, chronicle, and discuss charms and recipes is primarily evident in short, exploratory yet important work recorded in serial publications. The research by Thomas R. Forbes, for example, took a wide view of folk charms in medicine, noting that in the past, medical historians routinely ignored folk medicine, it being “the product of superstition, hearsay and ignorance,” going on to state that since “good’ medical care was not available to the majority of people in the Middle Ages, charms and such texts are “profoundly important to the social history of medicine” (“Verbal Charms in British Folk Medicine,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 115.4 [1971]: 293–316). Forbes goes on to identify varieties of verbal charms and provides examples – that are revealing in terms of how medicine was understood in the Middle Ages – and that include dentistry and exorcism. Similarly Douglas Gray (“Notes on Some Middle English Charms,” Chaucer and Middle English Studies, ed. Beryl Rowland, 1974, 56–71) connects medicine and prayer, quoting Singer’s assertion that “paternosters accompany every conceivable medical process” (59). Particularly noteworthy in Gray’s paper is the example of the ‘Flum Jordan’ charm (or Jordan-segen), one of the most frequently occurring methods to staunch blood, and which is transmitted from a 9th-century Latin version into various languages.
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The history of hospitals in the Middle Ages has recently witnessed a revival with the appearance of several dedicated, general studies; this is a welcome trend, according to Alfons Labisch, who notes that hospital histories frequently treat of “single institutions and places … conceptualised and written as special contributions on the occasion of anniversaries” (“Book Review,” Journal of the History of Medicine 56.2 [2001]: 181). Rotha Mary Clay’s Mediaeval Hospitals of England (1909) has long been the reference work for the student of medieval care-giving institutions, and has only recently been matched by Nicholas Orme’s and Margaret Webster’s The English Hospital, 1070–1570 (1995). The latter is now a standard text, being an authoritative examination of hospitals both nationally and locally, providing valuable records of practices, administration, finances and organization (Linda E. Voigts, “Book Review,” Bulletin in the History of Medicine 71.4 [1997]: 707). Sheila Sweetinburgh’s recent study, The Role of the Hospital in Medieval England: Gift-Giving and the Spiritual Economy (2004) focuses on local institutions in Kent, and while she draws comparisons with religious and political power structures, Sweetinburgh’s focus is largely on the culture of gift-giving to hospitals. Finally, Günther B. Risse’s Mending Bodies, Saving Souls: A History of Hospitals (1999) offers an overview of hospital history up to the present day, with some sections on the Christian and plague hospitals of the Middle Ages. The history of textual scholarship as it relates to medicine in the Middle Ages is particularly germane here; simply put, without editions of key Latin and vernacular medical texts we would not have as complete a picture of medieval attitudes towards, and the practice of, medicine and surgery. In this regard, the foundation in 1864 of the Early English Texts Society by Frederick James Furnivall, Richard Morris, Walter Skeat and others was crucial to the dissemination of previously-unseen medical tracts – both scholastic and commonplace – throughout the scholarly community. The series had immediate impact, bringing out an Extra Series in 1867, to re-issue texts that already existed in inaccessible editions. Notable amongst the early editions published by the society are Lanfrank’s Science of Cirurgie I (OS 102: 1894; rpt. 2002), edited by Robert von Fleischbacker, and The Anatomie of the Bodie of a Man by Thomas Vicary (ES 53: 1888; rpt. 1996), ed. Frederick J. Furnivall and Percy Furnival. Important, too, are Margaret Sinclair Ogden’s edition, The Liber de Diversis Medicinis in the Thornton Manuscript (OS 207: 1938; rpt. 1970) and her edition of the Cyrurgie of Guy de Chauliac (OS 265: 1971). Important, too, is the edition of William Bullein’s Dialogue against the Feuer Pestilence (Mark Bullen and Arthur Henry Bullen; ES 52: 1888; rpt. 2001), as well as longer, encyclopedic texts that deal with medical matters generally, such as the Secretum Secretorum (ed. Mahmoud. A. Manzalaoui; OS 276: 1977) and
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the verse dialogue Sidrak and Bokkus I and II (ed. Tom Burton; OS 311 & 312: 1998, 1999). Old English medical material is represented chiefly by Hubert J. de Vriend’s The Old English Herbarium and Medicina de Quadrupedibus (OS 286: 1984). Although the EETS series has done much to promote the editing and publication of lesser-known, overlooked, or obscure medical tracts, the relatively small number of editions of medical texts produced may point to the difficulties faced by editors of these writings; moreover, the Liber de Diversis Medicinis contained in Robert Thornton’s commonplace book, or the material contained in a text like the Secretum, material medica can be absorbed into longer, more generally-themed tracts or books, and hence they defy facile location or definition or, as is probably the case with the EETS, medical texts can be too short, too fragmentary, or too variant to warrant a single edition. The latter two decades of the 20th century witnessed an explosion of interest in Fachliteratur in general (e. g., Bernhard Dietrich Haage and Wolfgang Wegner, Deutsche Fachliteratur der Artes in Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit, 2007), and in works of medicine in particular, due in no small part to the identification and listing of unedited and/or unnoticed texts and tracts. As George Keiser puts it, “writings that had once seemed marginal and deserving of concern only for their philological value are now being shown to be central to an understanding of literary, social, intellectual, political, and cultural history” (“Scientific, Medical and Utilitarian Prose,” Anthony Stockwell Garfield Edwards, ed., 2004, 231–48). Medical texts in Middle English have been extremely well-served by Keiser’s own weighty contribution to the Manual of the Writings in Middle English series; his volume ten, Works of Science and Information, includes a lengthy and detailed section on medicine, along with a handlist of manuscripts. Initiatives such as the ongoing publication of volumes in the Index of Middle English Prose series allow editors ready access to handlists of both complete and fragmentary texts surviving in library collections worldwide. Prose medical tracts, specifically, have received continued attention since the inclusion of Laurel Braswell’s chapter on “Medicine” in Edwards’ edited collection Middle English Prose: A Critical Guide to Major Authors and Genres, 1984, 337–87), which surveyed major texts and traditions, and catalogued known manuscripts preserving materia medica. That the recent updated and reworked version of this volume omits this cataloguing work is testament to the amount of new research carried out in the intervening twenty years. In A Companion to Middle English Prose, ed. Edwards (2004), Keiser surveys research to date whilst foregrounding texts and manuscripts in need of further attention (“Scientific, Medical and Utilitarian Prose,” 231–48). The appearance of A New Index of Middle English Verse (Julia Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards, 2005)
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records medical treatises that appear in verse form, as well as verse prologues to prose tracts, updating the previous Index of Carleton Brown and Rossell Hope Robbins (1943), and its Supplement (Robbins and John. L. Cutler, 1965). There has also been a move to update the philological work carried out by Fredrick J. Furnivall and colleagues for The Early English Text Society at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the last. The publication of Rossell Hope Robbins’s seminal paper, “Medical Manuscripts in Medieval English,” in Speculum (45 [1970]: 393–415) arguably spearheaded attempts to generically classify medical texts in terms of the approach taken by each. Prior to this, Robbins noted, texts were classified either as university tracts or guides for unlearned practitioners. One of the enduring legacies of Robbins’s work has been to encourage specific research work, such as that of Monica H. Green. Her important study, “Obstetrical and Gynecological Texts in Middle English” (Studies in the Age of Chaucer 14 [1992]: 53–88) builds on the work of Robbins, analyzing, identifying, and cataloguing texts which either concern themselves with maladies particular to women or those that address themselves to a female audience or readership. Green notes that several Latin texts on women’s medical concerns (such as the Gynaecia of Musico) circulated in medieval Europe, along with translations from Greek and some translations into Anglo-Norman; these texts were deposited in the extensive libraries of priories and abbeys. Also circulating, and likewise important for research into medical practices concerned with women, are the large encyclopedic tracts, like that of Gilbertus Anglicus, which contained chapters or sections on childbirth and women’s diseases (55). Green’s handlist, which accompanies the paper, divides the extant texts into three categories: Middle English translations of Trotula; manuscripts of “The Sekenesse of Wymmen,” and other obstetrical and gynecological material, including recipe collections and shorter remedies. Studies of the bubonic plague – and the plague tracts first catalogued by Singer and Anderson (1950, see above) – are in many ways the nexus of medical and social history, and were common in the Middle Ages. They have steadily received critical attention throughout the 20th-century, notably by Jean-Noël Biraben’s two-volume Les hommes et la peste en France et dans les pays européens et méditerranéens (1975); in the work of Luke Demaitre (“The Description and Diagnosis of Leprosy by Fourteenth-Century Physicians,” Bulletin in the History of Medicine 59 [1985]: 327–44, and Leprosy in Premodern Medicine: A Malady of the Whole Body, 2007); and in a more general study by Rosemary Horrox (The Black Death, 1994).
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C. Major Contributors As with the history of science, some of the most important and influential contributions both on the cultural and practical history of medieval medicine have appeared in serials. The journals Isis and Osiris, both founded early in the 20th century, have been the loci for debate, new research, and definitions of the study of medicine. Notable here is the volume of Osiris edited by Michael R. McVaugh Nancy G. Siraisi and dedicated to medical knowledge in Western Europe between the 12th and 16th centuries (6: 1990). This issue contains studies by Vivian Nutton, Chiara Crisciani and Danielle Jacquert, as well as by both editors. One of the standard reference works on the history of medicine in specific societies and European countries is Charles H. Talbot, Medicine in Medieval England (1967), which is aimed at the general reader but nonetheless is exhaustive in its scope, examining medical texts from the leech-book to the scholastic and addressing specific case-studies such as the medical schools at Montpellier and Salerno, as well as treating of subjects such as hygiene and etiquette, hospitals and epidemics. With much of the focus on the history of medicine in England – or indeed on medical texts in Old and Middle English – works that consider continental European medicine are welcome. General studies include Henry Siegerist’s influential two-volume A History of Medicine (1951–1961); France is treated of by Loren C. MacKinney’s Early Medieval Medicine with Special Reference to France and Chartres (1937). Medieval European medical practice and textual history is recovered by Lusia Cogliati Arano’s Medieval Health Handbook – Tacuinum Sanitatis (1976), a blend of medical illustration and texts that display the influence of Arabic medicine – from manuscripts produced in the Po Valley in the late 14th century. Early – and extremely influential – German scholarship for the history of medicine in Europe came with Heinrich Häser’s three-volume Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Medizin und der epidemischen Krankheiten: Geschichte der Medizin im Alterthum und Mittelalter (Jena, 1882; rpt.1971). Notable new scholarship in German is the edited volume of conference proceedings from Andreas Meyer and Jürgen Schulz-Grobert, Gesund und krank im Mittelalter: Marburger Beiträge zur Kulturgeschichte der Medizin (2007), containing new research on German and European medical history of the Middle Ages. Research in English with a continental focus includes Vivian Nutton’s “Medicine at the German Universities 1348–1500: A Preliminary Sketch,” Roger. French et al., ed., Medicine from the Black Death to the French Disease (1998), 85–109. Nutton has also placed focus on the Netherlands: “Dr James’ Legacy: Dutch Printing and the History of Medicine,” Lotte Hellinga et al., ed., The Bookshop of the World: The Role of the Low Countries in
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the Book Trade, 1473–1941 (2001), 207–18. Medicine and materia medica in Ireland have long been overlooked, with the exception of the work of Winifred Wulff, who edited the Rosa Anglica, a Latin text that was extensively translated into Irish, in 1929. This neglect is slowly being redressed, not least by Aoibheann Nic Dhonnchadha (“Irish Medical Manuscripts,” Irish Pharmacy Journal 69.5 [1991]: 201–02), and by the important editoral work of the CELT Project (http://www.ucc.ie/celt/medical.html). Cornelius O’ Boyle’s book-length study of the Ars medicine builds upon the important research carried out by Paul Oskar Kristeller on Articella in the late 1970s (“Bartholomaeus, Musandinus and Maurus of Salerno,” Italia medioevale e umanistica 19 [1976]: 57–87). O’ Boyle, in The Art of Medicine: Medical Teaching at the University of Paris, 1250–1400 (1998), traces the textual tradition of the Ars, noting that of all texts studied in medieval and Renaissance medical schools, it attracted the most commentaries. Furthermore, O’ Boyle uses the Ars to compare medical centers in the 13th and 14th centuries, significantly identifying how “differences in the style of textual arrangement in Italy anticipated in Paris, and vice versa” (Walton O. Schalick, “Book Review,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 55.4 [2000]: 428). Schalick also notes that O’Boyle marries textual and social history to demonstrate how the text was used by both students and teachers. Vern L. Bullough has been a major contributor, specifically with regard to the role of the universities, the professionalization of medicine, and the experiences of both students and teachers of medicine not just in England but on the continent. Notable amongst his numerous contributions are: “The Teaching of Surgery at the University of Montpellier in the Thirteenth Century,” Journal of the History of Medicine 15 (1960): 202–04; “Medical Studies at Medieval Oxford,” Speculum 36 (1961): 600–12; and the monograph The Development of Medicine as a Profession (1966). Herbs and Herbalism in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (1999) collects some of the published articles of Jerry Stannard. Perhaps reflecting the trans-disciplinary nature of the history of medicine, this work gathers papers of Stannard’s that were previously disparate, described in one review as having been “hidden away in Festschriften, congress proceedings, and small newsletters” as well as in “journals [such] as the Bulletin of the History of Medicine” (Ynez Violé O’Neill and Mark H. Infusino, “Book Review,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 56.2 [2001]: 184). Hailed as the “authority on premodern medical pharmacology,” Stannard’s collection is divided into four main sections: medieval herbals, late medieval Rezeptliteratur, Renaissance Italy and Germany, and species studies, completing a study that is not only important and comprehensive, but reflective of Stannard’s ulti-
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mate legacy: “the development of scholarship that does not disdain Fachliteratur” (O’Neill and Infusino, 2001, 187). Significant here, too, is Tony Hunt’s Plant Names of Medieval England (1989), a scholarly and comprehensive account of the complex linguistic history and medical significance of botany. Linda Ersham Voigts, “Scientific and Medical Books,” Book Production and Publishing in Britain, 1375–1475, ed. Jeremy Griffiths and Derek Pearsall (1989), 345–402, and Peter M. Jones, “Medicine and Science,” The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, 1400–1557, ed. Lotte Hellinga et al. (1999), 433–69, are the starting points for students of book history, textual dissemination, and reception of medieval English medical treatises. Parallel to this, Renate Wittern offers a solid overview of the continuities and changes in the history of medicine from the 14th to the 16th century (“Kontinuität und Wandel in der Medizin des 14. bis 16. Jahrhunderts,” Mittelalter und frühe Neuzeit, ed. Walter Haug, 1999, 550–71). The cataloguing work carried out by Singer (1919) and Thorndike and Kibre (1937) are still relevant, built upon by Voigts (1984), Keiser (1999), and the re-publications by Voigts and Kurtz (2000), and Pahta et al. (2004). In the areas of the contribution of medieval women to medicine, and the medical care of women in the Middle Ages, Monica H. Green’s research must be the starting point. Falling into both categories, Green’s edited translation of and commentary on the 11th-century Trotula, a compendium of gynecological, regimens of health, and other material pertaining to the wellbeing of women, is the first modern translation into English of a text that circulated widely and in learned circles for much of the medieval period (Christiane Nockels, “Book Review,” Journal of the History of Medicine 57 [2002]: 353). The Trotula, reputedly authored by a woman named Trota in Salerno, is not only revealing in terms of contemporary medical treatment of women but is important too for the study of attitudes to and actualities of female sexual practices. A general study on women’s health issues, specifically gynecology, is Paul Diepgen’s Frau und Frauenheilkunde in der Kultur des Mittelalters (1963). Significant in the latter distinction is Beryl Rowland’s Medieval Woman’s Guide to Health: The First English Gynecological Handbook (1981), which edits a text from London, British Library, MS Sloane 2463; for a response to this, see Jerry Stannard and Linda E. Voigts in Speculum 57 (1982): 422–26. M.-R. Hallaert does similar work in “The Sekenesse of wymmen: A Middle English Treatise on Diseases in Women (Yale Medical Library, MS 47 fols. 60r-71v,” Scripta: Mediaeval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, vol. 8 (1982). For a comprehensive study of the relationship between the body, medicine, and gender, see Danielle Jacquart and Claude Thomassat, Sexuality and Medicine in the Middle Ages (1988).
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Anglo-Norman medicine and medical texts have recently had one sole champion in Tony Hunt; his Popular Medicine in Thirteenth-Century England: Introduction and Texts (1990) edited some previously ignored treatises, recipes, and notes. In Anglo-Norman Medicine, vol. 1: Roger Frugard’s ‘Chirurgia’ and the ‘Practica brevis’ of Platearius (1994), he treats the scholastic tradition; both texts are academic and theoretical, and Hunt comments on the contexts in which they survive, noting the close connections between French and English medicine in the 12th century (John Scarborough, “Review,” Isis 86.3 (1995): 477–48). Scarborough observes, too, that the fresh editions of and commentaries on these surgical texts represent the “long-awaited corrections to the badly edited Latin texts by Karl Sudhoff” at the beginning of the 20th century (477). The second volume of that work, Shorter Treatises (1997), completes the edition of the Anglo-Norman texts from Cambridge, Trinity College, MS O.1.20 (the Trotula and a treatise on visitation of the sick) and includes two medical compendia: the “Euperiston” from Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, MS 18.6.9, and the practica from Cambridge, Trinity College, MS O.5.32. Volume 2 also contains a comprehensive bibliography, manuscript descriptions, and discussion. Earlier work on the social history Anglo-Norman medicine was carried out by Edward J. Kealey: Medieval Medicus: A Social History of Anglo-Norman Medicine (1981). The contribution of Karl Sudhoff to German medical history cannot be ignored. Generally credited with the professionalization of medical history as a discipline in German universities, Sudhoff published extensively, his focus being philological and source-oriented (Thomas Rütten, “Karl Sudhoff and ‘the Fall’ of German Medical History,” Locating Medical History: The Stories and their Meanings, ed. Frank Huisman and John Harley Warner, 2004, 95–114). His editorial work for the Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin (est. 1907) led to the change in name to Sudhoff ’s Archiv in 1929; both publications are littered with his contributions, and are too numerous to mention here; however, among the most influential are his work on the translator Gerard of Cremona: “Die kurze Vita und das Verzeichnis der Arbeiten Gerhards von Cremona,” Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin 14 (1923): 73–82, and his Beiträge zur Geschichte der Chirurgie im Mittelalter: Graphische und textliche Untersuchungen in mittelalterlichen Handschriften, 2 vols. (1914–1918). Medical imagery, or illustrations in medical manuscripts (or, indeed, accompanying medical texts) were also concerns of Sudhoff’s; he surveyed anatomical drawings and schemas in “Anatomische Zeichnungen (Schemata) aus dem 12. und 13. Jahrhundert und eine Skelettzeichnung des 14. Jahrhunderts,” Studien zur Geschichte der Medizin (1907), 49–65. Such matters, however, have more recently had their champions in Loren Mac-
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Kinney and Peter M. Jones, who build upon the work of Charles Singer (“Thirteenth Century Miniatures Illustrating Medical Practice,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 9 [1916]: 29–42). MacKinney’s Medical Illustrations in Medieval Manuscripts (1965) is influential, covering medical manuscripts and texts in nearly 200 European library repositories; Jones’s Medieval Medical Miniatures (1984) and the slightly revised version, Medieval Medicine in Illuminated Manuscripts (1998) are comprehensive and authoritative, and contain admirable, wide-ranging surveys of medieval European medicine in their respective introductions. Also useful is Robert Herrlinger’s A History of Medical Illustrations from Antiquity to AD 1600 (1966). Some recent, general yet important overviews are excellent for an introduction to trends in research: in particular, Carol Rawcliffe, Medicine and Society in Later Medieval England (1995) and Faye Getz, Medicine in the English Middle Ages (1998). An accessible study has also recently been produced by Roy Porter: Blood and Guts: A Short History of Medicine (2003). Rawcliffe has, moreover, contributed a valuable compendium of documentary sources: Sources for the History of Medicine in Late Medieval England (1995). D. Discussion of Current Research In recent times, technology has been employed to produce searchable databases of texts surviving in Middle English in particular. The CD-Rom, Scientific and Medical Writings in Old and Middle English: An Electronic Reference (routinely cited as eVK; Linda Ersham Voigts and Patricia Deery Kurtz, 2000) hosts an searchable database of texts, critical editions and secondary material, and catalogues approximately ten thousand items from 1,134 codices surviving from the period 1375–1475 (Linda Ersham Voigts, “What’s the Word? Bilingualism in Late-Medieval England,” Speculum 71.4 [1996]: 813–26). Revealingly, only one hundred of these texts have been fully edited (Päivi Pahta and Irma Taavitsainen, “Vernacularisation of Scientific and Medical Writing in Its Sociohistorical Context,” Medical and Scientific Writing in Late Medieval English, 2004, 1–22. This publication helpfully incorporates the still-relevant work carried out by Lynn Thorndike and Pearl Kibre in their ‘TK’ Index (Catalogue of Incipits of Mediaeval Scientific Writings in Latin (1937, rev. 1963). An equally important electronic publication comes out of the collaboration between Päivi Pahta, Martii Mäkinen, and Irma Taavitsainen, along with Raymond Hickey, taking the form of a fully-searchable CD-Rom entitled Middle English Medical Texts or MEMT (2005). This resource, which is intended for use by philologists and linguists as well as historians of medicine, covers the period 1375–1500 (from c. 1330 for recipes). It differs from
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eVK in that it mostly edits texts from printed sources, though some texts have been transcribed for the first time from their manuscript sources (Peter Grund, “Book Review,” Journal of English Linguistics 35.1 [2007]: 103). The compilers impose a classification system on the eighty-three texts examined: surgical, specialized, and remedies and materia medica, distinguishing verse texts. The CD-Rom features a comprehensive introduction, detailing editorial practices, relevant scholarly publications and editions, and catalogues, cross-referencing both Keiser (1999), eVK and the Linguistic Atlas of Late Medieval English (McIntosh, Samuels and Benskin, 1986) (Year’s Work in English Studies 86.1: 216). The CD-Rom places its focus on the later Middle Ages, naturally, due to the exponential increase in the numbers of texts appearing in English, as opposed to in Latin or French, at this time; significantly, this publication also contains extracts from, for example, John Trevisa’s On the Properties of Things and from some versions of the Secretum, both of which contain medical advice and lore. Advances in textual scholarship and in the identification, classification, and cataloguing of texts has allowed research to be concentrated on specific contexts of medieval medicine; M. Teresa Tavormina’s Sex, Ageing and Death in a Medieval Medical Compendium (2006) places focus on one MS, Cambridge, Trinity College, R.14.52, and seems to be representative of a shift in studies of medieval medicine. Work by the same author on uroscopy is similarly demonstrative of the tendency toward focused, specialized studies (“The Twenty-Jordan Series: An Illustrated Middle English Uroscopy Text,” ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Notes, Articles, and Reviews 18.3 (2005): 43–67. On the whole, the future of research into medicine in the European Middle Ages is taking a directional change, discovering what medical texts and their audiences can tell us about reading contexts and communities, scribal activity, and book history, rather than just the theory and practice of medicine. Recent work on reception, sociolinguistics, and translation collected by Taavitsainen and Pahta (2004) is significant in that it foregrounds the more holistic treatment of the history of medicine in the Middle Ages. Select Bibliography Luke Demaitre, Leprosy in Premodern Medicine: A Malady of the Whole Body, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007); Tony Hunt, Anglo-Norman Medicine, 2 vols. (Rochester, NY: Boydell & Brewer, 1994); Loren C. MacKinney, Early Medieval Medicine with Special Reference to France and Chartres (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1937); Roy Porter, The Cambridge History of Medicine (Cambridge University Press, 2006); Rossell Hope Robbins, “Medical Manuscripts in Middle English,” Speculum 45.3 (1970): 393–415; George Sarton, “The History of Science versus the History
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of Medicine,” Isis 23.2 (1935): 313–20; Henry A. Siegerist, “The History of Medicine and The History of Science,” Bulletin in the History of Medicine 4 (1936): 1–13; Jerry Stannard, Herbs and Herbalism in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (Brookfield, VT: Ashgate, 1999); Scientific and Medical Writing in Late Medieval English, ed. Irma Taavitsainen and Päivi Pahta (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
Carrie Griffin
Historiography of Medieval Science A. Foundations and Early Debates: Scientific Revolution or Continuity The history of 20th-century interest in medieval science and science history begins with George Sarton (1884–1956) and Pierre Duhem (1861–1916). Sarton is considered to be the founder of the history of science, since he worked to establish the infrastructure and tools required for the institutionalization of the discipline. In 1912, he founded the journal Isis, which continues as the foremost journal in the field. With funding from the Carnegie institute, he conducted research and directed graduate students at Harvard. His Introduction to the History of Science (3 vol., 1919–48) was intended to be a compendium of sources for students. However, he underestimated the slow pace of historical research and after three decades, he was only able to complete half of the projected volumes, and so the study ends with 14th-century Europe. Sarton had established the study of science history, believing that it would become a “new humanism” and would celebrate the achievement of human progress from superstitious belief to enlightened rationalism (Thackray and Merton, “George Sarton,” Dictionary of Scientific Biography, 1976, XI: 113). Sarton’s idealistic teleology of progress has disappeared as a methodological principle and an explanation of scientific change. However, questions concerning the causes of scientific change remain central to the discipline: To what degree are changes in scientific thought the consequence of historical continuity or the result of rebellion against tradition? What factors should be considered when examining the causes for change? Is the history of scientific theory best described as a sequence of intellectually motivated changes, as “internalist” historians would argue? Or are scientific changes motivated by social or economic pressures, or by personal or religious beliefs, as “externalist” historians maintain? Pierre Duhem provided a radical reformulation of the first question, and introduced a new thesis for the nature of scientific change. Duhem was
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perhaps the first person to recognize the intellectual worth of medieval science and to challenge Burkhart’s representation of the Middle Ages as a period of intellectual stagnation. In his three-volume Études sur Léonard de Vinci (1906–1913) Duhem argued that many of the scientific theories supposedly developed by Leonardo and Descartes were already found among the 14th-century scholastics. In the first four volumes of Le système du monde he presented medieval theories of cosmology, and demonstrated how the reaction to Aristotelian science in the 14th century allowed a new conceptualization of the word-system to develop and flourish. Duhem translated and set into print the work of Nicole Oresme, Jean Buridan and other scholastics, whose writings were previously unknown, being concealed in the Paris archives. Drawing from the innovative achievements of these masters, Duhem argued that the history of scientific change was characterized principally by continuity and respect for tradition, not by revolution, reaction or the inspiration of isolated genius. He argued that 14th-century theories of motion already contained the essential elements of classical physics, and that many of the so-called innovations of the 17th century had drawn largely from this earlier period. Duhem’s thesis had a polarizing effect and initiated an on-going debate between medievalists, who defended the importance of earlier innovations, and early modernists, who saw their chosen period as introducing a fundamentally different character of thought. Alexandre Koyré (1882–1964), a historian of early modern science, was perhaps Duhem’s most persuasive and influential opponent. He maintained that revolution was a necessary part of scientific change, and indeed Koyré’s description of the Scientific Revolution shaped the 20th-century understanding of the notion (H. Floris Cohen, The Scientific Revolution: A Historiographical Inquiry, 1994, 74). Koyré argued that the science of the early modern era broke radically with its predecessors. If the early modern period had intellectual precursors at all, these were to be found among the Greeks with Archimedes, not in the Middle ages with Oresme and Buridan, as Duhem claimed (Koyré, Études galiléennes, 1939). He also argued that Duhem had grossly over-exaggerated the importance of the Condemnations of 1277 as inaugurating a new era in scientific thought, since the event was more accurately the result of ignorance and misunderstanding (Koyré “Le Vide et l’espace infinie au XIVe siècle,” AHDLMA 24 [1949]: 47–91). Several scholars in the United States extended Duhem’s continuity thesis, applying the principle to other historical periods or other aspects of scientific thought. During the years that Duhem was engaged in research for his Études sur Léonard de Vinci, Lynn Thorndike (1882–1965) had nearly
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completed his dissertation on the place of magic and experimental science in intellectual history. Thorndike received his doctorate in 1905 and in the following decade published several articles on Roger Bacon and astrology. The publication of the first volume of The History of Magic and Experimental Science (1923) marked the beginning of his life’s work. This encyclopedic study of the history of science would extend eight volumes and four decades (1923–64), and today Thorndike’s study remains an important research tool for the history of science. Like Duhem, Thorndike introduced into currency a wealth of texts and authors which had long remained hidden in European archives. However, Thorndike’s handling of primary sources was more careful and attentive than that of Duhem. Duhem often overtranslated the scholastic authors, presenting medieval natural philosophy in the terms of 20th-century physics. In addition, Duhem had also set the writings of individual authors into an overarching narrative of progress. Thorndike’s scholarship resisted providing a connecting narrative. Charles Homer Haskins (1870–1937) drew from Thorndike’s work, but focused his attention upon the 12th century. He considered the dissemination of Arabic treatises in mathematics and physics over the course of the century, and demonstrated how the influx of these texts contributed to the cultural renaissance of that period (Studies in the History of Medieval Science, 1924). Thorndike provided a favorable review of the book (Review: “C.H. Haskins, Studies in the History of Medieval Science,” American Historical Review 30 [1925]: 344–46). The scientific topics Duhem investigated – physical theory, cosmology, and mathematics – would dominate and define the history of science during its first few decades. Attention to these areas was reinforced by George Sarton, who preferred the theoretical nature of physical science. Sarton promoted internalist histories; that is, he considered the history of science to be a history purely of ideas. He objected to the study of the history of magic, which he considered to be antithetical to true scientific inquiry: the historian of science does not study magic, Sarton claimed, “because this does not help him very much to understand human progress” (Introduction to the History of Science, 1927, I: 19). Consequently, Sarton was initially critical of Thorndike’s work (Review: “Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science During the First Thirteen Centuries of Our Era,” Isis 6 [1924]: 74–89). However, he did acknowledge Thorndike’s contributions: the eleventh volume of Osiris (1954) is dedicated to Lynn Thorndike. Likewise, Sarton considered the history of life sciences to be secondary to the study of physics and mathematics: “the historian of medicine who imagines that he is ipso facto a historian of science, is laboring under a gross de-
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lusion […] however excellent of its kind, considered as history of science, [the history of medicine] is essentially incomplete and misleading” (Sarton, “The History of Science Versus the History of Medicine,” Isis 23 [1935]: 315–20). Sarton’s preferences held a wider currency among historians of his generation, and so the initial decades of the history of science were dominated by these interests. The history of biology, chemistry and medicine has received less attention. The history of medieval technology emerged as a topic in the early 1960s, thanks largely to Lynn White, Jr. The history of occult arts and experimentation has held an ambiguous relationship with historians of science, being disregarded by Sarton and positivist historians, but supported by the Warburg Institute and its community of scholars. During the 1960s the breadth of topics encompassing medieval science would continue to diversify, as scholars became more attentive to the ways in which social factors impinge upon and shape theories. The scientific problems which Duhem had introduced continued to receive attention between the 1920s and 1960s. These topics included theories of projectile motion, the acceleration of bodies in free fall, the intention and remission of forms, the reformulation of Aristotelian theories of space and time, and finally, speculations concerning other possible worlds and void space. However, while Duhem’s topics persisted, the cardinal points of his continuity thesis were modified. In 1959, Marshall Clagett (1916–2005) a student of Lynn Thorndike, observed that “the succeeding study of medieval mechanics has been largely devoted to an extension or refutation of Duhem’s work” (The Science of Mechanics in the Middle Ages, 1959, xxi). There are three principle components to Duhem’s continuity thesis, all of which were revised by the scholars of these decades. First, Duhem claimed that the principal achievements of 17th-century physics were already found in 14th-century science. For example, he claimed that Buridan’s impetus theory already embodied the law of inertia. The second part of Duhem’s thesis identified the Condemnations of 1277 as the primary cause for the remarkable outgrowth of innovative theories throughout the 14th century. The Condemnations of 1277 had challenged Aristotelian philosophy and its definitions of time and space. Consequently philosophers were free to formulate new definitions of the universe and so cultivate a new breed of experimental science. Duhem even claimed that 1277 signaled the birth date of modern science. The third, less crucial aspect of the thesis was that the principal achievements of the 14th century occurred in France. He gave considerable attention to the French masters Jean Buridan and Nicole Oresme, and overlooked the role of the Oxford Calculators. He often credited the French masters with innovations which had in fact originated among the Oxford Calculators
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(John E. Murdoch, “Pierre Duhem and the History of Late Medieval Science and Philosophy in the Lain West,” Gli studi di filosofia medievale fra otto e novecento, ed. Ruedi Imbach and Alfonso Maieru, 1991, 253–302). The Dutch scholar, Eduard Jan Dijksterhuis (1892–1965), was one of the first to respond to Duhem’s work. In his Val en Worp (1924), he continued to examine the topics which Duhem introduced: the theory of free fall and projectile motion. His De Mechanisering van het wereldbeeld (1950) (in English trans.: The Mechanization of the World Picture, 1960) proposed that scientific developments were spurred by the “mathematization” of nature; in other words mathematical and mechanical explanations of physical change were fundamental in bringing about modern science. For instance, Bradwardine’s theories of motion, describing variations in speeds through a series of proportions, thus represent an important step towards Galileo’s experimentations in measuring velocities. Like Duhem, Dijksterhuis emphasized the continuity of scientific thought, though he would also criticize Duhem for inaccuracies in his translations. Anneliese Maier (1905–1971) provided one of the most influential reassessments of Duhem’s thesis. She agreed with principle of continuity; however she criticized Duhem for anachronism and presentism. Duhem had often translated scholastic theories into the terms of 20th-century physics presentind them in relation to the writings of Galileo or Leonardo. Maier maintained that 14th-century scholasticism must be examined in its own terms, without reference to later periods. While Duhem translated his Latin sources into French, Maier provided extensive Latin quotations to supplement her German prose, and she used the terminology found within the authors themselves, rather than importing terms from classical physics. She modified Duhem’s continuity thesis. She demonstrated that the 14th-century theory of impetus was fundamentally different from the law of inertia. Thus, she claimed, the latter generation of 17th-century scientists can indeed be credited with introducing a revolutionary new order of nature. The title of her book, Die Vorläufer Galileis im 14. Jahrhundert (1949), suggestively indicates her response to Duhem’s thesis. Obviously, then, Maier did not see 1277 as the birthdate of modern science; nor did she consider it the primary cause of change initiating the re-conceptualization of nature in the 14th century. She looked for other historical influences, and found that 14th-century natural philosophy had imported many of its innovations from optics, medicine and technology. Apart from her criticisms and revisions, Maier still hailed Duhem’s research as a pioneering achievement, not only because he had brought to light so much scholastic material, but because he opened up a new field of research.
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Maier published a series of articles on 14th-century impetus theory throughout the 1940s. The articles are still considered authoritative today. At the time of their publication, however, her contributions were not acknowledged, being overshadowed by the war. At the end of the 1950s, Marshall Clagett drew attention to the importance of her work, and he is likely responsible for the recognition she received in North America and her influence there. In the same preface where Clagett states the ambiguity of Duhem’s legacy, he praises Maier for having put Duhem’s discoveries into their proper setting (The Science of Mechanics in the Middle Ages, 1959, xxi). Because of Clagett’s praise, Maier’s method of presentation and analysis formed the model for examining scholastic material, situating it in its philosophical and historical context (Edith Sylla, Texts and Contexts in Ancient and Medieval Science, 1997, xii). Marshall Clagett’s scholarship shared with Maier’s own a careful attention to detail and fidelity to 14th-century terms. His most influential book, The Science of Mechanics in the Middle Ages (1959) examined the medieval science of weights and motion. He drew attention to the importance of the Oxford Calculators, which Duhem had overlooked. He collaborated with Ernst Moody, who originally had served on Clagett’s dissertation committee, and together they edited a collection of medieval statistical works: The Medieval Science of Weights: Treatises ascribed to Euclid, Archimedes, Thatbit ibn Qurrar, Jordanus de Nemore, and Blasius of Parma (1952). Clagett would pursue this interest in the history of weights, editing Latin translations of Archimedes’ writings (Archimedes in the Middle Ages, 10 vol., 1964–1984). Clagett engaged in a detailed investigation of specific topics and signaled the need for more critical editions and translations of sources in medieval science which might facilitate further studies of this nature. The students of Moody and Clagett answered this call and produced critical editions of their own: Lamar Crosby, Jr., Curtis Wilson, and Edward Grant, have provided a small library of edited texts, published through University of Wisconsin. Alister Crombie presented a variation Duhem’s continuity thesis, invoking a different body of evidence. His Robert Grosseteste and the Origins of Experimental Science, 1100–1700 (1953) claimed that the procedure of experimentation carried out by Robert Grosseteste and Roger Bacon formed the model for the experimental method of Francis Bacon, Descartes, Galileo, and Newton. All of these thinkers recorded the results of their experiments by writing discourses and in doing so, they followed a medieval tradition. Clagett spoke positively of the book, but cautioned that the causal chain which Crombie had outlined exaggerated the evidence (Review: “A. Crombie, Robert Grossetest and the Origins of Experimental Science,” Isis 46
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[1955]: 66–69). Koyré challenged the book and argued that the documentation of experimentation is not enough to create science (“The Origins of Modern Science: New Interpretation,” Diogenes 16 [1956]: 1–22). Koyré was interested in the more theoretical branches of science. Like Dijksterhuis, he believed that the mathematization of physical sciences had lead to the Scientific Revolution and he disregarded the role of the technical or experimental as a force for scientific change. Crombie would find a more sympathetic voice with Lynn White and others who were more willing to consider the role of the technical or experimental in shaping science theories. B. “Paradigm Shifts”: Social Forces in Science History During the 1960s, the study of science history changed dramatically, as scholarship became more aware of how knowledge can be shaped and determined by social forces. In 1962, Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was published. In the year prior to this publication, a symposium on science history was held at Oxford, and it anticipated some of the redirections heralded by Kuhn’s study. The title of the published proceedings, Scientific Change: Historical Studies in the Intellectual, Social and Technical Conditions for Scientific Discovery and Technical Invention, from Antiquity to the Present, as well as the list of presented topics, both point to a growing interest in sociological factors and in the role of technology; the papers show that the range of topics in science history was becoming increasingly diversified. Lynn’s paper, “What Accelerated Technological Progress in the Western Middle Ages” anticipated his book, Medieval Technology and Social Change, published in the following year. Kuhn’s paper “The Function of Dogma in Scientific Research” anticipated the problems discussed in the The Structure. A. C. Crombie’s introduction to the published proceedings acknowledges the diversity of factors, both internal and external, which the historian of science considers. The study of science history began to look increasingly interdisciplinary. The interdisciplinary nature of science history was only underscored by Kuhn’s important study. What is so powerful and original with Kuhn’s account is that it describes scientific theory as being embedded in culture and language. He describes a knowledge system as shaped, not only by its own internal logic, but by definitions which are agreed upon by a community of practitioners; thus scientific theory is a sociological phenomenon. He describes knowledge systems as languages with their own lexicons, which require translation; thus science theory shares the hermeneutical problems of literary studies. Kuhn was hugely successful in disseminating his thesis because he invited the entry of different disciplines. In response, these disciplines appropriated his model, so that the term “paradigm shift” is today ap-
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plied throughout the humanities and social sciences. To what degree a Kuhnian paradigm shift, in its strictest sense, can be applied to medieval science is debated (Edward Grant, “Aristotelianism and the Longevity of the Medieval World View,” History of Science 16 [1978]: 93–106). The role of belief systems or symbolic mentalities which had been previously characterized as anti-rational and antithetical to science were reconsidered and shown to be influential for major scientific thinkers. Frances Yates pointed to the influence of Hermeticism and Neoplatonism in the work of Giordano Bruno (Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, 1964). Her claims were often overstated, and her work has been reconsidered and modified in succeeding studies (Charles B. Schmitt, Studies in Renaissance Philosophy and Science, 1981; Robert Westman, Hermeticism and the Scientific Revolution, 1977). Studies examining the origins of modern chemistry in alchemical and occult practices were stimulated by Walter Pagel (Paracelsus: An Introduction to Philosophical Medicine in the Era of the Renaissance, 1958), and Allen Debus (The English Paracelsians, 1965). Michel Foucault’s Les mots et les choses: Une archéologie des sciences humaines (1966), might be grouped as part of these investigations, since it also examined how symbolic mentalities persisted in the scientific discourse of the early modern period. However, Brian Copenhaver has challenged the historical grounding of Foucault’s method, describing the work as “architecture,” not “archeology” (“Did Science have a Renaissance?” Isis 83 [1992]). The intersection of the history of science and the religion was examined by the Dutch historian R. Hooykaas, who made the counter-intuitive claim that Greek science was hindered by its overconfidence in reason, and that the facts of nature can only be clearly interpreted when the claims of reason are balanced with experience (Hooykaas, Religion and the Rise of Modern Science, 1972). Amos Funkenstein demonstrated how medieval theological conceptions of divine omnipresence and divine knowledge were transformed into the principles of 17th-century science (Funkenstein, Theology and the Scientific Imagination, 1986). Given the tremendous growth in the field from the 1970s to the present, the following survey can only provide a sketch of major contributions. John Murdoch has written numerous articles examining the Oxford Calculators and the principal advancements which distinguished 14th-century physics and mathematics. Edith Sylla’s published dissertation The Oxford Calculators and the Mathematics of Motion, 1320–1350, Physics and Measurement by Latitudes (1991) provides a detailed investigation of the major figures in the Oxford school. Murdoch’s historiographical article surveying the scholarly literature on 14th-century philosophy is an invaluable research tool for navigating these studies (“Pierre Duhem and the History of Late Medieval Science and
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Philosophy in the Latin West” Gli studi di filosofia medievale fra otto e novecento, ed. Ruedi Imbach and Alfonso Maieru, 1991). Edward Grant’s books cover a wider historical range and address the history of cosmologies. His Much Ado About Nothing (1981) examines a history of theories concerning void space and the vacuum. His Planets, Stars and Orbs: The Medieval Cosmos 1200–1687 (1991) considers changes in theories of cosmology and natural philosophy over the course of these centuries. His A Source Book in Medieval Science (1974) remains the most comprehensive collection of primary sources in medieval science. Richard Sorabji also investigates the history of cosmologies; however his research engages more directly with the transmission of Greek theories of cosmology through the Arabic and Jewish traditions (Time, Creation and the Continuum: Theories in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, 1983; Philoponus and the Rejection of Aristotelian Science, 1987). David Lindberg’s books provide a helpful overview, showing the historical development of topics. His earlier career was devoted to the medieval science of optics. He edited John Pecham and the Science of Optics (1970), and later wrote an overview of medieval optical theories: Theories of Vision from al-Kindi to Kepler (1976). His Science in the Middle Ages (1978) provided a compilation of essays from leading scholars of different fields and aimed to serve as an introduction to each of these branches of medieval science. The Beginnings of Western Science: The European Scientific Tradition in Philosophical, Religious and Institutional Context 600–1450 (1992) readdresses the topics of Science in the Middle Ages, and inserts the topics into a framework spanning centuries and cultural traditions. C. The History of Medicine The historiography of medical history has undergone a similar transition, from an emphasis on the intellectual theories of doctors, to a cultural history of practices and patients. The earliest histories of medicine appeared during the 18th and 19th centuries and were written by doctors for a medical audience. H. E. Sigerist was one of the first scholars to consider medicine as a sociological phenomenon. When Sarton questioned the status of medicine as a science in an article titled “The History of Science Versus the History of Medicine” Sigerist issued a printed response titled “The History of Medicine and the History of Science” in which he defended the history of medicine as a field of study in its own right. The history of medicine is not a subsidiary of science history, he claimed, but a social science (“The History of Medicine and the History of Science,” Bulletin of the Institute of the History of Medicine 4 [1936]: 1–13). Sigerist’s A History of Medicine (2 vol., 1951–1961) is one of the
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first histories to include a study of patients, as well as doctors, and to draw from historical and medical texts alike. The history of medieval medicine has given considerable attention to medical treatises and institutional history. Pearl Kibre published several articles on the curriculum of medical studies at medieval institutions; she also edited the Hippocrates Latinus. Vivian Nutton examined the continuity of the Galenic tradition. Danielle Jacquart investigated the transmission of Arabic medicine into the Latin west, giving particular attention to the influence of Gerard of Cremona’s translations. The cultural impact of disease has been most extensively investigated in relation to the Plague. Studies include Philip Ziegler’s Black Death (1969); Ann Carmichael, The Plague and the Poor in Renaissance Florence (1986); Rosemary Horrox, The Black Death (1994). The rift between institutional learning and the experience of the patient is more pronounced in medieval medicine, where the education of physicians was based upon texts and theory, while those who practiced healing-arts could include unschooled practitioners and midwives. Michael Mcvaugh’s Medicine Before the Plague: Practitioners and their Patients (1993) successfully bridges the polarity between theory and practice. He draws upon his knowledge of Arnald of Villanova’s medical writings and examines the relation between his theoretical writing and the documented evidence of his practice. The collection of essays included in Health, Disease and Healing in Medieval Culture (ed. Sheila D. Campbell et al., 1992), investigates links between medical practice and its social impact. Carole Rawcliffe’s Medicine and Society in Later Medieval England (1995) draws from literary sources to reveal popular beliefs, examines the economic factors of cost and availability of treatment, and considers the largely undocumented history of midwives. Faye Getz’s Medicine in the English Middle Ages (1998) examines the relation between the medical practitioner and patient, and considers how the practitioner establishes a reputation and audience. Nancy Sirasi’s Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine: an Introduction to Knowledge and Practice (1994) provides an overview of medieval medical theory and its applications. Several studies have examined the intersection between medical theory and notions of the body and sexuality: Joan Cadden, Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages: Medicine, Science and Culture (1993); Danielle Jacquart and Claude Thomasett, Sexuality and Medicine in the Middle Ages (1995); Caroline Walker Bynum, Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion (1992).
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D. The History of Technology The history of medieval technology was pioneered by Lynn White. He introduced the topic to North American scholarship (“Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages,” Speculum 15 [1940]: 141–59). A. C. Crombie, given his interest in history of experimentation, encouraged White’s scholarship and invited him to contribute to the Oxford Symposium on Scientific Change in 1961. White’s Medieval Technology and Social Change (1962) explored developments in agriculture, irrigation, and military technology. He showed the impact technological innovation had on medieval society, and demonstrated how advances in agriculture led to increasing food supplies and rising population levels. He also introduced new models of research, drawing upon evidence from archeology, iconography and art history, as opposed to documented records (White, Medieval Religion and Technology: Collected Essays, Introduction, 1978). White’s research focused on technologies in agriculture. However, the field of medieval technology has significantly broadened to include the study of innovations in glass-making, cartography, navigation, and jewelry. The list of entries in the recently published Medieval Science Technology and Medicine: An Encyclopedia (ed. Thomas Glick, Steven J. Livesey, and Faith Wallis, 2005), indicates the extent to which the field has diversified. Following the interest in the influence of technology upon scientific theory, Elizabeth Eisenstein examined the role of the printing press in the Scientific Revolution in The Printing Press as an Agent of Change (1979). She argued that the Scientific Revolution was made possible by print technology, since it allowed for the dissemination and influence of emerging theories. Eisenstein’s perceptive appreciation of the power of print technology to establish knowledge and authority has been tremendously influential; however, several of her claims within the book have required modification (Books and the Sciences in History, ed. Marina Frasca-Spada, and Nick Jardine, 2000; and Adrian Johns, The Nature of the Book, 1998). These studies on print technology have implications for our understanding of medieval science, since they suggest how communication media shape scientific theories and communities. From Sarton’s unified vision of the objectives of the history of science, the field has grown and diversified to include a broad range of questions and themes. This growth implies certain challenges. There have been an increasing number of studies on specialized topics, and it has become very difficult to offer a synoptic, generalized account of the history which the discipline purports to examine. One speaks of a “Scientific Revolution” with quotations marks, since so many studies have pointed to its failings and anach-
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ronistic presuppositions. Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution (ed. David Lindberg, and Robert Westman, 1990) contains a collection of statements from prominent historians who consider whether the term “Scientific Revolution” still holds validity. One of the future challenges for the discipline will be to recover or discover its purpose and identity. Select Bibliography Marshall Clagett, The Science of Mechanics in the Middle Ages (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1959); H. Floris Cohen, The Scientific Revolution: A Historiographical Inquiry (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994); Edward Grant, A Source Book in Medieval Science (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1974); John Harley Warner, “History of Science and the Science of Medicine,” Osiris 10 (1995): 164–93; David Lindberg, The Beginnings of Western Science: The European scientific tradition in philosophical, religious and institutional context, 600B.C. to A.D. 1450 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992); Anneliese Maier, Die Vorläufer Galileis im 14. Jahrhundert: Studien zur Naturphilosophie der Spätscholastik (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1949); John E. Murdoch, “Pierre Duhem and the History of Late Medieval Science and Philosophy in the Lain West,” Gli studi filosofia medievale fra otto e novecento, ed. Ruedi Imbach and Alfonso Maieru (Rome: Storia e Letteratura, 1991), 253–302; Nancy Sirasi, Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine: An Introduction to Knowledge and Practice (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990); Lynn Thorndike, The History of Magic and Experimental Science in the First Thirteen Centuries of Our Era (New York: Columbia University Press, 8 vols., 1923–1958).
Sarah Powrie
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I Iberian Studies A. Definition Medieval Iberian studies began with fits and starts, but slowly grew and developed to become an energetic field of study that continues to open new avenues to illuminating and understanding the Middle Ages and the role of Iberian inhabitants in shaping Western, as well as Eastern thought and tradition. In broad terms, the history of Iberian studies may be said to begin in the 19th century with the three-volume work by George Ticknor in 1854 (History of Spanish Literature), followed by Amador De Los Ríos’s seven-volume work seven years later (Historia crítica de la literatura española, 1861–1865). Ticknor’s research and presentation of Iberian texts was colored by a philosophy of literature that led him to pursue a historical rather than critical examination of the works he presented, and to emphasize “national character” as a central tenet to that philosophy. The “genuinely national” expressions of character were to be found in the 13th to the 15th centuries and “El cantar de mío Cid,” more than history or fact was seen by Ticknor to contain the manners and interests of the Spanish “race.” The presentation of his work to a non-Spanish speaking world was hailed not only by western Europeans outside of Spain, but within Spain as well. For Spaniards of the later 19th century, the value of Ticknor’s work lay in its service to the definition of a Spanish national identity in particular, which he defined in his study. In fact, writers of the Generation of 1898, foundering after the loss of the last vestiges of Spanish empire and greatness during the Spanish and American war, found in Ticknor’s History a noble character that was for all intents and purposes Castilian. Emblematic of attempts to describe a Spanish national identity through medieval peninsular texts is the work of Ramón Menéndez Pidal, whose influence on Iberian Medieval Studies continues to be felt to the present day. Menéndez Pidal founded a school of scholars in what was called Neotraditionalism that expanded on German Romantic theories of folk traditions of literary composition. The later 19th century approach involved analyzing concepts of anonymous poets, a series of continuously re-worked medieval compositions, and the diffusion of these compositions by traveling
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minstrels. The analysis provided by this school was closely related to Ticknor’s preference for folk literature and in particular, ballads, as indicators of national characteristics. Menéndez Pidal likewise privileged ballads, marking those from Castile as the most significant and original (La épica medieval española: Desde sus orígenes hasta su disolución en el Romancero, ed. Diego Catalán and María del Mar Bustos, 1992). When he turned his critical eye on the epic, he included a section on the national value of the work (La España del Cid, 1929) in the introduction to his edition of the “Cid.” Pidal’s historico-literary approach privileged Castile as the center of historical, literary and linguistic developments in Spain and, due to his prolific and meticulous interdisciplinary scholarship, marginalized, in effect, all other cultures on the Iberian Peninsula as secondary, inferior, or copied works from Castilian originals. It wasn’t until the middle of the 20th century that the association of Spain = Castile was finally brought up for debate with arguments to include influences that had been previously ignored, specifically, Jewish, Arabic, and the range of important Iberian cultures geographically peripheral to Castile, especially those of Catalunya and Galicia, to name two. B. Major Scholars Perhaps the scholar most responsible for challenging the central position of Castile in the Spanish Middle Ages was Américo Castro who published his España en su historia: Cristianos, moros y judíos in 1948. Castro’s thesis was that medieval Spanish culture was unique in Europe due to the confluence and mixing of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish cultures on the peninsula. His thesis was given support in the same year with Samuel Stern’s “discovery” of the jarchas, strophs in Mozarabic that formed part of a larger poetic composition written in Arabic or Hebrew presented in the article “Les vers finaux en espagnol dans les muwassahs hipano-hébraïques: Une contribution a l’histoire du muwassah et a l’étude du vieux dialecte espagnol ‘mozarabe’” (Al-Andalus, XIII, 1948). In addition, Ernst Robert Curtius published Europäische Literatur und lateinisches Mittelalter, in the same year, a major study of medieval Latin literature and its effect on subsequent writing in modern European languages. The effect of Castro’s work, Stern’s discovery, and Curtius’s insertion of Spain in the broader European medieval milieu through his study, was to open the door to debate on the historico-literary approach espoused by Menéndez Pidal and his school, as well as initiate discussions on the Iberian medieval canon in its broadest sense. In point of fact, the three studies were not mutually supportive nor were they universally embraced. They continue to spark opposing points of view, for example, concerning the uniqueness of Iberian culture due to the influence of the
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three different cultural groups that occupied the peninsula for some 700 years (Américo Castro: The Impact of His Thought: Essays to Mark the Centenary of His Birth, ed. Ronald E. Surtz et al, 1988). Nevertheless, the impact on Iberian Studies was to open, over time, and expand fields of investigation (The Sephardi Heritage: Essays on the History and Cultural Contribution of the Jews of Spain and Portugal, vol. I, ed. R. D. Barnett, 1971; The Legacy of Muslim Spain, ed. Salma Khadra Jayyusi, Handbuch der Orientalistik, vol. 12, 1992; José Mattoso, Identificação de um país: Ensaio sobre as origens de Portugal, 1096–1325, 2 vols., 1985). Approaches and topics, combined with the rigorous interdisciplinary research introduced by Menéndez Pidal, yielded a robust, ever-widening and more eclectic field of investigation focused on the Iberian Middle Ages. For the first time, these discussions moved beyond the Pyrenees and introduced Medieval Iberian scholars to works by Marc Bloch (La société féodale, 2 vols., 1939, 1940), Otto Brunner (Land und Herrschaft: Grundfragen der territorialen Verfassungsgeschichte Südostdeutschlands im Mittelalter, 1939), Georges Duby (L’économie rurale et la vie des campagnes dans l’occident médiévale (France, Angleterre, Empire, IX–XV siècles): Essai de synthèse et perspectives de recherches, 2 vols., 1962), Umberto Eco (Sviluppo dell’estetica medievale, 1959) and Jacques Le Goff (La civilisation de l’Occident médiéval, 1964), for example. Attempts to broaden the fields of study concerning the Iberian Middle Ages faced some limitations, the first of which was the scholars’ limited access to pertinent materials important to the investigation of the Iberian Middle Ages. Histories of the time period were antiquated, as were encyclopedias and had to be updated (Benito Sánchez Alonso, Fuentes de la historia española e hispano-americana, 3 vols., 3rd ed., 1952; and António José Saraiva, História da Cultura em Portugal, 1950). Bibliographies of the Iberian Middle Ages were limited until Francisco López Estrada published his Introducción a la literatura medieval española in 1952. Rafael Lapesa (Historia de la lengua española, 1942) contributed a still-valuable linguistic study and Joan Corominas (Diccionario crítico-etimológico de la lengua castellana, 1954) added his critical and etymological dictionary to the linguistic studies of the languages in use on the peninsula during the Middle Ages. As these works appeared, so too did more and more literary, historical, linguistic and cultural studies on the Iberian Middle Ages, and with them, the need for means of faster publication (António Henrique Oliveira Marques, A sociedade medieval portuguesa: Aspectos de vida quotidiana, 1964; Alan Deyermond, A Literary History of Spain: The Middle Ages, 1971). The study of the Iberian Middle Ages was en vogue and several journals like Speculum, Hispanic Review, Hispania, and MLN published important articles by scholars like Anthony Zahareas (“Juan Ruiz’s Envoi: The Moral
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and Artistic Pose,” MLN 79 Spanish Issue [Mar., 1964]: 206–11), Joaquín Gimeno Casalduero (“Notas sobre el Laberinto de Fortuna,” MLN 79.2 [1964]:125–39), and Otis Green (“The Artistic Originality of ‘La Celestina’,” Hispanic Review 33 [1965]:15–31). Almost concomitant with the works that served to open the discussion on the Iberian Middle Ages was the rise of literary theory (Edad Media y literatura contemporánea: ensayos sobre tradición y modernidad, ed. Fernando Valls, 1985). Some theories, apart from their novel methods and conclusions, questioned what constituted a “text.” Theories such as Formalism placed importance on the distinction between ‘literary’ and other sorts of texts, other schools like Structuralism (Javier Huerta Calvo, “La teoría literaria de Mijail Bajtín: Apuntes y textos para su introducción en España,” Dicenda I [1982]:143–58]), Feminism (María Jesús Lacarra, “Mujer y literatura,” en Mujer y literatura [1986] 100–131), and Marxism (John Beverly, “Class or Caste: A Critique of the Castro Thesis,” Américo Castro: The Impact of His Thought: Essays to Mark the Centenary of His Birth, ed. Ronald E. Surtz, Jaime Ferrán, and Daniel P. Testa, 1988,141–49) applied their respective tools of interpretation to a wide range of ‘texts’, thus opening the discussion of what constituted the “canon,” which in turn had scholars turning critical eyes on non-fiction, historical documents, law, and the like, in addition to fictional works (Adam J. Kosto, Making Agreements in Medieval Catalonia: Power, Order, and the Written Word, 1000–1200, 2001). At the same time, Iberian studies emigrated from the peninsula and to other countries, principally the United Kingdom and the United States. There, literary theory enjoyed its greatest popularity from the late 1960s through the 1980s. In addition to the theoretical approaches mentioned above, scholars investigated texts under the lens of Reader-Response theory (Libros españoles de viajes medievales (Selección), ed. Joaquín Rubio Tovar, 1986), Psychoanalysis in its variety of permutations, and Queer Theory (Queer Iberia: Sexualities, Cultures, and Crossings from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, ed. Josiah Blackmore and Gregory S. Hutcheson, 1999), for example. During these years, literary theory was perceived as academically cutting-edge research, and most university literature departments sought to teach and study literature and culture through one or the other theoretical approach and incorporate classes on literary theory or criticism into their curricula. By the early 1990s, the texts of literary theory had been incorporated into the study of almost all peninsular medieval courses.
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C. Recent Trends Perhaps as an outgrowth of the development of literary theory or as a reaction against it, the 1980s and 1990s saw a renewed focus on the particular rhetoric and theoretical premises characteristic to the Middle Ages, such as the works of Aristotle, Cicero, Horace, John of Salisbury, Brunetto Latini, Matthew of Vendôme, and Geoffrey of Vinsauf. Ars praedicandi, laudandi, vituperandi, rhetorica, and orandi, for example, were brought to bear on the texts produced in the same era (Judson Boyce Allen, The Ethical Poetic of the Later Middle Ages: A Decorum of Convenient Distinction, 1982). The functions of memory, orality, exempla, the auctores, and the commentary tradition were employed in order to analyze and illuminate Iberian Medieval works (Alistair J. Minnis, Medieval Theory of Authorship: Scholastic Literary Attitudes in the Later Middle Ages, 1984). Medieval texts were used to illuminate themselves and the era in which they were produced (James A. Grabowska, The Challenge to Spanish Nobility in the 14th Century: The Struggle for Power in don Juan Manuel’s Conde Lucanor, 1335, 2006). This “new” approach was called “New Philology” or “New Medievalism” (Stephen G. Nichols, “Introduction: Philology in a Manuscript Culture,” Speculum 65.1 [Jan., 1990]: 1–10). New Philology was articulated as an attempt to advance the study of the Middle Ages which had, according to some scholars, grown stale. The goal of the New Philologists, then, was to transform traditional philology and reinvigorate Medieval Studies in which interdisciplinarity would take a prominent position (The New Medievalism, ed. Marina S. Brownlee et al., 1991). History, histories of art, music, science, architecture, and warfare, literary history, philosophy, law, paleography, sociology, economics, theology and the like, in addition to linguistics, and more traditional philology, would all be brought to bear on Iberian medieval manuscripts in order to tease out the historical factors that affected the meaning of the literary work. By implication then, the medieval manuscripts would be placed in a broader context that would consider the illuminations that accompanied them, the hands that wrote them, a manuscript’s musicality, and the impact of law or theology as aspects that influenced the creation and interpretation of the literary work, for example. Thus, the search for a definitive manuscript out of the varieties available or the reconstruction of an “original” manuscript would be abandoned in favor of making the different versions all available so that the different versions of a story could be read and studied.
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D. Journals and Electronic Resources Journals like La Corónica and more recently Medieval Encounters: Jewish, Christian and Muslim Culture in Confluence and Dialogue (http://www.ingentaconnect.com/ content/brill/me) limited their scope of interest, offering a venue to specialists of many different aspects of the Iberian Middle Ages. In addition, scholars turned to digital technologies to publish their research. Significant digital publications that focus on Iberian Medieval Studies include Lemir, la Revista de Literatura Española Medieval y del Renacimiento (http://parnaseo.uv.es/ lemir.htm), and Memorabilia, la Boletín de Literatura Sapiencial (http://parnaseo.uv.es/Memorabilia.htm). Other online journals dedicated to the study of aspects of the Middle Ages began to reflect the mission statement of the online journal Exemplaria (http://www.english.ufl.edu/exemplaria/index06. html) offering a “forum where different approaches can communicate without sacrificing any of their distinctiveness.” Integral to this expanded notion of Medieval Studies and distinctiveness was the availability of digital technologies that made access to manuscripts easier and accommodated the vast amounts of space necessary to bring additional studies to bear on the medieval Iberian work to be analyzed. The Hill Monastic Manuscript Library at St. John’s University, Collegeville, Minnesota (USA) and the Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (USA) were two centers that recognized early on the value of using contemporary technologies for the conservation and dissemination of medieval manuscripts, as well as Charles Faulhaber, Francisco Marcos Marín, and Angel Gomez Moreno and the development of ADMYTE, (http://www.admyte.com/home.htm). Faulhaber and Francisco Marcos Marín recognized in 1992 that manuscripts, indeed entire libraries, were being lost to deterioration and lack of care. “Pero no basta con conservar, también es necsario que esas obras cumplan su función al servicio de los lectores, del público culto interesado, en general. Para ello sería preciso ponerlas a disposición de éste, lo que inevitablemente acarrearía su deterioro y hasta su destrucción, lentamente.” They observed that preservation was insufficient and suggested that it was necessary to make the surviving Iberian Medieval texts available digitally to the interested public so they would not be lost through deterioration (Francisco Marcos Marín and Charles B. Faulhaber, “La conservación y utilización de textos en el futuro inmediato: ADMYTE, el archivo digital de manuscritos y textos españoles,” Hispania 75 [Oct., 1992]: 1010–23). This mission statement has been broadly adopted and has spread to other areas of Medieval Studies as well. Later came such sites as ORB (http://www.the-orb.net/), LIBRO (http://libro.uca.edu/), LABYRINTH (http://www.georgetown.edu/labyrinth/library/library.html), the
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Medieval Sourcebook (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/sbook1p.html), NetSerf (http://www.netserf.org/), and the Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes (http:// www.cervantesvirtual.com/index.jsp), to name a few. Many of the online sites offer access to manuscripts as well as scholarly works and concordances dedicated to their study. Today scholars have much broader access to original texts and primary historical works as well as to secondary works associated with Iberian Medieval Studies. A project begun in the Stanford Humanities Lab took the practice of storing materials on Medieval Iberia to the next level with Medieval Spains (http://shl.stanford.edu/research/medieval_spains.html) an interdisciplinary source of research- and curriculum-based materials on the different communities of the Iberian Peninsula from 1st century Italica to the 16th century expansion of Peninsular/Iberian influence. The site combines primary sources with current scholarship and multimedia presentations that are designed to provide students and scholars with research opportunities beyond what is available strictly through paper publications. Medieval Spain is illustrative of the current state of Iberian Medieval Studies. Iberian medievalists in the past used texts to establish national history and national character. When that position was challenged, Iberian Medieval Studies lost its role and began, out of necessity, to ask new questions: If there is no single national history, no single national character, who were the peoples who inhabited the Iberian peninsula? What did they think? Feel? How did they act and interact? These questions opened the canon to a wide variety of texts that had heretofore been ignored. Studies began to explore science (Isidro J. Rivera, “Negotiation of Scientific Discourse in the First Printed Edition of the Historia de la donzella Teodor: Toledo: Pedro Hagenbach, ca. 1500,” Hispanic Review 66.4 [1998]: 415–32), gender (Michael Solomon, The Literature of Misogyny in Medieval Spain: The Arcipreste de Talavera and the Spill, 1997), day-to-day living (Bernard F. Reilly, The Medieval Spains, 1993), law (Kathryn A. Miller, “Muslim Minorities and the Obligation to Emigrate to Islamic Territory: Two fatwâs from Fifteenth-Century Granada,” Islamic Law and Society 7.2 [2000]: 256–88), historiography (E. Michael Gerli, “Social Crisis and Conversion: Apostasy and Inquisition in the Chronicles of Fernando del Pulgar and Andrés Bernáldez,” Hispanic Review 70.2 [2002]: 147–67), culture studies and so on (Multicultural Iberia: Language, Literature, and Music, ed. Dru Dougherty and Milton M. Azevedo, 1999). In addition, and as the New Philologists pointed out, the difference between medieval and modern was no longer to be so clearly defined, and new relationships were established. The current state of Iberian Medieval Studies has become so diverse so as to make some scholars and critics question if the term
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“medievalist” may be obsolete (Hans-Werner Goetz, Moderne Mediävistik: Stand und Perspektiven der Mittelalterforschung, 1999). Scholars specialize in a necessarily limited area or period. By breaking the Iberian Middle Ages into smaller, more focused fields, Iberian medievalism has grown much larger, in some cases more germane, and perhaps, more interesting. Select Bibliography Bibliografía de Latín Medieval en España (1950–1992), ed. Jose Manuel Díaz De Bustamante, María Elisa Lage Cotos, and José Eduardo López Pereira (Spoleto: Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, 1994); Historia y crítica de la literatura española, vol. I, edad media, ed. Alan Deyermond (Barcelona: Editorial Crítica, 1980), I/I, edad media, ed. Alan Deyermond (Barcelona: Editorial Crítica, 1991); Iberia Cantat: Estudios sobre poesía hispánica medieval, ed. Juan Casa Rigall and Eva María Díaz Martínez (Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, 2002); Medieval Iberia: An Encyclopedia, ed. Michael Gerli (New York: Routledge, 2003); Medieval Iberia: Essays on the History and Literature of Medieval Spain, ed. Donald J. Kagay, and Joseph T. Snow (New York: Peter Lang, 1997); Medieval Iberia: Readings from Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Sources, ed. Olivia Remie Constable (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997); Francisco Muñoz marquína, Bibliografía fundamental sobre la literatura española: Fuentes para su estudio (Madrid: Editorial Castalia, 2003).
James A. Grabowska
Icelandic, Danish, and Old Norse Studies A. General Outline of Topic This article will base itself on the textual monuments written in Latin and the vernacular in medieval Scandinavia and its settlements. Most distinctive and best known among them are the Icelandic sagas, the Edda of Snorri Sturluson, the so-called Poetic Edda, the skaldic poems, the runic inscriptions, and the Gesta Danorum of Saxo Grammaticus, but there also survives a large body of religious literature, courtly romances, grammatical treatises, legal codes, annals, and official documents. Numerous foreign sources for study in this field also exist, among them the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the Frankish Annals, Adam of Bremen’s Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum, and the Russian Primary Chronicle, but they will not be considered here.
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B. Terminological Definition: the Corpus of Primary Sources for Medieval Scandinavian Studies A Viking Age, characterized by extensive territorial movements and acquisitions on the part of Scandinavian groups extending from the late 8th century up until the early 12th century, overlaps with and is succeeded by the Scandinavian Middle Ages, which take their inception with the Christianization of Denmark, Norway, and Iceland in the late 10th century and stretch as far as the Reformation. The key geopolitical units are Denmark (which included parts of modern Sweden and Germany), Sweden, and Norway, with Iceland, Orkney, Shetland, the Faroes, Greenland, Normandy, and Ireland among the seats of important settlements. Medieval sources claim that Scandinavians spoke a common language, the dönsk tunga, “Danish tongue.” By the 10th century, this common language had started to break up into mutually intelligible varieties spoken in Norway, Greenland, Iceland, and the other Atlantic islands, to the west, and in Denmark, Sweden, and Gotland, to the east. Earliest among the primary texts are numerous brief runic inscriptions, extant in homeland Scandinavia and in most of the settlements, with the notable exception of Iceland. The Viking Age marks their greatest flourishing but some of the oldest inscriptions are yet earlier. In the Middle Ages runes continue in regular use in Norway and Sweden but decline in Denmark, albeit with a significant late flourishing in the so-called Codex Runicus (ca. 1300). The oldest extant Scandinavian texts in the Latin alphabet date from the decades immediately preceding 1200. The overwhelming majority of manuscripts are Icelandic in origin and accordingly the writings are for the most part in either Latin or Old Icelandic, although numerous brief vernacular texts from before 1370 are extant in Norway. In the case of some texts it is difficult to ascertain whether the region of origin was Iceland or Norway. Remains in the other languages are much thinner or minimal. The corpus of vernacular poetry is conventionally split into two types: eddaic and skaldic (both terms being post-medieval misnomers). Eddaic poetry centers upon the poems of the Codex Regius of the Elder Edda and divides into mythological poems such as Völuspá and Hávamál and legendary poems such as Atlakvi6a and Ham6ismál. Relicts of similar poetry occur in runic inscriptions such as the 9th-century Rök stone. The remainder of the poetic corpus is composed principally of skaldic poetry, which is characterized by elaborate syntax, diction, and verse-forms. Praise-poetry (such as Einarr Skálaglamm’s Vellekla), battle narratives (Sigvatr Qór6arson’s Nesjavísur), and mythological and legendary pieces (Qjó6ólfr ór Hvini’s Haustlöng) are the dominant genres but personal poetry (Egill Skallagrímsson’s Sonatorrek), hagiography (Einarr Skúlason’s Geisli), translations
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(Gunnlaugr Leifsson’s Merlínússpá), instructional pieces (Snorri Sturluson’s Háttatal), and devotional poems (Eysteinn Ásgrímsson’s Lilja) also occur. Skaldic poetry emerges in the 9th century in Denmark and Norway and soon spreads to Iceland, which becomes its key center of cultivation. The 10th-century Karlevi runestone from Öland (modern Sweden) contains the oldest attestation. It continued in currency to the Reformation in Iceland and as late as the 14th century in Norway, but was outmoded much earlier in Denmark and Sweden. The composition of the earliest Icelandic rímur, among them Ólafs ríma Haraldssonar, Skí6aríma, and Bjarkarímur, has its documented origins in the 14th century, overlapping with later skaldic poetry. A remarkable vernacular prose treatise on native poetics and mythology is the 13th-century Edda of Snorri Sturluson, which divides into a Prologue and then three main sections: the Gylfaginning (a digest of the ancestral mythology), Skáldskaparmál (an account of poetic diction), and Háttatal (a model poem, with prose commentary). Grammatical treatises are also extant. Rímbegla (a misleading early 16th-century title) is used in reference to a set of computistic treatises. The sagas are another predominantly Icelandic genre. The sagas of Icelanders, the classic type, with their air of realism and historical veracity, were authored or compiled in the 13th to 15th centuries. They include Bandamanna saga, Egils saga, Fóstbrœ6ra saga, Hrafnkels saga, and Njáls saga. A notable sub-group centers upon poets: Bjarnar saga Hítdœlakappa, Gunnlaugs saga ormstungu, Hallfre6ar saga, and Kormáks saga. Another has outlaws as its protagonists: Gísla saga and Grettis saga. Another covers whole districts and communities rather than individual protagonists, among them Eyrbyggja saga, Flóamanna saga, Laxdœla saga, Ljósvetninga saga, and Vatnsdœla saga. The so-called fornaldarsögur “sagas of ancient times” (a 19th-century term) also appear to date from the 13th to the 15th centuries. All the fornaldarsögur have a dominant ingredient of romance or fantasy. Some, such as GönguHrólfs saga, Hervarar saga ok Hei6reks, Hrólfs saga kraka, Ragnars saga lo6brókar, Völsunga saga, and Yngvars saga ví6förla, center on semi-historic personages who are given a predominantly legendary treatment. Others lack the historical element altogether, among them Ásmundar saga kappabana, Bósa saga ok Herrau6s, Fri6qjófs saga ins frœkna, Gautreks saga, Gríms saga lo6inkinna, Hálfs saga ok Hálfsrekka, Ketils saga hœngs, and Örvar-Odds saga. Kings’ sagas center on fully historical figures and are also predominantly Icelandic in authorship. Vernacular sagas devoted to Norwegian kings are Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar (originally composed in Latin by Oddr Snorrason), Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta, the misleadingly titled Legendary Saga of St Óláfr, Böglunga sögur, Sverris saga (in part by Karl Jónsson), and Hákonar saga
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Hákonarsonar (by Sturla Qór6arson). Vernacular synoptic treatments include Ágrip, Fagrskinna (a Norwegian redaction), Heimskringla, Hulda-Hrokkinskinna, and Morkinskinna. Denmark is represented by Knytlinga ´ saga and the relicts of a Skjöldunga saga. Loosely affiliated with the kings’ sagas are Jómsvíkinga saga, Orkneyinga saga, and Færeyinga saga, which center on communities ruled over by earls. Among the samtí6arsögur “contemporary sagas,” Sturlunga saga is the example par excellence. It represents a compilation prepared ca. 1300 from nine originally separate sagas, among them Geirmundar qáttr heljarskinns, Qorgils saga ok Hafli6a, Sturlu saga, and Íslendinga saga, the last-named, by Sturla Qór6arson (1214–1284), being the most imposing. Related works are Hrafns saga Sveinbjarnarsonar and Arons saga Hjörleifsson. The biskupa sögur could also be termed contemporary sagas for the most part, encompassing bishops’ lives and ecclesiastical histories written from around 1200 until the mid-14th century. One major group of these sagas devotes itself to the Skálholt diocese: Hungrvaka (a synoptic account of the first five bishops), Qorláks saga helga, Páls saga, and Árna saga biskups. Fragmentary Latin lives of Qorlákr are also preserved, along with an early account of his miracles. A second group of biskupa sögur centers on the diocese of Hólar: Jóns saga helga (originally written in Latin by Gunnlaugr Leifsson), the Prestssaga Gu6mundar Arasonar, four further Gu6mundr sagas, and Lárentíus saga. Kristni saga (mid-13th century) offers synoptic coverage of the Conversion of Iceland and the first bishops of Skálholt. The corpus of foreign saints’ lives runs to over one hundred, drawn primarily from the Latin lives of the apostles (postola sögur) and other sources. Also extant are Latin and vernacular lives of the native Norwegian saints. Among the pseudo-historical works are Alexanders saga (from the Alexandreis), Amícus saga ok Amilíus (based on the Speculum historiale), Breta sögur (from the Historia Regum Britanniae), Klári saga, Trójumanna saga (from De excidio Troiae), Qi6reks saga af Bern (from the Dietrich cycle) and Veraldar saga. Closely aligned with these are the riddarasögur, sagas of knights or chivalric sagas, which consist of two subtypes, translated and indigenous. The translated riddarasögur mostly stem from commissions from the Norwegian king Hákon Hákonarson (1217–1263). Some are based on French chansons de geste, among them Bevers saga and Elis saga ok Rósamundu; Karlamagnús saga additionally draws on chronicle material. Others represent translations of French courtly romances, among them Erex saga, Ívens saga, Möttuls saga, Parcevals saga, Tristrams saga ok Ísöndar, Valvens qáttr, and the Strengleikar “stringed instruments,” the latter uniquely extant in a Norwegian manuscript of ca. 1270 and containing versions of lais attributed to Marie de France. Works in similar style, some perhaps also commissioned by Hákon, are Flóres saga ok Blankiflúr,
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Flóvents saga, and Partalopa saga. Indigenous riddarasögur (sometimes termed lygisögur) include Adonias saga, Ála flekks saga, Blómstrvallasaga, Bærings saga, Dámusta saga, Ectors saga, Gibbons saga, Kirialax saga, Konrá6s saga keisarasonar, Mágus saga jarls, Melkólfs saga ok Solomons konungs, Mírmanns saga, Samsons saga fagra, and Viktors saga ok Blávus. Some riddarasögur, such as Hrings saga ok Tryggva and Sigur6ar saga fóts, are not clearly distinguishable from the more romantic fornaldarsögur. Affiliated to all these subtypes of sagas are numerous qættir (singular qáttr), brief sagas (literally “strands”) that could be told separately or incorporated into a more extensive compilation. Examples are Grœnlendinga qáttr, Hrómundar qáttr halta, Ævi Snorra go6a, Norna-Gests qáttr, Ragnarssona qáttr, Sörla qáttr, Arnórs qáttr jarlaskálds, Au6unar qáttr vestfirzka, Qorleifs qáttr jarlaskálds, Sneglu-Halla qáttr, Qorvalds qáttr ví6förla, and Ísleifs qáttr. Many qættir affiliated to the kings’ sagas appear in manuscript compilations such as Morkinskinna and Flateyjarbók. Among the more strictly historical works relating to Iceland, the earliest extant is the Íslendingabók of Ari Qorgilsson inn fró6i (c. 1122–1133). Landnámabók, which lists Iceland’s major settlers and their land-takes, exists in several compilations, the oldest being Sturlubók, followed by Hauksbók, Skar6sárbók, and Qór6arbók. The oldest of the several sets of annals date from the turn of the 14th century. The Diplomatarium Islandicum (Íslenzkt fornbréfasafn) contains some 160 diplomas from before Union with Norway in 1264, along with numerous subsequent diplomas and letters. Among works of religious instruction, the Old Icelandic Homily Book and Old Norwegian Homily Book were written early in the 13th century. Several other manuscripts contain homiletic material, notable among them Hauksbók, written at the beginning of the 14th century for, and in part by, the Icelandic lawman Haukr Erlendsson. Also fragmentarily extant is an Icelandic “Physiologus” (ca. 1200). The Elucidarius, adapted from Honorius Augustodunensis, is extant in an early 13th-century fragment. Stjórn, a free translation of scriptural material with commentary, stemmed from a commission by King Hákon Magnússon (1299–1319). The Book of Judith and (in part) Daniel appear separately in late 14th-century redactions. Ni6rstigningar saga is a 12thcentury translation of the Gospel of Nicodemus. Gy6inga saga, a history of the Jews, was translated from Latin by Brandr Jónsson for King Magnús Hákonarson (1263–1284). Konungs skuggsjá, a father-son dialogue which combines theological and judicial teachings with guidance to everyday life, is a mid13th-century Norwegian compilation. Also preserved are Lei6arvísir (a vernacular itinerary to the Holy Land), 12th-century translations of the Dialogues of Gregory and of the Visio sancti Pauli apostoli, Duggals lei6sla (a 13th-century
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translation of the Latin Visio Tnugdali), and Speculum penitentis (a 15th-century Icelandic penitential tract). The surviving law-code of the Icelandic Commonwealth, editorially entitled Grágás “grey goose,” survives in two main codices: Konungsbók and Sta6arhólsbók, both written in the later 13th century. It was superseded first by Járnsí6a (1271–1281), associated with Sturla Qór6arson, and more definitively by Jónsbók (1280), named for Jón Einarsson and extant in some 300 manuscripts. Of Latin texts composed in Norway, notable are two synoptic histories from around 1160–1190: the Historia de Antiquitate Regum Norwagiensium, composed by Theodoricus monachus, and the fragmentary Historia Norwegiae. The oldest Passion of St Óláfr, the Passio Olaui, survives in a northern French manuscript. Of either Norwegian or Danish authorship is the Historia de Profectione Danorum in Hierosolymam, a Crusader itinerary composed around 1200. Of largely vernacular Norwegian texts, the Diplomatarium Norvegicum contains documents ranging from ca. 1050 to 1570, the bulk of them after 1300. The law codes of Gulaqing and Frostuqing survive in early 13th-century manuscripts. The Bjarkeyjar réttr (laws for the trading centers) were first recorded toward the end of the 12th century. King Magnús Hákonarson issued Landslög (a secular code for the whole of Norway), Hir6skrá (a manual for courtiers), and a new municipal code. An ecclesiastical code was compiled by Archbishop Jón of Ni6aróss. Of Latin texts from Denmark, a number are historical works: the 12thcentury Chronicon Lethrense, Chronicon Roskildense, a version of Lex Castrensis (a code of conduct for military personnel) compiled by Sven Aggesen around 1182, Sven’s Brevis Historia Regum Dacie from around 1187, and fragments of his Genealogia Regum Dacie. Gesta Danorum by Saxo Grammaticus dates from the first two decades of the 13th century. To these can be added the Colbaz Annals, the Valdemar Annals, and later Lund annals, one preserved only in a Danish translation from about 1400. The Vetus chronica Sialandiae was written at Sorø ca. 1300, and on this are based the Annals of Ryd, while the Jutish Chronicle (Jyske krønike) depends on Ryd as well as on Sorø. The Diplomatarium danicum contains both Latin and Danish texts. Saints’ lives in Latin include a Passio Sancti Kanuti regis et martiris (ca. 1090) and a fragment of Robert of Ely’s legend about Knud Lavard (ca. 1135), from which the anonymous Passio de Sct. Canuto duce (ca. 1170) derives material. Also extant are lives of Sts Anders, Kjeld, Knud, Margrethe, and Thøger, along with Rimbert’s Vita Anskarii, Ailnoth’s life of Sven Estridsen and his five sons, a Vita et miracula S. Guillermi, and a book of miracles devoted to Erik Plovpenning.
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Of vernacular Danish texts, the so-called Jutish Law (Jyske Lov) is preserved in a manuscript from 1280, along with supplementary documents. The Scanian Law (Skånske lov) and Scanian Ecclesiastical Law are preserved in Codex Runicus. A fragmentary regnal list, chronicle, and description of the DanishSwedish border (“the Daneholm settlement”) are believed to have been added to the Codex later. The oldest law-code of Zealand, Valdemar’s Zealandic Law, is extant in three redactions. Earliest among attested Swedish writers of Latin texts is Petrus de Dacia (ca. 1230–1289), who composed a Vita Christinae Stumbelensis and De virtutibus Christinae Stumbelensis. Latin lives of saints are devoted to Botvid, David, Erik, Eskil, Helena of Skövde, Henrik, Ingrid of Skänninge, and Sigfrid. The writings of St Birgitta were published as Revelationes celestes in 1492. Two lives of Birgitta survive, as also of Birgitta’s daughter Katalina and of Petrus Olofsson of Skänninge. Some of these lives were translated into the vernacular. A 15th-century Swedish life of Birgitta’s family is also extant. The Fornsvenska legendariet “Old Swedish legendary” contains lives of many foreign saints and martyrs. Early Swedish vernacular texts include three chronicles of Västergotland (Västgotakronikorna). Västgötalagen, the oldest of the Swedish provincial laws, is extant in a manuscript dating to 1281, with an appended list of Swedish kings. The national code (Landslag) was completed around 1350 on the basis of provincial laws. Guta saga, a legendary history of Gotland (the title is editorial), is included alongside the Laws of Gotland (Gutalag) in a medieval manuscript. Tänkeböcker, 15th-century magistrates’ records, survive from Arboga, Jonköping, Kalmar, and Stockholm. Of more literary monuments, Namnlos och Valentin is a prose romance and Satiren om abbotarna an antimonastic piece, both from the 15th century. The Eufemiavisorna, consisting of translations in knittelvers of Hærra Ivan, Hærtogher Fredrik, and Flores ok Blanzaflor, date from the early 14th century. Later poetry includes the chivalric romance Riddar Paris och Jungfru Vienna and a series of political pieces from the Kalmar Union (1397–1523): the Brunkebergsvisan, Frihetsvisan, Gotlandsvisan, and Thoro Bondes mord. The Swedish abduction ballads (klosterrovsvisor) probably go back to the 14th century, in an early exemplification of the composition of ballads in Scandinavia, but this genre is only fragmentarily attested in medieval manuscripts. C. History of Research, Schools of Thought, Approaches In a sense, Medieval Scandinavian Studies have “always already” been underway – at least since the 12th century, when the cultivation of skaldic poetry was taking a scholastic turn that culminates in Snorri Sturluson’s commen-
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tary upon traditional skaldic practice and terminology in his Edda (Gu6rún Nordal, Tools of Literacy, 2000). Some degree of antiquarian enquiry enters into works such as Egils saga, Eiríks saga rau6a, and Eyrbyggja saga. Saxo Grammaticus claims to have collected materials from Icelandic informants. The compilation and redaction of kings’ sagas, genealogies, and law codes was being intensively pursued. Many significant contributions to the field were made during the Humanist era. Antiquarians and aristocratic patrons in Sweden and Denmark commissioned the collection and transcription of Icelandic manuscripts, aided by bishops Brynjólfur Sveinsson of Skálholt (d. 1675) and Qorlákur Skúlason of Hólar (d. 1656) and also by Arngrímur lær6i Jónsson (d. 1648). This work culminated in the massive labors of collection and transcription undertaken by Árni Magnússon (1663–1730). Meanwhile Ole Worm (1588–1655) and other scholars undertook pioneering publications of medieval poems and runic inscriptions, drawing on materials gathered by Icelandic informants, among them the self-taught farmer Björn Jónsson of Skar 5 sá (d. 1655). Modern scholarship can be traced back to the 19th century, with the publication of monumental editions of such major individual works or compilations as Breta sögur, Flateyjarbók, Njáls saga, and Snorra Edda and of text series such as the fornaldarsögur. The native Icelandic scholars, notable among them Jón Sigur 5 sson and Sveinbjörn Egilsson, did much of their work in Copenhagen, where the University presided over Icelandic studies and the largest library and manuscript repositories were located. Some Icelandic scholars, among them Gu6brandur Vigfússon and Eiríkur Magnússon, gained opportunities to operate from non-Scandinavian institutional bases. Among the most eminent non-Scandinavian scholars were German academics Konrad Maurer and Eduard Sievers. By the 20th century the field had become fully internationalized, with notable contributions from the United Kingdom, European countries, and the United States, while native Icelandic and other Scandinavian scholars have continued to play key roles. Only a few facets of this huge research endeavor can be noted in the present article. A great part of the scholarly effort, down to the present day, has been directed toward putting the medieval legacy in order through editorial and explicatory activities so as to create what might be called a “resource base” for the field. What could be regarded as “superstructural” types of scholarship, such as literary criticism and theory, though far from neglected, have played a much subordinate role if one compares with other fields of Medieval Studies. Medieval Scandinavian Studies continue to be informed by a strong
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ethos of positivism even in an era of poststructuralist and other literary or cultural theory. At the same time, significant essays in literary criticism and theory are offered in the collective volume edited by John Lindow, Lars Lönnroth, and Gerd Wolfgang Weber, Structure and Meaning in Old Norse Literature, 1986; along with Ursula Dronke, The Poetic Edda, 1969, for the eddaic poetry; and Roberta Frank, Old Norse Court Poetry, 1978, for the skaldic poetry. Topics in comparative ethnography, economics, and anthropology are essayed in a collection edited by Ross Samson (Social Approaches to Viking Studies, 1991) and in monographs by Kirsten Hastrup (e. g., Island of Anthropology, 1990). In the present section of this article, primary attention will be given to the status of the resource base. Editions of the national runic corpora have been published in each of the mainland Scandinavian countries and although they contain some speculative commentary that has been superseded they still provide the basis for scholarship. Meanwhile, however, the runic corpus continues to expand spectacularly, in particular thanks to archaeological excavations of medieval town centers, making this a permanent work in progress, for which on-line databases are being increasingly utilized rather than traditional publication. Diplomatic and facsimile editions of many significant manuscripts have been made available. Text editions are sometimes on a fully critical basis but more often, as in the case of the sagas, where typically numerous manuscripts are preserved, a preferred manuscript is employed as copy-text and corrected selectively from other manuscripts. Full scientific editions of many texts have yet to be made. The building of lexicographic resources remains another work in progress. Two dictionaries of medieval Icelandic (and Norwegian) were published in the 19th century: Richard Cleasby and Gu6brandur Vigfússon, An Icelandic-English Dictionary, 1874, and Johan Fritzner, Ordbog over det gamle norske sprog, 1886–1896. For the present these two dictionaries, reissued with supplements, remain the default reference for the prose corpus. The new collaboratively-edited dictionary project for Old Norwegian and Icelandic (Ordbog over det norrøne prosaprog, 1989–), inaugurated in 1939 and still proceeding, concentrates on the prose corpus and will be complemented by a thesaurus of non-runic Norwegian texts from ca. 1200 down to ca. 1550 being undertaken at the University of Oslo. A specialist dictionary of the poetic corpus, Lexicon Poeticum, was prepared by Sveinbjörn Egilsson (1860) and revised by Finnur Jónsson (1931), and although badly outdated it remains the sole comprehensive resource, despite useful partial coverage provided by glossaries to the Poetic Edda (Glossary to the Poetic Edda, ed. Beatrice La Farge and John Tucker, 1992), to Snorra Edda (Snorri Sturluson Edda: Prologue
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and Gylfaginning, ed. Anthony Faulkes, 1982; Skáldskaparmál, ed. Anthony Faulkes, 1998), and to a selection of rímur (Finnur Jónsson, Ordbog til de … Rímur, 1926–1928). Scholarship on eddaic poetry has focused on codicology and redaction criticism (Gustav Lindblad, Studier i Codex Regius av Äldre Eddan, 1954), on establishment of the text, and on close philological explication of the poems. The analysis of meter by Eduard Sievers (Altgermanische Metrik, 1893), in broad comparison with other early Germanic verse corpora, has proved largely definitive for the purposes of textual criticism. Privileged place in scholarship has been given to the contents of Codex Regius, which are supplemented in most editions by a somewhat arbitrary selection of other poems in “eddaic” style. To complement the standard edition by Gustav Neckel revised by Hans Kuhn (Edda: Die Lieder des Codex Regius, 1983), a comprehensive commentary is in progress (Klaus von See et al., Kommentar zu den Liedern der Edda, 1997–). An English-language edition, with facing translation, is also in progress (Ursula Dronke, The Poetic Edda, 1969–). The skaldic corpus has proved itself highly resistant to the concerted efforts of scholars to create definitive editions and ancillary resources. Key among pioneering activities was the reconstruction of extended poems from the verse citations found in prose compilations (Edda Snorra Sturlusonar, ed. Jón Sigur 5 sson et al., 1848–1887; Bjarne Fidjestøl, Det norrøne fyrstedigtet, 1982). Such reconstructions remain tentative at best but of necessity built upon them are the editions by Finnur Jónsson (Den norsk-islandske skjaldedigtning, 1912–1915) and E. A. Kock (Den norsk-isländska Skaldediktning, 1946), which for the present remain the default. Both rely upon copy-texts, rather than attempting a full critical recension, and resort to heavy emendation and reconstruction. A project toward a fully scientific edition is currently underway (Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages, ed. Margaret Clunies Ross et al., 2008–). Scholars face the systematic difficulty that a proper understanding of skaldic diction and syntax, a comprehensive and objective glossary, and a fully authoritative edition are interdependent desiderata, none of which has yet been met. Thus, for instance, the standard study of diction (Rudolf Meissner, Die Kenningar der Skalden, 1921) is founded on Finnur Jónsson’s edition. Refinements on Meissner have been attempted using close reading (Edith Marold, Kenningkunst, 1983) and structuralist analysis (Bjarne Fidjestøl, “Kenningsystemet. Forsøk på ein lingvistik analyse,” Maal og Minne [1974]: 5–50) but the presupposition that an all-encompassing single system existed is not necessarily valid. The study of skaldic meter, by contrast, has advanced to a point where, although the underlying prosodic analysis is still disputed (Kristján Árnason, The
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Rhythms of Dróttkvætt and other Old Icelandic Metres, 1991), an understanding sufficient for practical editing purposes has been attained (Sievers, Altgermanische Metrik, 1893; Hans Kuhn, Das Dróttkvætt, 1983; Kari Ellen Gade, The Structure of Old Norse Dróttkvætt Poetry, 1995). A recent summation of progress in skaldic studies is Margaret Clunies Ross, A History of Old Norse Poetry and Poetics, 2005. Scholarly work on the Prose Edda has centered upon questions of Snorri’s putative authorship and his attitudes to the mythological material. The various redactions have been thoroughly documented, in order to reveal successive states of the text and to reconstruct the writing process (Gu6rún Nordal, Tools of Literacy, 2000). Of the saga literature, it is the sagas of Icelanders and kings’ sagas that have bulked largest for scholarship. Interest in the former starts to make itself felt in the 19th century, coinciding with expressions of Icelandic nationalism. A dominant element in the early to mid-20th century was the so-called “Icelandic school,” which pursued textual and source criticism while largely eschewing discussions of ideology and aesthetics. Its central achievement is the production of the Íslenzk fornrit series of editions, inaugurated in the 1930s and currently still proceeding. Another notable series was the Altnordische Saga-Bibliothek, from the turn of the 20th century. Numerous post-medieval saga manuscripts have yet to be fully collated toward definitive editions, with exceptions such as the recent editions of Hrólfs saga kraka (ed. Desmond Slay, 1960) and Plácidus saga (ed. John Tucker, 1998). Most scholarly among comprehensive translations is the German Thule series, from the earlier 20th century but being reissued. Where the kings’ sagas are concerned, the bulk of scholarly effort has gone into identifying sources and disentangling textual relationships. The three “Norwegian synoptics” (Historia de Antiquitate Regum Norwagiensium, Historia Norwegiae, and Ágrip), the so-called Oldest Saga of St Óláfr, and Fagrskinna have posed especially acute problems (Bjarni A 5 albjarnarson, Om de norske kongers sagaer, 1937; Svend Ellehøj, Studier over den ældste norrøne historieskrivning, 1965). Attempts have been made to localize the composition of some kings’ sagas in a secular context at Oddi (Einar Ól. Sveinsson, Sagnaritun Oddaverja, 1937). In the case of Sturlunga saga and related “contemporary sagas,” the thrust of scholarship has been to accept them as an historically reliable source for political and social history. More recently, in a reaction against this orthodoxy, their historical truth-value has been put in question by means of comparisons with contemporary European chronicles. The fornaldarsögur have been extensively compared with related legendary materials, such as the Gesta Danorum and the Nibelungenlied. They have
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begun to attract attention as embodying myths and legends that may have played an enabling role in the foundation of the Scandinavian colonies, notably Orkney and Iceland (Preben Meulengracht Sørensen, “The Sea, the Flame and the Wind,” The Viking Age in Caithness, Orkney and the North Atlantic, ed. Colleen Batey et al., 1993, 212–21; Hermann Pálsson, Úr landnor6ri, 1997). Scholars have given the riddarasögur, whether translated or indigenous, short shrift compared to other saga types. There are few diplomatic or critical editions. The indigenous riddarasögur (or lygisögur) are usually regarded by scholars as artistically inferior to the other indigenous genres. Some remain untranslated into modern languages and as a genre they have attracted least attention in the research community, although some critical reassessment has occurred under the influence of reception theory and the so-called New Philology (Matthew Driscoll, The Unwashed Children of Eve, 1997). The translated riddarasögur have received surprisingly little attention not merely in Scandinavian scholarship but also in international romance research, though initiatives of a comparative kind have not been altogether lacking (Marianne Kalinke, Bridal-Quest Romance in Medieval Iceland, 1990). Research on the creation of the Scandinavian ballads has focused on the literary culture of Norway’s courtly milieu in the 13th and early 14th centuries, with the production of the Eufemiavisor as a key element. The translation process in and of itself has also been investigated, as for instance by Mattias Tveitane (Om språkform og forelegg i Strengleikar, 1973) and Marianne Kalinke (“Erex saga and Ívens saga: Medieval approaches to translation,” Arkiv for nordisk filologi 92 [1977]: 125–44). The biskupa sögur are at present being issued in an entirely new edition under the aegis of Íslenzk fornrit. Some research on this genre has been directed toward tracing authorship, assisted by the fact that a number of the sagas were composed by known clerical authors who were contemporaries of the subject of the saga (Stefán Karlsson, “Icelandic Lives of Thomas à Becket: Questions of Authorship,” Proceedings of the First International Saga Conference, ed. Peter Foote et al., 1973, 212–43). Other research has gone into identifying political tendencies and allegiances, as revealed by the saga texts. The literature of religious instruction is another area where basic work is still in progress. Diplomatic editions of the Homily Books exist, but a fully annotated collation of versions of various homilies, some of which are attested in other manuscripts, and identification of sources and analogues remains a task for the future (David McDougall, [Review of The Icelandic Homily Book, ed. Andrea de Leeuw van Weenen, 1993], alvíssmál 5 [1995]: 107–11). Whole and partial sources for some of the homilies have been identified
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among patristic texts but the Latin background of many others still awaits investigation. In stylistic analysis, a number of standard Latin-based rhetorical features have been identified (Jakob Benediktsson, “Cursus in Old Norse Literature,” Mediaeval Scandinavia 74 [1984]: 15–21). Research on Landnámabók was for many years preoccupied with disentangling the different major redactions (Jón Jóhannesson, Ger6ir Landnámabókar, 1941). Work on annals has centered upon tracing their sources (both patristic and vernacular) and textual relationships. In the case of the Icelandic annals, comparisons with known historical works or sagas have resulted in the identification of a large number of entries that must originate in other types of source, for instance Easter tables. The sites of annalistic activity have also been canvassed, with Qingeyrar and Lund as leading candidates. Several scholars have sought to associate compilation activity with known figures such as Sturla Qór6arson (Jónas Kristjánsson, “Annálar og Íslendingasögur,” Gripla 4 [1980]: 295–319). In the case of the Danish annals, a topic of investigation has been the place of composition and its connection with official authority (ecclesiastic or secular, e. g., the royal Chancellery). From early notions that each religious house maintained its own set of annals, recognition has grown that only a few centers were entrusted with this function or chose to undertake it (Anne K. G. Kristensen, Danmarks ældste annalistik, 1969). While publication of the various law codes was among the earlier priorities of scholars, much of the later medieval Norwegian corpus has yet to see printed form. Ancillary research has centered upon source criticism, the relation to continental law-codes, the possible presence of literary as well as oral elements, the institutional or political status of compilations, and their relation to actual social conditions at the time of enactment. The transfer of legal and religious ideas and terminology from Latin codes into vernacular codes remains to be fully investigated (Gudmund Sandvik and Jón Vi6ar Sigur 5 sson, “Laws,” A Companion to Old Norse-Icelandic Literature and Culture, ed. Rory McTurk, 2005, 223–44). Saxo’s Gesta Danorum has been investigated from the point of view of its author’s biography and affiliations, about which tantalizingly little is known despite seemingly promising leads. His politics and ideology are equally difficult to pinpoint, though some kind of program of allusions to the Danish crown is likely to have been intended. Source studies have combed the first nine books for analogues to vernacular sources on myths and legends (Saxo Grammaticus:, Gesta Danorum: Books 1–9, ed. Hilda Ellis Davidson and Peter Fisher, 1979–1980; Georges Dumézil, The Stakes of the Warrior, trans. David Weeks, ed. Jaan Puhvel, 1983). While earlier generations of scholars at-
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tempted to reconstruct the traditional Danish and Icelandic poetry to which Saxo declares his indebtedness (Axel Olrik, The Heroic Legends of Denmark, transl. Lee M. Hollander, 1919), latterly greater emphasis has been placed upon his emulation of poetry by Horace, Virgil, and other classical authors (Karsten Friis-Jensen, “The Lay of Ingellus and its Classical Models,” Saxo Grammaticus, ed. Karsten Friis-Jensen, 1981, 65–78). Appreciation of his rhetorical and compositional skill has concomitantly increased (Thomas Riis, Einführung in die Gesta Danorum, 2006). The first comprehensive literary history, with primary emphasis on the Icelandic and Norwegian material, was that by Finnur Jónsson (Den oldnorske og oldislandske Literaturs Historie, 1920–1924). Like other scholars of his time, he devoted much attention to the origin of the texts and their value as historical and cultural sources, resisting attempts to trace vernacular works to foreign sources and insisting on the general historical veracity of the sagas of Icelanders. The main subsequent literary history, that by Jan De Vries (Altnordische Literaturgeschichte, 1964–1967), revised his predecessor’s approach so as to incorporate perspectives from comparative literature, sometimes rather uncritically. D. Current Issues and Future Trends Here, as before, amid a host of keenly debated issues and a variety of scholarly trends only a few select points can be made. The decipherment of runic texts remains amongst the most difficult and elusive goals in Medieval Scandinavian Studies: such significant monuments as the Rök inscription continue to be the subject of intricate and largely inconclusive debate (Raymond Page, Runes and Runic Inscriptions, 1995). Also far from straightforward is the integration of runic evidence into the wider study of texts and material culture, at a stage when the corpus has still not been systematically excerpted for lexicography (Judith Jesch, Ships and Men in the Late Viking Age, 2001). The scope of runic texts, their possible functions (on a spectrum from pragmatic to ceremonial to magical to ritual), and the social status and functionality of “runic literacy” are matters of continuing discussion. Although most medieval vellum manuscripts have long since been thoroughly examined and recorded and very few discoveries have been made in recent years, the later Icelandic paper manuscripts have only partially been taken up in existing scholarship. By the same token, they represent an outstanding research opportunity, at a time when the New Philology (or “social textuality”) is pointing up the need to examine individual witnesses in their own immediate cultural-historical context. Such work would tie into a “longue-durée” type of approach to sagas, where the shifting social relevance
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and also, to a considerable extent, the shifting textuality of certain key works is traced through the centuries (Kirsten Hastrup, “Tracing Tradition: an Anthropological Perspective on Grettis saga Ásmundarsonar,” Structure and Meaning in Old Norse Literature: New Approaches to Textual Analysis and Literary Criticism, ed. John Lindow, Lars Lönnroth, and Gerd Wolfgang Weber, 1986, 281–316). Many aspects of the eddaic corpus continue to be disputed. The problems of dating remain unresolved, though three groups of poems – early, middle, and late – have been postulated with broad consensus (Bjarne Fidjestøl, The Dating of Eddic Poetry, 1999). Locations of composition have been subject to rival claims, with Iceland, Norway, Greenland, and the British Isles as principal contenders. German influence has been posited for the Völsungcycle poems, the so-called “Fremdstofflieder” (Hans Kuhn, “Westgermanisches in der altnordischen Verskunst,” Beiträge 63 [1939]: 178–236; Theodore M. Andersson, The Legend of Brynhild, 1980). Connections with classical poetry have also been made, thus Völuspá with the Sybilline oracles (Ursula Dronke, The Poetic Edda, 1997) and Hávamál with Disticha Catonis (Klaus von See, “Probleme der altnordischen Spruchdichtung,” ZfdA 104 [1975]: 91–118). In attempts at a genre taxonomy, such categories as “wisdom poetry,” “senna” (Carol Clover, “The Germanic Context of the Unfer6 Episode,” Speculum 55 [1980]: 444–68), and elegy have been proposed, but the validity of genre classifications arrived at from comparative literary perspectives is questionable. Especially problematic is the invocation of dramatic and even ritual functions for certain poems (Bertha Phillpotts, The Elder Edda and Ancient Scandinavian Drama, 1920; Terry Gunnell, The Origins of Drama in Scandinavia, 1995). A more viable view under discussion is that while eddaic poetry may not represent ritual per se, it may contain allusions to it (Einar Haugen, “The Edda as Ritual,” Edda: a Collection of Essays, ed. Robert Glendinning and Haraldur Bessason, 1983, 3–24; Timothy R. Tangherlini, “Some Old Norse Hang-ups,” Mankind Quarterly 31, 1–2 [1990]: 87–108). Meanwhile, the aesthetic and reception aspects of eddaic recitation have been imaginatively reconstructed by Lars Lönnroth (Den dubbla scenen, 1978). Similarly, many if not most questions relating to skaldic poetry remain unresolved. Dating is one acute problem. Most scholars harbor a conviction that verses preserved in kings’ sagas are contemporaneous with the events they describe, but this remains a strong probability rather than a certainty. Considerably more problematic is Finnur Jónsson’s conviction that the bulk of saga lausavísur are authentic personal statements from named saga personages. The latter presupposition has been sharply contested by Peter Foote (“An Essay on the Saga of Gísli and its Icelandic Background,” The
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Saga of Gisli, trans. George Johnston, 1973, 93–134), among many other scholars, but it still underlies the standard chronology of the corpus. Recent work has isolated metrico-syntactic patterns that are arguably distinctive of specific periods and poets (Kari Ellen Gade, The Structure of Old Norse Dróttkvætt Poetry, 1995) but at the risk of circular reasoning. The content of a few of the poems with a prima facie claim to contemporaneity with Viking Age events can be corroborated by comparison with foreign sources (Russell Poole, “Skaldic Verse and Anglo-Saxon History,” Speculum 62 [1987]: 265–98); in the great majority of cases, however, no such controls are available. The Viking Age origins of the skaldic art-form likewise remain undetermined. One possibility is that it may have evolved internally from native Germanic verse-forms, and one scholar has gone so far as to argue for stylization under the influence of the plastic arts (Hallvard Lie, “Skaldestil-Studier,” Maal og Minne 1952, 1–92). Recent discussion has seen ekphrastic poetry, as practiced at the Carolingian court, playing a formative role (Russell Poole, “Scholars and Skalds: the Northwards Diffusion of Carolingian Poetic Fashions,” Mediaeval Scandinavia, forthcoming). Another candidate for external influence is Irish bardic poetry (Edward O. G. Turville-Petre, Scaldic Poetry, 1976). Contact with external poetic traditions in the later Middle Ages has also been suggested (Alison Finlay, “Skalds, troubadours and sagas,” Saga-Book 24. 2–3 [1995]: 105–53). Given the complexity of skaldic poetics, the intelligibility of the poems has been hotly debated. Such scholars as Ernst A. Kock (Notationes norrœnæ, 1923–1944) strove to wring “naturalness” and lucidity out of the inherited texts, often in violation of the manuscript evidence, while others have countered more pragmatically that “difficult poetry” is a recognized type and have adduced evidence that the audience would have been led by a poetically adept aristocratic élite (John Lindow, “Riddles, Kennings, and the Complexity of Skaldic Poetry,” Scandinavian Studies 47 [1975]: 311–27). Recent research indicates that these élite skills continued down to the scribal period, when leading families in Iceland exploited them as a “tool of power” to be taught side by side with Latin-based learning (Nordal, Tools of Literacy, 2000). Possible links to Latin-based learning in Snorra Edda have been detected in encyclopedic literature and school handbooks of grammar and rhetoric (Margaret Clunies Ross, Skáldskaparmál, 1987). Concomitantly, if current scholarship is to be believed, the traditional mythography and cosmography presented in the Edda and more fugitively in compilations like Landnámabók were not simply of antiquarian appeal to their audience but retained an enabling function where land tenure, legitimacy, and kinship links were concerned (Margaret Clunies Ross, Prolonged Echoes, 1994–1998).
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Issues in scholarship on the sagas include the relationship between orality and literacy in the genesis of the saga; the contribution of indigenous and foreign literary models; the relationship between verse and prose in the prosimetric sagas (Joseph Harris, “The Prosimetrum of Icelandic Saga and Some Relatives,” Prosimetrum, ed. Joseph Harris and Karl Reichl, 1997); and the underlying causes for the distinctive features of structure and style. Debate continues as to whether (and why) the first two-thirds of the 13th century was the golden age of saga writing (Jürg Glauser, “Sagas of Icelanders and qættir as the Literary Representation of a New Social Space,” Old Icelandic Literature and Society, ed. Margaret Clunies Ross, 2000, 203–20) and how the various subtypes (sagas of Icelanders, fornaldarsögur, kings’ sagas, riddarasögur, biskupa sögur) are sequenced within a posited chronology. One theory starts with lives of saints and traces the evolution onwards to kings’ sagas, skald sagas, and ultimately sagas of Icelanders (Gabriel Turville-Petre, Origins of Icelandic Literature, 1953). Bjarni Einarsson preferred to see the skald sagas as deriving from continental European romances (Skáldasögur, 1961). Such theories have a certain plausibility but have been shown to fall down in the face of the detailed documentary evidence. As to the type of textual process that generated the sagas, early debate centered on opposed theories: “bookprose,” which sought to give sagas the status of written artifacts, and “freeprose,” which treated them as the product of oral composition and transmission (Theodore M. Andersson, The Problem of Icelandic Saga Origins, 1964). But these antinomies have broken down in current work, so that orality and literacy are increasingly seen as existing in interaction (Gísli Sigur 5 sson, The Medieval Icelandic Saga and Oral Tradition, 2004). As current hypotheses would have it, more or less free-standing episodic story materials became aggregated and consolidated into classic saga format (Theodore Andersson and William Ian Miller, Law and Literature in Medieval Iceland, 1989). Saga lausavísur have been investigated as a possible clue to the workings of these processes (Russell Poole, “Composition Transmission Performance: The first ten lausavísur in Kormáks saga,” alvíssmál 7 [1997]: 37–60). Recent publications encourage us to envisage a synthesis – and indeed a synergy – of secular and ecclesiastical cultures. The kings’ sagas could arguably have emerged as the product of this kind of dynamic and it could also help to account for the indebtedness of specific saga episodes to patristic texts, chivalric romances, Irish heroic tales, eddaic poetry, and other external sources. A perennially fascinating candidate example of mixed oracy and literacy is the so-called Vínland or North Atlantic group of sagas, Eiríks saga rau6a and Grœnlendinga saga, which have attracted special attention in virtue of what appears to be historical, geographical, and ethnographic reportage (Ólafur
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Halldórsson, Grænland í mi6aldaritum, 1978). Attempts to identify “authors” of individual sagas continue. Snorri Sturluson retains his place as preferred nominee for Egils saga, Haukr Erlendsson has been nominated as author of Flóamanna saga (Richard Perkins, Flóamanna saga, Gaulverjabær and Haukr Erlendsson, 1978), and Sturla Qór6arson’s name has been linked with a lost redaction of Grettis saga. Peter Hallberg used statistical analyses of vocabulary in an endeavor to place the sagas in groups and assign them to authors (Stilsignalement och författarskap i norrön sagalitteratur, 1968). Other scholars have tried to establish affiliations with specific families and districts, thus Njáls saga with the Svínfellingar (Lars Lönnroth, Njáls saga: A Critical Introduction, 1976). Attempts at dating individual sagas and the establishment of a relative chronology have had an equally long and on the whole inconclusive history. Among various works to undergo radical changes of dating is Fóstbrœ6ra saga (Jónas Kristjánsson, Um Fóstbrœ6ra sögu, 1972). Vigorous debate has also centered on the historical veracity or fictionality of sagas, with Hrafnkels saga as virtually a test case (Sigur6ur Nordal, Hrafnkels saga Freysgo6a, trans. R. George Thomas, 1958; Óskar Halldórsson, Uppruni og qema Hrafnkels sögu, 1976; Dietrich Hofmann, “Hrafnkels und Hallfre6s Traum,” Skandinavistik 6 [1976]: 19–36). In the confidence, not necessarily justified, that the sagas reflect social conditions in the settlement period accurately even if their narrative is partially fictitious, these texts have been drawn on as sources towards studies of feuding (Jesse L. Byock, Feud in the Icelandic Saga, 1982; William Ian Miller, Bloodtaking and Peacemaking, 1990), ethics (Preben Meulengracht Sørensen, Fortælling og ære, 1993; Gu6rún Nordal, Ethics and Action in Thirteenth Century Iceland, 1998), slavery, infanticide, concubinage, status of women (Jenny Jochens, Women in Old Norse Society, 1995), gift-exchange and the location of power and resources (Aron Gurevic, “Wealth and Gift-Bestowal Among the Ancient Scandinavians,” Scandinavica 7 [1968]: 126–38). But an unease at this trend is also being registered. Assessments of the sagas of Icelanders against the testimony of recent excavations (Orri Vésteinsson, “Archaeology of Economy and Society,” A Companion to Old Norse-Icelandic Literature and Culture, ed. Rory McTurk, 2005, 7–26) and foreign primary sources such as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reveal awkward discrepancies. The use of law codes to corroborate the sagas has been characterized as doubly hazardous, since we cannot be sure of the validity of either source type (Jón Vi6ar Sigur 5 sson, Chieftains and Power in the Icelandic Commonwealth, 1999; but cf. Gunnar Karlsson, “Social Institutions,” A Companion to Old Norse-Icelandic Literature and Culture, ed. Rory McTurk, 2005, 503–17). Preferable for some scholars is to see the sagas as embodying the later medieval ideology and culture within which they were
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produced and consumed rather than that in which they are set (Preben Meulengracht Sørensen, Saga og samfund, 1977; Vésteinn Ólason, Dialogues with the Viking Age, 1998). Discussions of saga reception and audiences have explained the impersonality and impartiality of saga style as perhaps due to the pragmatics of narrating hostilities between kindreds while not inflaming their descendants in the audience. The nature of the ethical values to be elicited from the sagas has proved equally debatable, with some scholars positing a continuum from early Germanic society (Peter Hallberg, The Icelandic Saga, trans. Paul Schach, 1962) and others seeking a basis in Augustinian doctrine (Hermann Pálsson, Art and Ethics in Hrafnkels Saga, 1971). Formalist and structuralist analyses have sought to detect standard patterns of plot and narrative but it is difficult to make headway beyond the “true but trivial” (Theodore Andersson, The Icelandic Family Saga, 1967; Joseph Harris, “Genre and Narrative Structure in Some Íslendinga qættir,” Scandinavian Studies 44, 1 [1972]: 1–27). In aesthetic and literary-critical evaluations, Njáls saga and Laxdœla saga have enjoyed special prominence (Einar Ól. Sveinsson, Njáls saga: A Literary Masterpiece, trans. Paul Schach, 1971; Richard F. Allen, Fire and Iron: Critical Approaches to Njáls saga, 1971; Rolf Heller, Die Laxdœla Saga, 1976). Whereas the fornaldarsögur traditionally enjoyed scant literary-critical attention, probably on the grounds that the content is typically less realistic than that of the sagas of Icelanders, at present their study is undergoing a revival (Fornaldarsagornas struktur och ideologi, ed. Ármann Jakobsson et al., 2003). This may be in part a reflex of the current vogue for fantasy literature. Scholars are also sifting these sagas more thoroughly for source material on ancestral mythology and religious practices. Jens Peter Schjødt, for example, interprets the Höttr and Bö6varr bjarki episode from Hrólfs saga kraka as a possible vestige of a pre-Christian initiation ritual (“Balder og Høt: Om guder, helte og initiationsritualer,” International Scandinavian and Medieval Studies in Memory of Gerd Wolfgang Weber, ed. Michael Dallapiazza et al., 2000, 421–33). A methodological difficulty in this is that although elements within the story material may indeed have ancient origins, the extant redactions have been shown, in this and other cases, to date from as late as the 15th century. Many basic points about the genesis of the individual kings’ sagas remain unresolved and perhaps permanently beyond our reach. In the case of the Historia Norvegiae, for example, the location and dating of the composition remain uncertain (Carl Phelpstead and Devra Kunin, A History of Norway and the Passion and Miracles of the Blessed Óláfr, 2001). The methodology of redaction criticism continues to be debated. One approach has been to
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assume that the relationships between redactions are literary rather than oral and therefore to posit lost written sources when unexplained material crops up in sagas (Gustav Indrebø, Fagrskinna, 1917). The place of oral tradition was partially reinstated by Siegfried Beyschlag (Konungasögur, 1950) and in the case of Morkinskinna the core “oldest” redaction has recently been explained as drawn directly from oral tradition and skaldic verse (Theodore M. Andersson, “Kings’ Sagas,” Old Norse-Icelandic Literature, ed. Carol J. Clover and John Lindow, 1985). Trends in the copying of kings’ sagas in later medieval Iceland have yet to be fully documented but the notion is emerging, again in the spirit of New Philology, that each redaction or individual manuscript witness must be situated within its own temporal context and moreover can be used as a source of information about contemporary attitudes (Sverre Bagge, “How Can We Use Medieval Historiography?,” International Scandinavian and Medieval Studies in Memory of Gerd Wolfgang Weber, loc. cit., 2000, 29–42). Thus the activity of Icelanders in composing or perpetuating kings’ sagas has been accounted for on the basis that it helped to define attitudes towards royal power and the Norwegian parent society (Ármann Jakobsson, Í leit a6 konungi, 1997). The application of literary criticism and aesthetic evaluation to the kings’ sagas has been strikingly uneven. If Heimskringla is the work to have undergone most searching analysis, it is in part because of the conviction that Snorri Sturluson himself was the “true begetter” (Hallvard Lie, Studier i Heimskringlas stil, 1937). By contrast, other redactions have been considered of little merit and indeed Morkinskinna and Hulda-Hrokkinskinna have never been published in normalized form. One direction of scholarship on the biskupa sögur has been to align them with known scriptoria and centers of literary patronage – each center being credited with trademark methods and aesthetics. Sigur6ur Nordal reconstructed a process whereby the Skálholt set of sagas, such as Qorláks saga helga, came into being under the influence of the Hólar sagas, such as Jóns saga helga (“Sagalitteraturen,” Litteraturhistorie: Norge og Island, 1953). More recent scholarship has tried to foster a more holistic discussion of these vernacular sources in integration with the Latin-language lives. Such a perspective reveals the Latin Qorlákr fragments as an experiment in the biskupa saga genre antedating Jóns saga helga (Bjarni A 5 albjarnarson, “Bemerkninger om de eldste islandske bispesagaer,” Studia Islandica 17 [1958]: 27–37). Another scholarly approach had been to divide the biskupa sögur into two categories, saints’ lives and historical works, and to evaluate their historical veracity accordingly. More recently a realization has grown up, once again as an outcome of more holistic study, that many of the works traditionally considered historical, notable among them Hungrvaka, in fact show the influence of
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saints’ lives (Margaret Cormack, “Christian Biography,” A Companion to Old Norse-Icelandic Literature and Culture, ed. Rory McTurk, 2005, 27–42). Current investigations in religious history are focusing on the Conversion to Christianity in Scandinavia on an interdisciplinary basis, with skaldic verses, Kristni saga, and other textual sources under investigation side by side with evidence from material culture (Lesley Abrams, “The Anglo-Saxons and the Christianization of Scandinavia,” Anglo-Saxon England 24 [1995]: 213–50). Landnámabók is another text whose historicity continues to be at issue. Attempts have been made to link its compilation with the assertion of the property rights of certain chieftains (Sveinbjörn Rafnsson, “A6fer6ir og vi6horf í Landnámurannsóknum,” Skírnir 150 [1974]: 213–38). If this line of argument could be sustained, it would tend to call in question the veracity and non-partisanship of this key text as a supposedly comprehensive account of settlements. Like Landnámabók, the Icelandic annals are problematic insofar as their relationship with the sagas has proved difficult to disentangle. E. Summary This is a field with copious primary materials and an increasingly voluminous scholarly literature. At the same time, a number of essential long-term projects toward the establishment of basic scholarly resources are still proceeding and others have yet to be initiated. Coverage of the field is markedly uneven, with an evident enduring preference for sources that can be construed as indigenous, ancestral, and vernacular over those that are foreign and Christian. Likewise, we see a preference for empiric and positivistic approaches over the more theoretical or aesthetically oriented. Select Bibliography Kulturhistorisk leksikon for nordisk middelalder fra vikingetid til reformationstid, ed. Jakob Benediktsson and Magnús Már Lárusson (Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger, 1956–1978); Old Norse-Icelandic Literature: A Critical Guide, ed. Carol J. Clover and John Lindow (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985); Old Icelandic Literature and Society, ed. Margaret Clunies Ross (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Rory McTurk, A Companion to Old Norse-Icelandic Literature and Culture (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005); Encyclopedia of Medieval Scandinavia, ed. Phillip Pulsiano et al. (New York: Garland, 1993); Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1967–).
Russell Poole
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Inter-/Cross-Cultural Studies A. Definition In general, Cultural Studies examines the whole of texts produced by a culture – not just traditional, canonical literature of “high” culture (the purview of literary studies) – to include popular literature and other cultural forms, such as art and architecture; thus, Cultural Studies tends to be interdisciplinary and to subsume other disciplines, especially literary studies. In particular, Intercultural Studies focuses upon cultural artifacts produced as a result of contact between two or more distinct cultural groups, while Crosscultural Studies investigates a particular mode of cultural production, like theater, that exists within various cultures that may not have had direct contact with one another. There has been considerable discussion about distinctions among various approaches to the study of cultural artifacts. Multiculturalism surveys diversity that is found within a particular region or nation and values the diversity existing in that area. This subject also overlaps with Border Studies, which explores the development of hybrid cultural forms by those peoples whose positions on boundary lines separate them from other groups. Postcolonialism is a term for the theoretical analysis of the culture of former colonies and is inclined to critique sharply the colonizer’s assumed attitude of superiority and the conflicted identity of the colonized. World literature provides an overview of canonical literatures from across the world in translation, while comparative literature suggests a closer analysis of smaller clusters of texts in their original language. Whether or not comparative/ world literature should be submerged within the broader rubric of Cultural Studies has been under intense debate. In holocultural research, social scientists use statistical analysis to examine large sets of data systematically collected from many cultures. (For definitions and debates, see Charles Bernheimer, Comparative Literature in the Age of Multiculturalism, 1995; Jan Walsh Hokenson, in Comparative Literature and Comparative Cultural Studies, ed. Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek, 2003; Multicultural Europe and Cultural Exchange in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, ed. James Helpers, 2005). Thus, cultural analysis involves a bewildering array of approaches and terms. For the purposes of this article, what follows is a brief survey of selected Intercultural and Crosscultural Medieval Studies examined within the context of controversies in the field. That this subject provokes conflict is not surprising; the term “the Middle Ages” is a construct that subsequent eras have imposed upon the past, and the interpretation of the medieval past
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frequently reveals more about the scholar’s attitude toward cultural identities than about the Middle Ages itself. B. History of Research Inter/Cross-Cultural Studies has its roots in the 18th-and 19th-century comparative studies – particularly comparative literature and anthropology – when European empires became established across the world. Crosscultural Studies stemmed from the work of 19th-century anthropologists, such as Sir Edward Burnett Tylor, who published his influential Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Language, Art and Custom in 1871. The investigation into mythology by Max Müller (1823–1900) and Sir James Frazer (1854–1941) had a profound effect upon the study of literature and led to early comparative studies that searched for the sources and analogues of later literature. These early researchers, influenced by Charles Darwin and other evolutionary theorists, assumed cultural evolution would explain the difference between the “civilized” world of Europe and North America of the researchers and the “primitive” societies that they researched. As for Medieval Studies, the tension between “primitive” and “civilized” has been a pertinent point of debate in the formation of the Middle Ages. According to a traditional definition of the medieval era, the thousand years between the 400s and 1400s was a “middle” period between the fall of classical civilization and its “rebirth” during the Renaissance. Edward Gibbon popularized this view with his monumental work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776–1788), which firmly established the belief that Germanic barbarians destroyed the civilized classical world, thereby ushering in the Dark Ages of the medieval period. According to this view, during late antiquity and early Middle Ages, invasions by Germanic tribes – pagan, illiterate, primitive – overwhelmed the Classical world – literate and civilized, with a nascent Christianity. Medievalists subsequently tempered this harsh view of the Middle Ages to posit that, starting in late antiquity, a transformation was underway, caused in part by the rise of Christianity along with the assimilation and collision of Germanic and Roman cultures. Also, this change was limited to the West and did not affect the eastern portion of the empire based in Byzantium and Constantinople. Henri Pierre in a series of papers in 1922–1923 argued that it was not the Germanic barbarians but the rise of Islam that created the social, economic, and cultural shifts that led to the Middle Ages. W. P. Ker (The Dark Ages, 1904) maintained that the decaying classical world manifested itself in the pedantic Latin literature of the Dark Ages and that vigorous literature was instead found in the sagas
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and epics of the Germanic and Celtic peoples. Just as Homer and the ancient Greeks were uncultured illiterates who formed the basis of classical grandeur, so, too, the barbarians of Northern Europe formed the basis of a high culture that would emerge as these barbarians became literate and civilized under the influence of the Christian Church and the legacy of the Roman Empire. Ernst Robert Curtius (Europäische Literatur und lateinisches Mittelalter, 1948) demonstrated that the Latin language served as an assimilating force for the various ethnic groups in Europe from the time of the Roman Empire well into the Renaissance, and thus the elite culture of the Romans never really disappeared. Since the 1970s, Peter Brown (World of Late Antiquity, 1971) has described the Middle Ages as a cultural transformation occurring when Roman and Germanic leaders shared power. Thus, medievalists have altered the perspective that the Middle Ages was a period devoid of civilization and dominated by primitive barbarians to the view that the Middle Ages formed a distinct civilization resulting from the assimilation of Christian, Germanic, and Classical cultures. However, the tension between the “primitive” and the “civilized” persists today as seen in the titles of books that delineate the intercultural origins of the medieval period. In The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization (2005), Bryan Ward-Perkins used textual and archaeological evidence to prove that indeed the Germanic barbarians destroyed Roman civilization. A few years earlier Thomas Cahill also pointedly used “civilization” in the title for his book How the Irish Saved Civilization (1995), which portrayed pre-Christian Ireland as barbaric but vigorous and Rome educated but decadent, save for its new religion of Christianity. As Germanic barbarians destroyed the Roman Empire, the Irish remained in relative peace and converted to Christianity and adopted the Roman alphabet. They copied texts that would otherwise have been lost in the chaos of Europe, they assimilated their native Celtic culture to Christianity, and they sent missionaries to spread their work, with the result that the Irish “saved civilization.” Although Cahill’s research was not ground breaking (despite the subtitle’s claim that the book is an “untold story”) and scholars disputed some of his conclusions, its reception was unusual in that it became a popular bestseller, a rarity for a nonfiction account of cultural change in the Middle Ages. Its anti-English slant appealed strongly to those of Irish descent who believe that their contributions have been overlooked and even maligned by historians favoring English imperialism. Giving voice to the colonized and oppressed has been a hallmark of scholarship in recent decades. Scholarship dramatically shifted in the latter half of the 20th century in response to profound political events: World War II ended with the dismantling of European Empires and the rise of postcolo-
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nial nations; the 1960s were marked by civil rights movements and student protests, leading to interest in feminism and the rights of ethnic/racial minorities; the 1980s saw the end of the Cold War and a new emphasis upon area studies of such regions as Eastern Europe. A variety of postmodern theories emerged in response to the new political landscape. A call for medievalists to join the new theory movements came with William Paden’s 1994 collection of essays, The Future of the Middle Ages, in which Joan Ferrante encouraged medievalists to conduct “international, interdisciplinary, and ‘intersexual’ studies” (145) – i. e., Inter-/Cross-Cultural Studies. In this new climate, previous medieval approaches that stressed homogeneity gave way to diversity, with perhaps no better example than that of multicultural medieval Spain. In 1948 Américo Castro (España en su historia) argued that Spanish cultural identity was formed during the Middle Ages with the convivencia (i. e., coexistence) of the Jews, Muslims, and Christians living in the Iberian peninsula. Claudio Sánchez-Albornoz in 1956 denied this claim in España: Un enigma histórico; he said that the national character was indigenous and preceded the invasion of the Islamic Moors. These diametrically opposing views are caused by the paucity of evidence from the Middle Ages, compounded by researchers’ subjectivity. Thomas Glick lamented that the rancor of the debate on the Spanish national character hindered progress on Intercultural Studies in medieval Spain. However, with the rise of postmodern theory, convivencia is now a popular topic of research concerning medieval Iberia (Thomas Glick, Islamic and Christian Spain in the Early Middle Ages, 1979; and Convivencia: Jews, Muslims, and Christians in Medieval Spain, ed. id. et al., 1992; Stacy N. Beckwith, Charting Memory: Recalling Medieval Spain, 1999; Olivia Remie Constable, Medieval Iberia: Readings in Christian, Muslim and Jewish Sources, 1997). As the case of Spain illustrates, people have a strong interest in locating the origins of their identity in the medieval past, and over the past century research into this subject has moved from an emphasis on homogeneity that excluded other voices to an investigation into diversity’s role in cultural formation. As the above scholarship implies, religion played an enormous part in intercultural relationships during the Middle Ages. According to Richard Gyug, religion was the most common source of identity formation for the era (Medieval Cultures in Contact, ed. id., 2003, xii), later replaced by national affiliation in the modern period. It was during the Middle Ages that Christianity and Islam formed the base of empires that overshadowed other religions. In antiquity, Christianity began as a small sect that broke with mainstream Judaism. Jeremy Cohen, in Living Letters of the Law: Ideas of Jews in Medieval Christianity (1999), traced the development of Christian reactions to
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Judaism. Since Jesus was a Jew, early Christians had to create a distinctly different cultural identity. Although Pope Urban II originated the Crusades as a campaign to take Jerusalem from Muslims, some Crusaders generalized the “holy war” to all non-Christians and attacked Jews. Robert Chazen, in European Jewry and the First Crusade (1987), discussed Hebrew chronicles about Crusader attacks on Jews in Speyer, Worms, and Mainz, and he analyzed the ways that the chronicle genre as practiced by Jewish writers reflected the influence of Christian genres. Chazen’s study underscored the closeness of the Christian and Jewish communities in Germany, despite Crusader violence. However, by the late Middle Ages, the Church attempted to build its eroding power and strengthen Christian unity by intensifying its rhetoric against Jews, Muslims, pagans, and heretics. Miri Rubin’s Gentile Tales: The Narrative Assault on Late-Medieval Jews (1999) included medieval narratives of supposed murders perpetrated by Jews against Christians. By the 1490s, Jews had been expelled from England, France, and Spain (which also eventually expelled the Moors). Currently, massive immigration movements, especially in Europe and North America, along with increased religious hostilities, as evidenced by the rise of Al-Qaeda and other fundamentalist groups, have magnified interest in the medieval origins of inter/cross-cultural conflict, particularly of religious origin. Scholarly publications reflect this concern, with Medieval Encounters: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Cultures in Confluence and Dialogue being one journal. Palgrave’s New Middle Ages Series frequently publishes volumes about cross-cultural studies on a given topic – e. g., Robes and Honor (ed. Stewart Gordon, 2001) surveyed the practice of investiture during the medieval era in such diverse areas as Christian Europe, the Islamic Middle East, along with China and the Far East. Routledge’s The Multicultural Middle Ages Series published Sheila Delany’s Chaucer and the Jews (2002), a book that illustrates another trend: taking a canonical subject aligned with a particular national literature (in this case, Chaucer’s writings) and placing it in the context of other cultures (Jews). Academic conferences and their published proceedings often feature inter/cross-cultural themes: e. g., Images of the Other: Europe and the Muslim World before 1700 (ed. David Blanks, 1997), a collection of essays presented at the Conference on Cross-Cultural Encounters in the Mediterranean. Studies now cover a panoply of medieval inter/cross-cultural topics. For example, Meeting the Foreign in the Middle Ages (ed. Albrecht Classen, 2002) discussed depictions of the Other by medieval writers primarily from England and Germany. Alexandra Cuffel’s In Gendering Disgust in Medieval Religious Polemic (2007) examined images of bodily impurity shared by medieval Jews, Muslims, and Christians in their religious
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debates. Travel writing has proven to be a rich source of information about intercultural relationships, as Marina Münkler has shown in her research on travelogues about the Far East written by Marco Polo and other Europeans (Erfahrung des Fremden, 2001). The Medieval World (ed. Peter Lineham and Janet Nelson, 2001) spanned a broad geographical range with essays on “Courts in East and West” (Jonathan Shepard, 14–36), “How Many Medieval Europes? The ‘Pagans’ of Hungary and Regional Diversity in Christendom” (Nora Berend, 77–92) and “Christians, Barbarians, and Monsters: the European Discovery of the World Beyond Islam” (Peter Jackson, 93–110). Medieval Cultures in Contact (ed. Richard Gyug, 2003) contained essays on topics that have not been given much notice in the past; for example, James D. Ryan detailed the reasons for the failure of 14th-century missionaries in converting Central Asia to Christianity (19–38). It seems every topic imaginable related to the Middle Ages is now being discussed from the perspective of multiple cultures because Medieval Europe was “multicultural in historical fact” (James Helpers, Multicultural Europe and Cultural Exchange in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, 2005, 7). Select Bibliography Medieval Cultures in Contact, ed. Richard Gyug (New York: Fordham University Press, 2003); Multicultural Europe and Cultural Exchange in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, ed. James P. Helpers (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005); The Medieval World, ed. Peter Lineham and Janet Nelson (London: Routledge, 2001); the journal Medieval Encounters: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Cultures in Confluence and Dialogue (Leiden: Brill, 1999–present).
Barbara Stevenson
Interdisciplinarity in Medieval Studies A. Definition Questions of the relationship between different disciplines are generally rather old. Today in the humanities and the sciences, on the one hand efforts have increased greatly at differentiation and specialization, on the other hand and at the same time interest in interdisciplinary research has considerably intensified. The term ‘interdisciplinarity’ has become common among members of every academic discipline. Thus, the seeming paradox can be observed that the more knowledge production is differentiated the more loudly the call for interdisciplinarity is articulated. Interdisciplinarity and special-
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ization are parallel (Peter Weingart, “Interdisciplinarity: The Paradoxical Discourse,” Practising Interdisciplinarity, ed. Peter Weingart and Nico Stehr, 2000, 25–41). Some of the problems with interdisciplinary research are connected with uncertainty over the meaning of the term and the lack of a clear definition (Julie Thompson Klein, Interdisciplinarity: History, Theory, and Practice, 1990, 12). In this respect, one may compare the difficulties with ‘interdisciplinarity’ to the sometimes also ambiguous use of the terms ‘transdisciplinarity,’ ‘cross-disciplinarity,’ and ‘multi(pluri-)disciplinarity’ (Tom HorlickJones and Jonathan Sime, “Living on the Border: Knowledge, Risk and Transdisciplinarity,” Futures 36 [2004]: 441–56; Gilbert Weiss and Ruth Wodak, “Theory, Interdisciplinarity and Critical Discourse Analysis,” Critical Discourse Analysis: Theory and Interdisciplinarity, ed. id., 2003, 15–23). A definition of ‘interdisciplinary history’ may be formulated as “historical scholarship that makes use of the methods or concepts of one or more disciplines other than history” (T. C. R. Horn and Harry Ritter, “Interdisciplinary History: A Historiographical Review,” The History Teacher 19 [1986]: 428). The motivation for interdisciplinarity is recognition of incompleteness (Mark Gibson and Alec McHoul, “Interdisciplinarity,” A Companion to Cultural Studies, ed. Toby Miller, 2006, 26). The trend toward interdisciplinarity has become one of the most important developments in the methodology of Medieval Studies in the second half of the twentieth and in the 21st century. Today, interdisciplinary approaches offer a variety of new opportunities but are also constrained by a number of (institutional) obstacles. Often, interdisciplinarity just occurs as a fashionable term used to get funding for projects but is ultimately not realized. Interdisciplinary research (still) sounds innovative and substantial but one has to be aware that each discipline has its own expert knowledge and methods. This can lead to the situation and danger that someone working interdisciplinarily is a specialist in one field but a dilettante in others with which she or he wants to combine her or his research. The hazard of uncritically adopting perspectives from other disciplines cannot be denied. Thus, “[…] the question of whether or not the historian should use the ideas and methods of other fields is no longer at issue. The question is, rather, how well the historian selects and makes use of those concepts and techniques” (Horn and Ritter, “Interdisciplinary History,” 446). One of the dangers is also that ‘uncontrolled’ interdisciplinary research may serve as an opportunity for prejudice and wishes to be included in scientific discourse (Ken Kalling, “Interdisciplinarity: A Gate for Wishful Thinking?” History of Medieval Life and the Sciences, ed. Gerhard Jaritz, 2000, 29–43)
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The particular question remains: whether and at what point proceeding from the disciplinary to the interdisciplinary levels of research will end. ‘Mediävistik’ (Medieval Studies), which has always postulated a kind of unity of the field, could become or, at least, should be seen as, the ideal of an ‘interdisciplinary interdiscipline,’ being about reaching new content and a new program of research (Frank Fürbeth, “Was heißt, wozu dient und wohin führt uns Interdisziplinarität?” Interdisziplinarität, ed. Wihelm G. Busse and Hans-Werner Goetz, 1999, 7–16). B. Developments and Emphases Following the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest instance of the use of the term ‘interdisciplinary’ goes back to a sociological article published in 1937. The research of scholars in historical studies from the second half of the 19th century already manifested these ideas. In this respect, Karl Lamprecht (1856–1915), who taught at the University of Leipzig, is particularly important for Medieval Studies. In his approach toward cultural history he tried to unite concepts of history, art history, economics, and ‘social psychology.’ Lamprecht remained isolated in German research, but he influenced the New History that started to flourish in the United States around the period of the First World War. In France, the Revue de Synthèse Historique, founded in 1900 by the philosopher Henry Berr, turned against extreme specialization in various disciplines. This interdisciplinary orientation, at least indirectly, had an impact on the founding of the famous French ‘Annales School,’ led at the beginning by Lucien Febvre and Marc Bloch, and its journal Annales d’Histoire Economique et Sociale in 1929. The Annales have influenced Medieval Studies in its interdisciplinary focus for decades. The actual discussion of interdisciplinarity started at the end of the 1940s and beginning of the 1950s (see, e. g., Wassily Leontieff, “Note on the Pluralistic Interpretation of History and the Problem of Interdisciplinary Cooperation,” The Journal of Philosophy 45 [1948]: 617–24). ‘Interdisciplinary history’ became fashionable in the 1960s, particularly with the founding of the Journal of Interdisciplinary History in 1970. The peak of discussion concerning interdisciplinarity was reached in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1971, Roland Barthes stated (tr. 1977 as “From Work to Text,” id., Image-Music-Text, 155) that interdisciplinarity “is not the calm of an easy security; it begins effectively […] when the solidarity of the old disciplines breaks down […] in the interests of a new object and a new language […].” On the one hand, positive statements about the function and possibilities of interdisciplinary research were expressed and a number of
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important interdisciplinary studies published. On the other hand, questions about the sense and problems of interdisciplinarity were put in larger numbers: whether it was a new game for bored scholars or a system for vague speculations (Nancy Ann Cluck, “Reflections on the Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Humanities,” Liberal Education 66 [1980]: 77); whether Clio should not remain a virgin undefiled by contact with other disciplines; and so on (see John M. Theilmann, “Crossing the Sacred Boundary Between the Disciplines: Medieval History and Symbolic Anthropology,” The Midwest Quarterly 24 [1982]: 28–38). Pressure for interdisciplinary studies was emphasized, which showed that a situation had arisen in which the current categories of knowledge had become obsolete and new ones were not yet established (Daniel Marder, “The Interdisciplinary Discipline,” ADE Bulletin 45 [1975]: 30). One author even stated that interdisciplinarity was “so overused as to be abused” (Michael W. Messmer, “The Vogue of the Interdisciplinarity,” The Centennial Review 12 [1978]: 467–78). A large number of institutions dealing with Medieval Studies appointed interdisciplinarity as one of the main aims of their existence. When the German ‘Mediävistenverband’ (1983) was founded, support for the interdisciplinary cooperation of medievalists was included in the by-laws. In the German-speaking countries, the ‘Institut zur Interdisziplinären Erforschung des Mittelalters und seines Nachwirkens’ was founded at the University of Paderborn, the ‘Interdisziplinäre Zentrum Mittelalter–Renaissance–Frühe Neuzeit’ at the Free University of Berlin, the ‘Interdisziplinäre Arbeitskreis Mediävistik’ at the University of Mainz, and the ‘Interdisziplinäre Zentrum für Mittelalter-Studien’ at the University of Salzburg. In this peak period of interest, interdisciplinary approaches in Medieval Studies could, in particular, be found in research that made use of concepts of sociology, anthropology, psychology, the sciences, and medicine. Strong influences, especially concerning urban history, may be seen coming from sociology, notably in the tradition of Max Weber (1864–1920) and Georg Simmel (1858–1918). The interdisciplinary approaches and cooperation of Medieval Studies and social anthropology were strongly influenced by Victor Turner’s comparative symbology and Clifford Geertz’s ‘thick description’ (see Theilmann, “Crossing the Sacred Boundary between the Disciplines,” 28–38). Both of them emphasized that the interpretation of culture is necessarily semiotic. This corresponds with the statement of Umberto Eco, who defined semiotics as a methodological approach serving many disciplines or, simply, as an interdisciplinary approach (“Semiotics: A Discipline or an Interdisciplinary Method,” Sight, Sound and Sense, ed. Thomas A. Sebeok, 1978, 73–83). Studies based on the interdisciplinary use of anthro-
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pology (see Natalie Z. Davis, “The Possibilities of the Past,” The New History: The 1980s and Beyond: Studies in Interdisciplinary History, ed. Theodore K. Rabb and Robert I. Rotberg, 1982, 264–75) received special acknowledgment (e. g., Edward Muir, Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice, 1981). Particularly in the 1970s, in the context of developments in social and economic history, a special trend started toward the application of quantitative methods in Medieval Studies (e. g., Quantitative Methoden in der Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte der Vorneuzeit, ed. Franz Irsigler, 1978). A number of interdisciplinary approaches were implemented based on taking over concepts of technology. Lynn White’s classic Medieval Technology and Social Change (1st ed. 1962) influenced, and continues to influence, a number of other studies. Various areas of the sciences had important impacts on Medieval Studies (e. g., Climate and History: Studies in Interdisciplinary History, ed. Robert I. Rotberg and Theodore K. Rabb, 1981; Dietrich Denecke, “Interdisziplinäre historisch-geographische Umweltforschung: Klima, Gewässer und Böden im Mittelalter und in der frühen Neuzeit,” Siedlungsforschung. Archäologie–Geschichte–Geographie 12 [1991]: 235–63; History of Medieval Life and the Sciences, ed. Gerhard Jaritz, 2000). Interdisciplinary cooperation with medicine and psychology, in particular, gave rise to new views on some old questions of Medieval Studies (e. g., Psychologie in der Mediävistik, ed. Jürgen Kühnel et al., 1985; Friedrich Wolfzettel, “Mediävistik und Psychoanalyse: Eine Bestandsaufnahme,” Mittelalterbilder aus neuer Perspektive, ed. Ernstpeter Ruhe and Rudolf Behrens, 1985, 210–237; John Theilmann and Frances Cate, “A Plague of Plagues: The Problem of Plague Diagnosis in Medieval England,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 37 [2007]: 371–93). The application of concepts of psychology, however, occasionally shifting to psychohistory, sometimes led to massive criticism (e. g., David E. Stannard, Shrinking History: On Freud and the Failure of Psychohistory, 1982). In a large number of other fields of Medieval Studies the successful realization of interdisciplinary approaches can be seen; for instance, in art history and social and cultural history (e. g., Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy: A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style, 1972); in literary history, art history, cultural history, and the history of mentalities (e. g., Horst Wenzel, Hören und Sehen, Schrift und Bild, Kultur und Gedächtnis im Mittelalter, 1995); and so on. Some conferences have concentrated on interdisciplinary approaches toward traditional as well as new topics (e. g., Le travail au Moyen Age: Une approche interdisciplinaire, ed. Jacqueline Hamesse and Colette Muraille-Samaran, 1990; Gender, Kinship, Power: A Comparative and Interdisciplinary History, ed. Mary Jo Maynes et al., 1996, with contributions concern-
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ing the Middle Ages by Christiane Klapisch-Zuber and Barbara Hanawalt; Childhood in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: The Results of a Paradigm Shift in the History of Mentality, ed. Albrecht Classen, 2005; Old Age in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Interdisciplinary Approaches to a Neglected Topic, ed. id., 2007; Sexuality in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times, ed. id., 2008; Urban Space in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times, ed. id., 2009; Laughter in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times, ed. id., 2010. German research particularly has been conducting an ongoing discussion about the perspectives and possibilities of interdisciplinary studies in the future (e.g., Werner Rocke, “Weltbilder–Mentalitäten–kulturelle Praxis: Perspektiven einer interdisziplinären Mediävistik,” Mittelalter und Moderne: Entdeckung und Rekonstruktion der mittelalterlichen Welt, ed. Peter Segl, 1997, 3–14; Mediävistik im 21. Jahrhundert: Stand und Perspektiven der internationalen und interdisziplinären Mittelalterforschung, ed. Hans-Werner Goetz and Jörg Jarnut, 2003). Problems in today’s society have also initiated intersdisciplinary approaches by medievalists. Nowadays this is particularly true concerning the global effects of climate (e. g., Michael McCormick et al., “Volcanoes and the Climatic Forcing of Carolingian Europe, A. D. 750–950,” Speculum 82 [2007]: 865–95). Select Bibliography T. C. R. Horn and Harry Ritter, “Interdisciplinary History: A Historiographical Review,” The History Teacher 19 (1986): 427–48; Julie Thompson Klein, Interdisciplinarity: History, Theory, and Practice (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1990); Interdisziplinarität, ed. Wihelm G. Busse and Hans-Werner Goetz (Das Mittelalter: Zeitschrift des Mediävistenverbandes 4,1) (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1999); Joe Moran, Interdisciplinarity (New York: Routledge, 2002); In(ter)discipline: New Languages for Criticism, ed. Gilian Beer et al. (London et al.: Maney Publishing, 2007).
Gerhard Jaritz
Intertextuality and Comparative Approaches in Medieval Literature A. Definition Since much of medieval literature in some way responds to oral or written authorities, many critical approaches to medieval intertextuality have been offered over the years. Imitation, allusion, reference, indirect reference, citation, quotation, insertion, poetic contests on a theme, rewriting, pas-
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tiche, montage, gloss, recycling, plagiarism, parody (see entry on “Parody” in this Handbook), and other forms of influence or derivation may all be read as forms of intertextual writing. Intertextuality may be seen in works of the same language, or through a comparative approach in different languages; comparative approaches to medieval literature today owe much to the critical concept of intertextuality. Reading each text as open and each composition as fluid, intertextuality is the phenomenon whereby the meaning of a given text may only be discovered in its relation to other texts. Growing out of structuralism, semiotics, and dialogism, as well as out of the work of Saussure, Bakhtin, and the French Tel Quel group, the poststructuralist study of intertextuality centers on the meanings and signs of a given text in relation to other texts. The theory of intertextuality has provided an approach to reading and decoding the encoding of writers and readers in a given text in relation to the context of other posterior and anterior texts. Intertextuality as a named theory was first identified by Julia Kristeva in 1966. Since being coined by Kristeva in Paris of the 1960s, intertextuality has come to mean many things to literary scholars and has been particularly useful in studying the relationships between medieval texts, in which originality was not the most prized quality. Harold Bloom termed an author’s relationship to prior sources as “the anxiety of influence” (Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry, 1973), suggesting that all poems, indeed all texts, must inescapably be responses to prior works and precursors, that authors, readers, and critics alike cannot separate themselves from relationships of textual influence; Bloom’s idea that essentially there are no texts, only relationships between texts, informed many poststructuralist readings and studies on intertextuality. Roland Barthes’s concept of intertextuality is similar to that of Kristeva’s, but Barthes addresses more the reader’s pleasure as part of le plaisir du texte, in recognizing the playful elements of recognizing intertextuality. Gérard Genette’s Palimpsestes: La littérature au seconde degré, 1982, a title that suggests the study of the medieval scribal phenomenon of the palimpsest (writing that has been partially erased or scratched off and written over by the ink of a new text) as a metaphor for imitative and derivative texts with intertextual, or what he terms more specifically hypertextual relationships. In the 21st century, literary critics and philosophers have begun to question the usefulness of the seemingly all-encompassing term intertextuality. Postmodernism and the term hypertextuality offer an alternative perspective. More recently, William Irwin, “Against Intertextuality” (Philosophy and Literature 28.2 [2004]: 227–42), attacks the possibility of careless overuse of the term and criticizes the ambiguous use of the term by Julia Kristeva,
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Roland Barthes, and their followers, pointing out that with intertextuality, the pluralism of possible interpretations and relationships is nearly endless. B. Early Comparative Approaches The beginnings of comparative approaches to medieval literature were tied to approaches of folklore in the 19th and early 20th century. Before the perspectives of intertextuality, translation studies, or comparative literature, Folklore Studies was one of the first disciplines to cross language barriers in comparing commonalities between literatures of different languages and cultures. The perspective of folklore focused on the repetition archetypical motifs that may be indexed according to their most basic elements (e. g., the trickster, the loathly lady, the enchanted ring, the other world crossing, etc.). Folklore scholars and scholars of Celtic literature published some of the first comparative studies, which were essentially source studies which focused on common folklore motifs; in the 19th century one of the first comparative Medieval Studies was Albert Schulz, An Essay on the Influence of Welsh Tradition upon the Literature of Germany, France, and Scandinavia (1840, transl. M. Berrington, 1841), and in the 20th century, Jessie Laidlay Weston’s roughly contemporary and now very dated comparative folklore studies on the Celtic rituals and Biblical origins of the Grail tradition and the romance genre in The Quest of the Holy Grail (1913), and From Ritual to Romance (1920). Such studies tended to focus on Celtic origins and oral or written sources of extant European romance and epic. Even before the term intertextuality was coined, medievalists provided a number of other terms to describe the intertextual relationships so common between medieval texts. In the late 19th century, source-studies and folklore archetype studies were the early precursors to the critical perspective of intertextuality that was used in the late 20th century and early 21st century. In 1893, pioneering French philologist Joseph Bédier (Les fabliaux, études de littérature populaire et d’histoire littéraire du moyen âge; see also entry on “Bédier” in this Handbook) employed a metaphor to explain the medieval strategies of composition that include the reuse of familiar material in the notions of originality and invention. Bédier introduced the notion that Arthurian romances especially were not unoriginal; rather, they shared many commonalities because they were all nourished by what he conceived of in a sense as a common pollen. Several other attempts have been made to define such reused literary allusion as the following: commonplaces, oral formulae, matierel roulant, and parties cristallines. Daniel Poirion even referred to links between medieval texts as a playful game or interplay on variations
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and literary echoes (Précis de littérature française du moyen âge, 1983). Other images have been applied to the phenomena of imitation and rewriting in any period, from Roland Barthes’ appetizing metaphor of secondary literature as a multi-layered filled feuilleté pastry, to Gérard Genette’s striking image of hypertextuality with multi-layered traces of ink left on erased or recycled manuscript parchment with palimpsestes. Such metaphorical terms have assisted critical dialogue concerning commonplaces and conventions, but do not get at the heart of the phenomenon of 13th-century derivative literature and relations to the prior texts to which it responds; the perspective of intertextuality has aimed to better address these relations between texts. Studies in the 1970s and 1980s (such as John A. Alford, “The Role of the Quotations in Piers Plowman,” Speculum 52 [1977]: 80–99), looked at inserted quotations and literary references of an intertextual nature before the use of the term “intertextuality” as such came into full-scale critical vogue in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1981, a groundbreaking special issue of the journal Littérature explored the term and concept of intertextuality as applied to the reading of medieval literature; from this special journal issue on, the application of this term became a widely-used approach in medieval literary criticism, in particular in the areas of English, French, Dutch, and German verse and prose romance. Terms such as Paul Zumthor’s textual mouvance and Daniel Poirion’s ré-écriture, or re-writing, became allied concepts to intertextuality in Medieval Studies (see Hubert Heinen on intertextuality and relationships between genres in the German tradition, for instance in his edited volume, Genres in Medieval German Literature, 1986). The most influential articles in this issue have been Paul Zumthor’s illustration of the concept of medieval textual fluidity and mutability with mouvance (“Intertextualité et mouvance,” Littérature 41 [1981]: 8–16; see also entry on “Paul Zumthor” in this Handbook). Zumthor uses the image of movement to explain the plurality and openness of medieval texts; he attempts to re-historicize the theoretical concept of intertextuality so that the application of the theory to medieval texts is not anachronistic. In the same landmark issue of Littérature, Peter Dembowski’s article (“Intertextualité et critique des texts,” Littérature 41 [1981]: 17–29) gives practical arguments for the application of intertextuality to literary criticism, while Daniel Poirion explores the concept of ré-écriture and reuse of borrowed material as a medieval compositional strategy (“Écriture et ré-écriture,” Littérature 41 [1981]: 109–18). The influence of the Littérature editor Michael Riffaterre and the conclusion by Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner provided an illustration of theory and practice that led to many future studies on intertextual relationships in
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medieval romance and other genres. Over a decade later, Heinz Bergner (“The Openness of Medieval Texts,” Historical Pragmatics: Pragmatic Developments in the History of English, ed. Andreas H. Jucker, 1995, 37–54) gives a similar argument to the definition given for mouvance by Zumthor, but instead with a historian’s perspective, emphasizing again the openness of the concept of “text” within the context of manuscript culture, scribal copying and error, gloss, rewriting of material, oral influence and other influences that might change a text over time as it is transmitted, retransmitted, and modified. C. Romance Intertextuality The Arthurian romance tradition lends itself to comparative studies because of its broad range of genres and languages over the centuries. Taking the much-studied case of intertextual relationships between Chrétien de Troyes’s romances and later 13th century verse and prose romances in French and in other language traditions as an example, it becomes clear that medieval intertextuality scholarship has focused on more than just source studies or recurring folkloric motifs; later scholarship has taken into view romancers’ reception of prior works and rewriting of familiar material in a complex dialogue with past writers. Many such “intertextual” studies are essentially comparative studies or translation studies of two or more different language versions of a given story. Several of the first intertextual studies involving Chrétien’s romances examined Lancelot, le chevalier de la charrette and its relationships to Chrétien’s Yvain, Le Chevalier au lion and to other romances. The debates on intertextuality and Chrétien’s Charrette continued through the 1980s and 1990s (Karl D. Uitti, “Intertextuality in Le Chevalier au Lion,” DFS 2 [1980]: 3–13), and continuing well over a decade later in more theoretical discussions (Debora B. Schwartz, “The Horseman before the Cart: Intertextual Theory and the Chevalier de la Charrette,” Arthuriana 6.2 [1996]: 11–27). A central work in Arthurian studies focuses on the intertextuality between Chrétien de Troyes and the 13th-century French verse romancers, or epigones, who were possibly inspired by, responding to, borrowing from, or parodying Chrétien is the highly influential scholarship of Beate SchmolkeHasselmann, The Evolution of Arthurian Romance: The Verse Tradition from Chrétien to Froissart (1980, trans. Margaret Middleton and Roger Middleton, 1998); this study demonstrates that far from suffering from the anxiety of influence, that poets in the centuries following Chrétien could even be critical of his models. The definitive two-volume collection of essays on Chrétien’s influence, which was also produced in the1980s, investigates intertextual
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echoes of Chrétien in later verse, prose, and other language texts, while helping to define the very nature of intertextuality in the Middle Ages (The Legacy of Chrétien de Troyes, ed. Norris J. Lacy, Douglas Kelly, and Keith Busby, 2 vols., 1987–1988). Elsewhere, intertextual studies involving Chrétien have tended to be comparative studies, borrowing from the disciplines of Comparative Literature or Translation Studies, and focusing on primarily medieval German adaptations of or references to Chrétien’s romances. In the past, many Chrétien scholars have treated Chrétien’s successors as romancers as affected by such an anxiety of influences, treating them often with a sort of intertextual inferiority complex, a relationship between the individual poet and his/her tradition to be overcome. 21st-century scholars increasingly have begun to treat Chrétien’s followers as romancers in their own right, considering them often independently of Chrétien’s influence. A pan-European comparative approach to intertextuality in romance is offered by the contributors to The European Dimensions of Arthurian Literature (ed., Bart Besamusca and Frank Brandsma, 2007), which includes intertextual references and ties between French, German, Dutch, Celtic, and English texts. Looking at Arthurian romance has led to “generic intertextuality,” a broad subset of intertextuality which explores commonalities between texts of different genres; this perspective is to be distinguished from “Intertextuality,” which explores the links between specific texts, rather than between genres or across genre lines. A section of essays in Norris J. Lacy, ed., Text and Intertext in Medieval Arthurian Literature (1996), cover generic intertextuality between verse/prose romances, lyric/narrative verse, English/French romances, and Italian/English traditions; Text and Intertext also revisits the definition of intertextuality and reevaluates its use in examining the alterity of medieval texts. D. Intertextuality and Genres Intergeneric and even interdisciplinary studies between history and literature begin to reappear in the late 1980s and 1990s under the framework of intertextuality, as in Neil Wright, History and Literature in Late Antiquity and the Early Medieval West: Studies in Intertextuality (1995). Intergeneric intertextual studies concerning references, parody, and allusions to epic, romance, and religious texts in the French Roman de Renart have also been a focus of scholarship, and not only by North American and French scholars (Massimo Bonafin, “Intertestualità nel Roman de Renart,” MR 14 [1989]: 77–96). In the 21st century, work on intertextuality continues, Caroline A. Jewers, Chivalric Fiction and the History of the Novel (2000), takes a comparative approach as it
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traces style, characterization, and commonalities in content from European medieval romance to the modern novel, in a wide-reaching study of intergeneric intertextuality over several centuries. Many early comparative and intertextual studies on English medieval literature focused on Chaucer, Malory, the Gawain poet, and others. Charles Muscatine, Chaucer and the French Tradition a Study in Style and Meaning (1957), was one of the first significant comparative studies comparing English and French texts in both form and content. Intertextual relationships between Chaucer and Boccaccio have been revived as in Chaucerian studies through the approach of Comparative Literature. The first studies in this area were essentially lists of textual sources (Hubertis Cummings, The Indebtedness of Chaucer’s Works to the Italian Works of Boccaccio: A Review and Summary, 1916; rpt. 1965). Another source-study with a folklore approach at the dawn of Comparative Literature as a discipline was Originals and Analogues of Some of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (5 vols., ed. Frederick James Furnivall [see entry on “Furnivall” in this Handbook], Edmund Brock, and W. A. Clouston, published as a collaborative effort by the Chaucer Society over a decade, 1928–1937). It includes excerpts from a wide-range of suggested sources for the Canterbury Tales with a global scope, including passages from Old French fabliaux, Italian tales, analogues from Asian folklore, and Buddhist tales, Latin fables, Marie de France, Le Roman de Renart, Petrarch, Boccaccio, and others. Further linking French, English, and Italian traditions was Marius Lange, Vom Fabliau zu Boccaccio und Chaucer: Ein Vergleich zweier Fabliaux mit Boccaccios Decamerone IX. 6 und mit Chaucers Reeves Tale (1934); many later comparative studies also tend to focus on a particular tale in relation to influential or derivative French or Italian texts (see, for instance Klaus Grubmüller, Die Ordnung, der Witz und das Chaos: Eine Geschichte der europäischen Novellistik im Mittelalter, 2006; and the contributors to Mittelalterliche Novellistik im europäischen Kontext, ed. Mark Chinca, Timo Reuvekamp-Felber, and Christopher Young, 2006). Later comparative studies on Chaucer focus more on thematic and stylistic intertextuality, such as N. S. Thompson, Chaucer, Boccaccio, and the Debate of Love: a Comparative Study of the Decameron and the Canterbury Tales (1996), focusing on the themes of pilgrimage and love. Malory scholars, too, in the late 20th century extend their analysis far beyond the source-studies of earlier decades, building on earlier work by Eugène Vinaver and others but informed by the critical discourse of intertextuality; Sandra Ness Ihle’s study, for example (Malory’s Grail Quest: Invention and Adaptation in Medieval Prose Romance, 1983), demonstrates the intertextuality between the French prose romances and Malory’s compositional strategies of rewriting, translation, and adaptation. A similar perspective on intertextual-
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ity between the Gawain poet and French precursors is Ad Putter, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and French Arthurian Romance (1995). Germanist Dennis Howard Green’s influential Irony in the Medieval Romance (1979; rpt. 1980, 2005) is another example of a truly comparative study, written when intertextual and comparative studies were on the rise, focusing on narrative and stylistic strategies of verbal and dramatic irony, drawing on sources from the English Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, to German and French courtly romance. Among several comparative or translation studies between English and French romances that have appeared, the most comprehensive is William Calin’s The French Tradition and the Literature of Medieval England (1994). Much comparative and intertextual scholarship has been focused on cycles of romance, especially French, English, and German; however, intertextuality has also been an important theoretical framework in other languages, particularly in comparative studies on Scandinavian texts and their manuscript traditions, as for example in Jonathan Evans, “Intertextuality and Old Icelandic Manuscripts” (MedPers 2.1 [1987]: 17–24), which compares not only content, but stylistic and scribal intertextual connections. Classical Greek and Latin and biblical intertextual borrowings in medieval narrative or lyric have also been a focus of scholarship in the late 1980s and 1990s, particularly in the case of Ovid in relation to medieval French romance and to Dante. Douglas Kelly, The Conspiracy of Allusion: Description, Rewriting, and Authorship from Macrobius to Medieval Romance (1999), reveals classical rhetorical and Ovidian influences and intergeneric intertextuality. Another study focusing on intertextual play with classical and Ovidian sources is Doris Ruhe, “Intertextuelle Spiele bei Andreas Capellanus” (GRM 37 [1987]: 264–79). Madison U. Sowell’s Dante and Ovid: Essays in Intertextuality (1991), covers Ovidian intertextual style, rhetoric, and content. A similar intertextual approach to Dante and the Italian tradition, but looking at biblical references and citations inserted within the narrative, is taken by Christopher Kleinhenz, “Dante and the Bible: Intertextual Approaches to the Divine Comedy” (Italica 63 [1986]: 225–36). 19th- and early 20th-century studies on German literature primarily concentrated on source-studies and relationships between the romances of Wolfram von Eschenbach, Hartmann von Aue, and Gottfried von Strassburg and their adaptations of earlier romance (in particular Chrétien) or epic. In the 1980s and 1990s scholarship on the German literary tradition became increasingly informed by the French and North American use of intertextuality theory and terminology. Neil Thomas (The Defence of Camelot: Ideology and Intertextuality in the “Post-Classical” German Romances of the Matter of Britain
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Cycle, 1992) considers political themes in looking at later German Arthurian and other romances through the lens of intertextuality. James W. Marchand’s study on Wolfram defines theoretical terms as well as identifying intertextual references in Wolfram, “Inter-, Intra-, and Intro-Textual Analysis in Medieval Literature: The Case of Wolfram von Eschenbach” (The Ring of Words in Medieval Literature, ed. Ulrich Goebel and David Lee, 1993, 203–18). Albrecht Classen has written on intergeneric intertextuality and authorial response to a prior literary tradition, for example in Gottfried, “Intertextualität und Quellenbezug: Gottfrieds von Straßburg ‘Tristan’ und der ‘Morîz von Craûn’?” (Tristania 16 [1995]: 1–44). More importantly, his books Zur Rezeption norditalienischer Kultur des Trecento im Werk Oswalds von Wolkenstein (1987) and Die autobiographische Lyrik des europäischen Spätmittelalters (1991) establish new cross-European perspectives. He also explores the relationship between Spanish and German literature during the Middle Ages in numerous articles, for instance, “Spain and Germany in the Middle Ages: An Unexplored Literary-Historical Area of Exchange, Reception, and Exploration” (The Lion and the Eagle: Interdisciplinary Essays on German-Spanish Relations over the Centuries, ed. Conrad Kent, Thomas K. Wolber, and Cameron M. K. Hewitt, 2000, 47–76); “Die Iberische Halbinsel aus der Sicht eines humanistischen Nürnberger Gelehrten Hieronymus Münzer: Itinerarium Hispanicum (1494–1495)” (Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung 111.3–4 [2003]: 317–40); “Christoph Weiditz Paints Spain (1529): A German Artist Discovers the Spanish Peninsula” (Neuphilologische Mitteilungen CV.4 [2004]: 395–406); and “Südwesteuropäische Grenzüberschreitungen aus deutscher Perspektive: Fremdbegegnung zwischen deutschsprachigen Reisenden und der iberischen Welt im Spätmittelalter” (Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung 116.1–2 [2008]: 34–47). On intertextuality in the Germanic romance tradition, see several chapters on the topic in The Arthur of the Germans: The Arthurian Legend in Medieval German and Medieval Dutch Literature (ed. W. H. Jackson and Silvia Ranawake, 2000). More recently, a Routledge series of collaborative “Casebooks” crosses linguistic borders and temporal lines in a broad comparative study of the Arthurian tradition, focusing on a particular major literary figure in several genres and languages over time, including English, French, German, Dutch, Celtic, and some Middle Eastern material, and extending into popular culture, including for example: The Grail: A Casebook (ed. Dhira B. Mahoney, 2000); Lancelot and Guinevere: A Casebook (ed. Lori J. Walters, 2002); Perceval/ Parzival: A Casebook (ed. Arthur Groos, 2002); Tristan and Isolde: A Casebook (ed. Joan Tasker Grimbert, 2002); Merlin: A Casebook (ed. Peter Goodrich, 2003); Gawain: A Casebook (ed. Raymond H. Thompson, 2005). Other “case-
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book” studies include Arthurian material from different language traditions as well as non-Arthurian texts from a comparative perspective focusing on a particular theme, such as Meeting the Foreign in the Middle Ages (ed. Albrecht Classen, 2002); Violence in Courtly Medieval Literature: A Casebook (ed. id., 2004); then his Childhood in the Middle Ages (2005), and his volumes in the series Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture (Walter de Gruyter): Old Age in the Middle Ages (2007); Sexuality in the Middle Ages (2008); Urban Space in the Middle Ages (2009); Laughter in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times (2010). Comparative literary studies in the 21st century, such as these casebooks, tend to be collaborative in nature, drawing on scholars from different languages and disciplines. Comparative Literature as an academic discipline has long been more inclusive of non-Western traditions than have other perspectives. Comparative or intertextual studies on medieval Arabic, Persian, Hebrew and other languages have become more numerous in the 1990s and beyond. Numbers of Arabic-Spanish, Hebrew-Spanish and Hebrew-Arabic comparative studies and Ph.D. dissertations are also now on the rise globally. One of the first initial studies in the area of Arabic and European intertextuality in epic, song, music, romance, and lyric poetry was Ramón Menéndez Pidal (known also for his literary studies on Don Quixote and La Chanson de Roland), Poesía árabe y poesía europea, conotros estudios de literatura medieval (rpt. 1963), which opened the doors to scholars of medieval Iberian literature to study Arab traditions in Spain. In addition, Menéndez Pidal’s 42-part Historia de España (1935–), and in particular volumes 4–18 offer a comparative historical and literary study, which – although it includes Arabic and Hebrew literary and historical texts and an in-depth exploration of Muslim culture and intellectual production in medieval Spain – in its analysis remains a conservative, Eurocentric history and literary history of Spain. The debate between Americo Castro, La realidad historica de España (1954), and Claudio Sanchez Albornoz, España un enigma historico (1956, rpt. 1962), continued to bring to light the polemics of comparative approaches in Iberian Studies revealed by Menéndez Pidal, with questions on how scholars may approach Arabic, Hebrew, and other influences in the study of Iberian medieval literature, history, and culture. Decades later, an example of scholarship which seems to have overcome this polemic, Spanish Hebrew Poetry and the Arab Literary Tradition: Arabic Themes in Hebrew Andalusian Poetry (ed. Arie Schippers, 1994), offers a more recent thematic intertextual study of Iberian literature. Addressing secular and religious intertextuality between Spanish texts, the Bible, Hebraic poetic tradition, and Arabic texts through a comparative thematic approach is
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the edited collection Wine, Women and Song:Hebrew and Arabic Literature of Medieval Iberia (ed. Michelle Hamilton, Sarah Portnoy, and David Wacks, 2004). See also the numerous articles published in German, English, and French in the journal arcadia: International Journal for Literary Studies (1966–). Finally, looking at academic associations may also give insight into the rise of the comparative perspective in medieval literary scholarship. The fields of Medieval Studies and Comparative Literature have been long been allies, and have been linked officially for three decades in the United States and Canada in academic departments, journals, and scholarly associations. For example, the official divisions and discussion groups that currently structure the Modern Language Association of America (MLA) Annual Convention began meeting at the 1976 convention, and the “Division on Comparative Studies in Medieval Literature” was one of the original divisions. In the decades to follow, the division (along with allied organizations also) has sponsored many conference sessions on comparative topics, translation studies, and intertextuality. The 1976 Division Executive Committee of Comparative Studies in Medieval Literature, which was the first, was composed of: R. William Leckie, Jr., Univ. of Toronto (1976 chair); Robert Kellogg, Univ. of Toronto; Ruth Roberts, New York State Univ. Coll., Fredonia (1976 secretary, 1977 chair); and Barbara Sargent, Univ. of Pittsburgh (1977 secretary). Before MLA divisions were created, a medieval section was created for the 1942 convention (not held because of the war). One of the original language groups, however, covered medieval literature, and it was categorized as a Comparative Literature group, thus a primary example of how medieval literary studies have long been linked in the history of scholarship to the academic discipline of Comparative Literature. Select Bibliography Special journal issue: “Intertextualités médiévales,” Littérature 41 (1981); Beate Schmolke-Hasselmann, The Evolution of Arthurian Romance: The Verse Tradition from Chrétien to Froissart (1980, trans. Margaret Middleton and Roger Middleton, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); The Legacy of Chrétien de Troyes, 2 vols., ed. Norris J. Lacy, Douglas Kelly, and Keith Busby (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1987–1988); Text and Intertext in Medieval Arthurian Literature, ed. Norris J. Lacy (New York: Garland, 1996); Allen Graham, Intertextuality (New York: Routledge, 2000).
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Irish Studies
Irish Studies A. Introduction The study of medieval Irish language and literature has followed a number of parameters established early in the first modern efforts to edit a treasure trove of manuscripts. Old Irish is used of the language of the first written records from the 8th and 9th centuries. Middle Irish designates the period from the 10th to 12th century, after which early modern and modern Irish are customary terms. In relative terms, early Ireland offers a huge corpus of vernacular writings, in part the product of a precocious literacy following the proselytizing efforts of St. Patrick in the 5th century and the introduction of Latin. The Ogam or Ogham alphabet was chiefly used for epigraphical purposes, while most Irish was written in a native adaptation of the Roman alphabet. In this respect, both medieval Irish literature and the scholarly efforts to transcribe, edit, and explicate it that began in the mid-19th century have striking parallels with the literature, literary history, and scholarship of medieval Icelandic language and literature, including an anti- and post-colonial nationalist or nativist ideology that informed efforts to account for the flourishing state of letters in the Middle Ages. This critical insularism also affected the texts studied, often regarding them, initially, as almost free-standing entities. The central medieval Irish literary corpus has traditionally been divided into a number of relatively discrete “cycles”: the mythological cycle, associated with relations with the pagan divine; the cycles of the kings, comprising free-standing tales and some dynastic groupings of the birth, life course, and death of kings and kingdoms; the Ulster cycle, in which the focus shifts slightly to address both the Hero and the King; and, finally, the Fenian cycle, shifting in mode from epic toward romance and concerned with the adventures of Finn mac Cumhail and his band of Fenian warriors, who protected Ireland from both supernatural and foreign threats. The value attached to this traditional matter is illustrated by its collection into great codices, some of the best known among which are the Book of the Dun Cow, the Book of Leinster, the Book of Ballymote, and the Yellow Book of Lecan. Drama as a genre is unrepresented, although dialogue is an important feature of both epic and romance. Nor does satire make an appearance outside poetry until the Middle Irish period. Native hagiography in both Latin and the Irish vernacular is relatively self-contained but has important links with the kings’ cycle. A considerable body of poetry is dispersed throughout these prose tales but a corpus more organized in terms of content, metrics, conditions of pa-
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tronage and reception, often called “bardic poetry”, emerged at the numerous local courts. Another eminent genre was “hermit poetry”, purportedly lyric effusions by anchorites about their relations with God within the natural setting of isolated monastic cells. Medieval Ireland was also deeply interested in topographical legend, whether deployed in the prose tales, celebrated in poetry, or recorded in the distinct genre of dindshenchas. There was a similar interest in the Irish language itself, resulting in a number of “glossaries”, in which words are analyzed in an etymologizing process adapted from Isidore of Seville. Grammatical and metrical tracts were also produced, as well as a body of wisdom literature. A large corpus of early Irish law has also been preserved, one in which modern editors and scholars can discern archaic core passages that were the object of successive glossing and reinterpretation over the centuries. Chronicles in the modern sense of the term, developing from Churchsponsored annals, make a relatively late appearance in Ireland. (Irish history, like archaeology, art history, etc., is not tracked in the following outline; see Prehistoric and Early Ireland in the multi-volume A New History of Ireland, 2006.) But running in parallel with this great production of literature in the vernacular was a comparable production of hagiographical, legendary-historical, and scientific literature in Latin. In the 12th century and later, British and continental Arthurian literature made only a slight impact on Irish letters. An impressive heritage of stories, themes, motifs and even the language of medieval Irish letters was preserved in largely rural Irish-speaking communities and has been recovered in modern times through the efforts of the Irish Folklore Commission, founded in 1935. B. History of Irish Studies In Ireland scholarly attention was first directed toward medieval Irish language and literature in the mid-19th century, at a time when the number of native speakers of Irish was in precipitous decline but echoes of the longstanding tradition of native Irish law, as distinct from British law adapted to Ireland, were still resonating. The great achievement of these first Irish scholars was the publication of The Ancient Laws of Ireland (1865–1901), edited by John O’Donovan, Eugene O’Curry, and others. As an instantiation of incipient Irish nationalism, this edition was later matched by relatively uncritical adaptations of medieval and later Irish story-telling in serialized translations, which ultimately led to the incorporation of much medieval matter in the works of the Irish Literary Revival. In this same nationalist cultural context, Douglas Hyde, later the first president of the Republic of Ire-
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land, published The Story of Early Gaelic Literature in 1895. Much of the credit for scholarly interest in the language, literature, law, and lore of early Ireland must, however, go to non-Irish scholars. Soon after the first comparative philological work on Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin that would have a determinative influence on historical linguistics for almost two centuries, in that language origins would be favored over language evolution and socio-linguistics, Celtic was recognized as an important and richly documented branch of what was construed as the Indo-European family of languages. Paired with the first archaeological and historical explorations of the very widespread Celtic presence in the Europe of antiquity, compilations were made of Celtic personal and place names, and Celtic cognates were listed along with Greek, Indian, Italic, and Slavic reflexes of purported Indo-European “roots” in the first great lexicographical works. The best current representative of this tradition is Julius Pokorny’s Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (1959). European scholars trained in classical philology applied this relatively refined methodology, with its focus on codicology and transmission, text and variants, to the inchoate mass of medieval Irish manuscript materials. Interest focused early on the Irish glosses intercalated in manuscripts of the Latin Bible, often recovered at Irish monastic foundations in continental Europe, as evidence of the earliest recorded stage of the Irish language. Although Irish scholarship produced some noteworthy facsimile and more critical editions of major codices, a vast amount of lightly critical editing and translation was also undertaken by a handful of Irish and European scholars. Many of these contributions were published in the small number of series and scholarly journals that were founded at this time: Irische Texte (from 1880), publications of the Irish Texts Society (1898), Revue Celtique (1870), Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie (1896), Ériu (1904), and continue to be consulted today as the best, often only, editions and translations of the texts. Two major initiatives, one personal, one collective, lent a sense of scope and structure to scholarship on early Irish language and literature. In 1913 Richard Irvine Best (also active as an editor) published the first volume of his Bibliography of Irish Philology and of Printed Irish Literature. A second volume would cover the period 1913–41, and a third (Bibliography of Irish Linguistics and Literature), under new editorship and appearing only in 1986, that from 1942 to 1971. The initial offering summarized a wealth of articles, many published in non-scholarly venues and, through no fault of their own, scarcely meeting today’s standards of critical rigor but nonetheless indicative of the surge of interest in the Ireland of the Middle Ages. The collective venture was A Dictionary of the Irish Language, although its scope and title would later be
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qualified by the addition “based mainly on Old and Middle Irish materials”. Sponsored by the Royal Irish Academy, the dictionary project was initially led, in practical editorial terms, by the Norwegian scholar C. J. S. Marstrander. The exhaustive treatment that characterized his first published fascicule, D-Degóir (1913), acted as a check on further releases when he left the editorship. The project stalled but was eventually resumed at a more sustained pace in the 1950s and ’60s and completed in 1976 (now available in a compact edition and online). Other lexicographical projects, while not strictly medieval, shored up DIL as it gradually achieved finished form. One was Patrick S. Dinneen’s Foclóir Gaedhilge agus Béarla: An Irish-English Dictionary (1927), which incorporated many meanings and phrases reflective of the Irish of earlier eras, the other, Tomás de Bhaldraithe’s English-Irish Dictionary (1959, reissue 2004, 2006). And also in 1959 the great French Celticist Joseph Vendryes began Lexique étymologique de l’ancien irlandais, a lexicographical project still not completed under its succeeding editors (at present, Pierre-Yves Lambert). Hyde’s history aside, the first great overview of the Irish literary corpus was Henri Arbois de Jubainville’s Le cycle mythologique irlandais et la mythologie celtique (1884). An eclectic but most rewarding collection of texts and (incomparable but now dated) translations by Standish Hayes O’Grady appeared in 1892 as Silva Gadelica. A portion of this material would be examined with greater critical rigor and more advanced philological knowledge in Rudolf Thurneysen’s Die irische Helden- und Königssage (1921). A rather different approach is evidenced in Thomas O’Rahilly’s Early Irish History and Mythology (1946). For the first time, a scholar stood back from the detail of plots, onomastics, manuscript filiation, textual difficulties and the like, and attempted to summarize and synthesize early Irish literature and belief in its cosmographical and ideological dimensions. O’Rahilly’s principal theses concerning pagan Celtic mythology, theses in which all available evidence was marshaled under a few major concepts, have not stood the test of time but must be seen as a milestone in Irish scholarship. Rather less ambitious but of lasting value is Marie-Louise Sjoestedt-Jonval’s Dieux et héros des Celtes, which appeared in 1940, with an English translation in 1949. In 1931 the Mediaeval and Modern Irish series was launched, subsequently (1941) taken over by the School of Celtic Studies within the recently founded Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. After Ireland’s relative isolation during World War II, a number of publications appeared and have since been judged landmarks in the modern study of early Irish language and literature. In 1946, the translation of Rudolf Thurneysen’s Handbuch des Altirisches (from 1909) by D. A. Binchy and Osborn Bergin, both established scholars
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in their own right, appeared under the title A Grammar of Old Irish. This comprehensive volume has remained the indispensable cornerstone of philological inquiry since that time, and is still in print. Similarly enduring, in a rather different way, is Tom Peete Cross’ Motif-Index of Early Irish Literature from 1952. Its current limitations are those of the original conceptual categories, where such modern notions as gender, ideology, physical aberrance, the abject, and the like are absent, and the pre-1952 editions of texts on which it bases its listings. To Cross and his collaborator, Clark Harris Slover, we owe the very popular anthology of texts in translation (mostly from earlier published works), Ancient Irish Tales (1936). In 1954 Myles Dillon published Early Irish Society, a first synthetic work linking literature and social history. A year later appeared James Carney’s Studies in Irish Literature and History. Intentionally iconoclastic, as the author would later concede, it rejected the nativist view of the insularity and idiosyncrasy of early Irish literature, linking, for example, the tale of Díamait and Gráinne with that of Tristan and Yseut. This lead was later followed in studies by Raymond Cormier. The influence of Carney’s collection of essays was far-reaching and revolutionized the study of the early Irish tradition. Another highly influential work was Kenneth Hurlstone Jackson’s The Oldest Irish Tradition: A Window on the Iron Age (1964). It demonstrated the extreme conservatism of the Irish literary tradition in its reflection of an earlier social and material culture, although modern scholars such as J. P. Mallory have shown that neither an oral nor a literate tradition can preclude the insertion of later detail and, further, the Iron Age roots, of the literary tradition at least, are now seriously doubted. A different kind of continuity, the Irish cultural influence on the European continent, was studied by Tomás Ó Fiaich. Patrick Henry, in turn, studied the Ireland-Iceland connection. The same decade saw the publication of volumes of only moderate ambition but still of a fresh synthesizing nature: a collection of radio broadcasts on the principal early Irish tales, edited by Myles Dillon as Irish Sagas (1968), and an overview, Early Irish Literature, published by Eleanor Knott and Gerald Murphy (1966). Máirín O Daly (née Nic Dhiarmada) contributed numerous articles on the kings’ cycle in these same years. A broader perspective on early Celtic literature and history had become available a year earlier with the appearance of The Celtic Realms under the editorship of Myles Dillon and Nora K. Chadwick. A complementary volume, although never intended as such, appeared in 1970. This was Proinsias Mac Cana’s lavishly illustrated Celtic Mythology. Less thesis-driven than O’Rahilly’s pioneering work, it illustrated not only the widely held Celtic conceptions of the organization of the cosmos, relations with the divine, and just secular rule on earth, but also
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the great local variety in cultic practice across generally decentralized Celtic communities and cultures. Another work of compilation with a sustained effort at synthesis was Alwyn Rees and Brinley Rees, Celtic Heritage: Ancient Tradition in Ireland and Wales (1961), which sought to interpret a vast range of Irish and Welsh evidence for cosmology and basic story types, largely from the perspective of Georges Dumézil’s theories of a trifunctional organization of archaic Indo-European belief and culture. Based in Brittany, Christian Guyonvarc’h and Françoise Le Roux pursued the accommodation of the Dumézilian thesis with Celtic materials. However stimulating this work at the time, the trifunctional paradigm has been little followed since within mainstream Irish scholarship. Josef Weisweiler also contributed to the study of the possibly most distant roots of the Irish epic tradition. From these same decades came two examples of the thoroughness of textual editing and accuracy of translation that were then achievable but also the limited concern for critical analysis of content. In 1967 Cecile O’Rahilly edited and translated the Book of Leinster recension of the great epic Táin bó Cúailgne (The Cattleraid of Cooley) and in 1976 the Book of the Dun Cow version appeared. Both are accompanied by notes and glossaries but the introductory material gives pride of place to manuscript filiation, despite a useful overview of theories concerning the Irish heroic saga in the earlier volume. Also active in manuscript studies were Robin Flower and William O’Sullivan. Similar editing practices are reflected in titles from the Mediaeval and Modern Irish Series, while those published by the Irish Texts Society, with its much greater range of materials, are rather more fully situated in the literary tradition. By the close of the 20th century, Irish studies were established and even flourishing. The best single example is perhaps and appropriately the collection of essays published to honor James Carney, Sages, Saints and Storytellers (1989). There were few university chairs in Celtic but medieval Irish language, literature and history were represented on a growing number of university curricula. Some journals had passed from the scene (Celtica), others experienced difficulties in keeping to editorial schedules (Études Celtiques). Prominent among newcomers were Studia Celtica (1966) and Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies (1981), later relocated and renamed as Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies, and Peritia (1982). Scholarship in general may be judged to have continued to be somewhat introspective; few scholars published in other than traditional venues, although linguistics may be an exception here. Yet scholarship had clearly passed from a preoccupation with the editing of texts to a variety of approaches that would qualify as literary criticism in the modern sense of the
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term. Major themes of cosmology, sovereignty, the relation of secular royal rule with the divine; the territorial integrity of Ireland in the face of invasion; the fertility of the land; the relations of patron and poet, the ideal vision of social organization as reflected in law had all been thoroughly explored, although the tie of Irish literature to Irish history remained understudied, despite efforts by John V. Kelleher and Donnchadh Ó Corráin. With the founding of the Early Irish Law series in 1988, facilitated by Daniel Binchy’s edition of the vast Corpus Iuris Hibernici in 1978, studies of the Irish legal tradition took a quantum leap forward and now represent some of the most thorough and best scholarship in the field of Irish studies. The most recent volume is Liam Breatnach’s A Companion to the Corpus Iuris Hibernici (2005). Studies in the Middle Irish period continued to be underrepresented, despite Kenneth Jackson’s thorough edition of Aislinge Meic Con Glinne (The Vision of Mac Con Glinne) which ultimately appeared only in 1990. By this time as well most of the major texts of the medieval Irish corpus were available in English translation, and a good many in French and German as well. Despite some telling analogues, Irish literature seems to have had, for understandable reasons, far less influence on continental European literature of the Middle Ages than Welsh, Cornish, and Breton storytelling and there have been proportionally fewer source, analogue, and comparative studies. Similarly, Irish matter is more often classified as analogous to, rather than an influence on, Old English literature (literature in Latin excepted). C. Milestones This review of major contributions to the field of Irish Studies and of the scholars behind them is of necessity selective and unavoidably subjective. Most often a single work will be called on to characterize what is often scholarship across a broad field. Few today will consult the Ancient Laws of Ireland (1865–1901), yet the monumental work of its chief editors, John O’Donovan, Eugene O’Curry, R. Atkinson, and others, is a testimonial to the earnestness which modern studies of the Irish tradition were launched. But O’Curry in particular is worth a second look for many pieces published in now rare journals and magazines on texts that not always became part of the subsequent canon. The first introduction to Old Irish was John Strachan and Whitley Stokes’s Thesaurus Paleohibernicus (1901), economically identified by its subtitle, A Collection of Old-Irish Glosses, Scholia, Prose and Verse. Like Thurneysen’s Grammar of Old Irish, the Thesaurus has proved one of the longest-lived reference works from the first phase of Irish studies. Like Kuno Meyer, Stokes edited and translated a staggering range and array of texts in journals and monographs. Several of the latter are now helpfully being
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reprinted. A few representative titles: Meyer, The Voyage of Bran, Son of Febal, to the Land of the Living (1895); Cáin Adammán: An Old Irish Treatise on the Law of Adamnan (Adomnán in subsequent scholarship); Death-Tales of the Ulster Heroes; Stokes, a first edition of Togail Bruidne Da Derga (The Destruction of Da Derga’s Hostel, RC [1901]); The Tripartite Life of Patrick (1887); Cormac’s Glossary (1862); and editions of largely neglected translations from classical Latin. R. A. S. Macalister is remembered for The Secret Languages of Ireland (1937, as well as his archaeological work) as is George Calder for his edition of Auraicept na nÉces: The Scholar’s Primer (1917), both illustrative of the fascination of the Irish learned class with language, alphabets, cryptology and explication. Anders Ahlqvist has now examined the latter work under the title The Early Irish Linguist. E. G. Quin saw the Dictionary of the Irish Language through difficult years as its general editor (1953–75). Daniel Binchy’s monumental contribution is the basic editing of the Irish law tracts, although he had earlier edited the celebrated text on social station, Crith Gablach (1941) and given an influential series of lectures on Celtic and AngloSaxon kingship (1970). Wolfgang Meid’s edition of the Ulster cycle tale Táin bó Fráich first appeared in the MMIS series (1967), but a second German-language edition (Die Romanze von Froech und Findabair, 1970) provided a wealth of linguistic and cultural information, making it an isolated example of an excellent text for the tyro scholar working in isolation. Other contributions to the MMIS, distributed across the major tale cycles noted above, were Ruth Lehmann, Eleanor Knott, A. G. van Hamel, David Greene, Myles Dillon, Lil Nic Dhonnchadha, J. Carmichael Watson, Maud Joynt, J. G. O’Keefe, Joseph Vendryes, and Rudolf Thurneysen, whose edition of Scéla mucce meic Dathó (The Tale of Mac Dathó’s Pig, 1935) is still a popular introductory tale for students, because of its concentration of action and thematic material. Although not publishing in this series but part of this editorial tradition is Vernam Hull. Gerard Murphy’s Early Irish Lyrics: Eighth to Twelfth century (1956), published and marketed by Oxford University Press, was instrumental in bringing a most representative selection of verse, with valuable supporting notes, to a wide readership. Here mention should be made of Brian Ó Cuív’s important lecture, The Linguistic Training of the Medieval Irish Poet (1973), a complex topic still in need of elucidation. Enrico Campanile and Gearóid Mac Eoin have also made important contributions to the study of early Irish verse. Dynastic verse in particular was explored by Sean Mac Airt. Kenneth Jackson’s anthology in translation, A Celtic Miscellany (1951), and, somewhat later, Jeffrey Gantz’s Early Irish Myths and Sagas (1981) similarly found wide and appreciative audiences.
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Heinrich Wagner, who worked indefatigably as a collector in the field, and as editor and commentator over a wide range of Irish materials, is remembered for both his linguistic atlas and Studies in the Origins of the Celts and of Early Celtic Civilization (1971). In the cultural context so defined, the conception of a goddess of territorial sovereignty, who joins with a suitable candidate for royal rule in a distinctive Celtic hieros gamos, and the attendant dynamics of a triangle whose corners might be labeled the King, the Hero, and the Goddess have attracted the interest of several scholars, all also active in other subject areas, R. A. Breatnach, Máire Bhreatnach, Maartje Draak, Máire Herbert, Proinsias Mac Cana, Donncha Ó hAodha, Philip O’Leary (specifically on honor), Yolande de Pontfarcy, Maria Tymoczko (for the relevance to James Joyce), and most recently (2006) Amy C. Eichhorn-Mulligan. Tomás Ó Cathasaigh’s The Heroic Biography of Cormac mac Airt (1977) marks a scholarly milestone in this respect. Tangential topics are the ‘prince literature’ (Audacht Morainn – The Testament of Morainn, ed. Fergus Kelly), the ‘wild man of the woods’, and the ‘threefold death of kings’ (Pádraig Ó Riain, Joan Radner, Jean-Michel Picard). As traditional tales were adapted to new ends, contentious Christian clerics became important players in narrative, upsetting the dynamics between the supernatural and the secular, between divine power and human rule, between kings and consorts. A related concern of the medieval Irish learned class was cosmological speculation and, in its broadest conception, the earliest history of the land of Ireland, areas in which a synthesis of pagan tradition and Christian doctrine generated very idiosyncratic productions such as Saltair na Rann, a versified psalter, and Lebor Gábala Érenn (The Book of the Taking of Ireland). Here important studies have come from John Carey and Mark R. Scowcroft. Mention must also be made of Kim McCone, Pagan Past and Christian Present in Early Irish Literature (1990), and Joseph Falaky Nagy, Conversing with Angels and Ancients: Literary Myths of Medieval Ireland (1997). The latter study is devoted to Acallamh na Senórach (often called The Colloquy of the Ancients), now expertly translated by Ann Dooley and Harry Roe as Tales of the Elders of Ireland (1999). Most of the scholars engaged in literary studies have also devoted efforts to the Irish language, given the myriad textual difficulties. To their names may be added those of Rolf Baumgarten, Johan Corthals, Eric P. Hamp, Frederik Kortlandt, Fredrik Lindeman, Damian McManus, Tomás Ó Máille, Paul Russell, and Peter Schrijver. While historical scholarship has been excluded from this overview, a numbers of historians have made important contributions to filling in the ecclesiastical, political and
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social background in which Irish letters were cultivated: F. J. Byrne (high kingship), Thomas Charles-Edwards (literacy, kinship and kingship), David Dumville (the environment of textual production), Donnchadh Ó Corráin (marriage, kingship, royal prerogative), and Dáibhí Ó Cróinín (Hiberno-Latin literature and computistics). Fine single volume surveys are Thomas Charles-Edwards, Early Christian Ireland (2000), and Michael Richter, Medieval Ireland: The Enduring Tradition (2005). This said, historical overviews of early Irish literature have been few: James Carney contributed a synthesizing essay to The New History of Ireland, published posthumously. Patrick Ford edited and translated J. E. Caerwyn Williams’ history in Welsh as The Irish Literary Tradition (1992), while the current state of scholarship was summarized in Kim McCone and Katherine Simms, Progress in Medieval Irish Studies (1996). In 2003 appeared Future Directions for the Study of Irish, edited by Máire Herbert and Kevin Murray. Most recent are two fine chapters on medieval Irish literature to about 1200 by Tomás Ó Cathasaigh and Máire Ní Mhaonaigh in The Cambridge History of Irish Literature (2006). D. Scholarship Today Research in Irish studies in this century is characterized by heightened contextualization and the abandon of insularity, and this in two senses. While the scholarship of an earlier century would be unjustly called “naïve,” it is now recognized that such tales as The Cattleraid of Cooley are not the products of collective memory, fortuitously given literate form at an early, opportune, but still not identifiable moment. Rather, the tale and its congeners, like those of the kings’, mythological, and Fenian cycles, are products of early medieval antiquarianism. While a surprising amount of pagan material – plot, personage, cultural concerns and values – has been preserved in these tales, the thoroughly Christian environment in which they were redacted has shorn them of every trace of pagan cult. Myth, legendary history, and topographical lore have been accommodated with Christian doctrine. Increased awareness of just how the medieval Irish learned class cherished and cultivated their past allows the modern scholar to identify the ideological purposes such tales served: dynastic politics, enhanced or antagonistic church-state relations, the claims of monastic establishments, Irish identity. Even that literature initially produced in the medieval period, such as bardic poetry, is revealed as having flourished under very complex conditions of inter- and intra-dynastic conflict, artistic patronage, poetic apprenticeship, professional rivalries, tensions between tradition and innovation, all seemingly matched by the recognized complexities of Irish metrics.
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If this domestic contextualization has been one major shift in scholarly perspective, situating Irish letters in both the Indo-European and the broader medieval European context is another. Now comparative studies of Irish and Indian epic are undertaken; Norse and Irish poetics are juxtaposed, historically and technically; and fresh avenues for comparative research are continuously being opened up. Yet fresh editions of major texts are few and far between. Newcomers to Irish linguistic and literary studies now have a greatly enhanced choice of introductions, among which Kim McCone’s A First Old Irish Grammar and Reader, including an introduction to Middle Irish (2005) and David Stifter’s Seangoídelc: Old Irish for Beginners (2006) should be mentioned. Further, scholars have not been slow to exploit new electronic media. Among examples are the Celtic Digital Initiative (http://www.ucc.ie/academics/smg/CD/ index.html), CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts (http://www.ucc.ie/celt), Scéla: Catalogue of Medieval Irish Narratives and Literary Enumerations (http://www.volny.cz/ enelen), MsOmit: Manuscript Sources to Old and Middle Irish Tales (http:// www.ucc.ie/celt/MS-OMIT/Index.htm), The Ulster Cycle (http://homepage. ntlworld.com/patrick.brown/ulstercycle/tain.html), The Cycles of the Kings (http://www.hastings.edu/academic/english/Kings/Sagas.htm), all of these with useful links to other resources. Old-Irish-L is one of numerous discussions lists. A continuation to the Bibliography of Irish Linguistics and Literature is now available in draft form (http://bill.celt.dias.ie/vol4/index2.html). The annual bibliography of the Celtic Studies Association of America (http:// www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/celtic/csanabib.html) is also a valued complement to the coverage of medieval Irish language and literature in the Modern Language Association’s International Bibliography. Here may be traced the work of such presently active scholars as Patrizia de Bernardo Stempel, Dorothy Bray, Doris Edel, Elizabeth Gray, Bart Jaski, Catherine McKenna, Daniel Melia, Lil Ní Dhonnchadha, Ruairi O Huiginn, Patrick Sims-Williams, Edgar Slotkin, Hildegard Tristram, Calvert Watkins, and Dan Wiley. Charles W. Dunn was instrumental in the founding of the association and in the promotion of Celtic studies in North America. It is a wry irony that the Irish epic corpus is so much greater than that of Old English yet every college has its Anglo-Saxonist. Now, the relatively small number of scholars working in Medieval Irish Studies – all, outside Ireland, with other strings to their bows – will be greatly assisted by new technologies that will offset limited library holdings that reflect the earlier research and curricular priorities of many institutions. In terms of critical theory, Irish Studies has been invigorated by new impulses but has fed little back to the study of other literatures. This said, books
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that would have been unpublishable – almost inconceivable – two decades ago, such as Ann Dooley’s Playing the Hero: Reading the Irish Saga Táin bó Cúailgne (2006) and Robin Chapman Stacey’s Dark Speech: The Performance of Law in Early Ireland (2007), demonstrate to what immense profit a more open perspective on, and familiarity with, gender studies, feminist studies, intertextuality, ideology, patronage, performative utterances, rhetorical suasion, and metaphor – to name but a few vital current topics – has been to medieval Irish Studies. Despite the current vogue for all things Celtic, studies of specifically Celtic medievalism have been slow to appear. Yet the combined efforts of the Irish Folklore Commission and of the scholars here passed in review have ensured that what Daniel Corkery, in a slightly different context, called The Hidden Ireland (1924) is now open to view, preservation, and just possibly further cultivation. Select Bibliography Bibliography of Irish Philology and of Printed Irish Literature, comp. R. I. Best (Dublin: H. M. Stationery Office, 1913, rpt. 1992); Bibliography of Irish Philology and of Printed Irish Literature, 1913–41, comp. R. I. Best (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1942, rpt. 1969); Bibliography of Irish Linguistics and Literature, 1942–71, comp. Rolf Baumgarten (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Study, 1986); Dictionary of the Irish Language, based mainly on Old and Middle Irish materials, gen. ed. E. G. Quin (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 1913–76); Prehistoric and Early Ireland, ed. Dáibhí Ó Cróinín (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).
William Sayers
Italian Studies A. The Diatribe of Philology Against Aesthetics (1890s–1945) Critical studies on medieval Italian literature began during the second half of the 19th century, with the work of Francesco De Sanctis (1817–1883). De Sanctis can be considered as the initiator of the critical methodology now referred to as scuola storica. At the beginning of the 20th century, German philology influenced the Italian approach to literary criticism. The introduction in Italy of Lachmann’s theoretical model led to a systematic application of the German philological method to medieval texts (Luigi Russo, La critica letteraria contemporanea, 1977). De Sanctis produced outstanding critical research on Italian literature, especially on historical figures por-
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trayed by Dante Alighieri in the Divina commedia and on Dante’s influence on Italian writers of all ages. His method, according to the Lachmann standard, was based on a very detailed historical and philological analysis of archive documents and various relevant sources of information, which could provide insight and grounds for discussion on obscure passages of Italian medieval literature. De Sanctis provided an overview of all literary currents from the middle ages to his contemporary time, offering also a critical analysis of Italian masterpieces of all ages (Francesco De Sanctis, Storia della letteratura italiana, 1870–1871). Although De Sanctis was considered by Benedetto Croce and Giovanni Gentile as the most important literary critic of the 19th and early 20th century, his work is not well known outside of Italy. One English translation dates to 1931, but De Sanctis’s convoluted and often monotone style at times makes it difficult for the Anglo-Saxon reader to appreciate it. However, it is possible that his lack of popularity outside Italy is due to the complexity of his line of thought and to a certain ambiguity that characterizes his approach. Overall, De Sanctis does not belong to a school or a stream of thought, but was rather involved in a completely Italian perspective and in the intellectual and political renaissance of Italy during the Risorgimento. He was also very much tied to the environment of Naples, so much so that his thought may be perceived as provincial. However, his critical synthesis of Italian literature is so unique and relevant that he deserves a place of honor in the history of Italian Studies. Having introduced into Italian Studies a methodology that implied detailed archive research and textual analysis based on both sources and linguistic exegesis, De Sanctis was revered and his mission was continued by scholars of great impact such as Alessandro d’Ancona, Pio Rajna, and Michele Barbi. Each of these scholars imported their original contribution to the field, which implemented and updated the knowledge and comprehension of medieval Italian texts, setting them into a historical framework and widening the understanding of the value of medieval Italian production. Domenico Comparetti (1835–1927) can be considered as an exception to the scuola storica (Roberto Antonelli, “Interpretazione e critica del testo,” Letteratura italiana: L’interpretazione, 1985, 141–243), in that he followed a personal approach in the analysis of Italian medieval literature. Comparetti’s prolific activity includes studies on Dante and on vernacular literature (Domenico Comparetti, Virgilio nel Medio Evo, 1872). Alessandro D’Ancona (1835–1914), an enthusiast of De Sanctis’s historical method, proved to be a fine pursuer of literary analysis and produced a number of works of great relevance from the viewpoint of the historical-philological approach in Italy (Le antiche rime volgari secondo la lezione del Codice Vaticano 3793,
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1875–1888). Interested mainly in the origins of Italian popular culture, he also devoted great attention to Dante (Scritti danteschi, 1912–1913). Michele Barbi (1867–1941) wrote on the question of the modern Italian philological tradition. As at the end of the 19th century French scholars were offering a major contribution to the birth of modern philology, especially Quentin and Bédier, Barbi introduced an approach that helped clarify the characteristics of the Italian philological school, which followed Lachmann’s method against variants proposed by Quentin and Bédier, and was based on the study of the individual manuscript, refusing a real system (Michele Barbi, La nuova filologia e l’edizione dei nostri scrittori, da Dante al Manzoni, 1938). When in 1906 Pio Rajna (1847–1930) published his principles of textual criticism, he established the difference between the new age and the past, based on method (influence from Lachmann) and dogmatism. The result was representative of the spirit of the German approach to medieval texts. Rajna was an active scholar throughout the first half of the 20th century and focused mainly on the discovery of the sources of Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso (Pio Rajna, Le fonti dell’Orlando Furioso), a book that was received with great enthusiasm by the followers of the historical methodology, because it revealed the contribution to the origin of the Italian chivalric tradition of texts belonging to the late 14th century, which had never been studied from this perspective. Rajna viewed the creation of the Italian chivalric poem as a development of earlier poems that were circulating in the form of songs performed by popular story tellers in market squares, the cantari, short poems in ottava rima, a metre typically Italian. Thus, he contributed to creating a connection between the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Rajna also published extensively on Dante Alighieri, devoting particular attention to historical and philological problems related to his works, and edited Dante’s treatise on the vernacular (Pio Rajna, Il trattato ‘De Vulgari Eloquentia,’ 1896). The editing of Italian medieval texts and their analysis according to the precepts of De Sanctis’s theoretical model triggered two different reactions. On the one hand, a great number of scholars were trained under the aegis of the historical school, who applied the new method to critical editions of the works of Dante Alighieri, Francesco Petrarca, Giovanni Boccaccio, and to other less known medieval writers. Enormous effort was made at the beginning of the 20th century to bring back the wealth of medieval Italian literature to the public. On the other hand, the systematic application of Lachmann’s method was severely criticized by Benedetto Croce and his followers, who viewed it as merely an instrument to create good critical editions and as a theoretical model that served no purpose in literary criticism, which must be involved with the appreciation of the literary text. Italian
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medieval studies were, thus, from the start characterized by a dichotomy between philology and literary criticism, the former being engaged with the editing of texts the closest possible to the original version, the latter being devoted to the reading and awareness of the value of medieval literary creations. The diatribe of philology versus aesthetics engaged major medieval scholars at the beginning of the century. Barbi intervened on the question defending the need of critical editions of works by writers such as Dante and Manzoni, for the literary critic to access texts the closest possible to the original. The diatribe, as far as Italian Medieval Studies are concerned, was never resolved, as new questions arose that overcame these concerns. Seen with today’s eyes, the two fields of philology and literary criticism are evidently concerned with different approaches to literature, as nowadays philologists rarely if ever engage in discussions on interpretive aspects of a literary text. The predominance of the historical-philological school triggered critics concerned with aesthetics to react rather strongly. Benedetto Croce (1866–1952) is the Italian literary critic who most influenced opinions and literary evaluations of generations to come. Croce’s interpretation and aesthetical theory remained predominant throughout half a century, and became the norm in Italian literary criticism until new currents of thought were imported from abroad that updated Italian Studies in the 1970s (Benedetto Croce, Estetica come scienza dell’espressione e linguistica generale, 1902). Croce maintained that philology is an auxiliary technique, which must not interfere with an esthetical evaluation of the literary text. In his view, philology and literary criticism should work in separate ways. In other words, he viewed philology as craftsmanship. He criticized severely Rajna’s work on the sources of the Orlando Furioso, considering the subtle work of reconstruction as a mere exercise with no relevance to the appreciation of the poetic value of Ariosto’s original invention. It was Croce’s contention that the existence of sources from which the poet might have drawn his inspiration in no way diminished the genius of the artist. Therefore, he viewed Rajna’s meticulous reconstruction as an effort that added nothing to the beauty of the poem. The same line of reasoning applies to Rajna’s work on Dante’s sources, in that appreciation of the artist’s genius excludes, according to Croce, the consideration that the external import of sources such as documents, legends, and classical culture may cast doubt on the originality of his creative impulse. The founding principle on which Croce’s thought is based is that art is intuition. His definition of the term “intuition” must be understood as Anschauung (“representation”), or, as he himself described it “l’unità indifferenziata della percezione del reale e della semplice immagine del possibile.”
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Intuition is therefore a wider category of what we normally call art (René Wellek, “La teoria letteraria e la critica di Benedetto Croce,” Letteratura italiana: L’interpretazione, 1985, 351–391). Croce’s main idea was that poetry can never be realistic because it belongs to the soul and not to reality as we know it and consider it (Benedetto Croce, Poeti e scrittori del pieno e tardo Rinascimento, 1945–1952). This summarizes his point of view on archival research on the sources for historical figures in Dante and Renaissance poetry. In his book La poesia di Dante (1921), he stated that each episode in Inferno must be identified as a poem in itself independent of the poem’s structure: according to Croce, “structure” is the non-poetic scaffolding behind the poetic intuition. Croce’s thought was influential both in Italy and abroad, particularly in the United Stated where New Criticism gathered several suggestions from the Italian scholar. In Italy, a number of followers disseminated his teachings, most of whom eventually differentiated themselves from their master. Among them, Attilio Momigliano (1883–1952) authored important readings of Dante’s works and his language and especially one edition and commentary of Dante’s Divine Comedy (1945). Natalino Sapegno (1901–1989) merged Croce’s aesthetics with Gramsci’s position on art and literature as the expression of freedom of thought. His edition and commentary of the Divine Comedy (1955–1957) for decades was adopted in Italian schools as the standard textbook. He also authored a history of Italian literature (Natalino Sapegno, Storia della letteratura italiana, 1965–1969), which cast writers and their works within their historical context. This was also used as the standard handbook in Italian schools throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Walter Binni (1913–1997) contributed extensively to the exegesis of Dante’s Comedy (Chiara Biagioli, Bibliografia degli scritti di Walter Binni, 2002). It was with the critical work of Carlo Dionisotti (1908–1998) that the attention to a general overview of medieval literature as a whole was imported into Italian critical studies (Carlo Dionisotti, Geografia e storia della letteratura italiana, 1967). He provided critics with an entirely new approach to Italian literature, which considered the geographical element as a unifying trait, establishing thus a connection between writers of various ages. Dionisotti opened up Italian literary criticism to the possibility of merging various approaches: the philological method and the historical approach, a wholesome aesthetic appreciation of poetry and the sense of its historical meaning. A collaborator of Natalino Sapegno at the University of Rome, he then moved to England in 1947, where he taught Italian at the University of Oxford. He then became professor of Italian at Bedford College in London in 1949. Dionisotti spent the greatest part of his career in England where he
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collaborated intensively with the journal Italian Studies. His major field of interest was 15th-century Italian literature, of which he analyzed particularly the historical and philological aspects and political implications. Dionisotti died in 1998, saluted by the community of Italianists as the greatest literary critic of the century, specifically for the broad vision of Italian literature as a whole. B. Marxist Criticism (1945–1960s) The influence of Marxist criticism in Italian Medieval Studies became particularly strong during the aftermath of World War II, as a reaction to the previous fascist cultural hegemony. The question of realism in Italian medieval literature started being explored under the influence of the Hungarian theorist György Lukács. However, the highest achievement of textual exegesis done from the perspective of the representation of realism can be found in Erich Auerbach (Mimesis: Dargestellte Wirklichkeit in der abendländischen Welt, 1946), with two chapters dedicated to the figure of Frate Alberto in Boccaccio’s Decameron and the episode of Farinata and Cavalcante in Dante’s Hell. Marxist criticism aimed at finding a reflection of the economic and social conditions of the Middle Ages in literature. This stream of thought is represented by Carlo Salinari (1919–1977) who wrote especially on realism in Boccaccio (Carlo Salinari, La questione del realismo, 1958), and also published a commentary to the Decameron (Il Decamerone di Boccaccio, 1963). Among literary critics in the 1960s who carried further an analysis of medieval literature according to the canon of neo-realism, Eduardo Sanguineti (born in 1930) distinguished himself for applying the principles of Marxist criticism to the study of Dante. Sanguineti was, with Umberto Eco (b. 1932), a member of the “Gruppo 63,” a circle of progressive writers and critics of a Marxist background, but not necessarily faithful to the orthodox line of Marxist thought. Sanguineti’s work explores elements of realism in Dante’s poetry, and offers a valuable interpretation of the literary production of the Florentine master (Edoardo Sanguineti, Il realismo in Dante, 1966). An important contribution to Italian Medieval Studies came from Alberto Asor Rosa (b. 1933), who dedicated great effort to interpreting the figure of the lay intellectual inaugurated by Dante (Alberto Asor Rosa, “La fondazione del laico,” Letteratura italiana: Questioni, 1986, 17–121). He edited the collective volumes of the Letteratura italiana published by Einaudi, which offers an interesting perspective on the medieval period, viewed from an entirely Marxist perspective. Marxist criticism was demolished by the introduction in Italy of the writings of the critics belonging to the Frankfurt school, such as Walter Ben-
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jamin, Herbert Marcuse, Theodor W. Adorno, and Max Horkheimer, who aimed at defending the public from mass culture since the 1970s. C. Philology in the 1960s and Later In spite of the fact that theories of contemporary criticism started circulating in Italy in the 1960s, several of the major Italian philologists remained faithful to the teachings of the Italian historical school of the beginning of the century, continuing the mission of editing texts according to a detailed historical and philological analysis, rather than offering interpretations. The Italian philological school stayed far away from the influence of structuralism. Amongst the major contributors of this current is Umberto Bosco (1900–1987), an expert on the Italian Trecento, who conceived and directed the monumental Enciclopedia dantesca (1970), one of the greatest achievements in Dante Studies. In 1966–1967 Giorgio Petrocchi (1921–1989) edited a critical edition of the Commedia according to the vernacular tradition. Both Sapegno’s and Petrocchi’s commentaries to the text remain standard editions used for the purpose of research and interpretation. Gianfranco Folena (1920–1992) published mainly in the field of 15th and 16th-century literature, while Vittore Branca (1913–2005) edited and commented Boccaccio’s Decameron and devoted much attention to contextualizing Boccaccio within the framework of medieval culture, viewed from different perspectives (Boccaccio medievale e nuovi studi sul Decameron, 1981). Branca also edited Boccaccio’s opera omnia in ten volumes between 1964 and 1999 and is considered the most respected authority in Boccaccio Studies. His legacy has been taken up by Manlio Pastore Stocchi, who followed in Branca’s footsteps and has offered major contributions on Boccaccio and on the culture of Trecento, especially regarding the courtly civilization of inland Venice. Aurelio Roncaglia (1917–2001) was a romance philologist, who also devoted some interest to the study of the origins of the Italian literature and the definition of Franco-Italian (Aurelio Roncaglia, “La letteratura franco-veneta,” Storia della letteratura italiana, 1965, 727–759). However, the scholar who most embodies the tendency to follow a strictly philological approach is Gianfranco Contini (1912–1990), who offered a critical edition of Petrarch’s rhymes (Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, 1964). He has been held responsible for the rebirth of philology, and most of contemporary philologists acknowledge their debt to his teaching. His critical approach, which considered variants both in manuscripts and in earlier editions as the starting point for reconstructing the genesis of the text, concentrated especially on linguistic elements (Varianti e altra linguistica, 1970). Contini’s main theory is that Dante’s language is characterized by pluri-
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linguism, while mono-linguism started with Petrarch’s style. His edition of Dante’s poems has long been considered the most reliable (Dante Alighieri: Rime, 1970). Contini published at least two works that are viewed as the basis of Italian contemporary philology, Poeti del Duecento (1960); and Un’idea di Dante (1970), two collective volumes that provide a thorough overview of Italian 13th-century literary culture and a general idea of the style and beliefs of the author. D. Structuralism in Italy (1961–1980s) A sign that Italian Medieval Studies were gradually being enriched with groundbreaking perspectives came from Russian formalists (Victor Rklovskij, Lettura del ‘Decameron’: Dal romanzo d’avventura al romanzo di carattere, 1969; Tzvetan Todorov, Grammaire du ‘Décaméron,’ 1969). However, it was only in the 1970s that the reworking of formalist theories and the contribution of semiotics and structuralism blended with the traditional philological approach, producing interesting results. A number of critics gradually subscribed to semiotics, for example, Paolo Valesio who followed Jakobson in his analysis of the various structures of one rhyme by Dante (Roman Jakobson and Paolo Valesio, “Vocabulorum Constructio in Dante’s Sonnet Se vedi li occhi miei,” Studi danteschi 43 [1966]: 7–33). It was Cesare Segre (b. 1928) who officially introduced structuralism and semiotics into the field of Italian Medieval Studies (Cesare Segre, I segni e la critica, 1969). Segre, a student of Gianfranco Contini, started his career as a romance philologist. He displayed great competence and methodology in his critical edition of the Chanson de Roland (1971), which remains a fundamental version of the French epic text. He then became interested in semiotics and displayed the results of his merging of philology and the new approach in Semiotica filologica (1979). He produced outstanding research on the 13th century, and a number of interesting studies on various topics, of which his analysis of medieval folly deserves special mention (Cesare Segre, Fuori del mondo: I modelli nella follia e nelle immagini dell’al di là, 1990). Cesare Segre and Maria Corti (1915–2002) are the major contributors to the dissemination of semiotics in Italy and have encouraged the fusion of the traditional Italian philological school with the needs of contemporary interpretation represented by semiotics (Giorgio Baroni, Storia della critica letteraria in Italia, 1997). Corti’s studies aimed at defining hidden cultural models and intertextual relationships in Dante and his contemporary culture (Maria Corti, Metodi e fantasmi, 1969, now in Scritti su Cavalcanti e Dante, 2003). Corti and Segre produced an interesting summa of the tendencies of Italian criticism in I metodi attuali della critica in Italia (ed. C. Segre and M. Corti, 1970). Generally speaking it can be said that
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they brought the basic principles of structuralism into the heart of Medieval Italian Studies (Marin Mincu, La semiotica letteraria italiana, 1982). Literary interpretation, philology, and semiotics found a perfect balance in the works of these two critics. Among other critics who obtained interesting results by adopting this approach, D’Arco Silvio Avalle (1920–2002) was the first Italian critic to apply narratology and Propp’s morphology to Dante’s Comedy (Modelli semiologici nella ‘Commedia’ di Dante; 1975; L’ultimo viaggio di Ulisse, 1966). The author who systematically researched in Medieval Studies adopting an entirely semiotic approach is Umberto Eco, whose career is varied and comprises studies on medieval philosophy (Il problema estetico in San Tommaso, 1970; Arte e bellezza nell’estetica medievale, 1987). While on the one hand his name is strictly linked to Medieval Studies because of his background, Eco became gradually more interested in a general theory on reception and reader oriented studies. His thought provoking analyses opened up a new approach in literary criticism (Opera aperta, 1962; Lector in fabula, 1979). E. New Approaches (1981–2000s) Apart from a few scattered incursions in Medieval Italian Studies, postmodern criticism has not been particularly influential in this field. The fusion of deconstructionism, feminism, and Marxism was applied to Dante in one instance, where Dante is compared with Yates (Gayatri C. Spivak, In Other Worlds, 1988). Other experiments were based on the attempt to apply contemporary theories of reception to Dante’s Commedia (for example, Teodolinda Barolini, The Undivine Comedy: Detheologizing Dante, 1992). A post-Lacanian approach was adopted for a psychoanalytical examination of Petrarch’s poetry (Stefano Agosti, Per una lettura psicanalitica del Canzoniere di Petrarca, 1993). However, the most recent developments of literary criticism have influenced Italian Medieval Studies only marginally in that the last twenty years have featured a major effort to compile editions of minor works, with the purpose of allowing for a reconstruction and examination of the historical and cultural context where the texts were produced. A new edition of Dante’s Commedia, including a revised commentary that contains interesting interpretations of the text has been published by Tommaso Di Salvo (La ‘Divina Commedia’ di Dante Alighieri, 1987). One important contribution to the knowledge of the Italian Trecento is focused on Franco-Italian literature, particularly on the Entrée d’Espagne which is placed within the vibrant framework of northern Italy in the 14th century. A most accurate profile of the historical
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circumstances contemporary to the composition of the poem was drawn by Corrado Bologna, “La letteratura dell’Italia settentrionale nel Trecento,” (Letteratura italiana: Storia e geografia, 1987, I: 511–600), while Alberto Limentani (1940–1992) authored a major study on this topic (L’‘Entrée d’Espagne’ e i signori d’Italia, 1992). The field of Franco-Italian and the late medieval period with particular focus on the genesis and significance of the chivalric poem have attracted a great deal of attention in recent years. For example, Daniela Delcorno Branca dedicated numerous studies to the tradition of Buovo d’Antona. In the Unites States, Leslie Zarker Morgan founded and currently directs the Franco-Italian On-Line Archive (www.italnet.nd.edu/ fiola). Her studies on the omniscient narrator and on questions of style in Franco-Italian literature, together with a study by Nancy BradleyCromey (Authority and Autonomy in L’Entrée d’Espagne, 1993) opened up new perspectives on this tradition. Recently, the evaluation of Duecento poets connected with Dante and technical points of textual editing were made the object of a critical analysis by Guglielmo Gorni (Dante prima della Commedia, 2001). British and American scholarship is greatly contributing to the understanding of the Italian Trecento. Two translations of the Divine Comedy were published by Dorothy Sayers (1893–1957) and Charles S. Singleton (1909–1985), who also worked on Boccaccio. His contribution to the development of Dante-Studies in America is of foremost importance (Charles S. Singleton, An Essay on the Vita Nuova, 1949; id., Commedia: Elements of Structure, 1954). Attention has especially been devoted to Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio, for example, Robert Hollander published several essays on Dante and Boccaccio: Dante: A life in works (2001); Boccaccio’s Dante: The Shaping Force of Satire (1997), and one translation of the Divine Comedy, which initially was aimed at updating Singleton’s translation, but then evolved in a new version. Amongst critics, who contributed to the understanding of Italian medieval literary culture, Peter Armour, Mark Musa, and J. S. Scott offered studies that made Dante available to a wider audience. John Took’s philosophical approach introduced a new perspective on Dante’s thought (Dante’s Phenomenology of Being, 2000), while Zygmunt Baranski focused above all on intertextuality and cultural history (‘Chiosar con altro testo:’ Leggere Dante nel Trecento, 2001; Zygmunt Baranski and Martin McLaughlin, The Italy’s Three Crowns: Reading Petrarch, Dante, Boccaccio, 2006). Different aspects of the Comedy were explored by Michelangelo Picone (Dante e le forme dell’allegoresi, 1987), while studies on the reception of Dante in contemporary society were published by Amilcare A. Iannucci (for example, Dante, Cinema and Television, 2006).
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Computer-aided literary criticism produced interesting results (David Robey, Sound and Structure in Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy,’ 2000), a field which is now being expanded. Finally, a historical perspective on different aspects of Italian medieval culture is offered by Chiara Frugoni, whose approach represents the influence of the Annales on Italian scholarship (Vita di un uomo: Francesco d’Assisi, 1995). An encyclopedia that gathers together the most recent scholarship on medieval Italy was edited by Christopher Kleinhenz (Medieval Italy, 2003). Among the journals that publish updates on Italian medieval literary culture is Studi di filologia italiana, the annual bulletin of the Accademia della Crusca; Rivista di Studi Danteschi, the biannual journal of the Centro Pio Rajna; Studi Danteschi, annual journal of the Società Dantesca Italiana; The Italianist, biannual journal of the department of Italian Studies of the University of Reading; Dante Studies, annual journal of the Dante Society of America, and the proceedings of the Dante Series organized by John Barnes at University College Dublin. Select Bibliography Letteratura italiana: L’interpretazione, ed. by Alberto Asor Rosa (Turin: Einaudi, 1985); Letteratura italiana: Storia e geografia, ed. by Alberto Asor Rosa (Turin: Einaudi, 1987); Storia della critica letteraria in Italia, ed. by Giorgio Baroni (Turin: UTET, 1997); Alberto Casadei, La critica letteraria del Novecento (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2001); Teresa De Lauretis, “Semiotic in Italy,” The Sign: Semiotics Around the World, ed. Richard W. Bailey, Ladislav Matejka, and Peter Steiner (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1978), 248–57.
Claudia Boscolo
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J Japan, Medieval A. Defining the Japanese Middle Ages Starting in the early modern era, European scholars used the term the “Middle Ages” (or its Latin equivalent, “medieval”) as a disparaging term to mark the epoch from the fall of the Roman Empire until the Renaissance, which supposedly was the time when the Classical world was reborn. Not only have medievalists actively resisted the misperceptions about the Middle Ages (solidified with Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1776–88), but have also explored the possibility that the term “medieval” or “Middle Ages” can appropriately describe societies outside of Europe. Those who believe that medieval culture existed in areas outside the West have turned to Japan more frequently than to any other country. The reason stems from early Japan’s court culture, reaching its zenith in Heian Japan, which possessed a striking resemblance to the court culture of medieval Europe; and especially from the feudalism that flourished during the Kamakura and Muromachi eras, characterized by a samurai warrior class that followed the principles of Buddhism in ways comparable to the medieval knights with their Christian-based chivalry. However, even those who believe that Japan had a medieval era similar to that of Europe’s cannot agree upon the same timeline. Traditionally Japanese history is divided into periods that reflect ruling powers and the locations of their capitals. The Kamakura period (1185–1333) and the Muromachi period (1333–1573) constitute the Japanese medieval era, according to most historians, because these are the times when feudalism and the samurai class flourished. Thus, for Japanese history, the terms “feudalism” and “medieval” are interchangeable, although this is not the case for some other cultures labeled as medieval. A few scholars still extend the medieval era into the Edo period (1615–1868), although typically it is now classified as the beginning of the Modern era. Literary scholars examining texts cross-culturally often include the Heian period (794–1185) as part of medieval Japan because its court literature paralleled European medieval genres in striking ways. However, there are those who express concern that Eurocentric scholars are projecting Western historical patterns upon other cultures that have their own
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distinct historical patterns and that European terms like “medieval” do not fit other cultures. B. Historical Overview of Japan and Western Scholarship Among Europeans it was the Portuguese who first traded and interacted with the Japanese from the 1540s until the Edo period (1615–1868) when foreigners were banned from the islands. Westerners did not establish significant contact again until Commodore Perry’s 1853 “request” for Japan to open its doors, a request made from American steamships with artillery pointed toward Japan. After 1853 Japan rapidly adopted modern Western practices. This rapid transformation was a characteristic of the Meiji era (1868–1912) when power shifted from the shogun to the emperor. Europe and America set up diplomatic relations with Japan, although Japan’s imitation of Western empires, including colonizing territories, proved to be a significant factor leading to World War II and to temporary suspension of diplomatic relations with the Allies. As part of its modernization process, Japan created Keio University, established in 1858 and modeled after Western institutions of higher learning. Japanese scholars were eager to describe their history and culture in ways that paralleled the West. Therefore, in the late 1800s Japanese history was cast in such Western terms as “medieval,” with the feudal period extending from the Kamakura era through the Edo (1185–1868). Literature was classified according to such Western genres as the novel. Western scholars readily adopted this familiar terminology (Inventing the Classics: Modernity, National Identity, and Japanese Literature, eds. Haruo Shirane and Tomi Suzuki, 2000). A small handful of Western diplomats served as the first scholars who introduced North America and Europe to the Japanese. For example, one envoy was George Sansom, advisor and representative of the United Kingdom to Japan in 1904, British consular in Japan 1939–1941, and later professor at Columbia University after World War II. He was one of the first scholars writing in English to note parallels between feudal Japan and Europe; his studies included Japan: A Short Cultural History (1931) – in which he dated Japan’s feudal period from the Kamakura era up through the Edo – and a series of history books that started publication in 1958. W. G. Aston, a British consular and contributor to Cambridge’s Japanese collection, wrote an early book in English on Japanese literature (A History of Japanese Literature, 1899). Instead of using the term medieval, Aston referred to the Heian period as the Classical age, the Kamakura as the era of decline, and the Muromachi as the Dark Ages. Translations played an important role in encouraging Westerners to compare their history and culture with that of Japan. For instance, in 1935
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Arthur Waley produced the first English translation of The Tale of Genji, recognized by Japan and by the rest of the world as the literary masterpiece of Japan and as one of the world’s classics. A product of Heian culture and written by Murasaki Shikibu, Genji has been classified as one of the world’s greatest novels and as one of the world’s greatest romances on the scale with the medieval romances of Arthur. In 1918 A. L. Sadler began publishing translated portions of the Tale of the Heike, which has been compared to Western war epics; it is the narrative account of the fall of the Taira clan to the Minamoto clan, an event which ended the Heian period with its sophisticated court and ushered in the feudal era of Kamakura (Helen Craig McCollough published a full English translation in 1988). Hostilities between Japan and the United States during World War II led to an increase in American interest in its enemy. Hence, English-language scholarship on Japan expanded. After World War II research would modify earlier perceptions of medieval Japan. John Whitney Hall, who was born to American missionaries in Japan and who worked for American naval intelligence during World War II, was the historian who shaped current views on Japanese periods and their parallels with the West. He was the first to argue that trends during the Edo period would qualify it as the beginning of Japan’s modern era. Hall and his student Jeffrey Mass contended that Kamakura Japan formed the early Middle Ages (with its seeds sown in the Heian era that ended with the Gempei War that would establish the power of the samurai) and the Muromachi era constituted the late Middle Ages. Hall and Mass edited the first study in English on medieval Japan (Medieval Japan: An Institutional History, 1974), and Hall became the first editor of the standard history, Cambridge History of Japan. The standard study that came to define and periodize Japanese literature was written by Jin’ichi Konishi (translation of his five-volume study is entitled A History of Japanese Literature). Konishi placed literature of the Heian period under the Early Middle Ages. Donald Keene, a U.S. Navy intelligence officer in the Pacific during World War II and later professor at Columbia, compiled English-translated anthologies of Japanese literature (1955), in which he identified the literature of the Kamakura and Muromachi eras as medieval. C. Current Trends in Scholarship There was a global shift in research during late 20th century in response to profound political events: World War II ended with the dismantling of empires (both English and Japanese, for example) and the rise of postcolonial nations; the 1960s were marked by civil rights movements and student protests, leading to interest in feminism and the rights of ethnic/racial minor-
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ities; the 1980s saw the end of the Cold War and a new emphasis upon area studies. One feature of these emerging studies has been the increased interest given to world literature and world history, to an international Middle Ages. The recent interest in world perspectives was presented, for instance, in The Longman Anthology of World Literature, which defined the international Middle Ages as a time that followed the Classical period. A culture’s Classical time period could vary from area to area; however, these societies produced foundational texts, often religious in nature – the Bible, Vedas, etc. The subsequent Middle Ages built upon these religious foundational texts and developed certain institutions connected to religion and government. The medieval era eventually gave way to the modern, marked by secularization, nationalism, urbanization, industrialization, and other such trends (Volume B: The Medieval Era, ed. David Damrosch, 2004, 1–4). Damrosch subtitled one section as “Lords and Ladies, Knights and Samurai,” thereby explicitly linking the European Middle Ages with Japan. According to Damrosch, traits inherent to the medieval era were (1) royal courts that were sites for patronage of the arts (such as Lady Murasaki who wrote Genji at the court of Empress Shoshi), (2) a large peasant population often serving as serfs for feudal overlords in an agrarian economy, (3) a warrior class that became the subject for epics and romances and other literary forms, (4) and cultures dominated by the rise of certain religious beliefs (Christian, Islamic, and Buddhist). Although Damrosch included Heian Japan in the medieval era in the introduction and in the volume itself, for the section specifically on Japan, Haruo Shirane followed traditional dating and separated the Heian period from the Japanese medieval era (Kamakura and Muromachi periods). D. Heian Literature The Heian period was distinguished for its refined, artistic court culture. Given its royal courts’ focus upon aesthetics, it is not surprising that the Heian era is viewed as the Japanese golden age for the arts. The Heian period marked the epoch in Japanese history extending from 794 to 1186, when the capital city was located in Heiankyo (modern day Kyoto). This early medieval period began when the Emperor moved the capital from Nara, and it ended after the Gempei War, when the victorious Minamoto clan transferred the capital to Kamakura. We know about the aristocracy through the courtly writings of its members, but little is known of the lower classes, who would have formed the majority of the population. Heian Japan looked back to the Chinese T’ang Dynasty of the 600–900s as a model, much in the same way that medieval Europe was inspired by the earlier Roman Empire. Fusing native Japanese characteristics with this bor-
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rowed Chinese culture, Heian aristocracy devoted itself to what Ivan Morris called the “cult of beauty in art and nature” (The World of the Shining Prince, 194). Women writers dominated the Heian literary canon, making it unique among the world’s traditional literatures: first and foremost is Murasaki Shikibu, author of Japan’s most treasured classic, The Tale of Genji (Genji Monogatari), classified as the world’s first novel and one of the finest; Sei Shonagon, whose Pillow Book (Makura no Soshi) is a complex piece of autographical writing that defies easy categorization and description; and Izumi Shikibu, Heian Japan’s leading poet. Most Heian writers in Japanese were women because – as in medieval Europe where men dominated the official language of Latin – in medieval Japan men tended to write in the official language of Chinese, not in Japanese. Secluded behind screens from the prying eyes of men, women writers like Murasaki Shikibu would entertain their royal patrons, like the Empress Shoshi, with romance prose narratives interspersed with poetry (monogatari), waka poetry reflecting the Shinto appreciation of nature, and autobiographical writings, such as diaries (nikki). Because of the rise of women’s studies, a number of scholarly works in recent years have focused upon this corpus of women’s literature: H. Richard Okada, Figures of Resistance: Language, Poetry, and Narrating in The Tale of Genji and Other Mid-Heian Texts, 1991; Edith Sarra, Fictions of Femininity: Literary Inventions of Gender in Japanese Court Women’s Memoirs,1999; Terry Kawashima, Writing Margins: The Textual Construction of Gender in Heian and Kamakura Japan, 2001; At the House of Gathered Leaves: Shorter Biographical and Autobiographical Narratives from Japanese Court Literature, ed. and trans. Joshua S. Mostow, 2004. As some of these scholars have noted, attempts to place genres into Western categories have proven vexing. For example, it is standard in the West to differentiate between genres of poetry and prose whereas Japanese literature traditionally mixes the two modes. Thus, there is resistance among some literary scholars to pigeonhole Japanese literature into Western genres, a practice common since the 19th century. In contrast, some studies have attempted to trace parallels between Western and Japanese women’s writing: Crossing the Bridge: Comparative Essays on European Medieval and Japanese Heian Women Writers, ed. Barbara Stevenson and Cynthia Ho, 2001; The Female Autograph, ed. Domna Stanton, 1987; Marilyn Miller, Poetics of Nikki Bungaku: A Comparison of the Traditions, Conventions, and Structure of Heian Japan’s Literary Diaries with Western Autobiographical Writings, 1985. Japan’s most important contribution to world literature, The Tale of Genji is a romance novel about Genji – a son of the Emperor, his many loves, and their descendants. Although Genji is nicknamed “the shining one,” Murasa-
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ki’s careful characterization avoids reducing Genji to an idealistic, stereotypical hero, as Genji’s flaws lead to mistakes that he must atone for. The novel’s detailed descriptions provide insights into life during Heian Japan and illustrate the power politics of the time (many scholars believe she modeled Genji, other characters, and some episodes after the lives of members of the powerful Fujiwara clan). Although a voluminous novel with countless characters, the careful plotting in Genji brings coherence and unity to the work. The Tale of Genji has proven to be an especially popular topic for Western scholarly studies: Ivan Morris, The World of the Shining Prince: Court Life in Ancient Japan, 1969; Norma Field, The Splendor of Longing in The Tale of Genji, 1987; Haruo Shirane, Bridge of Dreams: A Poetics of The Tale of Genji, 1988; Doris Bargen, A Woman’s Weapon: Spirit Possession in The Tale of Genji, 1997. Aside from the interesting psychology of her characters, Murasaki develops central themes drawn from her Buddhist beliefs: karma and impermanence are two major ones. The prevalence of religious beliefs was another marker of medieval culture, according to Damrosch. For medieval Japanese literature, the prevailing tragic sensibility derived from the Buddhist realization of the ephemeral beauty of this world (William Lafleur, The Karma of Words: Buddhism and the Literary Arts in Medieval Japan, 1983). Although Buddhist ideas were imported from China, they were modified by native Shinto thought. For instance, the belief in spirits and demons was based in Shinto, but exorcists were frequently Buddhist clerics. Later, the Spartan ethics of Zen Buddhism would dominate the ideals of the samurai warrior class that would ascend at the end of the Heian period and beginning of the Kamakura (Richard Bowring, The Religious Traditions of Japan, 500–1600, 2005). Relics formed an important aspect of Buddhist worship (Brian D. Ruppert, Jewel in the Ashes: Buddha Relics and Power in Early Medieval Japan, 2000) much as relics were integral to medieval Christianity. The same was true of the building of sacred sites and of pilgrimages (Janet Goodwin, Alms and Vagabonds: Buddhist Temples and Popular Patronage in Medieval Japan, 1994). E. Feudal Japan The Heian period ended when warriors in the Kamakura region empowered themselves by winning the Gempei War (1180–85), the subject of the Tale of the Heike, the monogatari that ranks second to the Genji. Because the Kamakura and Muromachi eras were dominated by the samurai, there was an artistic decline from the Heian period, although significant literary masterpieces were written. Certain literary genres continued, such as the monogatari (Tale of the Heike) and poetry anthologies (Shinkokinshu). The new, striking
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development was the rise of Noh Drama during the Muromachi era. Zeami Motokiyo (1363–1443) was the central character in the history of the Noh drama, a highly stylized, poetic tragic genre featuring song, dance, and music performed by masked actors. Influenced by Zen Buddhism and Shinto rituals, Noh drama drew its plots from events from Heian history, such as the Gempei War that ended the period, as commemorated in Tale of the Heike (Michele Marra, Representations of Power: The Literary Politics of Medieval Japan, 1999; Elizabeth Oyler, Swords, Oaths, and Prophetic Visions: Authoring Warrior Rule in Medieval Japan, 2006; David Blalock, Eccentric Spaces, Hidden Histories: Narrative, Ritual, and Royal Authority from the Chronicles of Japan to the Tale of the Heike, 2007). One major focus of scholarly discussion for the medieval era of the Kamakura and Muromachi periods has been the nature of Japanese feudalism. The shogun, the first of which was Minamoto no Yoritomo, replaced the emperor in authority, although the imperial family was allowed to continue as figureheads who oversaw ceremonies. The government, called bakufu, resembled western feudalism, in that the shogun had loyal retainers, the samurai who formed a warrior class (bushi) that managed land holdings. The warrior codes of the samurai owed much to Zen Buddhism, just as western knights followed chivalry, which was linked to Christianity. Modern Japan emerged in the Edo period (1615–1868) with the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate, located in Tokyo. Karl Friday traced the rise of warriors in Hired Swords (1992) and Samurai, Warfare, and the State in Early Medieval Japan (2003), noting that the rise of warriors and feudalism were not synchronous as they were in Europe; Friday’s work built on Jeffrey Mass’s earlier studies that divided the Japanese Middle Ages into an early period about the beginnings of the samurai and the later period about their dominance. Since Japan and Western Europe are so far apart, why do their historical cultures seem so similar? Parallels between Western Europe and Japan may be the result of geography, according to essays written by Tadao Umesao in the 1950s, but just recently translated into English (An Ecological View of History: Japanese Civilization in the World Context, trans. Beth Cary, 2003). During the Middle Ages, parallel cultures evolved because of a temperate zone and rainfall for agriculture (leading to the establishment of feudalism) and because of their distance from early centers of civilization (Rome and China). Historians currently debate the topic of a global feudalism, not confined just to medieval Europe and Japan. According to R. J. Barendse, “The feudal process can be perceived as a specific world historic juncture in which peasant societies were subjugated by an aristocracy of mounted warriors that became more powerful than any central institution and increasingly appropriated the
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jurisdiction over the peasants, and thus the land revenue” (“The Feudal Mutation: Military and Economic Transformations of the Ethnosphere in the Tenth to the Thirteenth Centuries,” Journal of World History 14.4 [2003]: 503–29, here 511). In contrast, Stephen Morillo argued that feudalism is a vexed term and scholars cannot agree upon its meaning; in fact, he claimed, some historians have begun to avoid using the term because of its vagueness. Morillo maintained that Barendse was projecting the European concept of feudalism upon other cultures (“A Feudal Mutation? Conceptual Tools and Historical Patterns in World History,” Journal of World History 14.4 [2003]: 531–550). This conflict calls attention to a central issue in inter/cross-cultural studies: when are similarities random, and when do similarities form a meaningful pattern? Was there, in fact, a “feudal” Japan during its “Middle Ages,” or is Japanese cultural history being forced into Western patterns? Select Bibliography Cambridge History of Japan, ed. John W. Hall et al., 6 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988–); William Deal, Handbook to Life in Medieval and Early Modern Japan (New York: Facts on File, 2006); Jin’ichi Konishi, A History of Japanese Literature, trans. Aileen Gatten and Nicholas Teele, ed. Earl Miner, 5 vols. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984–); Earl Miner et al., The Princeton Companion to Classical Japanese Literature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985); Richard Bowring, The Religious Traditions of Japan, 500–1600 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
Barbara Stevenson
Jewish Studies A. Historical Overview The medieval period was instrumental in establishing the legitimacy of Jewish Studies as a field of research, teaching and at the center of many debates, especially concerning periodization. If the “Middle Ages” in general history is relatively clearly defined – from the collapse of the Roman Empire (476) to the capture of Constantinople (1453) – the Jewish notion of yemey ha-beynayim (“Middle Ages” in Hebrew) is open to discussion. In the Rabbinical sources, the term defines a multiplicity of geo-cultural contexts, the best known being the division between sefarad (“Iberian Peninsula”) and ashkenaz (“Germany”). But above all, it defines a long period between the conquest of the Persian Empire by Muslim forces (7th c.) and the beginning of modernity.
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A majority of historians, from Heinrich Graetz (Geschichte der Juden von den ältesten Zeiten bis auf die Gegenwart, 11 vols., 1853–1875) to Jacob Katz (Out of the Ghetto, 1973) consider that the penetration into Jewish communities of rationalism, emancipation, and the ideas of the French Revolution go with the collapse of medieval culture. The history of Jews in the Middle Ages was always a major topic of research (Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson, “The Middle Ages,” History of the Jewish People, ed. Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson, 1976, 385–723; Irving Abraham Agus, The Heroic Age of Franco-German Jewry, 1969; id., Urban Civilization in Pre-Crusade Europe, 2 vols., 1965; Robert Chazan, European Jewry and the First Crusade, 1987) mostly because of the great significance of Jewish philosophy, commentary or literature, and the leading role of important personalities such as Maimonides (Guide of the Perplexed, trans. by Shlomo Pines, 1963). Its scholarly study, however, is quite a recent phenomenon. In the second half of the 19th century, the study of medieval Jewry was treated as the core of the new scientific platform elaborated by the Wissenschaft des Judentums (Leopold Zunz, “Grundlinien zu einer künftigen Statistik der Juden,” Zeitschrift für die Wissenschaft des Judentums [1822]: 523–32, rpt. Gesammelte Schriften, tome I, 134–41). The life and thought of the medieval Jews is analyzed with scientific methods and tools, forsaking the traditional apologetic or “theological” Rabbinical approach. A clear division is made between the orthodox commentary of the canonical texts and the scientific philological-historical study of the cultural heritage of the Jews. The social mutation encouraged a better participation in academic institutions, the desire to investigate the past, to foster the Jewish identity and to gain the right for Jews, like other citizens, to teach in academic institutions and universities. Jewish intellectuals and scholars, especially in Germany, were conscious of the social significance of academic research (Ismar Schorsch, From Text to Context, the Turn to History in Modern Judaism, 1994). For the Maskilim, the enlightened Jews who sought the modernization of Jewish life, scientific inquiry into all aspects of the Jewish past, including medieval history and literature, was seen as an object of study disconnected from religious practices, which could, in a political perspective, promote participation in social and academic life. Science served as a tool for the recognition of the Jewish role in European culture and in the struggle for the rights of the Jewish minority (Lionel Kochan, The Jew and History, 1977). If some historians, in their desire to hasten socio-political integration, emphasize the points of encounter between Jews, Christian or Muslims (Marcus Jost, Geschichte der Israeliten, 10 vols., 1820–1847), some, on the contrary, view their academic work as a recognition and promotion of the Jewish cultural tradition as part of the European heritage. They demon-
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strate the participation of Jews in the building of European or Mediterranean cultures and analyze the socio-religious autonomy of the kehilot (“Jewish communities”) in the general framework of medieval societies (Nachman Krochmal, Moreh nevukhei ha-zeman, ed. by Leopold Zunz, 1851; Shimon Dubnow, History of the Jews in Russia and Poland, 3 vols., 1920–1946). For Jewish scholars (Guido Kisch, Jew in the Medieval Germany, 1949; Bernhard Blumenkranz, Juifs et Chrétiens dans le monde occidental 430–1096, 1960; Léon Poliakov, Histoire de l’antisémitisme, 5 vols., 1955–1994; Jeremy Cohen, The Friars and the Jews: The Evolution of Medieval Anti-Judaism, 1982), it was also important to rectify the errors, negative stereotypes, and religious prejudices accumulated for many centuries by theologians and scholars about Jews in medieval times. Many historians referred to the period as the “dark ages” characterized by violence and religious intolerance. They presented the Jews as a passive, alien minority, confined in the cultural insularity of the ghettos and separated from society by the restrictive codes of laws, rituals, and religious practices concentrated in the “obscure Talmud,” and enduring an endless suffering in exile. The impact on Christian historians of religious prejudices and theological debates tended to obliterate the perception of Judaism. In the 19th and the early 20th centuries, no Jewish scholar wrote a history of Jews in the Middle Ages, although the period was studied by the major researchers. Some, like Heinrich Graetz (Geschichte der Juden von den ältesten Zeiten bis auf die Gegenwart, 11 vols., 1853–1875), emphasized the leading roles of great personalities in the course of Jewish history. Others, like Shimon Dubnov (Die Weltgeschichte des jüdischen Volkes, vol. 4, Das frühere Mittelalter, vol. 5, Das späte Mittelalter, 1926–1927) analyzed specific themes related to political issues, such as, for example, the positive effect of the creation of the autonomous community (kehilot) on Jewish continuity. The leading place that Middle Ages occupy in most general works on Jewish history shows how central this period is to understand Jewish creativity and cultural specificity in the context of Christian and Muslim societies. Other historians chose to focus their studies on more circumscribed topics in order to initiate a dialogue with the general history of both East and West. This approach, which combines a comparatistic perspective with an internal analysis of Jewish societies, has helped to better analyze the specific traits of the medieval Jewish heritage in fields as varied as literature, philosophy or education. As an oppressed minority in various European countries, without recognized institutions and with no possibility to learn outside the communities, the Jews gave great importance to teaching and studying, either in synagogues (beyt ha-knesset), talmudic academies (yeshivot), or in houses of study (beyt ha-midrash) (Moritz Guedemann, Die Geschichte des
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Erziehungswesens und der Cultur der abendländischen Juden während des Mittelalters und der Neueren Zeit, 3 vols., 1880–1888). Historians such as Ephraim Elimelech Urbach (Baalei ha-tosafot, 1955) and Abraham Grossman (Hakhmei ashkenaz ha-rishonim, 2001; id., Hakhmei tsarfat ha-rishonim, 1995) emphasize the leading role of a small elite of great rabbis, sages, halakhists, philosophers, kabbalists and commentators in the preservation of Jewish identity and the transmission of canonical sources and religious values in learned circles as well as among the less educated. Several generations of scholars have investigated medieval Jewish thought and philosophy (Julius Guttmann, Die Philosophie des Judentums, 1933, English 1964; Georges Vajda, Introduction à la pensée juive du Moyen âge, 1947; Shlomo Pines, “Jewish Philosophy,” Encyclopedia of Philosophy, IV, 1967, 261–77; Colette Sirat, La philosophie juive au Moyen âge, 1983), law (Menahem Elon, Jewish Law, History, Sources, Principles, 4 vols., 1994), or exegesis (Menahem Banitt, Rashi, Interpreter of the Biblical Letter, 1985; Israel Ta-Shma, Ha-Sifrut ha-parshanit la-Talmud be-eyropah uvi-tsafon afrikah, 3 vols., 1999–2002), revealing its remarkable richness and creativity. This broad investigation stimulated the publication of books and editions of many important texts of the medieval heritage showing the continuity and innovation of Jewish culture and methods of interpretation (Solomon Munk, Mélanges de philosophie juive et arabe, Paris, 1955). Although the principal aim of 19th-century scholars was to transmit ethical values, to disseminate pious interpretations and to investigate God’s word through Rabbinical techniques and hermeneutical rules of interpretation, this continuous research and the publication of classical sources paved the way for contemporary Jewish scholarship (among many publications, see, Maimonide, Mishneh Torah, trans. and ed. by Moses Hyamson, 1937–1949; Harry Austryn Wolfson, Crescas’ Critique of Aristotle, 1929, with the translation of the beginning of Or Adonai; Levi ben Gershom, Les guerres du Seigneur, trans. and ed. by Charles Touati, 1968). Analyzing the perception of “the other” in Jewish sources and that of Jews in Christian or Muslim texts became a central point in illustrating how, contrary to the assertions of theologians and propagandists, Jews contributed to the formation of both Western and Oriental civilization, from an economic, cultural, and social point of view (Moritz Steinschneider, Die Juden als Dolmetscher, 1893; Cecil Roth, The Jewish Contribution to Civilisation, 1940). Studying the sources on the origins of the Ashkenazi community – its organization, legal status and autonomy within the feudal states – is part of the desire to show that, far from being a “marginal minority,” Jews in fact contributed to fashioning the features of European history (Bernard S. Bachrach, Early Medieval Jewish Policy in Western Europe, 1977). The same per-
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spective applies to the phenomena of cultural porosity and the impact of Christian values on medieval Jewish culture, leading to the study of ambivalent relations between Jewish communities and their Christian neighbors. Through this type of study, scholars felt they were doing their part in reducing the barriers between the Jewish world and the surrounding society, while at the same time questioning the existence of a “Judeo-Christian symbiosis.” Historians of the 20th century first questioned, then rejected this concept, preferring the idea of a minority’s survival by affirming and defending its difference within a dominant culture (Mark R. Cohen, Under Crescent and the Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages, 1994; Norman Roth, Jews, Visigoths and Muslims in Medieval Spain, 1994; Jeremy Cohen, Living Letters of the Law: Ideas of the Jew in Medieval Christianity, 1999). In this context, the “golden age” of Spain played a major role as a case for studying relations between Jews, Christians, and Muslims, and is regarded as a social laboratory to measure the interpenetration and mutual enrichment between cultures (Yitzhak Baer, Die Juden in christlichen Spanien, 2 vols., 1926–36; Bernard Septimus, Hispano-Jewish Culture in Transition, 1982). Inversely, this historical period is also a way of recalling the permanence of persecutions, violence, and expulsions as a constitutive dimension of the history of the Jews in Europe (Simcha Goldin, Alamut, ahavukha al-mavet ahavukha, 2002). These traumatic ruptures caused waves of migration to Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean basin, which served to develop new communities and a rich Jewish culture, notably in Poland (Moshe Rosman, The Lord’s Jews, 1990) and in the Ottoman Empire (Minna Rozen, History of the Jewish Community in Istanbul, the Formative Years 1453–1566, 2002). The construction of Jewish historiography has always been influenced by ideological and religious debates. In the 19th century, the leading scholars of the Wissenschaft des Judentums participated in the cultural emancipation of the Jewish intelligentsia. Some historians integrated the study of medieval sources in the political framework of Jewish nationalism, along with the cultural struggle for recognition of political independence. In the following century, many historians had the premonition of the catastrophe that would shake Europe. Massacres, persecutions, and suffering are the result of exile, lack of political sovereignty, and are considered as the consequence of the status of Jews as an alien minority (Simon Bernfeld, Sefer ha-demaot, 3 vols., 1923–26; Yitzhak Baer, Galut, 1936). The end of the “valley of tears” presupposes the conquest of political independence and the return to Zion. Studying the history of persecutions is seen as an intellectual tool to fight anti-Semitism. It leads to a reflection on the relation between suffering, loss of political sovereignty, and feelings of alienation. For many historians, such
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as Ben-Zion Dinur (Toldot Israel: Israel ba-golah, tomes 5–6, 1925–1926) only Jewish independence could bring political redemption and liberation and put an end to the exile from history. If we can distinguish a line of continuity between the scholars of the Wissenschaft des Judentums and most of the Jewish historians of the first half of the 20th century, the contemporary period reflects a gradual mutation with some radical changes. The “new history” of medieval Jews shows a renewal of objects, objectives, methods and the emergence of new fields of research. It should be recalled, first of all, that the general histories of the Middle Ages gave little place to Jews. This shadowy presence meant that Jews were assigned a subaltern role in the social and economic history of Europe. But more importantly, it made it difficult to integrate their history into the general economy of both East and West. Contemporary historians, inversely, have worked on re-positioning Jewish society within the general framework so as to better define the role of Jews in medieval culture. The historians sought to understand the specificity of their transnational history, to examine the intercommunity links that united them, and to retrace the genesis of communities in the body of feudal legal and political structures (The Jewish Political tradition, ed. Michael Walzer, Menahem Lorberbaum and Noam J. Zohar, 3 vols., 2000). B. Rethinking Jewish Medieval History The questioning of what has been called the “lachrymose conception of Jewish history” (Salon Wittmayer Baron) has also made it possible to rethink Jewish historiography. The Middle Ages is no longer considered as a period of darkness that ended at the end of the 18th century by the triumph of the Enlightenment, an era of reason and progress that eventually gave civil rights and made the integration into European societies possible. Moreover, the study of Jews in the medieval period for a long time accentuated the lack of historical chronicles, political thinking, or Jewish art on a par with those produced by representatives of the dominant societies. It lends weight to the idea of an insular culture, focused almost exclusively on religion, and minimized the notion of contacts with surrounding worlds. As for Jewish creativity, scholars tended to reduce it to a mere appendix of the cultures in which they lived. Medieval Jewish history was seen as a ramification of European history, in the same way as Jewish medieval literature was merely a branch of universal literature. The transformation of medieval Jewish studies also led to abandoning the vast perspectives and overall explanations of macrohistory, which, like Salo Wittmayer Baron (Social and Religious History of the Jews, vols. 3–8, High Middle Ages; vols. 9–12, Late Middle Ages, 1952–1993)
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embraced the totality of medieval Judaism in its plural dimensions and its maximum geographic expansion. Contemporary historians have abandoned these conceptions, emphasizing rather the exceptional intellectual creativity of medieval Jews, the phenomena of interaction with the ambient culture and the constant invention of collective responses to the attacks, prejudices, and violence of Christian society. Many areas formerly unexplored have now been thoroughly researched. From the second half of the 20th century, the Jewish studies show a re-centering on micro-history, on more circumscribed themes providing access to the dynamic complexity of Jewish society in its plural and contradictory dimensions. Among these themes are economic and cultural history, particularly the history of education (Ephraim Kanarfogel Jewish Education and Society in High Middle Ages, 1992), history of the family (Elisheva Baumgarten, Mothers and Children: Jewish Family in Medieval Europe, 2004), women (Abraham Grossman, Pious and Rebellious, Jewish Women in Medieval Europe, 2004), sexuality (David Biale, Eros and the Jews, 1992), art, theater, and music (Cecil Roth, Jewish Art, 1961; Amnon Shiloah, Jewish Musical Traditions, 1992; Ahuva Belkin, Ha-Purim-shpil, 2002), mentalities, and material culture (Ariel Toaff, Love,Work, and Death: Jewish Life in Medieval Umbria, 1996), or the links between martyrology, stereotypes, and social violence (Gavin Langmuir, History, Religion and Antisemitism, 1990; Robert Chazan, Medieval Stereotypes and Modern Antisemitism, 1997). Intellectual changes have also been emphasized, including the opposition between Rabbinic thought and the formation of the scientific spirit (David Ruderman, Jewish Thought and Scientific Discovery in Early Modern Europe, 1995; Yizhak Tzvi Langermann, The Jews and the Sciences in the Middle Ages, 1999). An important field of research is the study of Rabbinical sources, including the responsa, as an access to social and economic history (Irving Marcus, Teshuvot baalei ha-tosafot, 1954; Hayim Soloveitchik, “Can Halakhic Texts talk History?,” AJS Review 3 [1978]: 153–96; id., Sheelot u-teshuvot ke-makor histori, 1990). We could also mention the circulation of persons, property, and knowledge in the diaspora, both Ashkenazi and Sephardic (Gérard Nahon, Métropoles et périphéries séfarades d’Occident: Kairouan, Amsterdam, Bayonne, Bordeaux, Jérusalem, 1993). One of the major aspects of modern historiography is that it called into question the stereotypes of Jewish isolation in communities that were microsocieties impermeable to outside influences. Jewish society is no longer analyzed as a world closed into itself, in which only internal dynamics (whether unification around the canonic texts or creative tensions between complementary components) enabled preservation and survival. Among the recurrent themes we can cite the integration of Jewish history into the general con-
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text of medieval culture and the evaluation of the role of the surrounding cultures, be they Christian or Muslim, in the formation of medieval Jewish culture (Albrecht Classen, “Jewish-Christian Relations in the German Middle Ages – the Exploration of Alternative Voices? The Deconstruction of a Myth or Factual History? Literary-Historical Investigations,” Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik 58 [2003]: 123–49; id., “Jewish-Christian Relations in Medieval Literature,” German Literature Between Faiths: Jew and Christian at Odds and in Harmony, ed. Peter Meister, 2004, 53–65). Many historians have favored the phenomenon of osmosis between Jewish society and the modes of thought, beliefs, customs, and symbols of the surrounding cultures. The study of relations between Christian theological thought and the methods of the Jewish commentators has helped put into perspective the idea of cultural porosity (Gilbert Dahan, Les intellectuels chrétiens et les juifs au moyen âge, 1990). A good example can be found in the influence of Christian monastic thought on the social ethics of the Jewish pietists (Hasidei Ashkenaz). Their doctrine, although clearly linked with ancient Jewish magic, mysticism, and cosmogonies, also appeared to be a non-violent response to the persecutions and discriminations of Christian society (Yitzhak Baer, “Ha-megammah ha-datit ha-hevratit be-Sefer Hasidim,” Zion 3 [1938]: 1–50). Contacts within educated circles also show intellectual relations between Jews and Christians. Jewish philosophy in Islamic lands, which served to transmit concepts, doctrines, and technical vocabulary, attests to the circulation of texts and manuscripts, and to the role of translation in the formation of medieval Jewish thought (Shlomo Pines, Studies in the History of Jewish Philosophy, The Transmission of Texts and Ideas, 1977). One can observe similar phenomena in the realm of language practices, linguistic terminology, grammatical tradition or literature, both learned and popular (Leo Prijs, Die grammatikalische Terminologie des Abraham Ibn Ezra, 1950). Other historians have stressed the dialectic between the dynamic effect of interaction and acculturation on the one hand and the conservative role of the law and the traditional social framework on the other. A good example is the organization of communal power in Spain and the complex social stratification based on a division between a Jewish “aristocracy” a developing urban bourgeoisie, and the people, which was simultaneously a factor of stabilization, tensions and mutation (Yom Tov Assis, The Golden Age of Aragonese Jewry: Communities and Society in the Crown of Arago 1213–1327, 1997). The political role of the Jews within the local power, or the phenomena of cultural transfer between Arab, Greek, Latin, and Jewish medicine and sciences (John M. Efron, Medicine and the German Jews, 2001), as mathematics or astronomy, are further examples of the circulation of knowledge (Joseph Shatzmiller,
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Jews, Medicine and Medieval Society, 1994; Ron Barkai, A History of Jewish Gynaecological Texts in the Middle Ages, 1998; Gad Freudenthal, Science in the Medieval Hebrew and Arabic Traditions, 2005). In the Ashkenazi lands, the emergence of the major Jewish communities is related to the development of urbanization, which stimulated Jewish participation in the economic expansion of Europe, notably in international trade and money lending (Michael Toch, “The Economic Activities of German Jews in the 10th to the 12th Centuries: Between Historiography and History,” Facing the Cross, ed. Yom Tov Assis et al., 2001, 32–54). Present-day historians tend to reposition this role in the broader context of the history of cities and “minorities” including the Lombards. The same is true of the place of Jews in the economic policy of princes and monarchs. Although Poland is an interesting example of Jewish participation in the exploitation of properties of the nobility, one should not overestimate this role, which depends on the amount of social contact between the peasantry, the Jewish middlemen, and the Christian authorities (Israel Halperin, Yehudim ve-yahadut be-mizrah eyropah, 1968; Salo Wittmayer Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews, Poland-Lithuania, vol. XVI, 1976). Another essential area of research is to study the phenomena of violence, tensions, and conflicts. The systematic attacks on Jewish communities during the Crusades were the culmination of the long-standing hostility toward the Jews. Numerous chronicles attest to the scope of the disasters, although in using them, historians have to distinguish between the commemorative and the historical, relating martyrdom and documenting history. Faced with such persecutions, Jews exalted spiritual resistance (as shown, among others, by the non-violent current of the Sefer hassidim), and advocated death for the sanctification of the holy name (kiddush ha-shem) rather than conversion (Ivan Marcus, Piety and Society: The Jewish Pietists in Medieval Germany, 1981; Jeremy Cohen, Sanctifying the Name of God, 2004). This violence extends into the realm of ideas, with the polemic anti-Jewish literature based on a critical scrutiny of the Torah, refutation of the Talmud, or, on the contrary, searching the Talmudic literature for foundations of Christianity. In the name of a rational and all-encompassing vision of religion, the theologians condemned the Talmud as a receptacle of all the errors and ravings of the Jewish religion. It is seen as the canonic text par excellence, in which are concentrated all the blasphemous heresies of Jews toward Christians. As such, it must be denounced and criticized but also burned or otherwise destroyed (Gilbert Dahan, La polémique crétienne contre le judaïsme au Moyen âge, 1991; id., ed., Le brûlement du Talmud à Paris, 1242–1244, 1999). Jews are stigmatized for their pernicious role in society as magicians, sorcerers, and as the vehicle of
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evil forces. Representations of the demonic Jew contribute to the proliferation of denunciations, culminating in the accusations of ritual murder, blood libels, and profanations of the host. In most European countries, antiJewish ideology was to have tragic implications (Joshua Trachtenberg, The Devil and the Jews, 1943; id., Jewish Magic and Superstition, 1939). The history of both the Ashkenazi and Sephardic worlds are marked by pogroms or other manifestations of violence to minorities or marginal groups. Social pressure, exacerbated by theological conflicts, leads to discriminatory legislation and waves of expulsion (Markus J. Wenninger, Man bedarf keiner Juden mehr, 1981; Michael Toch, Die Juden im mittelalterlichen Reich, 1998). In Spain and Portugal, voluntary or forced conversions make it necessary to reconsider the terms of Jewish identity and the religious practice of the conversos. The expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 marks the high point of antagonism between the royal power, the ecclesiastic authority, and the Jewish minority. Historiography has attempted to determine the multiple reasons for this catastrophe, which changed the face of medieval Judaism. The pressure of the Inquisition, fueled by theological controversies, the policy of unification of the monarchy around a centralized power, and a single religion fostered by the urban oligarchy and the resentment of the lower classes of society led to the eradication of Jewish life in Aragon and Castille (Benzion Netanyahu, The Marranos in Spain: From the Late 14th Century to the Early 16th Century According to Contemporary Sources, 1966; Hayyim Beinart, The Expulsion of the Jews from Spain, 2 vols., 1994). On the other hand, anti-Jewish violence forced the authorities to separate Jews from the rest of the population with the creation of ghettos. Although there are many variations, the formation of Jewish quarters inscribed legal discrimination and social segregation into the space of the medieval city (Robert Bonfil, Jewish Life in the Renaissance, 1994). In describing the plurality of social ethos of the Marranos, torn between their loyalty to Judaism and the lure of assimilation, historians revealed the modernity of the Marrano condition. The religious crisis, the strategies of re-Judaization in the Netherlands in the 17th century, and the study of the economic role of the Sephardic Diaspora in the Mediterranean world, in America, and in the Spanish and Portuguese colonies attest to the fundamental role of Marranism for the birth of Jewish modernity (Yosef Kaplan, From Christianity to Judaism: The Story of Isaac Orobio de Castro, 1989). Studies of the Jews in Islamic lands (Bernard Lewis, The Jews of Islam, 1984; Moshe Gil, Erets Israel ba-tequfah ha-muslimit ha-rishonah, 3 vols., 1983; Haim Zeev Hirshberg, A History of the Jews in North Africa, 2 vols., 1974– 1981; Moshe Gil, Be-malkhut yishmael bi-tequfat ha-geonim, 4 vols., 1997), made possible in part by the recovering of many sources that had long been
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unavailable, provided a welcome contribution to the renewal of medieval Jewish studies. The historians of Wissenschaft des Judentums often presented (in contrast to the situation in Europe) an idealized vision of the Jews living in Islamic countries, particularly in Spain before the reconquista, while also seeking to show how Islam drew inspiration from Judaism (Abraham Geiger, Was hat Muhammad aus dem Judenthume ausgenommen, 1833). As the tensions were growing in Europe, the ties between Jews, Christians, and Muslims were magnified as a form of social symbiosis based on tolerance and recognition (Eliyahu Ashtor, The Jews of Moslem Spain, 1973–1984). The historic dramas of the 20th century, especially the conflict between Jews and Arabs, brought about a revision of this utopia of a “golden age” (Norman A. Stillman, The Jews in Arab Lands: An History and Source Book, 1979). At the end of the 19th century, Solomon Schechter’s discovery of the documents of the Cairo Geniza dating from the 11th to the 13th century and their study by Shlomo Dov Goitein (A Mediterranean Society: the Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 vols., 1967–1993) made it possible to recompose a Mediterranean society in which Jews, Muslims, and Christians coexisted. This considerable mass of documents, literary, religious, or related to the economic and social life, furthered the understanding of Jewish life in relation to Muslims in its most varied aspects. The status of a “protected” people (dhimmi) shows the legal framework, but also the limits of tolerance, in Islamic territory, based on religious freedom, protection of the authorities, and payment of taxes (Antoine Fattal, Le statut légal des non-Musulmans en pays d’Islam, 1958). The autonomy of the communities reveals the combined influence of the Islamic surroundings, the leadership of the academies of Babylon and Palestine, and the local Jewish power, as in Egypt (Yizhak Baer, “The Origins and the Organization of the Jewish Community in the Middle Ages,” Zion 15 [1950]: 1–41; Menahem Ben-Sasson, Semihat ha-qehilah ha-yehudit be-artsot ha-islam, 1996). C. Between Traditional Sources and New Perspectives Some historians have minimized the cultural exchanges, giving more importance to the autonomy of Jewish communities in the framework of the medieval society. Apart from the main question about external influences on Jewish medieval culture, much of the major research in the field deals with the study of the social, political, spiritual development, and with the characterization of the Jewish culture seen from the inside. Important research in the field of Hebrew codicology and paleography has transformed the knowledge about the production and circulation of the manuscripts (Malachi BeitArie, Hebrew Codicology, 1981). Many sources, critical editions, archives, and
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documents, either from the Jewish communities or from authorities of surrounding societies were also published (Jacob Mann, The Jews in Egypt and in Palestine under the Fatimid Caliphs, 2 vols., 1920–1922; id., Texts and Studies in Jewish History and Literature, 2 vols., 1935–1955). All these achievements gave a different and broader picture of Jews in the medieval culture, for example in philosophy (“Medieval Jewish Philosophy,” History of Jewish Philosophy, ed. by Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman, vol. II, 1997, 83–573), mysticism (Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, 1946; Moshe Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives, 1988; id., Studies in Ecstatic Kabbalah, 1988), with, for example, the Zohar (Daniel Matt (trans. and ed.), The Zohar, 5 vols., 2003–2009), Biblical exegesis (Charles Ber Chavel (trans. and ed.), Nahmanides Commentary on the Torah, 1971–1976), Jewish literature, especially folktales and stories (Chone Shmeruk, Sifrut yidish, perakim le-toldotehah, 1988; Jerold Frakes, Early Yiddish Texts 1100–1750, 2004; Jean Baumgarten, Introduction to Old Yiddish Literature, 2005; Vera Moreen, In Queen Esther’s Garden: An Anthology of Judeo-Persian Literature, 2000; Eli Yassif, Sippurei ben sira bimey ha-beynayim, 1984), or Jewish languages (Max Weinreich, History of the Yiddish Language, 1973; 2 vols., 2008; David Bunis, Sephardic Studies, 1981; Joshua Blau, The Emergence and Linguistic Background of JudeoArabic, 1999). In the reconfiguration of medieval Jewish studies, a central place is occupied by Rabbinic literature, Talmudic commentaries, responsa literature, and studies of Jewish law (halakha), liturgy, and customs (Israel Ta-Shma, Minhag ashkenaz ha-qadmon, 1994; id., Halakhah, minhag u-metsiut be-ashkenaz, 1000–1350, 1996; Jacob Katz, Halakhah ve-kabbalah, 1986). Talmudic tradition, as a foundation of medieval Jewish communities, created a system of norms, customs, and ritual observances that pervaded all aspects of Jewish life. The codes of conduct placed individual life into a strict framework and assured the survival of the group, though this quickly caused frictions and tensions with the Christian authorities. Jewish law imposed limits on commercial relations with non-Jews, but it also required constant adjustments in areas like money lending or wine trade (Haim Soloveitchik, Yeynam, sahar beyeynam shel goyim, 2003). From the vast domain of Rabbinic literature emerges the central figure of the medieval commentator Rashi (Binyamin S. Moore (trans. and ed.), Chumash and Rashi’s Commentary, 2002) along with his students and disciples, the Tosafists, in the constitution of the vast body of Biblical and Talmudic commentaries representing the traditions of study and teaching and the intellectual role of the scholar within Ashkenazi Jewry of the 12th and 13th centuries (Ephraim Elimelech Urbach, Baalei ha-Tosafot, 1954).
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This type of study provides important access to Rabbinical hermeneutics and methods of transmission, teaching, and the exegesis of canonic texts. In addition, beginning with the responsa, including those of Rabbi Jacob Tam or Meir of Rothenburg (Irving Abraham Agus, R. Meir of Rothenburg, 2 vols., 1947), it affords a look into social history, concerning such questions as the autonomy of Jewish communities, relations between Jews and Christians, or the role of customs (minhag) in the affirmation of Ashkenazi Jewry of the Middle Ages. In a diachronic perspective, studies have also focused on the constitution of Ashkenazi law from the 11th century onward in relation to Palestinian and Babylonian tradition as well as to Roman law. Similar research in legal literature were undertaken in the Sephardic world in central geographic areas, including the Provence, Spain, Italy, and North Africa, or around the great codifiers, such as notably Shmuel ha-naggid, Isaac Alfasi, Meir Abulafia, Jonah Gerondi, Solomon ibn Adret, Nahmanides or Nathan ben Yehiel (Neil S. Hecht et al., An Introduction to the History and Sources of Jewish Law, 1996). Two legal codes, the Mishneh Torah by Maimonides and the Shullhan arukh by Joseph Caro, which present the classical corpus of the Jewish law, played an important religious and social role in the Jewish society up to the contemporary period (Isadore Twersky, Introduction to the Code of Maimonides (Mishneh Torah), 1980; Raphael J. Z. Werblowsky, Joseph Caro, Lawyer and Mystic, 1977). Scholars have begun to compile and publish multiple sources from this vast corpus, some of which had been unknown, but more important, they have also focused on the importance of Jewish legal literature as a zone of transmission of values, preservation of practices, and ongoing inventiveness (Phyllis Holman Weisbard and David Schonberg, Jewish Law: Bibliography of Sources and Scholarship in English, 1989; Nahum Rakover, A Bibliography of Jewish Law, 1975–1990; id., The Multi-Language Bibliography of Jewish Law, 1990). An adjacent field is the study of the legal status of Jews. The juxtaposition and contradictions between Roman and Byzantine legislation and the laws of Christian Europe, between secular and religious law, and between royal legislation and common law reveal the astounding diversity of legal situations specific to the Sephardic and Ashkenazi worlds. In certain periods, Jews were granted special status and perceived as a tolerated socio-religious “minority” within kingdoms or empires. But most of the time Judaism, as a religion close to pagan cults and heresies, called forth discriminatory laws, which in turn caused a nearly uninterrupted series of persecutions and expulsions. In Christian society, Jews were treated as deviant subjects, like Muslims, heretics, lepers, and the insane, to be subjected to special jurisdiction and exiled to the fringes of society (Jacob Katz, Exclusiveness and Toler-
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ance: Studies in Jewish-Gentile Relations in Medieval and Modern Times, 1977; Benzion Netanyahu, The Origins of Inquisition, 1995; Shlomo Simonsohn, The Apostolic See and the Jews: History, 1991; Kenneth R. Stow, Alienated Minority: The Jews of Medieval Latin Europe, 1992; Ora Limor, Beyn yehudim le-notsrim, 5 vols., 1993; Amnon Linder, The Jews in the Legal Sources of the Early Middle Ages, 1997). Another field that has an important place: Jewish literature and narrative traditions (Moritz Steinschneider, “Jewish Literatur,” Ersch’s and Gruber’s Allgemeine Enzyklopaedie der Wissenschaften und Kuenste, 1850, tome 27, 357–471, rpt. 1970; Israel Zinberg, An History of Jewish Literature, 9 vols., 1972–1978). Although it is difficult to separate Biblical and postBiblical literature from that of later periods – they are rooted in the same religious soil and draw on similar sources – the Middle Ages saw a blossoming and a greater autonomy of narrative traditions. Legends and stories (Maasim, sippurim, aggadot, shevahim) draw on Rabbinic sources are no more appearing in all kind of contexts, including commentaries, sermons and ethical treatises, to constitute independent anthologies and narrative collections (Joseph Dan, Ha-Sippur ha-ivri bimey ha-beynayim, 1974; Eli Yassif, The Hebrew Folktale: History, Genre, Meaning, 1999). Beginning with the pioneer generation of Wissenschaft des Judentums, the narrative traditions had given rise to philological and historic studies on the tradition of the Aggadot and Midrashim. This tradition led to the publication of anthologies and chrestomathies that demonstrate the unity and diversity of Jewish narrative traditions through time and space, as well as reciprocal influences between Christian, Jewish, and Muslim traditions (Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, 7 vols., 1909–1938; Moses Gaster, Exempla of the Rabbis, 1924; Hayyim Schwarzbaum, The Mishlei Shualim (Fox Fables) of Rabbi Berachiah ha-Nakdan, 1979). Research on Jewish literature which from the late 19th century is done in a political context of affirmation of cultural identity, then of the return of Jews to Palestine, constitutes the beginning of the collection and scholarly analysis of narrative traditions. The study of medieval literary texts reveals the creativity of Jews within European culture and in the Muslim world, but also the interpenetration of genres, notably in the numerous studies of comparative stylistics and poetics (Dan Pagis, Hebrew Poetry of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, 1991; Jefim Schirmann, Toldot ha-shirah ha-ivrit, 2 vols., 1995–1997). Another example is in secular poetry or religious hymns (piyyutim) created in the late Middle Ages in the Oriental communities before developing in Europe (Israel Davidson, Thesaurus of Medieval Hebrew Poetry, vols. 1–4, 1970; Ezra Fleischer, Shirat ha-kodesh be-ivrit bimey ha-beynayim, 1975; Raymond P. Scheindlin, The Gazelle, Medieval Hebrew Poems on God, Israel and the Soul,
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1991). Other investigations of medieval Jewish accounts focus on the anthropological or folkloric dimension, showing porosity between different cultures in whose contact Jews evolved, and the mingling of oral and written registers (Sarah Zfatman, Beyn ashkenaz le-sefarad, le toldot ha-sipur ha-yehudi bimey ha-beynayim, 1993). Narrations, aside from their literary interest, are also considered as means of access to many dimensions of social life, material culture, and history of mentalities. Some researchers consider stories as creations of the religious imagination in which the historical base is subject to the deformations of myth and legend, while others link stories to the society and the historical period in which they were invented and transmitted (David Flusser, Yosippon, 2 vols., 1978–1980; Tamar Alexander-Frizer, The Pious Sinner: Ethics and Aesthetics in the Medieval Hasidic Narratives, 1991). Thus, studies of medieval Judaism have, since the 19th century, played a central role in the consolidation and recognition of Jewish studies as a part of social sciences and as a laboratory of methods and problems of Jewish historiography. Because of its central position, this field of research has, of course, gone through a number of evolutions proper to historical scholarship for nearly two centuries. It has demonstrated nonetheless a continuity and vitality that make it one of the major fields of Jewish studies. Select Bibliography Heinrich Graetz, Geschichte der Juden von den ältesten Zeiten bis auf die Gegenwart, 11 vols. (1853–1875; Berlin: Arani, 1998); Shimon Dubnov, Die Weltgeschichte des jüdischen Volkes, vol. 4: Das frühere Mittelalter, vol. 5: Das späte Mittelalter (Berlin: Jüdischer Verlag, 1926–1927); Salo Wittmayer Baron, Social and Religious History of the Jews, vols. 3–8: High Middle Ages; vols. 9–12: Late Middle Ages (New York: Columbia University Press, 1952–1993); Israel Abrahams, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages (1896; New York: Atheneum, 1978); Yitzhak Baer, Studies in the History of the Jewish People and the Land of Israel (Jerusalem: The Historical Society of Israel, 1985); Cecil Roth, An History of the Jews (New York: Schocken, 1963); Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson, “The Middle Ages,” History of the Jewish People, ed. id. (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1976), 385–723; Ivan G. Marcus, Medieval Jewish Civilization (New York: Wiener, 1988).
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L Law in the Middle Ages I. History A. Legacy of Antiquity Central to medieval law, indeed, European law generally was the great compilation of Roman law ordered by Justinian, which would be dubbed by early publishers the Corpus Juris Civilis, and not uncommonly referred to as the “ius commune” on the argument that it was common to all the peoples once within the old Roman Empire, and when so used includes as well the canon law, and occasionally called the “civilis sapientia,” since legists considered the Corpus to represent the epitome of reason in civil governance. For a full discussion of this concept of the European common law, the works of Ennio Cortese (La norma giuridica: spunti teorici nel diritto comune classico, 2 vols., 1962–1964 and Manlio Bellomo (L’Europa del diritto comune, 1989) are indispensable. The Corpus is divided into the Code itself, consisting of twelve books subdivided into titles, and comprising Imperial decrees originally judicial in nature, but ultimately becoming more quasi-legislative in character towards the later Empire; the Digest or Pandects, made up of fragments from the jurists and arranged topically, divided into fifty books, subdivided into titles, and further subdivided into sections frequently referred to by their numbered fragments, usually designated laws (leges), or the unnumbered prefatory text, called the principium; the Institutes, essentially a text book of legal principles, and the only unilingually Latin portion of the Codex, similarly divided into titles and subdivided further into a principium and numbered “leges” often cited by incipit, or opening words; and the Novellae, the only part of the collection that remained open, and which originally had 168 laws promulgated between 535 and 545. In the Middle Ages, this latter portion was known through unofficial collections of 134 laws, referred to as the Authenticum, or by the Latin High Middle Ages, 96 of those laws, divided into nine collations; or alternatively, the collection of 122 constitutions, called the Epitome of Julian. In truth, much of the West had never been subject to Justinian and his collations, and Italy itself was made subject to its provisions only by reason of
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Justinian’s decree of 554 following the reconquest from the Ostrogoths. The latter had deliberately continued Roman law in its earlier presentation, and in Southern France, it was continued in the “Roman Law of the Visigoths,” or Alaric’s Breviary, based upon the earlier Theodosian Code, and the Institutes of Gaius, as well as other anthologies. Within a few years of Justinian’s death, much of northern Italy would be overrun by the Lombards, including the Benevento, Lombardy itself, whose capital was Pavia, and Tuscany, including Florence, Pisa, and Siena, and in these areas Lombard law would predominate, though by 1000, Lombard law would be generally taught, practiced, and interpreted through Romanist principles. The remaining areas, including Rome itself and Ravenna, maintained an unbroken legacy of courts and bar in which the Institutes, the first nine Books of the Code, together with Julian’s Epitome were known and regarded as authoritative. The last three Books of the Code together with the entire Digest would be forgotten until the late 11th century. In the area of ecclesiastic law, collections such as the Didache, or Doctrine of the Twelve Apostles, began to emerge as early as the end of the 1st century. Sometimes, these works appeared in the guise of apocalyptic visions, such as the 2nd-century Shepherd of Hermas. Others, such as the 3rd-century Traditio apostolica ascribed to Hippolytus, are largely devoted to liturgy; while the expanded Didascalia apostolorum appends material on treatment of widows and orphans, Jewish-Christian relations, and rules for fasting and penance (Jean Gaudemet, Sources du droit de l’église en Occident du IIe au VIIe siècles, 1985). With the accession of Constantine and the end of the persecutions, the role of law within the Church was transformed. In particular, church councils became a more frequent aspect of ecclesiastic governance, and the decrees and canons of the councils became the major source of canon law. At the same time, being essentially incorporated into the imperial bureaucracy, the church inevitably became more hierarchical in structure, and by 381 when the First Council of Constantinople recognized the pentarchy of Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople, Jerusalem and Rome, had reached the organization of patriarch, metropolitan, bishop and priest that dominated medieval mentality. During this period also arose the earliest claims of Petrine supremacy, and decretals of the bishops of Rome, which began to appear with greater regularity in canonical collections such as the Dionysiana and the Hispana, the latter appearing successively as the Collectio hispana chronologica and the Collectio hispana systematica. Finally, from Constantine forward, the emperors specifically recognized the jurisdiction of bishops over issues involving doctrine and morals. The audientia episcopalis hence had the status of public courts.
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B. Early Middle Ages While Roman law by the later imperial period had come to be viewed as a product, inter alia, of a legis lator, the emperor himself, who since he bore the law, could in some sense be viewed as legibus solutus, the successor Germanic kingdoms of the West emphasized the character of law as the immemorial custom of a people. As a result, law was generally regarded as personal, rather than territorial: regardless of location, Burgundians were subject to Burgundian law, Romans to Roman law, etc. The primary function of a king was to uphold the applicable custom, not displace it with new law: the law is “discovered,” not made. Late in the 5th century, kings began to publish written versions of these laws, beginning with the Visigoths and the Burgundian laws of King Gundobald. Should circumstances necessitate a modification of or addendum to the received body of law, such revisions were subject to the consent of the community, typically speaking through some form of council or Witengemote, and in principal, whose approval was to be reinforced by popular acceptance, either manifest as by Lombard custom reflected in the mid-7th-century Edict of Rothari; by agreement of local magistrates to enforce them, as with the Carolingian scabinei; or merely tacitly, as seems to be envisioned in the Edictum Pistense of 864. Lacking both advisors with sufficient technical expertise and a bureaucracy to apply enactments at the local level, royal legal innovation was largely restricted to ad hoc judgments or particular privileges, highlighting the extraordinary nature of the extensive Carolingian capitularies or the legislative traditions of the Anglo-Saxon kings. Not surprisingly, although a number of the Germanic kingdoms were initially hostile to the Roman Catholic Church, particularly the Visigothic and Ostrogothic regimes, the Goths having initially adopted Arianism, once converted to the Roman faith, despite a desire to retain power within the warrior elite, the redaction of laws fell to clerics as the literate apparatchiki of the once barbarian realms, accounting for their memorialization in Latin and the frequently privileges and immunities extended to the clergy and ecclesiastic property. On this process generally, consult Wilhelm Wattenbach and Wilhelm Levison, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter: Vorzeit und Karolinger, 3 vols. (1952–1957), and the supplement Die Rechtsquellen by Rudolf Buchner; on the Visigothic kingdom, P. D. King, Law and Society in the Visigothic Kingdom, Cambridge studies in medieval life and thought, 3rd ser., vol. 5 (1972). Meanwhile, church governance and canon law generally followed the same pattern as civil governance in the wake of the collapse of imperial authority. Monasteries had traditionally viewed themselves as self-governing communities, eschewing by in large both episcopal
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and royal authority. The secular clergy adopted practices particular to their bailiwicks, with local councils and synods assuming the principle role in generating canons and rules, while at the same time the power of metropolitans waxed against Rome, but waned against Christian kings who as self-styled protectors of the Church, undertook to preside over synods, fill clerical vacancies, persecute heretics and enforce Christian morality, leaving bishops as little more than arbiters of clerical behavior and disputes. During this period, then, in addition to synodal adoptions, a primary source of law for the faithful was the spate of penitentials that began to appear in the middle of the 6th century. Another new source of law was the compendium now known as the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals. Attributed to “Isidore Mercator,” it contained a vast number of legitimate canons and papal letters interspersed with fraudulent canonical material, apparently in an effort to boost episcopal and papal authority in the archdiocese of Reims sometime in the 9th century. It became one of the most pervasive canonical collections of the middle ages, genuine and fraudulent canon being copied and disseminated indiscriminately until the forgery was unmasked in the 16th century by a protestant clergyman. The most authoritative work on the Pseudo-Isidorian decretals is Horst Fuhrmann’s three-volume Einfluß und Verbreitung der pseudoisidorischen Fälschungen, von ihrem Auftauchen bis in die neuere Zeit (1972–1974). A legitimate collection was also compiled in 774 by Pope Adrian I at the request of Charlemagne, who directed that the new Hadriana, essentially a revision of the older Dionysiana, would along with the Hispana serve as the fundamental legal authority in the bishops’ courts throughout the realm. The Carolingians likewise issued capitularies for church reform and discipline, many of which found their way into subsequent canonical collections. The radical decentralization of power characterizing the 9th and 10th centuries for the church marked the zenith of the Eigenkirchentum, whose practical realities required new collections, the most significant being the two books of Abbot Regino of Prium, the Libri duo de synodalibus causis et disciplinis ecclesiasticis, and the early 11th-century Decretum of Burchard of Worms, in twenty books, the last two of which were circulated separately under the titles the Corrector and the Speculator. On canonical collections before Gratian, the fundamental work remains Paul Fournier and Gabriel Le Bras, Histoire des collections, canoniques en Occident depuis les fausses décrétales jusqu’au Décret de Gratian, 2 vols., 1931–1932; rpt. 1972. Also invaluable is the recent handbook by Lotty Kéry, Canonical Collections of the Early Middle Ages (ca. 400–1140): a Bibliographical Guide to the Manuscripts and Literature, 1999.
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C. The Reform Papacy and the Legal Palingenesis The degeneration of clerical discipline frequently characterizing the Eigenkirchentum early drew resistance from such establishments as the Burgundian monastery of Cluny, whose reforming zeal attracted not only clerical attention, but by the 11th century, the support of like-minded monarchs such as Otto III and Henry III, the latter appointing Bruno of Toul as Pope Leo IX in 1048, who brought with him such luminaries as Frederick of Lorraine (Stephen IX), Humbert of Moyenmoutier, and Hildebrand (Gregory VII). For these men, law was a principal tool of reform, and, as James A. Brundage (Medieval Canon Law, 1995) points out, they identified four tactical objectives: (1) the compilation of fresh collections of law demonstrating the ancient foundations of their reform efforts; (2) the creation of new laws filling lacunae in the existing corpus; (3) the development of procedural mechanisms; and (4) the institution of more efficient means of detection and prosecution of offenders. With regard to the former, a number of new collections appeared in the late 11th and early 12th centuries, including Anselm of Lucca’s Collectio canonum, the collected canons of Cardinal Deusdedit, and the anonymous Collection in Seventy-four Titles. The ambitious reformer, Ivo of Chartres, compiled a vast compendium entitled the Decretum, as well as the more compact Panormia. Ivo has also been credited, however doubtfully, with the Collection tripartita. As to new law, the reform papacy immediately began the issuance of new canons, reaching a crescendo during the reigns of Gregory VII and Urban II. The mechanisms available to the reforming popes were somewhat limited. By tradition, the multi-purpose synod acted as necessary in the role of a court. Less unwieldy, and used increasingly, was the papal legate, who could serve variously as judge, prosecutor and/or investigator. On the local level, episcopal visitations were the primary tool for detection and correction of irregularities, but were frustrated by various claims of exemption. The search for precedent justifying the reforms impelled Gregory VII to appoint commissioners to comb the libraries of Italy for legal ammunition in his efforts to combat lay investiture in particular. It is probable that copies of the Digest were discovered during this quest. Doubtless, the Pandects remained undiscovered in the 7th decade of the 11th century, but was cited in a Tuscan judgment of 1076. It is certain that the papal agents uncovered the Authenticum. The uncovering of the Codex Iustinianus, however, hardly signified its comprehension. According to Radulfus Niger, writing in his Moralis Regum, ca. 1189, a certain Peppone was the rising dawn of the civil law renaissance subsequently propagated by Irnerius (Warnerius, Guarnerius). The latter seems to have been self-taught, beginning ca. 1100 to copy and
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edit the lost Codex Secundus, variously called the Littera Bononiensis or Vulgata, in distinction to the surviving Littera Pisana, referred to as the Florentina since its capture in 1406. The Codex S. apparently already had the Greek of Book 29 translated: the remainder was either omitted or still in Greek, and Irnerius did not know them, or those in the Code. He interpolated passages from the Authenticum into the Code in places where they would have been included had they not been novellae. Of the Authenticum, he included only 97 “constitutions” as he denominated them. These he grouped into nine “Collations.” The whole of the corpus he divided into five volumes: The Digest, divided into the Old Digest, the Infortiatum and the New Digest; the fourth volume, consisting of the first nine books of the Code; and the Parvum Volumen, containing the Institutes, the Authenticum and eventually the last Tres Libri of the Code. The Greek passages were eventually translated by Burgundio from the Littera Pisana, but the Bolognese canon left lacunae until the Renaissance, with the exception of some older manuscripts which copied them in Greek. His teaching, if any, seems to have been limited to the Four Doctors, Bulgarus Bolgarini, Martin Gosia, Ugo da Porte Ravennata, and Jacobus, and that largely as a matter of tradition. It is with this generation, ending with the death of Jacobus in 1178, five years before the Peace of Constance, that the law school at Bologna began. Concentrating on the academic study of the Codex Justinianus, with practical training limited largely to the moot court, the proceedings of which were sometimes reported by students under the rubric Questiones Disputate, to be distinguished from the Questiones Dominorum, frequently more aptly entitled Dissensiones Dominorum, the majority of which were between Bulgarus and Martin, whose disagreements included not least the former’s devotion to strict law, the latter’s critical tendencies which earned him, and subsequent adherents known as “Gosians,” including in the third generation Roger and Placentine, a reputation as champions of equity. In addition to their teaching, the Four Doctors left glosses and distinctions, as well as apparatus, collections of glosses in the order of the text, but omitting the text itself, occasional summule, commentaries on the subject of a whole Title, and tractate, being comments on particular subjects. The latter would become more significant in future generations, but surely these first baby-steps represent a significant moment in the efforts at legal systemization. Ennio Cortese, Il rinascimento giuridico medievale (1992); Hermann Kantorowicz with William Warwick Buckland, ed., Studies in the Glossators of the Roman Law: Newly Discovered Writings of the Twelfth Century (1938; rpt. 1969). The prestige of the law school had a number of repercussions. One was to spur Tuscan cities from Lombard to Roman law, including Pisa in 1161,
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Siena in 1176. Ca. 1151, Conrad III had directed the exclusive use of Roman law in Rome itself. A second was the growing prestige of the afforded jurisperiti, with protections for law students away from home by constitution of Frederick I at Roncaglia, and limitations on serving as judge or consultant provided by Bolognese statute also of 1158 (without five years law study). But perhaps no consequence of the legal palilngenesis was more far reaching than Gratian’s systematic compilation of canon law, the Decretum, or Concordia discordantium canonum, whose very title reveals the dialectical method employed by the Camaldolese monk in a unique integration of source, distinction and comment. Completed perhaps as early as 1140, over the next thirty years copyists added material omitted by Gratian as “Paleae.” Texts from the civil law were also added as canons, and Gratian’s commentary was augmented by such civilians as Bulgarus and James. Also added to the Decretum were two theological treatises: De penitentia to Part II, and De consecratione, constituting Part III. The Decretum was glossed before 1148 by Pocapaglia and Rolandus published a commentary entitled Stromata between 1143 and 1145. As J. A. Clarence Smith (Medieval Law Teachers and Writers: Civilian and Canonist, 1975), suggests, Gratian’s approach did for canon law what Irnerius had done for civil law. As the latter had severed the cord binding civil law to philosophy and rhetoric, Gratian separated the study of canon law from that of theology. And while legists and canonists might disagree on the ultimate imperial supremacy, they would be henceforth regarded as pari generis. D. The Thirteenth Century: Glossators, Coutumiers, Orleans The first half of the 13th century represented the heyday of the glossators. Somewhere between 1208 and 1210, Azzo published his Summa on the Code, which was never superseded during the middle ages. His plethora of glosses on the Old Digest, as well as the Code, represent a veritable Apparatus. In 1215, Joannes Teutonicus completed his Apparatus on the Decretum, which became the Glossa Ordinaria, supplemented circa 1245 by Bartholomew of Brescia. Around the same time, Tancred completed the standard gloss to the first three compilations of the Decretales extravagantes. These compilations, ultimately five in number, were displaced in 1234 by the Liber Extra, promulgated by Pope Gregory IX in 1234. Apparatus on the Liber Extra were completed circa 1240 by both Goffredus de Trano and Bernard of Parma, that of the latter becoming the glossa ordinaria. As Sinibald Fieschi, Innocent IV composed a Commentary on the Liber Extra which was never superseded; while about the same time, Hostiensis completed his definitive Summa, and nearly twenty years later his overly long Lectura thereon. By 1230, Accursius had completed the initial apparatus which was to become the Glossa Ordinaria on
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the Justinian Corpus, and without which the text of the Corpus would scarce be published before 1627. It was probably he as well who added as a tenth collation of the Authenticum, the Libri Feudorum, a collection of the customary law made by Oberto dall’Orto, and on which Pillio, a student of Placentine, had written a Summa in the late 12th century. His son, Francis Accursii, would compose the standard Casus on the New Digest mid-century, about the same time as Vivian Toschi composed the standard casus on the Code, the Old Digest and the Infortiatum. In the last half of the century, jurists such as James of Arena, Martin Sylliman and Dino of Mugello were diligently assembling additiones to the glossa ordinaria – essentially, glosses on the glosses. These years saw also the publication of the great procedural treatise, Speculum judiciale (1st ed., 1271; 2nd ed. 1290), whose medieval ubiquity gained for its author, William Durand, his sobriquet of the Speculator. Much recent research has been done on the issue of procedure, including Linda Magerl-fowler, Ordines, iudiciarii and Libelli de ordine iudiciorum (From the Middle of the Twelfth to the End of the Fifteenth Century) (1994), and Ordo iudiciorum vel ordo iudiciarius: Begriff und Literaturgattung (1984); Wieslaw Litewski, Der römisch-kanonische Zivilprozeß nach den älteren ordines iudiciarii, 2 vols. (1999); and Susanne Lepsius, Die Richter und die Zeugen: Eine Untersuchung anhand des Tractatus testimoniorum des Bartolus von Sassoferrato, mit Edition (2002), and Von Zweifeln zur Überzeugung: Der Zeugenbeweis im gelehrten Recht ausgehend von der Abhandlung des Bartolus von Sassoferrato (2003). Outside Italy, efforts were made to suppress the teaching of civil law. It was barred at Paris in 1219; in the preceding century, the Angevins had made every effort to prohibit it altogether. Instead, in England one witnesses the proliferation of professional manuals emphasizing custom and practice, such as the treatise generally known as Glanvill, ca. 1187–1189, or the monumental De legibus et consuetudinibus Angliae composed by Henry of Bracton sometime before 1250. In France, too, there was a wave of compilations, beginning with Le tres ancien coutumier de Normandie, ca. 1199, with French translation ca. 1250, and a larger compilation, Summa de legibus Normandie in curia laicali, ca. 1255. Despite its title, the Establissements de Saint Louis, 1273, is largely a compilation of the Customs of Orléans and the touraine. Mid-century also appeared Li Livres de justice et de plet and Le conseil de Pierre de Fontaines. The most significant of these treatises was the Coutumes de Beauvaisis of Philippe de Beaumanoir, ca. 1280, which is discussed in length by Georges Hubrecht, Commentaire historique et juridique (1972), which was published as volume 3 to the 2 vols. ed. of Am. Salmon, ed., Philippe de Beaumanoir, Coutumes de Beauvaisis (1970; orig. 1899); and by F. R. P. Akehurst in the introduction to his translation, The Coutumes de Beauvaisis of Philippe de Beauma-
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noir (1992). Early coutumiers were also assembled for Champagne, Bretagne, and the Lille region. Simultaneously, across the Alps from its berceau the civil law was finding expression, first at Orléans and Angers, and in the Midi, following a lull of almost a century marked by the departure of Placentine ca. 1185, at Montpellier, and another at Toulouse. A number of articles by Edward Mauritz Meijers on the schools of Roman law at Orléans and Toulouse are collected in Etudes d’histoire du droit, vol. 3: Le Droit romain au moyen âge (1959). Guy of Como, a student of James Baldwin, author of the standard casus on the Institutes and a noted Bolognese “Gosian,” was teaching at Orléans at least by 1243. This critical approach to the law, combined with dialecticism the students, all Masters of Arts, brought to analysis, probably accounts for the reputed Glossa Aurelianensis, though no such apparatus existed per se. Rather the term was dubbed by Italians contemptuous of Orléans’s lack of reverence for the glossa ordinaria, inter alia. This general inclination for criticism reached fruition beginning in the third generation with James of Revigny, who studied at Orléans with John of Moncy, Guichard of Langres and Simon of Paris, and then successively, with Peter of Belleperche, a student of James’s pupil, Ralph of Harcourt. These two would significantly affect the future of civil law through their influence on Cino of Pistoia, with whom the mos italicus can be said to have begun. E. The Fourteenth Century: the Commentators and the Mos Italicus The first quarter of the 14th century witnessed the completion of the corpus iuris canonici. The Liber sextus was promulgated by Boniface VIII by the bull Sancrosanctae Romanae ecclesiae in 1298, and dispatched to the students at Bologna, Padua, the Curia Romana, and significantly, Orléans and Toulouse. John XXII promulgated the Constitutiones Clementinae by Quoniam nulla in 1317. This closed the medieval canon, though a small private collection of decretals was assembled between 1325 and 1327 by Zenzelinus de Cassanis. These Extravagantes Johannis XXII were not published until 1500, since which time they have been considered part of the Corpus. Giovanni d’Andrea, a student of Martin Sylliman, composed the glossa ordinaria on the Sext and the Clementines in 1304 and 1326, respectively. He also annotated shortly before his death in 1348 William Durand’s Speculum, which thenceforth rarely appeared without his annotations. More significant was Cino Sinibuldi of Pistoia. Although he studied with Dino and Francis Accursii at Bologna, the greatest influence on his great Commentary on the Code was Peter of Belleperche, and from Peter, James of Revigny. With Cino, the commentary became the favored juristic literary form;
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more important, Cino adopted a dialectical approach and an accompanying critical attitude particularly toward the glossa ordinaria that had characterized the school of Orléans. His student at Perugia, Bartolo da Sassoferrato, studied as well with James Buttrigar, a student of Martin Sylliman, and Rainer of Forli, both adherents of the Accursian tradition of nostri doctores. With Bartolo, the mos italicus proper emerges as a synthesis of the two traditions, emphasizing four traits identified by Donald R. Kelly, “Civil Science in the Renaissance: Jurisprudence in the Italian Manner,” Historical Journal (1979): 777–94, 784: a methodological concern for history and first causes; a formalism centered on legal subjectivity; a systematic attempt to comprehend and order human nature and experience through equity and interpretation; and a general deference to Romanist tradition and authority. For the rest of the middle ages, Bartolo’s Commentary on the entirety of the Justinian Corpus would be accorded an authority approaching that of the Corpus itself. His students, Baldo and Angelo Ubaldi, would join him in teaching at Perugia. Baldo’s learning was particularly broad, and he commented on the Titles of the Corpus, composed a lectura on the first three Books of the Extravagantes, annotations to the Speculum iuris, and the glossa ordinaria on the Libri Feudorum and the Peace of Constance, as well as annotations to Martin Sylliman’s work on feudal law. The last of the great civilian commentators was Bartolomeo da Saliceto whose uncle and tutor was a student of James Buttrigar. Also at Bologna was Joannis de Lignano, who despite commenting on the entire Corpus iuris canonici, is best remembered for his treatises, De bello, De represaliis, and De Duello, which have been credited as precursors of modern international public law. Of particular note as a canonist, despite being degreed utroque and spending nearly twenty years as judge and vicarius of the Podesta of Bologna and consultant to the Republic of Venice, was Peter of Ancarano, author inter alia of a Commentary on the Extravagantes and lectura on the Sext and the Clementines, who taught at Bologna from 1390 until his death in 1416. F. The Late Medieval Period: 1400–1550 With the Schism of 1378, many of the leading Italian jurists found themselves preoccupied with politics, including Baldo, John of Legnano and Francis Zabarella. While the latter composed Commentaries on the Extravagantes and the Clementines, the abortive Council of Pisa in 1409 and the election of John XXIII caused him to give up his chair at Padua, and he was made Bishop of Florence and Cardinal. He and Peter of Ancarano would both die during the subsequent Council of Constance, but before the election of Martin V, against whom Nicolas Todeschi, a student of Zabarella, and author
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of an influential Commentry on the Extravagantes and a Thesaurus singularium in jure canonico decisivorum, would intrigue at Siena (1423–1424), but then execute Eugenius IV’s mandate to disperse Basel in 1432, failing which he returned to conciliarism, ultimately receiving the Cardinalate from Felix V and dying in 1445 before the collapse of Council and anti-pope. Meanwhile, France was to see a new spate of coutumiers, perhaps spurred by the Pragmatic sanction of 1438, which in making Parlement the standardbearer of Gallicanism (Nancy Lyman Roelker, One King, One Faith: The Parlement of Paris and the Religious Reformations of the Sixteenth Century, 1996), would give impetus to what Vittorio De Caprariis, Propaganda e pensiero politico in Francia durante le guerre di religione, 1559–1572, 1959, called “juridical nationalism,” analyzed at length by Donald R. Kelley in Foundations of Modern Historical Scholarship: Language, Law, and History in the French Renaissance, 1970. The bulk of legal literature consisted of Commentaries on the Customs by legal practitioners, notably on those of Berry by Nicolas of Bohier (1508), on those of the Duchy of Burgundy by Bartholomew of Chasseneuz (1517, rev. 1528), of Poitou by Andrew Tiraqueau (unpublished), of Nivernais by Guy Coquille (1590), and of Brittany by Bertrand D’Argentre (1568). Literature dealing with Roman law did so from the perspective of French practice, such as the Practica Forensis of John le Masuyer (d. 1450), or John Imbert, who in addition to his four volume Institutiones Forenses Galliae (1542), published an Enchiridion Juris Scripti Galliae Moribus et Consuetudinibus Recepti (1556). The greatest of these, the so-called “prince of legists,” was Charles Du Moulin, who believed in the unity of law, albeit not Roman law, but the underlying unity of the various Customs, as he expressed in Oratio de Concordia et Unione Consuetudinum Franciae (Jean-Louis Thireau, Charles De Moulin (1500–1566): Etude sur les sources, la méthode, les idées politiques et économiques d’un juriste de la Renaissance, 1980). At the same time, he commented extensively on the Roman law, and in his determination to demonstrate that the text of the law, Roman or customary, provided an equitable norm for new circumstances, he was clearly a Bartolist. II. Historiography A. General Considerations Since World War II, the study of medieval canon law, indeed, of medieval law generally, has been dominated by Stephan Kuttner, founder of the Institute of Research and Study in Medieval Canon Law, which attracted dozens of young scholars since 1955. As a consequence, Kuttner’s standards of rigorous textual analysis, and the cosmopolitan nature of the International
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Congresses of Medieval Canon Law, have produced a renaissance in canon law studies and a truly international historiography that has poured over into medieval legal studies generally. Nonetheless, contingencies of epoch and geography frequently impact the selection of research topic as well as the research method. Not surprisingly have the English shed much ink on the development of the possessory writ of novel disseissin, the French on coutumes. While the international character of modern scholarship may attenuate such parochial inclinations, given the nature of research opportunities on one hand, the professional as well as academic character of many researchers on the other, it is unlikely to obviate them entirely. Similarly, while undeniably an important doctrine, it is difficult to presume that the turbulence of 20th-century Realpolitik spawned no reactive interest in the doctrine of the just war, or that the changing role of women did not spur interest in such work as Giovanni Minnucci’s La capacità processuale della donna nel pensiero canonistico classico da Graziano à Uguccione da Pisa (1989), and 2, Dalle scuole d’oltrape à S. Raimondo di Pennaforte (1994), no matter how fine the scholarship. The ensuing historiographical notes are designed to draw the reader’s attention to general tendencies in approach and subject matter in the English and in the French-speaking worlds, particularly before the Second World War, many of which inclinations persist in varying degrees of subtlety despite the aforesaid cosmopolitanism and the flow of scholars from nation to nation. B. Anglo-American Research In many respects, Anglo-American legal history can be seen as a reaction to prior analytic jurisprudence, whether the natural law theory of Blackstone or the utilitarianism of Bentham and Austin, and more particularly, the tendency of both toward positivist emphasis on law as the product of a legis lator, a variation on the adage “Quod principi placuit, legis habet vigorem.” In 1861, Sir Henry Maine published the first edition of Ancient Law, which introduced historical jurisprudence qua comparative method, to the Victorian intellectual community. Sir Frederick Pollock, who would with Frederic William Maitland author the classic, the History of English Law Before the Time of Edward I, 2 vols. (1895, 2nd ed. 1898), who had himself turned to the study of Roman law in the belief that not only was it a model for systemization, but because it improved English lawyers through comparison and analysis, wholeheartedly embraced Maine’s comparative approach, though he was as frequently at odds to define it precisely as was Maine. Maine established no school per se, his principle, if not sole, disciple being Sir Paul Vinogradoff, Outlines of Historical Jurisprudence, 2 vols. (1920–1922), who
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also authored the monograph Roman Law in Medieval Europe (1909), and with Pollock was literary editor of the Selden Society for twelve years. As it happened, Maitland was no admirer of Maine), and had little use for historical jurisprudence, which remained too much theory, too little history. His tastes ran more to William Stubbs, whose Constitutional History of England, 3 vols. (1873–1878), dominated Anglo-American constitutional history of medieval England for more than eighty years, and whose most vocal critics, H. O. Richardson and George O. Sayles, The Governance of Mediaeval England from the Conquest to Magna Carta (1963), nonetheless propound many of Maitland’s views. Apparently, Maitland could not see in Stubbs or at least not as clearly, what he saw so clearly in Maine: an intuitive, and hence faulty, reconstruction of the past in the service of a Whiggish historicism. For this reason, Maitland disclaimed any a priori relevance to research as an obstacle to reconstructing the legal past true to fact, which required unbiased analysis of the often voluminous available documentary evidence, which he attempted to do not only in The History of English Law, but in Domesday Book and Beyond (1898), his 1901 Rede Lecture, published as English Law and the Renaissance, 1901, and the six essays reprinted as Roman Canon Law in the Church of England (1898), as well as his editions of Bracton’s Notebook, 3 vols. (1987), and Memorando de Parliament (1893). Nor did he believe law could be examined outside its social context. Indeed, to interpret the law of an epoch required one to understand it as though one lived under it. Legal doctrine was not the mere product of analysis and reasoning in a closed system, but represented responses to problems and forces within the larger society. For this reason, Maitland demanded at least implicitly that the legal historian be trained both as lawyer and historian. With his passing, legal history tended to return to the former model, as evidenced by Sir William S. Holdsworth’s gargantuan seventeen volume History of English Law (1922–1952). Meanwhile, in the United States, the pedagogical program of Christopher Columbus Langdell with its emphasis on practical instruction and the case method, tended to shunt legal history and philosophy from the standard curriculum. For a succinct, entertaining but perceptive analysis of Maine, Pollock and Maitland within the context of the Anglo-American legal community, the reader is directed to Richard A. Cosgrove, Our Lady the Common Law: an Anglo-American Legal Community, 1870–1930 (1967), and Scholars of the Law: English Jurisprudence from Blackstone to Hart (1996). Despite his successors’ abandonment of his program, both Maitland’s reputation and his work – research and conclusions – have held up amazingly well to the century’s scrutiny following his death in 1906. Arthur Ogle disputed some of his arguments concerning the authority of Roman canon
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law over English ecclesiastical courts, based largely on the meaning of William Lyndwood’s Provinciale, which Maitland had argued Stubbs had incorrectly interpreted. Subsequently, H. W. C. Davis, “The Canon Law in England,” Historical Papers (1933): 123–43, convincingly refuted Ogle. In The Birth of the Common Law (1973), R. C. von Caenegem took issue with Maitland’s conclusion that the Anglo-Saxon experience with the grand jury circa 1000 was temporary, arguing instead that it was a continuing, albeit local, feature of disperse communities until reinstituted by the Angevins. A more serious challenge was raised by S. F. C. Milsom, Historical Foundations and the Common Law (1969; 2nd ed. 1981); The Legal Framework of English Feudalism: the Maitland Lectures given in 1972 (1972); Studies in the History of the Common Law (1985); A Natural History of the Common Law (2003), who argues that Maitland failed to follow fully his own program. In particular, Milsom argues that in the development of land law, Maitland by working backward from Bracton, over-emphasized the role of the royal courts in the 12th century. According to Milsom, the legal procedures applicable to conflicts over realty were the product of several generations of landed families, barons and their tenants, working out a suitable system of litigation. While this debate continues, it seems reasonable to ask, inter alia, why procedures, such as novel disseisin, which seems so obviously based on the Roman (and, hence, canon) law of spoliation and the Roman interdict Unde vi, with its emphasis on trying possessory before petitory actions, should have taken generations to evolve, or how such actions would ever benefit tenants in capite. Both Maitland and Milsom are in the last analysis functionalists, relating the evolution of law to the cultural, social and economic milieu. An interesting application to the later medieval period is found in Robert C. Palmer, English Law in the Age of the Black Death, 1348–1381: A Transformation of Governance and Law (1993), which in its emphasis on the role of chancery in responding to the displacements of the demographic disaster of the 14th century by creating new causes of action and issuance of new forms of process, perhaps is closer to Maitland than Milsom. Another scholar who has emphasized the role of professional jurists in the evolution of the English common law is Paul Anthony Brand, The Making of the Common Law (1992); The Origins of the English Legal Profession (1992); Kings, Barons and Justices: the Making and Enforcement of Legislation in Thirteenth-Century England (2003). The recently published tome by James A. Brundage, The Medieval Origins of the Legal Profession: Canonists, Civilians, and Courts (2008), promises to attain the status of a classic. If the line of legal research from Maitland to Milsom can be seen as a reaction against the Victorian predilection for Whiggish constitutionalism,
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it can also be interpreted as a continuation of the notion of “primacy of law:” the notion that in many important respects, law preceded and legitimized government, rather than vice versa. This idea, though separable from corporatist theses, was certainly implicit in Otto von Gierke’s Das deutsche Genossenschaftsrecht, 3 vols. (1868–1881), the third volume of which Maitland himself translated and published as Political Theories of the Middle Ages (1900). This work also presumed contrasting Germanic and Roman conceptions of order that was to provide a focus for important works on medieval kingship such as Fritz Kern’s Gottesgnadentum und Widerstandsrecht im früheren Mittelalter, translated and published under the title, Kingship and Law in the Middle Ages, 1939. Even more emphatically devoted to legal primacy, but without the concern for Germanic “exceptionalism” was R. W. and A. J. Carlyle, A History of Mediaeval Political Theory in the West, 6 vols. (1903–1936). The dichotomous approach would find new and fertile ground in the work of Walter Ullman (The Medieval Idea of Law as Represented by Lucas de Penna: A Study in Fourteenth-Century Legal Scholarship, 1946; The Political Theories of the Medieval Canonists, 1949), who would identify the conflict of ascending and descending theories of authority as the key to medieval political theory, although both could be derived from the learned or common, i. e., Roman and canon law. For a discussion of the role of primacy of law in twentieth-century research on medieval politics, and particularly for Walter Ullman and his students, the reader is directed to the entry Political Theory herein. As Ullman was a germinal figure in British research on learned law and political theory, Stephan Kuttner, who had already begun a program of collecting and publishing surviving but unpublished and inaccessible canonistic material that was to engender a subfield of textual scholarship transformative of the modern study of medieval canon law before fleeing Europe for the United States in 1940, was to act as a major motivating force in American, indeed, world canon law studies. As a consequence, in addition to the important work done relating to political theory, the second half of the 20th century saw considerable research on topics relating to private life, including sex and marriage: Richard H. Helmholz, Marriage Litigation in Medieval England (1974); John T. Noonan, Contraception: A History of its Treatment by the Catholic Theologians and Canonists (1965); James A. Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe (1987), and id., Sex, Law and Marriage in the Middle Ages (1993). Significant work has also been done on economic theory and the poor: Brian Tierney, Medieval Poor Law: A Sketch of Canonical Theory and its Applications in England (1956); John T. Noonan, Jr., The Scholastic Analysis of Usury (1957); John W. Baldwin, Medieval Theories of the Just Price: Romanists, Canonists and Theologians in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries (1959);
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John T. Gilchrist, The Church and Economic Activity in the Middle Ages (1969). On the jus belli, Maurice Keen, The Law of War in the Late Middle Ages (1965); James A. Brundage, Medieval Canon Law and the Crusader (1969); Frederick H. Russell, The Just War in the Middle Ages (1975); James Muldoon, Popes, Lawyers, and Infidels: The Church and the Non-Christian World 1250–1550 (1979). C. French Historiography If much 19th-century Anglo-American legal history was characterized by a Whiggish constitutionalism bespeaking an affection for German exceptionalism, French historiography can be seen as the product of tendencies already evolving in the medieval period toward “juristic nationalism.” Although one could argue that the English had their Fortescue and his De laudibus legum Anglie, French jurists such as Etienne Pasquier, a student of Ramus, Hotman, Alciato, and Cujas, whose humanist philological and historical hermeneutical techniques he and Pierre Pithou, inter alia, adapted to medieval law and institutions, and Antoine Loisel, along with Francois Hotman himself, protege of Charles du Moulin and polemicist against Romanism in the universities, established something of an unbroken line of historiography that survived well into the 1800’s, and arguably beyond. This “school” of practitioner/historians sought the spirit of French law not only in the provincial customs, which continue to receive much attention even today among French historians, but as early as Loisel’s Institutes coutumiers, in proverbs and popular literature as well. Additionally, because they were practicing avocats, they sought to establish the prerogatives of what they considered an ancient order. Hence, Loisel’s Pasquier, ou Dialogue des avocats du Parlement de Paris, is the predecessor of careful but uncritical studies by practicing lawyers, such as Jean-Francois Fournel, Histoire des avocats au Parlement de Paris et du barreau de Paris depuis St. Louis jusqu’au 15 octobre 1790, 2 vols. (1813); Joachim-Antoine-Joseph Gaudry, Histoire du barreau de Paris, depuis son origine jusqu’a 1830, 2 vols. (1864); Charles Bataillard and Ernest Nusse, Histoire des procureurs et des avoués, 1303–1816, 2 vols. (1882); and Andre Damien, Les avocats du temps passé (1973). On the politics past and present of this phenomenon, the reader should consider David A. Bell, Lawyers & Citizens: The Making of a Political Elite in Old Regime France (1994). It was not until 1885 that the archivist, Roland Delachenal (Histoire des avocats au parlement de Paris 1300–1600) published a more rigorous study of the subject. During this same period, scholars undertook to collect, edit and publish the coutumes, among the most notable being the work of ErnstJoseph Tardif (Coutumiers de Normandie: Textes critiques publiés avec notes et éclaircissements, 2 vols., 1881–1903); Paul Viollet (Les établissements de
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St. Louis, 4 vols., 1881–1886); and Amédée Salmon (Coutumes de Beauvaisis, 2 vols., 1899–1900). Spurred by the work of the learned Dominican, Heinrich Denifle, and his epoch-making Die Universitäten des Mittelalters bis 1400 (1885), several French scholars undertook studies of the medieval law faculties. The first, Marcel Fournier’s three-volume Histoire de la science du droit en France (1892), was careless and of inferior quality, as was the work of Antonin Deloume, himself of the law faculty of Toulouse, and who borrowed copiously in composing Aperçu Historique sur la faculté de droit de l’université de Toulouse: Maîtres et escoliers de l’an 1228 à 1900 (1900), and his subsequent two volume revision, Histoire sommaire de la faculté de droit de Toulouse fondée en 1229: centenaire de la réorganization de 1805 (1905). For a discussion and evaluation of these works, the reader should consult the bibliographic essay by Cyril E. Smith, The University of Toulouse in the Middle Ages (1958). Of generally higher quality are the more recent studies by Eduard Mauritz Meijers contained in the 3rd and 4th volumes of Etudes d’Histoire de Droit (1959), and the work of André Gouron, La science du droit dans le midi de la France au moyen âge (1984). These latter works followed, of course, the impact of Lucien Febvre, Marc Bloch, Ferdinand Braudel and others associated with Annales on French historiography. In many respects, this effect corresponded to the effect of Maitland on Anglo-American historiography. Unlike Maitland, with his functional emphasis, the Annales school, in its Durkheimian concern for totality and its search for deeply ingrained mentalities developed and persisting over the long duration, was largely structuralist. Also unlike Maitland’s functionalism which was by its very nature at loggerheads with preceding Whiggish constitutionalism, the concerns of the Annales school were not manifestly incommensurate with, indeed found an echo in, legal scholarship from the days of Pasquier with its privileging of custom and authority. The works of a number of French scholars have become mainstays of scholarship, particularly in early canon law, and church-state relations, including Paul Fournier and Gabriel Le Bras, Histoire des collections canoniques en Occident depuis les fausses décrétales jusqu’au Décret de Gratien, 2 vols. (1931–1932), Dictionnaire de Droit canonique, ed. Robert Naz, 7 vols. (1935–1965). Le Bras is also editor with Jean Gaudemet of the 18-volume series Histoire du Droit et des Institutions de l’Eglise en Occident, which includes as volume 7 his L’Âge classique 1140–1378 (1965), authored jointly with Charles Lefebvre and Jacqueline Rambaud, and as volume 13, Paul Ourliac and Henri Gilles, La Période postclassique, 1378–1500, vol. I, La problématique de l’époque (1971). The series also includes Charles Munier, L’Eglise dans l’empire romain (IIe–IIIe siècles): Eglise et cité (1979), and Jean Gaudemet, L’Eglise dans l’empire romain (IVe–Ve
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siècles), 2nd ed. (1989, orig. 1958), both of which are useful references on early canon law. Despite the unquestioned merits of these works, there remains a hint of that structuralism that characterized the Annales school, as well as arguably the thought of Pasquier. Gouron, for example, is also author of La réglementation des métiers en Languedoc au Moyen Âge (1958), as well as a number of works on coutumes. And just as Loisel sought in proverb and popular literature what Annales historians would call mentalities underlying the law, so Ourliac, who in additional to the foregoing work has published with J. De Malafosse a multi-volume Histoire du droit privé, 1968, has written extensively on law and medieval French literature, which essays are included in Etudes d’histoire du droit medieval (1972), as well as authoring two volumes on Coutumes de L’Agenais (1976 and 1981) and the edition, Fors anciens de Béarn (1990). Select Bibliography Manlio Bellomo, Società ed istituzioni in Italia tra medioevo ed età moderna (Catania: Editrice Giannotta, 1977); James A. Brundage, Medieval Canon Law (London and New York: Longman, 1955); The History of Medieval Canon Law in the Classical Period, 1140–1234: from Gratian to the Decretals of Pope Gregory IX, ed. Wilfried Hartmann and Kenneth Pennington (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2008); J. A. Clarence Smith, Medieval Law Teachers and Writers, Civilian and Canonist (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1975); Francesco Calasso, Medio Evo del Diritto, vol. 1: Le fonti (Milan: Giuffre, 1954); Handbuch der Quellen und Literatur der neueren europäischen Privatrechtsgeschichte, ed. Helmut Coing, vol. 1: Mittelalter (1100–1500) (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1973); Antonio Garcia Y Garcia, Historia del derecho canonico, vol. 1: El primer milenio (Salamanca: University of Salamanca, 1967); Robert Naz, ed., Dictionnaire de Droit Canonique, 7 vols. (Paris: Letourney et Ane, 1935–1965); Friedrich Carl von Savigny, Geschichte des römischen Rechts im Mittelalter, 7 vols. (Heidelberg: J. C. B. Mohr, 1834–1851).
Scott L. Taylor
Legal Historiography (German) A. Terminology, Boundaries of the Field Research into medieval law falls primarily into the domain of legal history. This discipline, on the borders of law and history, is greatly influenced by the relevant legal culture and the lines of development towards modern law. European law is not so much a single field as a checkerboard landscape, characterized by the co-existence of various law communities. Primarily, it
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is divided into the German, Roman, English, and Nordic law communities (Konrad Zweigert and Hein Kötz, Einführung in die Rechtsvergleichung, 11969, 31996). Legal history is faced with specific problems in each law community, and despite the suggestive titles of a number of books (Hattenhauer; Robinson, Fergus, Gordon; Willoweit, Seif), a genuinely European legal historiography is at best in its infancy. This article confines itself to the German law community, and will examine the significance of medieval law for the changing conditions of development of the history of law (see also the contribution by Scott Taylor, Law in the Middle Ages). It must be remembered that modern law in central Europe – more so than in other law communities – is a product of very diverse roots. In the Middle Ages, the indigenous customary law was supplemented by the Roman common law, whose importance for the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation so increased from the late 15th century that this process was often later described as a ‘reception’; this existed in parallel to the legal system of the (Catholic) church. These very different roots are reflected in the various sub-disciplines of the history of law, whose emergence is a result of developments in the 19th century (see below, 2). Roman law, at best including the ‘common law’ into which it had developed in medieval practice (cf. Hermann Lange, Maximiliane Kriechbaum, Römisches Recht im Mittelalter, vol. I: Die Glossatoren, 1997; vol. II: Die Kommentatoren, 2007), became the object of study of the history of Roman law; the law of the Catholic church that of the history of canon law. The nature and the institutions of native law were studied by historians of German law, albeit giving increased consideration to those influences proceeding from other development strands. Thus German legal history has particular potential as the possible core of an integrative history of law which unites all factors in the development of law and reaches the present day, especially given the manner in which the study of Roman law has to some extent been dehistoricized and developed into a propaedeutic of civil law. In it, the sub-disciplines which have been maintained since the 19th century (particularly in the field of the history of modern private law; cf. Wieacker) could potentially merge into one. A wish to overcome these traditional specializations, which can for instance be observed in the Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte (ZSRG, first published in 1883; on which most recently: Werner Ogris, “Zum Erscheinen von Band 125 der Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte,” ZSRG/GA [2008]: XXXI–XLVIII) with its three sections (German, Roman, canon, the last only since 1911), is frequently voiced even today (cf. Stolleis 2007). It had been called for as early as the beginning of the 20th century (Möller, 69); and the Deutsche Rechtshistorikertage, a meeting
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of German legal historians held since 1927, were intended to encourage a concentration on the “places of contact” between the “individual fields.” For this reason, the invitation to their first congress distinguished between “the history of law in antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Church,” thus equating ‘German’ law with the history of medieval law (cf. the facsimile in: Berthold Sutter, Fünfundzwanzig Deutsche Rechtshistorikertage, Heidelberg 1927-Graz 1984, 1984). The significance of the Middle Ages in the German language area within the context of what was formerly called the ‘German’ history of law will be the focal point of this article. B. On the History of Legal Historiography Legal history, as an academic subject within legal studies, emerged from the ‘historical legal school’ (‘Historische Rechtsschule’) of the 19th century, in reaction to the so-called reasonable law (‘Vernunftrecht’), if one disregards its forerunners in the 17th and 18th centuries, ‘imperial history’ and ‘German Private Law.’ Reasonable law, an idea of a secular natural law, was formed by the Enlightenment. Emancipated from Christian ideas of morality and characterized by a rational, logical and systematic mode of thought, it had achieved a special historical importance in lawmaking due to its connections to political Absolutism. Its most important result was the codification of (natural) law, resulting in a fundamentally new type of legal text, which manifested itself as a claim to generate a timelessly reasonable, systematic, and logically contradiction free summary of the legal order (or important parts of it). Any loopholes which did become apparent ought to be closable using the code itself alone, without reference to other legal authorities. Thus the codes (for example the Prussian ALR of 1794, the French Code Civil of 1804, or the Austrian ABGB of 1812) put an end to the previously dominant system of a mixed law made up of various elements (Ius Romano-Germanicum). This rejection of other sources of law, and the premise of an eternal human reason unbound by the concrete circumstances of its time resulted in a widespread rejection of a historical conception of law as bound to a particular point in time. Skepticism towards ‘reasonable law’ had become apparent even in the 18th century. Immanuel Kant criticized it as an ahistoric, artificial construct, and Johann Gottfried Herder understood every cultural phenomenon as the mutable result of a historical process. The reasonable law, as fixed by the codification process to form the judicial code of the establishment, could not fulfill the expectations of eternal validity placed upon it; partly, too, it appeared compromised by its association with the absolutist law-giver. The discipline of law, whose considerable importance for the Ius Romano-Germanicum
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had been eroded by the lawgiving of the absolutist state, sought a new role. Following the spirit of the age of romanticism and historicism, there was a turn away from the enlightened reasonable law and towards the historical method. Thus arose the “historical legal school,” founded by Friedrich Carl von Savigny (1779–1861) and Karl Friedrich Eichhorn (1781–1854), which gained its first focal point in the journal Zeitschrift für geschichtliche Rechtswissenschaft, founded in 1815 (Joachim Rückert, “Geschichtlich, praktisch, deutsch: Die ‘Zeitschrift für geschichtliche Rechtswissenschaft’ [1815–1850], das ‘Archiv für die civilistische Praxis’ [1818–1867] und die ‘Zeitschrift für deutsches Recht und deutsche Rechtswissenschaft’ [1839–1861],” Juristische Zeitschriften: Die neuen Medien des 18.–20. Jahrhunderts, ed. Michael Stolleis, 1999, 107–257). The Historical School, influenced by Herder, believed that law originated, as part of the general cultural achievement of a people, in their collective beliefs (the Volksgeist, i. e., the spirit of a people). Out of this, the legal discipline, using a historical and systematic methodology should deduce the positive legal order (scientific positivism). Savigny and his pupils (e. g., Georg Friedrich Puchta, 1798–1846) saw the classical Roman law as suitable material, because of its high dogmatic quality. This close connection with the Pandects (Digests), the central element of the 6th-century Justinian law code, gave this method of legal scholarship its name, “Pandectistics.” Its representatives emphasized the dogmatic aspect of their work, while the historical aspects retreated into the background. That those who, like Savigny (cf. Geschichte des römischen Rechts im Mittelalter, 1815–1831, 21834–1851) – assumed a “denaturing” of classical Roman law by medieval law scholarship, gave a low importance to the Middle Ages goes without saying. By contrast, Eichhorn turned to the native German element of law, founding the ‘Germanist’ branch of the Historical School (Deutsche Staats- und Rechtsgeschichte, 1808ff; Einleitung in das deutsche Privatrecht mit Einschluß des Lehnrechts, 1823ff). Under the influence of contemporary political efforts towards German unity (further references: Gerald Kohl, Deutsche Einheit, Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit, vol. II, ed. Friedrich Jäger, 2005, 934–35), scholars of that persuasion saw a preoccupation with the learned, Roman law (the ‘academic law’ of the ‘Romanists’) as a contradiction to the genuine national law which formed the actual spirit of the people (cf. Georg Beseler [1809– 1888], Volksrecht und Juristenrecht, 1843). The ‘Germanist’ and ‘Romanist’ branches of the subject became increasingly separate from around 1840, actualizing the potential for schism which had been apparent in the diverging emphases of the two branches since the founding days of the Historical School.
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While the Pandectists, with their emphasis on classical Roman law, had little interest in the Middle Ages, the Germanists took as their object the native law before it was influenced (in their view, negatively) by Roman common law. The so-called ‘national tragedy’ of the reception of Roman law directed their attention to the preceding era: this necessarily meant that the Middle Ages took centre stage. Building on tendencies in the 18th century, various writers (e. g., Bluntschli, Stobbe, Roth, Gierke) attempted reconstructions of a general ‘German civil law,’ which was to be based on a wide variety of native German legal sources (town laws, legal treatises [Rechtsbücher], collections of rural law [Weistümer], etc.). This Germanist interest corresponded to the political aims of the German nationalist movement which had developed in the Napoleonic Wars. Recent research has viewed the general turn to history as a compensation for the fall of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 and the consequent loss of a political and constitutional legal framework (Wolfgang Burgdorf, Ein Weltbild verliert seine Welt: der Untergang des Alten Reiches und die Generation 1806, 2006, esp. 283–318). In this sense, the early meetings of the Germanists (“Germanistenversammlungen”: 1846 Frankfurt/Main, 1847 Lübeck) acted not just as an academic, but also as a political forum. While the Pandectists found the object of their studies in the Justianian Corpus Iuris civilis, the Germanists had to begin by establishing their basic sources: thus, editions of legal sources formed the beginnings of Germanist research and determined its future course – to a certain extent even to this day. Their numbers are so great and their objects so various that only a few representative names can be mentioned here. The connections with contemporary politics find their expression in the scholars associated with the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, founded in 1819 by Karl vom und zum Stein (1757–1831) and including in particular the editions (reprinted toward the end of the 20th century) of Germanic folk law in the series Leges or Leges nationum Germanicarum (e. g. L[eges etc.]. Alamannorum, L. Baiuwariorum, L. Burgundionum, L. Frisionum, L. Langobardorum, L. Saxonum, L. Thuringorum, L. Ribuaria, L. Francorum Chamavorum etc.). The collection and edition of the rural customary law compilations (Weistümer or Taidinge), the records of legal traditions as manifested in judicial proceedings which were kept by legally experienced members of various – mostly rural – law communities formed, quantitatively speaking, a main focus (further references: Christiane Birr, “Weistümer und ‘Ländliche Rechtsquellen’, Quellenkunde der Habsburgermonarchie, ed. Josef Pauser, Martin Scheutz and Thomas Winkelbauer, 2004, 390–408). The beginnings of this tradition of collection can be found with Jakob Grimm (1785–1863) and his seven volume edition (Weisthümer,
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1840–1878, rpt. 1957). From 1864 (the year marking the foundation of the Weistümer- und Urbarkommission, commission on rural customary laws and urbaria) on, the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Humanities collected Weistümer for Austria in its series Österreichische Weistümer (1870–). A further focus of interest was on the study of legal handbooks or individual records of customary law, such as work on the Sachsenspiegel (Mirror of the Saxons; Heiner Lück, Über den Sachsenspiegel, 1999). Legal history, seen as a form of ‘historical legal studies,’ initially aimed at the treatment with historical methods of questions concerning the current legal order. In the late 19th century there was a growing sense that the historical material was valuable in its own right; legal historians had “spent long enough patiently acting as a chamberlain to jurisprudence, laboriously collecting stones out of which others built palaces.” (Möller, 68; abbreviated quotation in Ogorek, 17 fn. 11). An important impulse was given by the Pandectistic codifications of law (German BGB 1900, Swiss ZGB 1912) which had been preceded by the replacement of academic positivism with a legal positivism and the consequent estrangement between the history of law and the current legal order. This “separation of the dogmatic and the historical views of law” (Ogorek, 19) forced the history of law into yet another repositioning and made possible a stronger turn to non-judicial but allied disciplines such as philology and general history, from which medieval studies as a whole was able to benefit. On the other hand, this ‘historicizing,’ which still marks the subject today, meant that the history of law lost ground within the faculties of law. Not a few representatives of the subject assumed that the National Socialist takeover would open a way out of this imminent marginalization; thus, research interests shifted to “topics of political interest” (Hans Thieme, as cited in Rückert, Willoweit, 347). In private law, such hopes centered above all on the new political masters’ propaganda rejecting Roman law; in constitutional history on Germanic concepts of community, as well as the Empire before its alleged decline due to the formation of separate territories. In both areas (which in medieval times appeared as a unity: Michael Stolleis, Geschichte des öffentlichen Rechts in Deutschland I, 1988, 63) attention was concentrated on the Middle Ages or still more remote eras: “even those who up till then had only been concerned with later epochs began, in accordance with the trend towards the depiction of thousand-year continuities, to reach back to the distant, Germanic past.” (Anna Lübbe, “Die deutsche Verfassungsgeschichtsschreibung,” Stolleis and Simon, 73–74). Parallel to this, since the turn of the last century, historians’ increased interest in constitutional history (cf. the appointment, in 1902, of the his-
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torian Otto Hintze as the first Full Professor of constitutional history in Germany: Grothe, 54) led to a criticism of the views held by legal historians that were determined by concepts characteristic of the modern period. This also influenced the post-war period. It was the historian Otto Brunner (1898–1982) who broke new ground in replacing modern categories with closeness to medieval sources. As a discipline, the history of law at first responded hesitantly to this challenge. After 1945, a questioning of the discipline’s understanding of itself and its relations with the National Socialist regime seemed more urgent (cf. Heinrich Mitteis, Vom Lebenswert der Rechtsgeschichte, 1947). On the one hand, its unsubtle attempts at relevance were criticized for turning legal history into the “whore of the present-day” (Karl Siegfried Bader, Ursache und Schuld in der geschichtlichen Wirklichkeit, 1946, 34), while on the other it was condemned for a descriptive historicism which had no values of its own to set against the National Socialists (cf. further references in Ogorek, 37). The result was that the Germanists of the post war period not only distanced themselves from 19th-century constitutional history but also abandoned the intensive interest in the Germanic period. At the same time there was a tendency to turn toward modern history which found its expression in the study reform from 1935. Introducing courses in ‘modern constitutional history’ and ‘modern history of private law’, this reform was heavily influenced by the legal historian Karl August Eckhardt (1901–1979). Literature: Ernst v. Möller, Die Trennung der Deutschen und der Römischen Rechtsgeschichte (1905); Marcel Senn, Rechtshistorisches Selbstverständnis im Wandel: ein Beitrag zur Wissenschaftstheorie und Wissenschaftsgeschichte der Rechtsgeschichte (1982); Gerhard Dilcher, Bernd-Rüdiger Kern, “Die juristische Germanistik des 19. Jahrhunderts und die Fachtradition der Deutschen Rechtsgeschichte,” ZSRG/GA (1984): 1–46; Dieter Wyduckel, Ius publicum: Geschichte des öffentlichen Rechts und der Staatsrechtswissenschaft (1984); Frantisek Graus, “Verfassungsgeschichte des Mittelalters,” Historische Zeitschrift 243 (1986): 529–89; Rechtsgeschichte im Nationalsozialismus, ed. Michael Stolleis, Dieter Simon (1989); Marcel Senn, “Stand und Zweck der neueren Grundlagendiskussion in der Rechtsgeschichtswissenschaft,” Zeitschrift für Neuere Rechtsgeschichte (1993): 66–77; Regina Ogorek, “Rechtsgeschichte in der Bundesrepublik [1945–1990],” Rechtswissenschaft in der Bonner Republik: Studien zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte der Jurisprudenz, ed. Dieter Simon (1994), 12–99; Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, Die deutsche verfassungsgeschichtliche Forschung im 19. Jahrhundert (11961, 21995); Joachim Rückert, Dietmar Willoweit, Die Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte in der NS-Zeit, ihre Vorgeschichte und ihre Nachwirkungen (1995); Andrea Nunweiler, Das Bild der deutschen Rechtsvergangenheit und seine Aktualisierung im ‘Dritten Reich,’ (1996); Diethelm Klippel, “Rechtsgeschichte,” Joachim Eibach and Günther Lottes, Kompass der Geschichtswissenschaft (2002), 126–41, 171–73; Anne Christine Nagel, Im Schatten des Dritten Reichs: Mittelalterforschung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1945–1970 (2005); Ewald Grothe,
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Zwischen Geschichte und Recht. Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichtsschreibung 1900–1970 (2005); Ernst Pitz, Verfassungslehre und Einführung in die deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte des Mittelalters (2006); Michael Stolleis, Rechtsgeschichte, Verfassungsgeschichte, Geschichte. Ein Grundkurs, ed. Hans-Jürgen Goertz (11998, 32007), 391–412.
C. Focuses of Research in the History of Law The focal points of research in the last decades have been affected by the traditions of the subject described above. In this sense, editions of legal sources remain an important task for the legal historian. In part, this is a matter of continuing and completing the mammoth projects of the 19th or early 20th century (e. g. Nikolaus Grass, ed., Tirolische Weistümer: Ergänzungsbände Oberinntal, 1994; Karl Schumm and Marianne Schumm, ed., Hohenlohische Dorfordnungen, 1985). Reprints, too, testify to this continuity (eg. Ruth Schmidt-Wiegand, ed., Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer [by J. Grimm] 1, 11828, 41899, rpt. 1992). However, these are often also new projects in which the influence of social, urban and regional history can be felt. Interest in law books remains unbroken, not merely in the famous examples of the genre, for attention is now being paid to regional or local accounts. Increasingly, urban legal sources are of interest to researchers: for example Ruth Schmidt-Wiegand (ed.), Die Wolfenbütteler Bilderhandschrift des Sachsenspiegels (1993–1998); Der Oldenburger Sachsenspiegel (2006); Hans Schlosser and Ingo Schwab, Oberbayerisches Landrecht Kaiser Ludwigs des Bayern von 1346 (2000); Carl August Lückerath and Friedrich Benninghoven (ed.), Das Kulmer Gerichtsbuch 1330–1430 (1999); Dietrich Poeck (ed.), Das älteste Greifswalder Stadtbuch (1291–1332) (2000); Konrad Elmshäuser (ed.), 700 Jahre Bremer Recht 1303–2003 (2003); Der Kolberger Kodex des Lübischen Rechts von 1297: Das Kolberger Rechtsbuch (2005); Winfried Irgang (ed.), Das ‘Leobschützer Rechtsbuch,’ (2006). Institutional support of editorial projects is a significant factor, for example that of the Kommission für Rechtsgeschichte Österreichs (Commission for Austrian Legal History) of the Austrian Academy of Science and the Humanities with its series Fontes rerum austriacarum / Fontes iuris: Wilhelm Brauneder, Gerhard Jaritz, and Christian Neschwara (ed.), Die Wiener Stadtbücher 1395–1430. I: 1395–1400 (1989); II: 1401–1405 (1998); III: 1406–1411 (2006); Christa Schillinger-Prassl, Die Rechtsquellen der Stadt Leoben (1997), Roman Zehetmayer, Das Urbar des Grafen Burkhard III von Maidburg-Hardegg aus dem Jahre 1363 (2001), Günter Schneider (ed.), Das Urbar des niederösterreichischen Zisterzienserklosters Zwettl von 1457 (2002); Ingo Schwab, Das Landrecht von 1346 für Oberbayern und seine Gerichte Kufstein, Kitzbühel und Rattenberg (2002).
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In the field of constitutional history, the criticism first voiced by historians in the first half of the 20th century of the unsuitable terminology applied to the Middle Ages by legal historians, determined the character of the second half. Many works of conceptual history were written in this spirit, some of them profiting from links to researches into regional history (e. g. the terms Personenverbandsstaat, a (feudal) state based on personal alliances and institutioneller Flächenstaat, ‘institution-based territorial state’ in Theodor Mayer; cf. Nagel, 156ff, 173). The Vereinigung für Verfassungsgeschichte, Association of Constitutional History, founded in 1977, attempts to unite the varying viewpoints of historians, legal historians and constitutional lawyers; its biannual conferences on broader themes usually also consider their medieval aspects. The association has repeatedly examined historiographical questions of constitutional history (1981: Subject and concepts of constitutional history, cf. Der Staat, Beiheft 6, 1983; 2006: Constitutional History in Europe, cf. Ewald Grothe in forum historiae iuris: http://www.rewi.huberlin.de/FHI/news/Tagungsbericht_Hofgeismar.htm). On the central questions of ‘Constitution’ and ‘Constitutional History, cf. the bibliography listed above, under 2. In addition to this association, the Konstanz Working Group on Medieval History (Konstanzer Arbeitskreis für mittelalterliche Geschichte) merits mention as an institutional base for the discipline (on the group: Traute Endemann, Geschichte des Konstanzer Arbeitskreises, 2001; Peter Moraw, Rudolf Schieffer, ed., Die deutschsprachige Mediävistik im 20. Jahrhundert, 2005). In its publications Vorträge und Forschungen, questions of medieval constitutional history are frequently examined, e. g. Reinhard Schneider (ed.), Das spätmittelalterliche Königtum im europäischen Vergleich (1987); Reinhard Schneider, Harald Zimmermann (ed.), Wahlen und Wählen im Mittelalter (1990); Peter Moraw (ed.), Deutscher Königshof, Hoftag und Reichstag im späteren Mittelalter (2003); Werner Maleczek (ed.), Fragen der politischen Integration im mittelalterlichen Europa (2005). Here a noticeable dominance of the historian over the jurist in the field of the history of the medieval constitution can be observed. This interest in fundamental conceptual questions, as well as the trend towards social history in the historical disciplines which has characterized the last quarter of the 20th century – can also be observed in Otto Brunner, Werner Conze, Reinhart Koselleck (ed.), Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe: historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland, 1972ff (e. g., the two articles on “Verfassung” by Heinz Mohnhaupt and Dieter Grimm, vol. VI, 1990, 831–62, 863–99). If the historians’ interest had initially been in the institutions of territorial rulership [Landesherrschaft] (Brunner; Walter Schlesinger, Die
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Entstehung der Landesherrschaft, 1941, rpt. 1964), then in the following period that interest was joined by research into manorial rulership [Grundherrschaft] and communalism, e. g., Hans Patze (ed.), Die Grundherrschaft im späten Mittelalter I–II (1983); Peter Blickle, Unruhen in der ständischen Gesellschaft 1300–1800 (1988); André Holenstein, Die Huldigung der Untertanen: Rechtskultur und Herrschaftsordnung (800–1800) (1991) Grundherrschaft und bäuerliche Gesellschaft im Hochmittelalter, ed. Werner Rösener (1995); Theorien kommunaler Ordnung in Europa, ed. Peter Blickle (1996); Gemeinde und Staat im alten Europa, ed. Peter Blickle (1998; in particular Sibylle Hunziker, “Die ländliche Gemeinde in der juristischen Literatur 1300–1800,” 397–468) One of the areas in which research into constitutional history is centered is regional history; and interests in this field seem to be, given the federal nature of the states of the German speaking area, politically not unwelcome (cf., e. g., for the Austrian states, with further references Brauneder, Kohl in: CPH 2002, especially 23, 28f). Also deserving of mention are works on public peaces (with further references Landfrieden: Anspruch und Wirklichkeit, ed. Arno Buschmann and Elmar Wadle, 2002) and on the feudal system (with further references Karl-Heinz Spiess , Das Lehnswesen in Deutschland im hohen und späten Mittelalter, 2002). In addition to a large number of individual monographs, there are now modern surveys of medieval constitutional history, such as that by Hans K. Schulze (Grundstrukturen der Verfassung im Mittelalter I, 11985, 42004; II, 11986, 32000; III, 1998; VI, 2005) or Rolf Sprandel (Verfassung und Gesellschaft im Mittelalter, 11975, 51994). The comprehensive Handbuch der deutschen Geschichte also gives the subject thorough consideration (Karl Bosl, Staat, Gesellschaft, Wirtschaft im deutschen Mittelalter, 11970, 101999 [paperback ed.]). A history of administration, as distinct from the constitution, could only establish itself in the last quarter of the 20th century. While its emphases lie in the modern era, the analyses of Kurt G. A. Jeserich, Hans Pohl, and Georg-Christoph von Unruh, Deutsche Verwaltungsgeschichte, 1983–1988, begin in vol. 1 with the late Middle Ages. The history of international law is younger still (Karl-Heinz Ziegler, Völkerrechtsgeschichte, 11994, 22007). In connection to enquiries into constitutional history, and influenced by increased interest in social history, research into court procedure, and the history of justice and the legal process has become significant (cf. Hans Schlosser, “Situation, Zielsetzung und Perspektiven der rechtshistorischen Forschung zum Zivilprozeß,” in: Zeitschrift für Neuere Rechtsgeschichte 1982: 42–51). Here, too, emphasis lies on the modern period, as in the central series in this field, Quellen und Forschungen zur höchsten Gerichtsbarkeit im alten Reich (1973–) makes clear. Of the over fifty volumes which have to date
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appeared, only few are devoted to medieval themes (e. g., Die Protokoll- und Urteilsbücher des Königlichen Kammergerichts aus den Jahren 1465 bis 1480 I–III, ed. Friedrich Battenberg, 2004). However, since 1986 Bernhard Diestelkamp has been editing a special series, Urkundenregesten zur Tätigkeit des deutschen Königs- und Hofgerichts bis 1451 (1986–). Works published outside these series include, for example, Friedrich Battenberg, Herrschaft und Verfahren: politische Prozesse im mittelalterlichen Römisch-Deutschen Reich (1995); Heiner Lück, Die kursächsische Gerichtsverfassung 1423–1550 (1997); Bernd Kannowski, Bürgerkämpfe und Friedebriefe: rechtliche Streitbeilegung in spätmittelalterlichen Städten (2001); Ignacio Czeguhn, Die kastilische Höchstgerichtsbarkeit 1250–1520 (2002). In the field of private law, after 1945 the idea of a common ‘European’ development of law replaced the national perspectives. Here, the interests of Germanist and Romanist historians of law coincided with the political zeitgeist, which led to the beginnings of a softening of the traditional subject boundaries. The project on the medieval history of Roman law, under the working title Der Neue Savigny, and whose results appear in the series Ius Romanum Medii Aevi (IRMAE, 1963ff) deserves mention. However, the project petered out after something less than two decades, for which the publication of Coings’s Handbuch, which is still indispensable for research into the history of private law today, offered a welcome legitimation. For that reason, too, the period after 1945 saw a rejection of ‘German Private Law’, with its pandectistic terminology and dogmatic emphases; it also vanished from teaching. Instead, as Coings’s Handbuch demonstrates, scholars turned to the history of the academic discipline and of law-giving (seminally, Wilhelm Ebel, Geschichte der Gesetzgebung in Deutschland, 11956, 21958; see also the classic study by Wieacker), whose most important result in terms of content was probably the discovery of the ‘early reception’ of scholarly law and its spread and influence in the Middle Ages (cf. Winfried Trusen, Die Anfänge des gelehrten Rechts in Deutschland: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Frührezeption, 1962; Winfried Stelzer, Gelehrtes Recht in Österreich: von den Anfängen bis zum frühen 14. Jahrhundert, 1982). Interest in native law has centered in particular on its conception of the law, its manifestation in legal customs, and its relationship to judicial procedure; cf. for instance Gerhard Köbler, Das Recht im frühen Mittelalter: Untersuchungen zu Herkunft und Inhalt frühmittelalterlicher Rechtsbegriffe im deutschen Sprachgebiet (1971); Gerhard Dilcher, Heiner Lück, Reiner Schulze, Elmar Wadle, Jürgen Weitzel, and Udo Wolter, Gewohnheitsrecht und Rechtsgewohnheiten im Mittelalter (1992); Karl Kroeschell, “Recht und Rechtsbegriff im 12. Jahrhundert,” id., Studien zum frühen und mittelalterlichen
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deutschen Recht (1995); Rechtsbegriffe im Mittelalter, ed. Albrecht Cordes and Bernd Kannowski (2002). Monographic studies such as Andreas Deutsch, Der Klagspiegel und sein Autor Conrad Heyden: Ein Rechtsbuch des 15. Jahrhunderts als Wegbereiter der Rezeption (2004); Bernd Kannowski, Die Umgestaltung des Sachsenspiegelrechts durch die Buch’sche Glosse (2007); Stephan Dusil, Die Soester Stadtrechtsfamilie: Mittelalterliche Quellen und neuzeitliche Historiographie (2007) appeared in parallel to the editions of law books and sources on urban law (see above). Further, there has been increasing interest in the history of the legal profession, which is now reflected in a number of reference works which include the Middle Ages: Juristen in Österreich. 1200–1980, ed. Wilhelm Brauneder (1987); Juristen. Ein biographisches Lexikon, ed. Michael Stolleis (11995, 22001); Deutsche und europäische Juristen aus neun Jahrhunderten: eine biographische Einführung in die Geschichte der Rechtswissenschaft, ed. Gerd Kleinheyer and Jan Schröder (52008; 1 first ed. 1976 under the title: Deutsche Juristen aus fünf Jahrhunderten). Various reference works have become last sanctuaries for the dogmatic ‘German Private Law’ tradition. In them, countless articles are dedicated to the institutions of private law, which however often merely continue to reiterate the work of older scholarship. The second edition of the Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde (11911–1919; 21973–2007 with various editors, founded by Johannes Hoops [1865–1949]), the Lexikon des Mittelalters (latest volume IX, 1998; paperback ed- 2002) and, in particular, the Handwörterbuch zur Deutschen Rechtsgeschichte are very relevant here. Thanks to influential research into early modern historical criminology, medieval criminal law is also enjoying a new boom (for older research, Rudolf His, Das Strafrecht des deutschen Mittelalters, 1920–1935; Hans Hirsch, Die hohe Gerichtsbarkeit im deutschen Mittelalter, 11922, 21958; more recently, and with further references, Hinrich Rüping, Günter Jerouschek, Grundriß der Strafrechtsgeschichte, 11981 [by Rüping], 52007). As a result of the frequent representation of this field in museums and exhibitions, laypeople often assume this to be the central interest of the history of law (c.f. Justiz in alter Zeit. Katalog des Mittelalterlichen Kriminalmuseums Rothenburg, no date). Symptomatic of this new boom is the series Konflikt, Verbrechen und Sanktion in der Gesellschaft Alteuropas, which began in 1997, with the subdivisions Fallstudien (1997ff.) as well as Symposien und Synthesen (1999ff; c.f., e. g., Hoheitliches Strafen in der Spätantike und im frühen Mittelalter, ed. Jürgen Weitzel, 2002). Together, work on conceptual history, justice and the history of urban law have shattered the picture of a “homogenous medieval world of norms” (thus, with further references, the assessment of Ogorek, 66).
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Various fields of research which have gained in importance in the past decades crossover between the history of constitutional, criminal and private law. They include legal ethnology (Rechtliche Volkskunde), legal iconography and the archaeology of law, whose most important organ of publication has been, since 1978, Forschungen zur Rechtsarchäologie und Rechtlichen Volkskunde (ed. Louis Carlen). It regularly publishes reports on the conferences of the Internationale Gesellschaft für Rechtliche Volkskunde (International Society for Legal Ethnology) as well as the Arbeitskreis Rechtsikonographie (Working Group on Legal Iconography), which has been expanding in recent years. The latter has produced a new publication series: Signa Iuris: Beiträge zur Rechtsikonographie, Rechtsarchäologie und Rechtlichen Volkskunde (ed. Gernot Kocher, Heiner Lück, Clausdieter Schott, 2008ff). In addition to volumes with a general focus, (Gernot Kocher, Zeichen und Symbole des Rechts, 1992), more narrow subjects, most recently depictions of Roland, are treated as well (Dietlinde Munzel-Everling, Rolande. Die europäischen Rolanddarstellungen und Rolandfiguren, 2005; Dietlinde Munzel-Everling, Rolande der Welt. Interaktive CD-ROM, 2004). Research into the language of law, equally, is not bound by the established borders between the various subdivisions of legal history. Here the Deutsches Rechtswörterbuch, founded in 1896/1897, merits special mention (I, 1914–1932, most recently XI 2003–2007); work on it is expected to be completed by around 2035. A traditional interest of Germanist legal history, legal proverbs, remains current (e. g., Deutsche Rechtsregeln und Rechtssprichwörter, ed. Ruth Schmidt-Wiegand, 2002). D. Trends In a search for tendencies common to the various themes of research, the overcoming of the rigid barrier between the Middle Ages and modern times is the most readily apparent. For instance, one of the most important textbooks of recent times (Willoweit, Verfassungsgeschichte) has consciously abandoned the division between medieval and modern constitutional history, and devotes around a quarter of the work to the Middle Ages. Also of significance are the two volumes of essays collected by Hartmut Boockmann, Ludger Grenzmann, Bernd Moeller, and Martin Staehelin (ed.), Recht und Verfassung im Übergang vom Mittelalter zur Neuzeit I: Bericht über Kolloquien der Kommission zur Erforschung der Kultur des Spätmittelalters 1994 bis 1995 (1998), and II: Bericht über Kolloquien der Kommission zur Erforschung der Kultur des Spätmittelalters 1996 bis 1997 (2001). An important consequence of the vanishing barrier between the eras is that the medieval discipline shares all the tendencies of legal history as a whole. Thus, themes important in the study of the early modern and modern periods are also examined for the
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Middle Ages. This even leads to anniversaries of modern events affecting medieval scholarship: the anniversary of the end of the Holy Roman Empire triggered an interest in its whole history. The publications appearing under cover of the anniversary included work extending back into the Middle Ages (cf., with further references, Gerald Kohl, “Altes Reich und modernes Europa: Literatur zum Jubiläum 1806–2006,” Zeitschrift für Neuere Rechtsgeschichte [2008]: 117–28). Currently fashionable research topics such as gender studies (c.f. for example Amalie Fössel, Die Königin im mittelalterlichen Reich: Herrschaftsausübung, Herrschaftsrechte, Handlungsspielräume, 2000), asylum law (c.f. for example Daniela Fruscione, Das Asyl bei den germanischen Stämmen im frühen Mittelalter, 2003) or European integration (c.f. for example Fragen der politischen Integration im mittelalterlichen Europa, ed. Werner Maleczek, 2005) have been extended to the study of medieval law. Similarly, historical criminology has discovered the Middle Ages via the Early Modern (see 3, above, and c.f. for example Herrschaftliches Strafen seit dem Hochmittelalter, ed. Hans Schlosser, Rolf Sprandel, and Dietmar Willoweit, 2002; Kriminalität in Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit, ed. Sylvia Kesper-Biermann, Diethelm Klippel, 2007). This often reduces the Middle Ages to a mere prehistory of the modern period. See also the contributions to Crime and Punishment in the Middle Ages, ed. Connie Scarborough (forthcoming). However, the most remarkable trend is that legal historical research is (in contrast to general history: Peter Johanek, “Mittelalterforschung in Deutschland um 2000,” Mediävistik im 21. Jahrhundert, ed. Hans-Werner Goetz and Jörg Jarnut, 2003, 21–33) experiencing a far-reaching ‘loss of the Middle Ages.’ This is most immediately apparent in bibliographic research into publications in Austrian legal history – which is anything but atypical of the German speaking world – in the last two decades (Brauneder, Kohl in CPH 2002; Wilhelm Brauneder, Gerald Kohl, “A jogtörténeti kutatás Ausztriában” [Austrian Research into legal historiography], Jogtörténeti Szemle [History of Law Review] 3 [2006]: 29–35). Exceptions to this loss of the Middle Ages are confined to the editorial projects and particular scholars’ research interests, as well as to research into medieval constitutional and regional history, which continues but is now dominated by historians rather than lawyers. This actualizes expectations published in 1991: in a volume of collected essays on the subject (Die österreichische Rechtsgeschichte: Standortbestimmung und Zukunftsperspektiven, ed. Hans Constantin Faussner, Gernot Kocher, and Helfried Valentinitsch, 1991), medieval legal history played a very minor role. These tendencies, which for Austria are also observable in the relevant bibliographies, can be confirmed in legal history as a whole. For this pur-
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pose, my research assistant Ramon Pils (to whom thanks) undertook a count of the relevant articles in the Germanistic section of the Zeitschrift der SavignyStiftung für Rechtsgeschichte for the years 1950–1954 and 2003–2007. Comparison of the two periods shows remarkable changes. Shortly after the Second World War, between 60 and 90 % or more of the contributions and miscellaneous items were dedicated to medieval themes; at the beginning of the 21st century they took up between a quarter and somewhat less than half (with authors who are generally not legally trained). The decline of the Middle Ages as a subject of research is even more noticeable in the comprehensive reviews section of the ZSRG. While between 30 and 40 per cent of the books discussed after 1950 dealt with medieval questions, in the most recent volumes they were between 2.5 and a little over 10 %. This drop is even more remarkable, given that between the two periods studied – in 1979 – an independent Zeitschrift für Neuere Rechtsgeschichte dealing solely with questions of modern legal history was founded. Its editors believed the “restriction to the modern period” to be “necessary, as this period is on the one hand covered only imperfectly by the classical subjects of legal history, and therefore in special need of study, and on the other because the roots of contemporary legal and constitutional systems, which are still of importance today, are undoubtedly to be sought particularly in the modern period” (ZNR [1979]: 1). The ZSRG itself was at least occasionally conscious of this development. In 1961, Hans Thieme noted that “only today is Hugo Böhlau’s wish of 1861 [becoming true]: a stronger consideration of the dogmatic and academic history, the reception, and more recent centuries” (Hans Thieme, “Hundert Jahre Zeitschrift für Rechtsgeschichte,” ZSRG/GA [1961]: XII–XVI, here: XV). More than two decades later Thieme assumed “certain focuses of interest [of the journal], such as research into the Leges or the high Middle Ages.” However, this was, so Thieme, not the result of a programmatic decision, but reflected “what most pre-occupied the university scholars of the day.” At least, as he noted, apparently with reference to the newly founded ZNR, the ZSRG was “by no means closed to […] nineteenth century matters” (Hans Thieme, “Zum Erscheinen von Band 100 der Savigny-Zeitschrift, Germanistische Abteilung,” ZSRG/GA [1983]: 1–8, here 3). That is, a quarter century ago this openness was regarded as still particularly worthy of notice, although voices had been calling the “legal historiography of the nineteenth century” a task for the future of the discipline even at the beginning of the twentieth (Möller, 76). Equally symptomatic are the contents of the most important reference work on German legal history, the Handwörterbuch zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte:
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many of the articles, particularly those of the first years of publication, show a particular emphasis on the Middle Ages, while modern developments are treated within a few lines. This is not least a result of the scholarly literature produced in the preceding century (c.f. for example the articles “Adel” [nobility], “Alter” [age], “Aussteuer” [dowry], “Geselle” [journeyman], “Nachbar” [neighbour], “Vieh” [livestock]). By contrast, toward the end of the process of publishing the first edition, the modern period was almost always considered. The new edition, begun in 2004, explicitly declared as its goal “giving stronger consideration to […] modern and recent history of law than has been the case before.” A further ‘loss of the Middle Ages’ becomes apparent in an analysis of the focus of occupation of legal historians, including historians of constitutional and criminal law, in German-speaking areas, or rather of the departments and chairs of 42 German, six Swiss and five Austrian universities. Almost everywhere, publications on matters of medieval legal history were made by professors emeriti. Only Frankfurt/Main has a chair specifically dedicated to medieval history of law (Albrecht Cordes). Together with the Max-PlanckInstitute for European Legal History, which it hosts, Frankfurt forms a center of legal history; although not specifically devoted to the field, a somewhat stronger concern with the Middle Ages can also be observed in Freiburg i.Br. (c.f., e. g., the collection of essays, which had its origins in a student seminar, Funktion und Form: Quellen- und Methodenprobleme der mittelalterlichen Rechtsgeschichte, ed. Albrecht Cordes, Karl Kroeschell, 1996; see also Ph.D. theses, such as Steffen Bressler’s “Schuldknechtschaft und Schuldturm: zur Personalexekution im sächsischen Recht des 13.–16. Jahrhunderts,” 2004) as well as in Halle, Hamburg, Munich and Würzburg. As a result, many works of legal history with a focus on the Middle Ages turn out to be a collection of essays summarizing a life’s work. The recent publication date obscures the fact that they often contain old (though not out-dated) research (e. g., Karl Kroeschell, Studien zum frühen und mittelalterlichen deutschen Recht, 1995; Winfried Trusen, Gelehrtes Recht im Mittelalter und in der frühen Neuzeit, 1997; Elmar Wadle, Landfrieden, Strafe, Recht: Zwölf Studien zum Mittelalter, 2001; Andreas Fijal, Hans-Jörg Leuchte, Hans-Jochen Schiewer [ed.], Friedrich Ebel, Unseren fruntlichen grus zuvor: deutsches Recht des Mittelalters im mittel- und osteuropäischen Raum, 2004). Although until a few decades ago habilitation theses often covered medieval themes, a vanishing small number have treated the period in recent years (examples from Viennese habilitations: Werner Ogris, Der mittelalterliche Leibrentenvertrag, 1961; Wilhelm Brauneder, Die Entwicklung des Ehegüterrechts in Österreich: Ein Beitrag zur Dogmengeschichte und Rechtstatsachenfor-
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schung des Spätmittelalters und der Neuzeit, 1973; an exception in recent times is Christian Neschwara, Geschichte des österreichischen Notariats I: Vom Spätmittelalter bis zum Erlaß der Notariatsordnung 1850, 1996). Relevant dissertations have become rare: in the series Rechtshistorische Reihe, founded in 1978, which chiefly publishes theses, less than 10 % of the 373 volumes are on medieval themes; of the roughly 200 which have appeared in the last ten year, less than 6 %. The loss of the Middle Ages can also be observed in the text-books. Comprehensive Germanistic surveys, in which the Middle Ages are given extensive space (c.f. for example Richard Schröder and Eberhard v. Künssberg, Lehrbuch der deutschen Rechtsgeschichte, 11889 [by Schröder], 71932, in which of 1000 pages only 160 covered the modern period) are now practically inexistent. The last significant representative of this genre was Hermann Conrad (Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte I [Frühzeit und Mittelalter], 11954, 21962, II [Neuzeit] 1966). While some textbooks with an elaborated section on the Middle Ages (e. g., Karl Kroeschell, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte, vol. I: Bis 1250, 11972, 132008; Karl Kroeschell, Albrecht Cordes, and Karin Nehlsenvon Stryk, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte, vol. II: 1250–1650, 11972 [by Kroeschell], 92008) and even new works which do not cover the modern period at all (Wolfgang Ingenhaeff, Ältere Rechtsgeschichte, 2005) do exist, the Middle Ages lead a more shadowy existence in the textbooks which are conceived with regard to the current curricula of law faculties (e. g., Thomas Olechowski, Rechtsgeschichte, 12006, 22008, pp. 19–30 [of 422] contain the section “Mittelalter”; further isolated remarks e. g. 127–129). The same tendency can also be seen in specialized works, for example those on Austrian constitutional history: while in Ernst C. Hellbling, Österreichische Verfassungs- und Verwaltungsgeschichte (11956, 21974), the Middle Ages took up 41 % of the work, in Wilhelm Brauneder, Österreichische Verfassungsgeschichte (11976, 102005), it is only around 13 %. This touches but on one of the reasons for the “loss of the Middle Ages,” namely the dwindling importance of the subject of history of law within legal studies. More important is the low degree of acceptance by modern jurisprudence of all historical research which is not of immediate benefit to the subjects dealing with current law. The combination of legal history and current law subjects in the German faculty structure and the appointment of lecturers and professors who work in both areas encourage a preoccupation with modern questions. In any case, measured against the demand for practical, results-oriented research, legal history looks to the wider public like a curious, ivory tower subject. A concentration on the Middle Ages would heighten this impression, and thus tends to be avoided. Highlighting more
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contemporary roots of current conditions by contrast increases the subject’s social acceptability. In addition, a simple curiosity about recent legal history, in combination with a lack of interest in periods which have been extensively treated by earlier generations of scholars probably also entails this loss. The parallel development of legal contemporary history (cf., e. g., the Jahrbuch der Juristischen Zeitgeschichte, 2000–), which in processing the history of law in the GDR has found a new, broad field of occupation following the end of the division of Germany, is no coincidence. Furthermore, there are also pragmatic factors. The decline in knowledge of Latin, a fear of learning to read antiquated German or manuscript sources and the effort required for archive work all contribute to the ‘loss of the Middle Ages’. This tendency is strengthened by a growing need for legitimization in the eyes of the public or published opinion: an evaluation based on a quantitative assessment of publications forces scholars towards work which can be finished quickly, to which archive work in general and such that involves medieval sources in particular is an obstacle! Legal historians are, due to their institutional home in the faculties of law, held to different standards than other historians. Due to the tendencies listed here, the focuses of research listed above under (3) cannot be generalized, but must rather be seen as reflecting increasingly individual interests. There is no sign of the trend being reversed. Select Bibliography Wilhelm Brauneder and Gerald Kohl, “Die rechtshistorische Forschung in Österreich,” Czasopismo Prawno-Historyczne (2002): 17–55; Otto Brunner, Land und Herrschaft (Baden near Vienna et al.: Rohrer, 11939; Darmstadt: WBG, 51965, rpt. 1973); Helmut Coing, ed., Handbuch der Quellen und Literatur der neueren Europäischen Privatrechtsgeschichte I: Mittelalter (1100–1500) (Munich: Beck, 1973); Handwörterbuch zur Deutschen Rechtsgeschichte (Berlin: Schmidt, 1I–V, 1964–1998, ed. Adalbert Erler and Ekkehard Kaufmann; 22004–, ed. Albrecht Cordes, Heiner Lück and Dieter Werkmüller); Hans Hattenhauer, Europäische Rechtsgeschichte (Heidelberg: Müller, 11992, 42004); Alfred Heit and Ernst Voltmer, Bibliographie zur Geschichte des Mittelalters (Munich: DTV, 1997; esp. 156ff, 209, 283); Heinrich Mitteis, Der Staat des hohen Mittelalters (Weimar: Böhlau, 11940; Cologne and Vienna: Böhlau, 111986); Heinrich Mitteis and Heinz Lieberich, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte (Munich et al.: Biederstein, 11949 [by Mitteis], Munich: Beck, 191992); O. F. Robinson, T. D. Fergus, and W. M. Gordon, European Legal History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 32000; Abingdon: Professional Books, 11985 under the title: An Introduction to European Legal History); Hans Schlosser, Grundzüge der Neueren Privatrechtsgeschichte (Heidelberg: Müller, 102005; Karlsruhe: Müller, 11949 by Erich Molitor); Marcel Senn, Rechtsgeschichte – ein kulturhistorischer Grundriß (Zurich: Schulthess, 11997, 42007); Uwe Wesel, Geschichte des Rechts: von den Frühformen bis zur Gegenwart (Munich: Beck, 11997, 22001); Gerhard
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Wesenberg and Gunter Wesener, Neuere deutsche Privatrechtsgeschichte im Rahmen der europäischen Rechtsentwicklung (Lahr (Baden): Schauenburg, 11954 [by Wesenberg], Vienna et al.: Böhlau, 41985); Franz Wieacker, Privatrechtsgeschichte der Neuzeit (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 11952, 21967, rpt. 1996 [esp. 26–96: Die mittelalterlichen Grundlagen]); Dietmar Willoweit, Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte (Munich: Beck, 11990, 52005); Europäische Verfassungsgeschichte, ed. Dietmar Willoweit and Ulrike Seif (Munich: Beck, 2003; a sourcebook).
Gerald Kohl
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M Manuscripts: Past and Present Approaches A. Definition Many specialized repertories of information on the Middle Ages do not treat manuscripts as a single topic; rather, they provide separate entries on, for example, “illuminated manuscripts” and the special areas of study which deal with manuscripts, specifically “paleography,” “codicology,” “diplomatics,” and textual criticism (ecdotics). This article, on the other hand, aims to synthesize, in an informed yet introductory manner, information about the use of manuscripts in medieval studies in the broadest sense. While the areas of study listed just above will be defined further on in this section and their history will emerge from the selective historical narrative which follows it, this article is meant to provide in a single entry a somewhat more comprehensive and general orientation than a series of such entries would. It is intended for those approaching the study of the Middle Ages who may have seldom encountered a medieval text or document in its medieval, handwritten form and thus need to know something of the nature and variety of manuscripts in Medieval Studies before proceeding to learn about the specialized disciplines which make it possible to study these precious and unique documents. The capital feature of medieval manuscripts that the beginning student must keep in mind is that each manuscript, or handwritten document, is absolutely unique; ideas about texts or documents based on the products of printing, a means of mechanically creating exact duplicate documents, cannot be applied to the manuscript, which can be studied only as a document with a unique content, history and character. (For easy access to some digital photographs of examples of medieval manuscripts, please see http:// www.hmml.org/). B. Approaches to medieval manuscripts By far the largest proportion of the manuscripts from the Middle Ages which have been intensively studied are written in the Latin alphabet. For the sake of introductory concision, then, this article will focus almost exclusively on the study of manuscripts in that alphabet; it should, however, be kept in mind that the period left many manuscripts in Greek, Arabic, and many
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other languages; some indications pertinent to Byzantine manuscripts are included in the bibliography at the article’s end. Manuscripts, ranging from deeds and wills to liturgical or illuminated codices, have formed the foundation of Medieval Studies from its inception. (Codices are bound books, with pages or folios which may be turned; they thus function differently from the rolls characteristic of ancient manuscripts.) Manuscripts are the primary sources which, first of all, allow scholars to learn the vernacular languages from the medieval period, which in most cases differ markedly from modern forms of these languages. Manuscripts are certainly not the only sources of primary information about the very long period known as the Middle Ages, for this period left many forms of visual and symbolic communication, as well as an important archeological record. Nonetheless, manuscripts containing written language offer a pathway to the Middle Ages which is especially valuable because of its detail and extent. Manuscripts are the primary sources of written information about the Middle Ages. A mere thirty years ago, the well-known paleographer Gilbert Ouy estimated that only about 10 % of the manuscripts surviving from the European Middle Ages to the present have been carefully studied. Indeed, many repositories have large collections of medieval materials which have yet to be cataloged, that is, examined and described by a qualified scholar, able to identify the text or, usually, texts which a given manuscript conveys. The reasons for this neglect, which may surprise some, will emerge from the discussion of the history of manuscript study, below. Recent technological advances offer avenues which can make it possible for increasing numbers of scholars to participate in such basic investigations of this vast yet understudied manuscript record. At the same time, awareness among medievalists is also growing that thorough study of all the manuscripts of the European Middle Ages, were such a project to be undertaken, funded, and completed, would still yield only a partial picture of this transformative period in the history of the world, for the world of the handwritten book or document included continents other than Europe (see http://idp.bl.uk and http://www.timbuktufoundation.org/ for images of manuscripts from China and West Africa, respectively). There is thus a bright and challenging prospect for Manuscript Studies within Medieval Studies, especially for those who obtain the proper training in working with manuscripts and engage in projects which are carefully and systematically organized, linked to those of other scholars. The disciplines through which medieval manuscripts must be deciphered and studied were long regarded as subsidiary to other “major” disciplines (history, literature, and so forth), so that such disciplines were rel-
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egated to “minor” status by generations of scholars. Indeed, paleography, codicology, diplomatics, and textual criticism have often been assigned the label of “ancillary,” from the Latin “ancilla,” handmaiden. That is, they have been deemed to belong to a lower class, the role of which is to serve agendas set by the major fields of study, which are often supported by entire university departments and define the vocations of many scholars. Only in recent decades have new critical perspectives, along with new technologies, begun to bring the study of manuscripts back into the center of the field. Now, a student of the Middle Ages who knows how to work exclusively with edited, printed texts, lacking an understanding of and experience in work with manuscripts, risks excluding him or herself from the most exciting and consequential developments in Medieval Studies in the 21st century. C. Disciplines The disciplines essential to the study of medieval manuscripts are: Paleography, the study of older forms of writing, the history of the formation of letters, including abbreviations, and punctuation systems. The discipline of paleography identifies writing styles or sets of letter forms (scripts) according to historical typologies, that is, names and categories agreed upon by scholars. With these typologies, scripts and individual scribes can be dated to a century or even a few years, as well as placed in a geographical area of origin or perhaps a specific scriptorium (writing center). This dating and placing of a manuscript, however, must be done not only in reference to its script but also in conjunction with the study of the manuscript as a whole, including its physical state (see Codicology, below) and its texts. Hence the term “paleography” is sometimes loosely employed to cover all of manuscript studies, since an actual manuscript is best approached holistically, while the division into specialized disciplines remains a matter of convenience, as Father Leonard Boyle emphasized in his widely-used bibliographical guide to manuscript study. Most medievalists need at least a knowledge of Latin paleography, which includes the study of all medieval languages written in the Latin alphabet, whether Latin or vernacular. Important for many areas of medieval study are also the paleography of other alphabets, including Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and so forth. Codicology, the study of the entire codex, or bound group of pages or documents, as a physical and historical object in its own right, distinct from the history and character of the text or texts it contains. Codicology, which can be explored only by those who already have some mastery of relevant paleography, teaches methods to identify and interpret clues to how, when, and why a codex was assembled. This includes examination of the materials
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used and the physical formats employed in the book’s construction, as well as determination of physical additions, losses, or damages. It can suggest to the trained scholar much about how certain texts were used in particular places and at particular times in the Middle Ages and reveal information about the audiences for texts, as well as the authors. Textual criticism (ecdotics), the methods used to determine the most authentic form of a text. For example, when the form of the text as it was first created by an author is no longer in existence, it can only be reconstructed using one or more hand-made copies, which may be presumed to have been altered from the original form by human error or misunderstanding, physical damage or fragmentation, and other causes. “Criticism” means, among other things, scholarly evaluation of the limits of the reliability of each manuscript which has survived the passage of a millennium (or thereabouts) in conveying the original words and structures of a text. Textual criticism has usually aimed not only to clarify a text for purposes of interpretation, but also to establish a version for publication in a printed edition. Now, some textual critics prefer to exploit the possibilities of digital media to create editions conveying multiple versions of a text, rather than reconstructing what can seldom be proved to be the single authentic and original version of the text. Diplomatics, the study of documents used in law or business. Diplomatics can be pursued only by those who have already achieved a certain mastery of the relevant paleography, codicology, and textual criticism. Its practitioners study deeds, wills, contracts, registers of acts written by notaries, and so forth. The diplomatic practices of a particular chancery or of the merchants or notaries of a particular region may vary greatly from those of other chanceries or regions, even if they are geographically near each other. A specialist in the history of legal or commercial matters in a particular locality must be well oriented to the diplomatic practices of that locality. Art history and musicology can also be important to the study of manuscripts. Illuminations, that is, miniature paintings, as well as historiated initials (initial letters decorated with narrative paintings) and marginal decorations can provide important indications about the time and place of production of a particular manuscript. Liturgical manuscripts containing musical notation likewise offer telling clues about a manuscript’s production or use. C. General History of Research The organized study of medieval manuscripts in Europe may be said to have begun late in the 17th century, before there was much interest in the Middle Ages as a historical period and thus before Medieval Studies as a field began to
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develop. (The Middle Ages were constituted as an historiographical concept, and named, by those who invented the idea of the following period, the “Renaissance,” in part by characterizing the period of their immediate forebears as a “middle,” something of an interruption, between the enlightened glories of classical antiquity and their own time.) The scholars who first studied medieval manuscripts in post-medieval times were generally motivated by contemporary legal and/or economic interests, rather than an historical interest in understanding the Middle Ages in their own right. The research of such early manuscript scholars aimed to document, for example, the history of ownership of a parcel of land, often in the context of an 18th-century dispute about ownership or rights. Nearly all who studied manuscripts at this period were affiliated with religious societies or orders, which might have competing claims to properties, differing from those of other ecclesiastical societies or orders, of a diocese, or of a layperson. The foundation of medieval manuscript studies in litigation placed the early emphasis of the field on paleography and diplomatics, which could yield clues as to the authenticity of legal documents. The detection of forgery, or of the alteration in a later period of a document written earlier, was an important tool in 18th-century litigation. Medieval Studies, as the pursuit of an understanding of the medieval period itself, for its own sake, began primarily in the early 19th century. This changed the context for the study of medieval manuscripts. At this time, the Middle Ages began to be seen as an historical period which was interesting and valuable in its own right, rather than simply an interruption in the progress from antiquity to the Renaissance. This revaluation of the Middle Ages was in part the work of adherents of the Romantic movement in European thought, who found the Enlightenment ideas which were the legacy of the Renaissance to be too narrow to explain human experience and history. The birth of Medieval Studies in a context outside litigation was also strongly motivated by the growth of nationalist movements in many parts of Europe. These movements envisioned the Middle Ages as the starting point for the definition of languages, nations, or even “races.” Thus, the scope of the study of manuscripts, and some of the ends this study was meant to serve, expanded dramatically. The wills, deeds, and other instruments of legal and economic life which had motivated the study of medieval manuscripts in the 18th century were no longer the only manuscripts which seemed valuable. Manuscripts containing poems, narratives, religious treatises, and so forth were seen as having potential to reveal how languages were written and spoken in their earliest forms, and this linguistic history was regarded as a precious clue to “national character” and values. More-
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over, such “literary” texts in themselves became important tools in the articulation of national difference. Manuscripts of, for example, The Song of Roland were “discovered” in libraries, lying neglected, and then studied intensively as keys to the character of France and the French. Establishment of the most authentic text of such national “monuments” as early epic poems became central to the educational enterprise in some European nationstates. In the 19th century, the study of medieval manuscripts at moments captured at least some portion of the imagination of a wide public, so that paleographers occasionally became characters in stories (today, a story with a character described as a “paleographer” would be mysterious to most readers). Large projects were organized, often with government sponsorship and funding, to catalog and even transcribe and publish medieval manuscripts important to the history of a people, their political structures, and “culture.” The results of some of these nationalist projects are still heavily used by many medievalist scholars today. They must keep in mind, nonetheless, that the manuscripts represented by these 19th-century editions were selected within a very particular political context, leaving uncataloged, untranscribed, and unpublished very large numbers of medieval manuscripts which, in the 19th century, did not appear to serve key political goals. For example, legal (notarial) documents, commercial records, documents of lay social and benevolent organizations, poems and stories not deemed of the first rank according to a particular – inevitably politically influenced – aesthetic, and many other categories of medieval texts remain outside historical studies because they do not appear to serve the interests of scholars or the institutions which support them. The 20th century brought many changes to the study of medieval manuscripts, particularly in the periods immediately preceding and following the Second World War. Medieval Studies began gradually to free itself of nationalistic limits to some extent, although the largest projects for the study of medieval manuscripts were still organized and funded by nationstates. It must be acknowledged that sometimes nationalistic ends were replaced with the celebration of a kind of supernationalism: a pan-Europeanism with an emphasis on Europe as a pre-eminent continent with a shared heritage dating from the Roman Empire. Medieval manuscripts came to be prized as witnesses to this heritage, which was envisioned as having vital importance for the entire world because of its long and uninterrupted documentary history. This unbroken written record was construed as showing commonalities of thought across national and linguistic borders, marking Europe as a coherent and thus superior place.
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Science and technology also began, arguably more radically than politics, to change the study of medieval manuscripts in the 20th and into the 21st century. Methods and tools became available for dating inks, paper, and parchment (animal skin prepared for the writing of documents and books). These methods and tools enhanced those offered by paleography. Perhaps even more important, microfilm and, later, digital photography made possible the examination of photographic images of manuscripts by scholars unable to travel to the many locations where medieval manuscripts were stored. Manuscripts of the same text which are housed all over Europe and even beyond could be systematically reviewed and compared, using such photographic images. While scholars realized that the study of a photographic image could for many purposes not replace study of the actual manuscript itself, many also learned that, for example, blowing up a photographed detail from a manuscript often helped their work in important ways. Next, computers made possible the compilation of data bases on medieval manuscripts, some containing catalog references to manuscripts and others containing actual photographic images of the manuscripts themselves. At times, issues about ownership of these images arose, and expertise in navigating such issues became essential to the training of scholars who studied medieval manuscripts. Two reasons make prospects for the study of medieval manuscripts in the 21st century seem particularly bright and argue for a major investment of scholarly effort and technological support. First, even when two medieval manuscripts reside in libraries far distant one from another, digital photography not only makes access to their content more widely available; it also makes it easier, and less perilous to the manuscript, to study very small details of, for example, letter formation, through enlargement and comparison of images of one manuscript alongside or superimposed upon images of another. Second, caches of medieval manuscripts of which scholars were largely or entirely unaware, even some located outside Europe or the United States, are being digitally recorded and made available for study on the worldwide web. Broad access to these unstudied primary materials may well change many aspects of Medieval Studies in coming decades. From this perspective, the study of medieval manuscripts emerges, no longer a handmaiden, as a major key to the future of the field. While a majority of people may fail to recognize that strongly held cultural attitudes are often rooted in the knowledge produced by Medieval Studies, scholars in the field increasingly know that their work is not isolated in an ivory tower and that their study of the primary sources of the period, especially in the form of medieval manu-
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scripts, has consequences for the cultural understanding, or misunderstandings, on which contemporary decisions may be based. D. Major Contributors to Development of Field Any brief account of the major figures in the development of the study of medieval manuscripts must inevitably be indicative rather than comprehensive: the field is vast and has been influenced by many scholars from many countries. In recent years, important innovations in the field must also be attributed not only to individual scholars but also to scholarly institutions. Nonetheless, a review of the following names, ranging through many European countries, and consideration of the achievements of the scholars selected, who are librarians, historians, art historians, and literary critics, may provide an introductory orientation to the broad field of medieval manuscript study and suggest directions for further reading. Many regard Jean Mabillon as the first paleographer. A member of the Benedictine monastic order, he became a monk in the northern French city of Reims, near his birthplace, in 1654. Reims is the traditional site of the crowning of the kings of France, and consequently ecclesiastical establishments there were closely connected to the traditions and needs of maintaining French legal and political continuity. The Benedictine order, moreover, has held the copying, protection, and maintenance of written books and records as a defining obligation since the order was founded by St. Benedict (6th c. C.E.). Mabillon was ordained a priest in 1660 at Corbie, a location which had been famous for its scriptorium, or center for the copying of manuscripts, in the Middle Ages. In 1664 he moved to Paris, to the prominent Abbey of St. Germain des Près, and began his life’s work as part of a widespread community of Benedictine scholars, the Congregation of St. Maur, or Maurists. This Benedictine Congregation had been founded in 1618 in order to advance critical historical studies and especially the editing of historical materials, that is, the scholarly evaluation of existing documents and document fragments which transmitted texts of many kinds in forms that were often damaged, partial, or dubious, possibly even forged. The Maurists’ goal was to prepare from these old and varying source manuscripts historically reliable versions of the texts these manuscripts transmitted. Mabillon, with his Maurist collaborators, published the sixvolume landmark study De re diplomatica in 1681, forming the historical and conceptual basis for the field of paleography by establishing principles for dating manuscripts and determining whether they were authentic or forged. His work was important also for the history of the Church and church prop-
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erties in France, in that it responded to claims by Jesuit scholars that none of the documents traditionally dated to the Merovingian period (before about 700 C.E.) were authentic. Lodovico Muratori was trained in northern Italy in the methods of paleographical analysis pioneered by the Maurists. Born in Modena in 1672, he studied with Benedictine scholars there and, after his ordination to priesthood in 1694, went on to work at the Ambrosian Library in Milan. Returning to Modena in 1700 to serve the Este family, he was enlisted to work on the documentary basis of some of that ducal family’s property disputes. He developed great expertise in Italian medieval law and history, publishing between 1723 and 1751 the 28-volume series Rerum Italicarum Scriptores. Through his work, the paleographical principles developed by Mabillon and his French collaborators were adapted and refined in a country with a medieval manuscript heritage even more extensive than that of France. Like other Maurists, he was associated with opposition to Jesuit historical scholarship and claims regarding property. Karl K.F.W. Lachmann, born in Braunschweig in 1793, moved from paleography to an entirely new method of textual criticism, that is, the determination of a definitive or authoritative text of a work with a complex and lengthy transmission history. While serving as Professor at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin, he developed a definitive commentary on Lucretius’s De rerum Natura. He also published numerous studies on his method of establishing “stemmata,” or genealogical diagrams, showing the historical relation among various manuscripts transmitting different versions, or fragments, of what was presumed to have been at one time the same original text. Built upon the work of several German predecessors, especially in the field of Biblical studies, the genealogical method of working with manuscripts which came to be associated primarily with Lachmann’s name attracted many followers. It established a standard for evaluating and placing individual manuscripts in an historical framework that could lead to publication of an edition based on many manuscripts which would then be regarded as a definitive representation of the original (author’s) text. Though much of his work concerned ancient Roman texts, the manuscripts bearing these texts which he used had usually been made in the Middle Ages. Lachmann showed that, whenever a text is copied by hand, variations are introduced, as the result of ignorance, carelessness, or choice. The critic’s task, then, becomes the correction of these variations, resulting in the “reconstruction” of a text which no longer exists. Joseph Bedier, on the other hand, developed a method of textual criticism which was not primarily genealogical in character and did not require
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the construction of stemmata. His interest was primarily medieval, rather than ancient, texts, and he argued that the stemmatic method was ill-suited to the circumstances of transmission of the texts of the Middle Ages. Bedier, born in Paris in 1864, established his reputation in medieval manuscript studies with his critical edition of the version of Le Roman de Tristan by the Anglo-Norman poet Thomas. Bedier published his edition of Thomas’s Tristan between 1902 and 1905. Appearing in 1922, his edition of La Chanson de Roland was deemed definitive by the French scholarly public. His argument for the selection of the “best manuscript” of a text as the sole basis for an edition was, however, received with skepticism outside French or heavily French-influenced scholarly circles. Charles Samaran, born in Armagnac in 1879, became a member of the staff of the Archives Nationales (Paris) in 1904 and subsequently, over a period of some forty years of service, became recognized as one of the master paleographers of the century. He moved the discipline forward to a remarkable degree by initiating a series of photographic facsimile editions of important manuscripts which, among other things, enabled students in many locations to begin the study of paleography even when unable to travel to major archives. He began this project with the very Merovingian documents which had been at the center of controversy between Maurists and Jesuits in the days of Mabillon: in 1908, with Philippe Lauer, he published Les diplômes originaux des Mérovingiens: Fac-similés phototypiques. He then produced, in 1932, a photographic edition of a manuscript important to the controversy between the followers of Bedier and those of Lachmann, La Chanson de Roland: Reproduction phototypique du manuscrit Digby 23 de la Bodleian Library d’Oxford. At this period, he conceived the important project of reproducing photographically a set of manuscripts bearing indications of date, that is, manuscripts which did not require inferential dating. This demanding project was completed with the publication between 1959 and 1985, partly in collaboration with Robert Marichal, of seven volumes of such photographic reproductions. The availability of Samaran’s Manuscrits datés definitively changed the study of medieval manuscripts by providing worldwide access to photographs of writing from many different periods of the Middle Ages, and many different places. In the next generation, Bernard Bischoff’s legendary expertise and indefatigable labor also had a defining impact on medieval manuscript study in the 20th century. Born in 1906, Bischoff began in the 1930s an extensive series of journeys to visit and make notes on medieval manuscripts. His focus was the paleographic history of the 9th century, a period of great energy, innovation, and influence in the production of manuscripts. In dating and locat-
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ing such Carolingian manuscripts, paleographers had not achieved the precision that had come to be expected in the study of later medieval manuscripts. Bischoff studied not only manuscripts originating in German-speaking lands, but also those of France, Italy, England, and Ireland. Among the new concepts he contributed to paleography was that of the Schriftprovinz (writing province), an area of the production of a particular style of writing which certainly did not correspond with modern national boundaries and only in part mirrored contemporary (medieval) political or ecclesiastical boundaries. This concept helped shift the attention of students of medieval manuscripts toward groupings of scriptoria (medieval copying centers), an approach which has increasingly proved fruitful. Estimating that a comprehensive study of the manuscripts of the 9th century would need to include some 7,200 items, Bischoff was unable to conclude before his death in 1991 publication of the results of the task he had set himself. Nonetheless, his achievement anchored the study of early medieval primary sources in a way never previously attempted, clarifying many details and trends in the development of European document and book production, as well as Carolingian civilization in its broadest sense. Léon M.J. Delaisse, born in Belgium in 1914, brought to the forefront of medieval manuscript studies the discipline of codicology, or, more specifically, what he called the “archeology of the medieval book.” Already a subject of interest to Samaran and his students, codicology demonstrated its usefulness dramatically in Delaisse’s dissertation at the University of Louvain, published in 1956 as Le manuscrit autographe de Thomas à Kempis et ‘L’imitation de Jésus-Christ.’ Using codicological or “archeological” arguments, this work established definitively the manuscript’s authenticity. Delaisse’s work made clear the importance of the identification and study of the workshops in which manuscript books had been produced, often over a considerable period of time, by a team of workers playing different roles, all of them requiring careful historical contextualization before the resulting book could be fully understood. To this end, he emphasized that scholars must not limit their studies to luxury books, but must explore in its entirety the manuscript production of a particular medieval period and place. Gianfranco Contini, born in 1912 at Domodossola, in a part of Italy bordered on the East and West by Swiss cantons, divided his teaching career between Italy and Switzerland. In the mid-thirties, he spent two years at Paris, studying with Bedier. A student of European literature in a very broad sense, Contini brought to medieval manuscript studies a new method, based on the interpretation of variants, the phases a text passes through as its author revises it over a period of time. Contini compared these variants, especially
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in the manuscripts of Petrarch, developing an editorial technique that, where applicable, moves beyond the Lachmann-Bedier controversy, opening new and fruitful directions for research on medieval manuscripts. Variant criticism was further developed by the French medievalist Bernard Cerquiglini in Eloge de la variante. Histoire critique de la philologie, published in 1989. To this list of key individual contributors to the development of the study of medieval manuscripts, one must add the contributions of many institutions or organizations, some built around an ambition to edit and publish a large body of medieval manuscripts, others aiming to preserve photographic images of them and organize them using the technology offered by computers. The Monumenta Germaniae Historica, begun early in the 19th century, is a massive undertaking in textual criticism, extending far beyond the boundaries of what most scholars would today consider “German” and providing the stimulus for many important developments in the study of medieval manuscripts. Another enormous and influential editorial project, the Patrologia Latina, begun by J.-P. Migne in the following generation, made available in printed (and eventually online) form the work of ecclesiastical writers (Church “Fathers”) from many periods and places. The Institut de recherche et d’histoire des textes (Institute for Research on and History of Texts) was conceived in 1937 as the first laboratory in a field other than the hard sciences. Its founder, Félix Grat, saw even greater possibilities for the study of manuscripts through the development of photography than had Charles Samaran. Although the Institute’s first task was the photographing, with microfilm, of manuscripts in the Latin language housed in many parts of Europe, Grat envisioned the creation of departments for the preservation and study of manuscripts in Arabic, Greek, French, Celtic, and so forth. The Institute’s goal was to make it possible for scholars to compare microfilm images of texts in manuscripts from many locations, stored in an effectively organized system along with detailed information about each of the manuscripts thus made available in microfilm. The Institute has gradually come to serve as an international clearinghouse for information about manuscripts. The Hill Museum and Manuscript Library (formerly the Hill Monastic Manuscript Library) was established at Saint John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota (USA), partly because of concern about the destruction of medieval manuscripts during World War II (most spectacularly in the bombing of the Abbey of Monte Cassino, in southern Italy). To ensure the safety of the sources of medieval European history, and especially the history of the Church, in an environment outside Europe itself, the monks of St. John’s chose to continue millennial Benedictine tradition with post-war technol-
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ogy. They began filming manuscript collections, in both monastic and state libraries, in Austria, then Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, and Malta. In 1973, the monks extended their work to Ethiopia and more recently have gone on to film in the Middle East, in particular manuscript collections in Lebanon and Syria, including an important collection of Armenian manuscripts. They have also been filming actively in Sweden for a number of years. Employing digital photography since 2003, HMML has microfilm and digital collections which are currently approaching 100,000 manuscripts. The IRHT and HMML collaborated in producing In Principio, an index of incipits of Latin manuscripts available by subscription on the worldwide web (incipits are the opening lines of medieval texts and serve as identifiers for texts, since titles were not assigned to books in the Middle Ages in a consistent manner). In Principio, then, is akin to a title index of Latin texts. It is regularly updated, making it possible to search online the incipits of most major manuscript collections in Europe, through the joining together of IHRT and HMML holdings. This is a very significant breakthrough for scholars seeking to identify an unknown text in a manuscript housed anywhere in the world. Still more recently, a consortium of universities in the United States has established Digital Scriptorium. Currently maintained by Columbia University, Digital Scriptorium is an image database bringing together photographic images and brief descriptions of portions of manuscripts housed at many universities. It serves the purposes of teaching and research by providing sample images of parts of many manuscripts, without requiring libraries to provide extensive cataloging information, or metadata. Digital Scriptorium emphasizes manuscripts signed and dated by their copyists. Its website currently samples over 5,000 manuscripts. Virtual Vellum, the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN), and the White Rose Universities Consortium (WRC) involve British, French, and US institutions in experimental projects bringing together for comparison on the web, side-by-side, manuscripts produced at the same medieval workshop but now housed in locations distant one from another. While no trained paleographer has suggested that even very large computers are presently capable of paleographic analysis, a project initiated by the Computer Science and History Departments of the University of Pisa aimed to assist already-trained paleographers in classifying and identifying medieval scripts. This project created the System for Palaeographic Inspections (SPI) software suite. Arianna Ciula, research associate at the Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King’s College London, has experimented with applying SPI to a small corpus of Tuscan manuscripts from the 10th through
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12th century now owned by the Biblioteca Comunale degli Intronati in Siena, in an attempt to characterize the ideal form of each script in a given manuscript, comparing the forms of letters made by different scribes, and ultimately defining the relationships among individual scripts and manuscripts. The study of medieval manuscripts thus continues to seek out new ways to address old challenges. Moreover, new challenges for the field arise. In particular, as the public begins to realize that the study of the Middle Ages, focused by the founders of the field almost exclusively on Europe, omits the development of knowledge about the rest of the world during the period of (at least) a crucial millennium, collections of manuscripts from this period outside Europe have begun to attract attention. The existence of such collections was, in some cases, not known in the West before the 20th-century; some such collections were even neglected, or entirely unknown, in their own countries for many centuries. Exemplary among these are the Genizah collection (Egypt), the Dun Huang collection (China), and the Timbuktu collection (Mali). The Genizah collection contains manuscripts documenting the medieval Mediterranean world; many, but not all, of them are written in Hebrew. The existence of an old “genizah,” or library storehouse, associated with the Ben Ezra synagogue in Cairo was known to few in that city, and almost no one outside it, until two Scots scholars, Dr. Agnes Smith Lewis and Dr. Margaret Dunlop Gibson, set out in 1890 to research manuscripts in the Sinai peninsula and Egypt. They obtained an interesting Hebrew manuscript in 1895 and consulted Dr. Solomon Schechter, at Cambridge University, regarding it. Dr. Schechter then traveled to Cairo in pursuit of the source of the document and, upon finding it at the Ben Ezra genizah, obtained permission from the synagogue to transport most of its contents to Cambridge. A research unit of the Cambridge University Library makes available in the United Kingdom about 140,000 Genizah manuscripts or manuscript fragments, primarily in Hebrew or Arabic. An online database (GOLD) offers some 1,200 annotated images from the collection, together with catalog databases. Parts of the Cairo Genizah collection are also now housed in New York, Jerusalem, St. Petersburg, etc. The Genizah manuscripts are still being classified and studied. The Dunhuang collection, named for a town near the intersection of the northern and southern routes of the Silk Road, includes manuscripts from a “library cave” discovered by a Taoist monk in 1900. The International Dunhuang Project, housed at the British Library, makes available online items taken from Dunhuang and now located not only in Beijing but also in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, Japan, and other countries. Dunhuang manuscripts are written in some twenty languages and many
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scripts, documenting life at this important cultural and commercial crossroads before, during, and after the Middle Ages. Timbuktu, on important salt and gold trading routes between sub-Saharan Africa and the Mediterranean coast, was a major center of Islamic learning from the 12th century. It is thought that over 700,000 manuscripts are housed in various collections in Timbuktu, the largest being that of the Ahmed Baba Research Center (Centre de documentation et de recherches historiques Ahmed Baba). Founded by the government of Mali in the 1970s, this Center had initial support from UNESCO and ongoing collaboration from several Arabic and Islamic organizations. In 2000, it was transformed by the government into the Institut des Hautes Etudes et de Recherche Islamiques Ahmed Baba or IHERI-AB and continues a program of acquisition, preservation, research, and education, with a collection reportedly numbering close to 20,000 documents. Due to the initiative of Mamadou Iallo Diam, an organization was formed and began preserving Timbuktu manuscripts through photography in 2000. Archivage électronique des manuscrits de Tombouctou (ARELMAT: Electronic Archiving of the Timbuktu Manuscripts) has drawn to this Malian effort support from Norway, Luxembourg, the Czech Republic, and the US. Select Bibliography Bernard Bischoff, Latin Palaeography: Antiquity and the Middle Ages, trans. Daibhi o Croinin and David Ganz (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990) [orig.: Paläographie des römischen Altertums und des abendländischen Mittelalters (Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 1979)]; Leonard Boyle, Medieval Latin Palaeography: A Bibliographic Introduction (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984) [updated and exp. Italian trans.: Paleografia latina medievale: Introduzione bibliografica con supplemento 1982–1998, trans. Maria Elena Bertoldi, ed. Fabio Troncarelli (Roma: Edizioni Quasar, 1999)]; Charles-Moïse Briquet, Les filigranes. Dictionnaire historique des marques du papier dès leur apparition vers 1282 jusqu’en 1600 (Amsterdam: Paper Publications Society, 1968 (orig. Leipzig K. W. Hiersemann 1923) [rpt. Mansfield Centre, Conn.: Martino Publishing, 2001]; Adriano Cappelli, Dizionario di abbreviature latine ed italiane, 6th ed., anastatic rpt. of ed. of 1929 (Milan: Ulrico Hoepli, 1985); Arianna Ciula and Francesco Stella, Digital Philology and Medieval Texts (Pisa: Pacini Editore, 2007); Elias Avery Lowe, Codices Latini Antiquiores; a palaeographical guide to Latin manuscripts prior to the ninth century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934–); Brigitte Mondrain, “Paléographie et codicologie, rapport de la Séance plénière Instrumenta Studiorum,” Pré-actes du XXe Congrès international des Etudes byzantines, t. 1, Paris, 2001, 321–325; Leighton Durham Reynolds and N.G. Wilson, Scribes and Scholars: a Guide to the Transmission of Greek and Latin Literature (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968); Charles Samaran, Catalogue des manuscrits en écriture latine portant des indications de date, de lieu ou de copiste, 7 vols. (Paris: Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1959–1985).
Susan Noakes
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Marxist Approaches to Medieval Studies A. Early Marxist Medievalists Marxist views of medieval social and cultural history have exploited Karl Marx’s (1818–1883) descriptions of medieval peasantry and aristocracy in pre-capitalist feudal structures, have relied on Marxist theories of power and ideology, and have applied his cyclical views of history. In late 19th-century Britain, as socialist parties grew in popularity around them, instrumental figures such as socialist feminist Eleanor Marx (1855–1898), philologist and editor Frederic James Furnivall (1825–1910, founder of the E.E.T.S. and O.E.D., see entry in this Handbook), and artist and critic William Morris (1834–1896) began to combine socialist and utopian socialist ideologies with Victorian medievalist aesthetics in a nostalgic criticism of modern industrial society. Subsequent to this earlier vogue, Marxist approaches to Medieval Studies were most common in the ideologically grounded analyses published by historians and literary critics through the 1950s. They were also influenced by 19th-century French historians of the socialist left. The 1960s and 1970s continued to see the use of or responses to Marxist terminology and theoretical frameworks in Europe and North America, focusing on economic and social issues related to power and ideology. Marxist views of Medieval Studies have been so persistent in part because medieval dialectic, Hegelian dialectic, and Marxist dialectical materialism were able to go hand in hand in approaching the history of medieval thought. To simplify, the social and the economic are often seen as one and the same in a cyclical view of history in the literary and socio-historical scholarship summarized below. The discipline of Cultural Studies in history and literature grew out of Marxist, Historicist, and New Historicist traditions. Today, Cultural Studies and cultural historians of the Middle Ages continue in the legacy of Marxist historiography and social theory (with the added theoretical influence of Max Weber, Jürgen Habermas, Theodor W. Adorno, Louis Althusser, Mikhail Bakhtin, Terry Eagleton, and other Marxist or post-Marxist theorists). Grandfathers of French Marxist historiography, Marc Bloch (1886– 1944, see entry in this Handbook) and Lucien Febvre (1878–1956, see entry in this Handbook), founded the journal Annales in 1929, placing emphasis on social analyses of history, on Marxist interpretations of class power struggles following medieval feudalism, and on modernist conceptions of progress. The Annales School of history, ‘L’École des Annales’, though only loosely organized, has informed the discipline of Medieval Studies for decades, par-
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ticularly in political and economic perspectives in criticism of medieval literary and historiographic texts. The Annales approaches embraced much of Marxist historiography and models of feudal hierarchy. Prior to this work, French socialist historicism focused primarily on timelines of reigns and dates of specific events, battles, or treatises. Heavily influenced by developments in the growing fields of human geography and sociology in France, Marc Bloch endeavored to provide instead a “total” socio-economic history covering the whole socio-economic spectrum in La société féodale (2 vols., 1939–1940), as part of the series L’évolution de l’humanité, and Les caractères originaux de l’histoire rurale française (2 vols., 1955–1956), published posthumously. In response to Marc Bloch and others, French social historian Georges Duby (1919–1996, see entry in this Handbook) continued class-based social history and also reintroduced the historical significance of “events.” This “events” perspective, which tended to focus on a crucial battle or decisive date that may have “changed” history, became part of Duby’s perspective, though he remained part of Annales movement of socio-economic historiography, for example in his Le dimanche de Bouvines: 27 juillet 1214 (1973). Duby’s approach to feudalism through the Marxist lens of the concept of les trois ordres [the three orders] of society (the clergy, the nobility, and the Third Estate) remained pervasive in his work for decades and greatly influenced French historiography. In the next generation of Annales school disciples is French social and anthropological historian Jacques Le Goff (born 1924, see entry in this Handbook), who had focused much of his scholarship on notions of work, time, and social class in the Middle Ages. For a consideration of the full impact and limitations of Le Goff’s work on Medieval Studies (see the cultural history volume edited by Miri Rubin, The Work of Jacques Le Goff and the Challenges of Medieval History, 1997, which also contains a review of Annales scholarship in national historical traditions following in Le Goff’s footsteps in Spain, the Netherlands, and North America, set within its ideological context). Jacques Le Goff’s work has concentrated on 12th- and 13thcentury French intellectual and social history with a Marxist and New Historicist leaning, working from the background of the Annales-School and becoming a landmark figure in approaches of the New History, or La Nouvelle Histoire, by the 1970s. Le Goff’s L’imagination médiévale is a seminal example of this newer approach; much of his work has been powerful or controversial, such as his questioning the validity of the term “moyen âge” (Le Goff’s methodologies are detailed in Constructing the Past: Essays in Historical Methodology, ed. Jacques Le Goff and Pierre Nora, 1985).
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B. Marxist Approaches and Feudalism Many studies on feudalism were socialist or Marxist-inspired through the 1970s, based on Marx’s and Engels’s arguments about the evolution from feudal society to capitalism, and more specifically responding to Friedrich Engels’ (1820–1895) Über den Verfall des Feudalismus und das Aufkommen der Bourgeoisie [The Decline of Feudalism and the Rise of the Bourgeoisie] (1884). Studies that respond to these influential arguments are too numerous to detail. Also responding to Marx’s and Engels’ concepts of feudalismus was the general study of the political and ideological history of feudalism and state building by Austrian social historian Otto Brunner (1898–1982, see entry in this Handbook), in his Feudalismus (1959), or best known in English by the translated book chapter “Feudalism: The History of a Concept” (Lordship and Community in Medieval Europe, ed. Fredrich Cheyette, 1968, 32–56). His earlier nationalist study, Land und Herrschaft: Grundfragen der territorialen Verfassungsgeschichte Südostdeutschlands im Mittelalter (1939), became somewhat controversial, given the context of national socialist Germany. A critical review of Brunner’s work may be found in, Otto Gerhard Oexle, “Sozialgeschichte, Begriffsgeschichte, Wissenschaftsgeschichte: Anmerkungen zum Werk Otto Brunners” (VSWG 71 [1983]: 305–41). A Paris think-tank produced a definitive typology Sur le féodalisme (ed. Centre d’Études et de recherches marxistes, 1974), while at the same time a significant North American study called into question the concept of feudalism and the legacy of Marx, Elizabeth Brown, “The Tyranny of a Construct: Feudalism and Historians of Medieval Europe” (American Historical Review 79 [1974]: 1963–88). Maurice Dobb took up the debate of the validity of Marx’ arguments involving pre-capitalist feudal society in several of his pieces, beginning with his Studies in the Development of Capitalism (1946), and somewhat redefining his stance on feudalism and historical materialism in the 1960s, with “From Feudalism to Capitalism” (Marxism Today 6 [1962]: 285–87), and the book Studies in the Development of Capitalism (1963). In Britain, economic historian Michael Moïssey Postan and others have focused Marxist analyses on economic aspects of agrarian, labor, and peasant history in feudal England; see his Essays on Medieval Agriculture and General Problems of the Medieval Economy (1950), in particular the first chapter therein on “The Economic Foundations of Medieval Economy” (1–28). Also important to early 20th-century medieval economic history was Postan’s scholarship on labor services, the rise of a money economy in Europe, and the social conditions and charters of the villein, in articles originally published from the 1930s to 1960s, some of which appear in Michael Moïssey Postan, Essays on Medieval Agriculture and General Problems of the Medieval Economy (1973), pro-
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viding a cyclical ground-up view of what Postan terms the peasant base of the medieval economy. This work, as well as his Medieval Trade and Finance (1973), offers a Marxist-based consideration of the beginnings of capitalism and new experiments with taxation. Other notable Marxist cultural historians for the interwar and postwar period are: Fernand Braudel, Ernst Fischer, and Perry Anderson. Late 20th-century studies have continued to highlight the cycles and progress of history, for example Perry Anderson, Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism (1996), which also focuses on the Middle Ages as a “transitional” period and shows a progression in economic history from nomadism to the absolute power of monarchies and offers a typology of medieval feudalism. This essay also subscribes to the cyclical view of history in an attempt to describe the “fall” of the Roman and Byzantine empires and the end of the “Dark Ages.” Anderson is also author of Lineages of the Absolutist State: Considerations on Western Marxism; In the Tracks of Historical Marxism, and other studies in Marxist historicism, and he has served on the board of the New Left Review. Russian and former Soviet Medieval Studies publications were also characterized by Marxist perspectives through the 1970s; a useful bibliography and review of scholarship in this area is to be found in O. L. Vainshtein, Istoriia sovetskoi medievistsiki: 1917–1966. In Asian Studies, a review of Marxist treatments of medieval Asian social history was provided by R. A. L. H. Gunawardana, “The Analysis of Pre-Colonial Social Formations in Asia in the Writings of Karl Marx” (The Indian Historical Review 2 [1976]: 365–88), based on an earlier 1975 article. A more comprehensive view of Eastern feudalism with a Marxist point of departure is Feudalism and Non-European Societies (ed., Terrence Byres and Mukhia Harbans, 1985, reprinted by Routledge from a special issue of The Journal of Peasant Studies 12 [1985]). Thus, the application of Marxist political theory to medieval history is not limited to continental historians or critics. British Marxist social historian Rodney Hilton, Bond Men Made Free (1977), focuses on the role of peasants and peasant revolts in the social history of feudalism, attempting to redefine terms such as serfdom, peasantry, and even feudalism. Hilton picks up where Marx and Engels left off in their models of medieval peasantry, beginning with his Freedom and Villeinage in England (1965), and his edited volume The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism (1976). The 1960s saw the development of Peasant Studies (later termed Subaltern Studies in the context of postcolonial criticism), spawning the scholarly journals The Journal of Peasant Studies in Britain and Peasant Studies in the United States while rehabilitating Marx’s view of the peasant. Post-Marxist interpretations of social and economic history have continued into the 21st-century,
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with studies on peasant social history such as: Philipp Schofeld, Peasant and Community in Medieval England 1200–1500 (2002), which focuses on the political, economic, and ecclesiastical relationships between peasants and lords as well as everyday life within the peasant family unit itself; concentrating on commercial and economic facets of everyday life is Schofeld’s Credit and Debt in Medieval England c. 1180–c. 1350 (2002). C. Later Influences of Marxist Thought The end of the 20th-century and the first decade of the 21st-century have seen a rise in popularity in post-Marxist studies on peasants, everyday life, commodities, urban history, and material culture in medieval and early modern European history, recalling some of Duby’s work on private life, historical materialism, and the growth of the economy, such as: D. Vance Smith, Arts of Possession: The Middle English Household Imaginary (2003); and social historian Christopher Dyers’s Everyday Life in Medieval England (2003), which is another example of the focus on aspects of material culture in peasant, sub-aristocratic, or subaltern life. The Greenwood Press’ “Daily Life through History” series offers several volumes combining scholarly and popular Marxist perspectives of feudalism and material culture. Christopher Dyers’s An Age of Transition?: Economy and Society in England in the Later Middle Ages (2007), responds to prior Marxist and post-Marxist historians, presenting the latest account of economic and commercial growth from 1200–1500, demonstrating that new conceptions of property, consumption, economic development, and credit came from the peasantry and eventually led to England becoming the first industrial nation. Though skeptical of some Marxist approaches in later years Norman Cantor (1929–2004, see entry in this Handbook), scholar of comparative literature, sociology, and history, made an enduring impact on interdisciplinary Marxist perspectives of medieval social and intellectual history with his Medieval History: The Life and Death of a Civilization (1963, updated in 1994 as The Civilization of the Middle Ages: A Completely Revised and Expanded Edition of Medieval History, to include more information on the roles of women in society, religion in society, later medievalism, and other topics). This work takes a cyclical and class-based approach to medieval historiography and stresses the need to include the history of those on the margins of society. As a response to such earlier studies, Marxist perspectives on cultural and social history have been pervasive in literary criticism through the early 1990s, often taking a dialectical view of social classes, as demonstrated in, Medieval Literature: Criticism, Ideology, and History (ed. David Aers, 1986). For the Marxist literary critic, literary production and material culture of everyday life
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reflect social conflict or class struggle. Studies on literary satire and sites of resistance also hail from Marxist beginnings. Cultural-historical interpretations appear in literary analysis in the1990s, for example with articles on resistance and social status in courtly literature, such as Caroline Jewers, “The Name of the Ruse and the Round Table: Occitan Romance and the Case for Cultural Resistance” (Neophilologus 8 [1997]: 187–200), or Class and Gender in Early English Literature (ed. Briton Harwood and Gillian Overing, 1994). Sheila Delany’s Medieval Literary Politics: Shapes of Ideology (1990), also proposes a Marxist and cultural history approach to literary production. Postcolonial criticism is now influencing readings of resistance, class, and gender in medieval narratives. D. Marxist and Ideological Approaches Across Disciplines Marxist and ideological interpretations are not limited to literary and historical studies; they extend to all modes of cultural production, from art to architecture to Saint’s Lives. In the 1950s, Marxist studies of medieval hagiography transformed the field, as with Bernhard Töpfer’s significant study on material culture, ideology, and the institution of religion: “Reliquienkult und Pilgerbewegung zur Zeit der Klosterreform im burgundischaquitanischen Gebiet” (Vom Mittelalter zur Neuzeit 65 [1956]: 420–39; translated as “The Cult of Relics and Pilgrimage in Burgundy and Aquitaine at the Time of the Monastic Reform,” The Peace of God: Social Violence and Religious Response in France Around the Year 1000, ed. Thomas Head and Richard Landes, 1992, 41–57). Social class becomes important in work such as Head’s and Landes’s, which takes into consideration both popular and elite cultural production in the religious sphere. Leftist Czech medievalist Frantisek ˇ Graus (1921–1989; active mostly in Germany) also worked from a Marxist point of departure to show that hagiographical texts had much to reveal about religion in the context of social classes, power, ideology, and state building in French, German, and Slavic examples (see his Volk, Herrscher und Heiliger im Reich der Merowinger: Studien zur Hagiographie der Merowingerzeit, 1965; Struktur und Geschichte: 3 Volksaufstände im mittelalterlichen Prag, 1971; and Die Nationenbildung der Westslawen im Mittelalter, 1980). Marxist and postMarxist views on ideology related to religious cultural production and state building are investigated in the sociologic study of The Birth of Ideology: Myths and Symbols of Nation in Late-Medieval France (ed. Fredrich Cheyette, 1991); similarly, focusing on Iberian ideology is Jerrilynn Dodds, Architecture and Ideology in Early Medieval Spain (1990). Related to such ideologically-based studies, a key perspective in Medieval Studies has been historicism. A review of historicist methodology and
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practice contrasted with newer approaches may be found throughout the important special journal issue “The Ends of Historicism: Medieval English Literary Study in the New Century” (Texas Studies in Literature and Language, 44.1 [2002]). This entire issue invites scholars to rethink historicism; for example Elizabeth Scala critiques the theoretical framework of historicism popular for so long with medievalists, Scala, “Historicists and Their Discontents: Reading Psychoanalytically in Medieval Studies” (108–131). Bruce Holsinger and Ethan Knapp, “The Marxist Premodern” (The Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 34.3 [2004]: 463–71) focus on Marxist and post-Marxist readings of literature and history, beginning by considering class-based studies of the Middle Ages as well as the limitations of the Marxist, Hegelian, and pre-Marxist appropriation of the image of the feudal system as the precursor to modern bourgeois society. Other challenges to different permutations of Marxist views of feudal order preceding capitalist society include: Robert Brenner, “The Origins of Capitalist Development: A Critique of Neo-Smithian Marxism” (New Left Review 104 [1977]: 25–92). Peter Haidu, The Subject Medieval/Modern: Text and Governance in the Middle Ages (2003), offers a historicist view of medieval subjectivity, mapping the cultural development of the subject through historiographic and literary examples (ranging from the Serments de Strasbourg to Old French epic, from Marie de France to Christine de Pizan and Alain Chartier). In a new reading of how the individual is created by state ideology as seen in texts ranging from the Chanson de Roland to the Domesday Book, Haidu attempts to disrupt the binary opposition of medieval vs. modern subjectivity. He finds modern subjectivity constructed by political ideology and individuals who are defined by violence, resistance, or institutional subjugation from the 6th century on. Select Bibliography Marc Bloch, La société féodale, 2 vols. (Paris: Berr, 1939–1940); Norman Cantor, The Civilization of the Middle Ages (New York: Macmillan, 1963); Miri Rubin, The Work of Jacques Le Goff and the Challenges of Medieval History (Cambridge: Boydell and Brewer, 1997); Bruce Holsinger and Ethan Knapp, “The Marxist Premodern,” The Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 34.3 (2004): 463–71.
Sarah Gordon
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Masculinity Studies
Masculinity Studies A. Definition Since the time that Medieval Studies began to treat literary texts as literature rather than as linguistic expressions of earlier forms of contemporary vernacular languages, literary scholars have been writing about male characters in texts. Medieval historians – whether social, intellectual, or military – have also been mining various archives in order to understand the particular actions and events in which historical persons made an impact. Literary studies and historical studies were not interested in examining male characters from the vantage of their gender because from the critical perspective, they did not have gender. With the rise of feminist criticism, also discussed in this volume, scholars began to chip away at ideas held about the representation of the feminine through studies of literature and history, but as the new masculinity studies began to emerge in the early 1990s, there was a sense that the feminist project was not complete. Some have called this shift in feminist studies the work of a second generation of feminism – one that tended to see masculinity as more than an undifferentiated other and one that was monolithic. Such was the practice in the beginning years of feminist criticism because scholars were attempted to redress the error of omitting explorations of female experiences in history and literature. The April 1993 issue of Speculum treating the study of women in the Middle Ages, with essays by Nancy F. Partner, Carol J. Clover, Kathleen Biddick, and Allen J. Frantzen, influenced by this second wave of feminist approaches, examined the subtle dance of masculinity and femininity in new ways, drawing heavily on the work of social history and the studies of sexuality of Michel Foucault. In 1994, Claire A. Lees edited a volume of essays that would serve as the foundation for future studies of masculinity that looked at men as possessing gender and as not always conforming to the notions of hegemonic masculinity (Medieval Masculinities: Regarding Men in the Middle Ages). Essays in the collection explore social history and literary texts, ranging from England and Europe, even with attention of the “other men” of the Muslim world. The breadth of the volume suggested the vast work that lay ahead with uncovering the male experience. The expressed idea in the volume is that men had a variety of experiences and that it is important to recover the range of men’s experiences as men. Jacqueline Murray’s observation in her essay in the Handbook on Medieval Sexuality (ed. Vern L. Bullough and James A. Brundage, 1996) suggests that studies of men as males is important to deconstructing the idea of the “universal male” as the paradigm for understanding human experience.
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B. Historical Development In the early to mid 1990s, historians working with both material culture and in concert with the growth in the historical study of medicine saw a number of new developments in scholarship. Joan Cadden’s Meaning of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages: Medicine, Science and Culture (2003) examines the nature of male and female sexuality, countering the reductionist vision of the single sex model proposed by Thomas Laquer (Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud, 1990). Exploring theological and medical texts, she shows a clear differentiation between the sexes and reveals the binaries as important elements for structuring civilization and life. In the collection of essays, Handbook of Medieval Sexuality (ed. Vern L. Bullough and James A. Brundage), a number of essays not only reference the Cadden study but also extend her work. Joyce C. Salisbury (“Gendered Sexuality”) suggests the specific powers of female sexuality to put in jeopardy male sexuality, thus introducing gender anxiety. Warren Johansson and William A. Percy (“Homosexuality,” 155–189) suggest the challenges in defining this particularly oriented male behavior and offer a counter James Boswell who had argued for an increasing tolerant view of male homosexual behavior during the late classical and early Middle Ages. Matthew Keufler (“Castration and Eunuchism in the Middle Ages,” 279–306) suggests the importance of this topic in both Christian and Jewish circles in the Middle Ages and the use of the practice of castration in legal action. The event, however, does create gender ambiguity. Other essays in the volume bring to light the male experience in Old Norse society, Islamic culture, and Eastern Roman culture. The emphasis in these essays, following the work of Cadden, suggests the strong essentialist nature of masculinity as well as some attempts to being a movement toward the social construction of identity. Beyond the scope of this essay are a significant number of studies of homosexual masculinity generated by this methodological approach also found in this volume. If biological gender was one area of historical study, there is a sense of male identity also being socially constructed. Barbara Hanawalt (Growing Up in Medieval London: The Experience of Childhood in History, 1993) gives the sense of personal history through her method of tracing the fortunes of two apprentices as well as using the more traditional approaches of social history. She shows the subtly nuanced experience of males in their growth to adulthood. Her method clearly attempts to thwart the histories which record a hegemonic and unified male experience. In From Boys to Men: Formation of Masculinity in Late Medieval Europe (2003) Ruth Karras expands the work begun by Hanawalt and considers the variety of masculinities that obtained in various vocational and social areas. Thus masculinity for knights, university
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students, and craft workers would differ. Karras notes that knightly masculinity was likely the “hegemonic model,” but that clearly others models were available as indicated by the varieties males could exist in the world. Masculinity is tied to a series of social relationships. Her study is keen to refocus the study of masculinities so that modern readers do not force onto the evidence a model of male independence. Shannon McSheffrey (Marriage, Sex, and Civic Culture in Late Medieval London, 2006) applies some of the new masculinities studies to her analysis of the institution of marriage in London demonstrates the socially governing constraints on male behavior during apprenticeship. Many of the new studies relate to masculinity in knightly or middle class situations, but a collection of essay extends the study of masculinity to the religious life. Holiness and Masculinity in the Middle Ages (ed. P. H. Cullum and Katherine J. Lewis, 2004) examines an area that seems quite traditional through a new prism. Masculinity in the hegemonic sense was about power, control, and manipulation of one’s external circumstances. For the religious, particularly monks, there is some sense of being placed in a position of gender anxiety through the balance of power relationships. Investigating historical figures as well as literary texts, this collection also examines the blurry lines of gendered identity that actually feminizes the representation of the male in religious contexts. This study brings new light to what many previously considered an unproblematic area for the representation of masculinity. Historical studies using court documents and following the influence of the New Historicism that attempted to locate other histories inscribed in texts apart from the grand narrative of history reveal a much more subtly nuanced masculinity than had been appreciated earlier. Anxieties surrounding biological function and socialization were dominate forms of imagining in both the historical record and in literary texts. Studies such as Sodomy, Masculinity, and Law in Medieval Literature: France and England, 1050–1230 (2004) examine the social anxiety related to definitions of masculinity and the boundaries that sodomy sets on those definitions. Biological and social functioning at other times was also helpful in defining the differences in gender roles as well as in establishing social formation. Becky R. Lee (“Men’s Recollections of a Women’s Rite: Medieval English Men’s Recollections Regarding the Rite of the Purification of Women after Childbirth,” Gender & History 14.2 [August 2002]: 224–41) has shown the role of men in the purification rituals associated with women after childbirth. Through a study of proof-of-age inquests, she demonstrates that the public performance of such rituals were important to male identity and to larger social formation.
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As Medieval Studies and Masculinity Studies began to find a common ground for study in the 1990s, another important dimension developed. While many of the original studies attempted to show the variety of masculinities that were apparent in medieval life, the collection of essays entitled Conflicted Masculinities (ed. Jacqueline Murray, 1999) demonstrated that these various images of masculinity from court, church, and urban society while conflicting were actually finding points of communication. Many of the essays, founded upon the work of Judith Butler on gender performance, tend to demonstrate that various masculinities were marshaled to the reification of patriarchy, but there are also elements, including same sex-desire that operate both within and between the lines of that status. From studies of gender systems (Jo Ann McNamara, “An Unresolved Syllogism: The Search for a Christian Gender System,” 1–24) to relational and ambiguous desire in Old Norse texts (Jenny Jochens, “Triangularity in the Pagan North: The Case of Bjorn Arngeirsson to Thodor Kolbeissen,” 111–34) to the norms of masculinity in university settings (Ruth Mazo Karras, “Separating the Men from the Goats: Masculinity, Civilization and Identity Formation in the Medieval University” 189–213) to more overt same-sex desire in the medieval court (John Carmi Parsons, “’Loved Him – Hated Her’: Honor and Shame in the Medieval Court,” 279–98), the intersections of competing desires and representations are drawn more clearly. The volume does more than set a range of behaviors termed “masculine,” and at the same time suggests the level of uneasiness latent in those presentations. The hybridity of methodologies between historical and literary studies has produced a variety of new studies of medieval guilds and urban identities. Claire Sponsler (“Outlaw Masculinities: Drag, Blackface, and LateMedieval Laboring-Class Festivities,” 321–47) examines the way that dress for dramatic productions enables particular visions of masculinity and at the same time challenges the hegemonic views of laboring class masculinities (Becoming Male in the Middle Ages, ed. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen and Bonnie Wheeler, 1997). Also working in this same area of urban studies is Christina M. Fitzgerald (The Drama of Masculinity and Medieval English Guild Culture, 2007). Looking particularly at the structure of guild life based on the records of York and Chester, Fitzgerald argues that the production of drama, oriented around its subjects and participants, valorizes the notions of medieval urban masculine identity. Both of these studies, typical of a growing traditions in medieval studies, examines the role of activities themselves to produce images of identity in the performative sense.
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C. Literary Development If historical studies have experienced a Renaissance in the study of masculinity in material cultural practices, literary studies have also seen the development of a growing industry of studies. Many of the studies examined in this selection have been made possible through the historical studies noted in this article. To date, medieval English literary studies have seen the greatest number of studies growing out of the new masculinity studies movement initiated by Medieval Masculinities: Regarding Men in the Middle Ages (ed. Claire Lees, Thelma Fenster, and Jo Ann Mcnamara, 1994). Among the essays are several which examine major, canonical texts of medieval literature in instructive ways to aid later critical studies. Claire Kinney examines Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and contends that the poem is not at all clear which version of masculinity (Gawain, Bercilak, or the court) is the authorized one, but probably suggests that medieval courtly society has the ability to reinvent and reinterpret itself accord to need so that masculinity is hardly static, but open to change (“The (Dis)Embodied Hero and the Signs of Manhood in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” 47–57). Harriet Spiegel investigates gender relationships in Marie de France’s Fables and suggests that while the representation does support the traditional views of masculinity, there is still an ambivalence that suggests the world of the male is not the total experience of humanity, but is indeed gender-specific (“The Male Animal in the Fables of Marie de France,” 111–126). Claire Lees’s essay on Beowulf takes on one of the classic critics of the poem, J. R. R. Tolkien, and suggests that the poem is actually a critique of masculine aggressiveness (“Men and Beowulf,” 129–148). The poem is seen as a critique of the warrior class as everything seems to become the victim to this culturally hegemonic view of society. Another series of essays focused on literary texts examines the concept of what it must have meant to become a male in society. Becoming Male in the Middle Ages (ed. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen and Bonnie Wheeler, 1997) This collection of essays asserts that there is always a sense of “becoming” with respect to the male gender and that it is important to study males and females as both related and opposites. This collection of essays shows the growing fluidity between masculinity studies as they are developing as well as feminist and queer studies, which are related. Allen J. Frantzen examines what maleness means in the context of sexual activity in Anglo-Saxon penitentials (“Where the Boys Are: Children and Sex in Anglo-Saxon Penitentials,” 43–66). David Townsend examines the problems with hegemonic masculinity which he argues is undercut in Waltharius (“Ironic Intertextuality and the Reader’s Resistance to Heroic Masculinity in the Waltharius,” 67–86). Essays by Martin Irvine (“Abelard and (Re)Writing the Male Body: Castration,
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Identity, and Remasculinization,” 87–106) and Bonnie Wheeler (“Origenary Fantasies: Abelard’s Castration and Confession,” 107–28) look at correspondence written by Abelard after his castration and his attempts to reconstruct a vision of his own masculinity after the removal of those aspects most essential in nature. Studies of Chaucer by Glenn Berger (“Erotic Discipline … or ‘Tee Hee, I Like My Boys to be Like Girls: Inventing with the Body in Chaucer’s Miller’s Tale,” 245–60) and Robert Sturges (“The Pardoner, Veiled and Unveiled,” 261–77); transvestite knights by Ad Putter (“Transvestite Knights in Medieval Life and Literature,” 279–302); sodomical aspects within Mankind by George Epps (“The Vicious Guise: Effeminacy, Sodomy, and Mankind,” 303–20); drag in dramatic performance by Claire Sponsler (“Outlaw Masculinities: Drag, Blackface, and Late Medieval Laboring-Class Festivities,” 321–47); and gender construction in the works of Sir David Lindsay by James Goldstein suggest the margins and yet permeable boundaries of masculine desire and behavior (“Normative Heterosexuality in History and Theory: The Case of Sir David Lindsay of the Mount,” 349–65). There is a sense always here that masculinity is in flux, not so much anxious as in other studies, but less clearly defined. Without question major authors have received a great deal of attention in the new masculinity studies. This is seen most clearly in studies on the work of Geoffrey Chaucer. Susan Crane addressed issues of male rivalry in Gender and Romance in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (1994) in terms of performative masculinity. The collection of essay, Masculinities in Chaucer: Approaches to Maleness in the Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde (1998), ed. Peter Beidler, set a new standard for examining masculine representation in Chaucer’s works. In seventeen essays, this collection does not speak with a single conclusion about the nature of masculinity in the individual selections, but there is actually a free play that readers will find among the articles themselves. The sense is that these various essays are intended to fill in some gaps in understanding that previous feminist works have not examined. Holly Crocker (Chaucer’s Visions of Manhood, 2007) attempts in an historicist way to look at issues of visibility and invisibility of masculinity encoded in the works of Chaucer through the interesting dichotomy of Chaucer the poet/Chaucer the man. Chaucer does not produce a single version of masculinity; in fact his texts defy such an attempt. All of these studies attempt to position the examination of one of the major figures of medieval literature against the cultural norms and beliefs about gender to produce reading of Chaucer’s texts that show Chaucer’s more than subtle awareness of the complexities of gender, even as he pressed the margins in representation.
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D. Current Research This survey of criticism is by definition only a beginning of sorts. Many of the articles and books written even in the last five years talk about the reality that masculinity studies in medieval studies still remains in its early stages. Isbel Davis has recently moved the study to somewhat lesser known literary texts by author such as Thomas Usk, William Langland, John Gower, and Thomas Hoccleve (Writing Masculinity in the Later Middle Ages, 2007). This survey suggests the breadth and depth of these studies, all highly informed by critical theory and deeply indebted to the methodology of the New Historicism that attempts to find histories rather than the grand narrative of history. As this survey also shows, much of the work on masculinity studies to date has appeared in collections of essay, many a part of the The New Middle Ages series, edited by Bonnie Wheeler. While feminist studies in the Middle Ages has a number of important outlets for bibliography, these remain to be written for masculinity studies and a coherent picture of this scholarly approach is still developing. Select Bibliography Becoming Male in the Middle Ages, ed. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen and Bonnie Wheeler (New York: Garland, 1997); William E. Burgwinkle, Sodomy, Masculinity, and Law in Medieval Literature: France and England, 1050–1230 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); Joan Cadden, Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages: Medicine, Science, and Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); Susan Crane, Gender and Romance in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994); Conflicting Identities and Multiple Masculinities: Men in the Medieval West, ed. Jacqueline Murray (New York: Garland, 1999); Holly A. Crocker, Chaucer’s Visions of Manhood (New York: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2007); Christina M. Fitzgerald, The Drama of Masculinity and Medieval English Guild Culture (New York: Palgrave/Macmillan, 2007); Holiness and Masculinity in the Middle Ages, ed. P. H. Cullum and Katherine J. Lewis (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004); Handbook of Medieval Sexuality, ed. Vern L. Bullough and James A. Brundage (New York: Garland, 1996); Ruth Mazo Karras, From Boys to Men: Formations of Masculinity in Late Medieval Europe (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003); Masculinities in Chaucer: Approaches to Maleness in the Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde, ed. Peter G. Beidler (Cambridge: Brewer, 1998); Shannon McSheffrey, Marriage, Sex, and Civic Culture in Late Medieval London (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006); Medieval Masculinities: Regarding Men in the Middle Ages, ed. Claire A. Lees, Thelma Fenster, and Jo Ann McNamara (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994); Studying Medieval Women: Sex, Gender, Feminism, ed. Nancy F. Partner, Speculum 68.2 (April 1993), special issue; Isbel Davis, Writing Masculinity in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
Daniel F. Pigg
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Material Culture A. Definition The interdisciplinary field of material culture studies the ways in which humans manipulate their material environment, the uses to which they put objects, and the meanings they assign to them. It presumes that any object constructed, adapted, decorated, or otherwise produced for human use represents larger cultural dynamics, be they related to social relationships, economic structure, ritual practice, warfare, or any other dimension of human activity. From this perspective, there is no hierarchy of artifacts – all objects related to human life, from spoons to skyscrapers, contribute to our understanding of cultural practice and production, though some contribute more than others. Clearly, material culture in the Middle Ages encompasses an immense amount of object types, let alone individual artifacts, each of which is a point in a larger web of cultural significance. Three fundamental observations are therefore worth making at the outset. First, despite the vast variety of objects and practices associated with them in medieval culture, the medieval understanding of the material world derived primarily from the Bible (particularly as it endowed material creation with divine immanence and symbolic meaning), Roman antiquity (ceramics and armor technology, farm implements, artisanal tools), and the “barbarian” invaders (weapons, the plow, folklore). Secondly, traditional notions about medieval technological “stasis” should not blind us to the extraordinary technical achievements of medieval craftsmen and builders – illuminated manuscripts, enamels, stained-glass windows, tapestries, and cathedrals would be sophisticated objects in any age. Moreover, a great many medieval industrial, farming, artisanal, and building techniques remained standard well after the end of the Middle Ages, which points up the problems with periodization and with notions of rapid postmedieval technological progress. In this, as in other ways, material culture helps explode many myths about the medieval “interruption” in history. Finally, any generalizations about technology, or about the design, use, or meaning of a given object in the Middle Ages, must be tempered with the caveat that many historical exceptions and local variations may always be found. Tools The majority of people throughout the Middle Ages were peasants engaged in some form of agricultural production. Fundamental to medieval material life was the wide array of implements they used, most of which were made of
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wood and derived from types inherited from the Romans. A notable exception was the plow, which originated among Germanic and Slavic peoples in late antiquity. By the 12th century the plow was in general use in Western and Central Europe, while the older ard, or scratch-plow, was still in use in Scandinavia and the Mediterranean basin. Another major agricultural innovation of the 9th to 11th centuries was the gear that allowed the harnessing of horses for harrowing and plowing (iron shoes, rigid collars, shafts and traces, flexible couplings) (Bibliographia historiae rerum rusticarum internationalis; Georges Duby, L’économie rurale et la vie des campagnes dans l’Occident médiéval, 1962; George E. Fussell, Farming Technique from Prehistoric to Modern Times, 1966; Getreidebau in Ost- und Mitteleuropa, ed. Iván Balassa, 1972; id., “Die Verbreitung der Kehrpflüge in Europa,” In memoriam Antonio Jorge Dias, II, 1974, 39–59). Artisans – carpenters, metalsmiths, sculptors, mason –, too, relied on a great variety of tools that had antecedents in Roman culture. These tools underwent changes and refinements as they were adapted to new needs and techniques – hammers acquired new shapes, different types of punches for impressing metal were invented – but there were no major innovations in their design during the medieval period (John Harvey, Medieval Craftsmen, 1975). More than utilitarian objects, these tools could have important symbolic significance, which is another crucial dimension of their cultural existence. The agricultural implements depicted on cathedral façades and in the calendars for books of hours express the sacred and ideological connotations of these objects and of the work they did; goldsmiths were buried with balances and weights as signs of their social standing and in recognition of the weighing of souls on Judgment Day (Agriculture in the Middle Ages: Technology, Practice, and Representation, ed. Del Sweeney, 1995; Paul Freedman, Images of the Medieval Peasant, 1999). Domestic Objects It is likely that for most of the Middle Ages, the vast majority of society had extremely limited housewares and little if no furniture. While peasants had buckets, some crockery, wood platters, and other rudimentary articles, the traditional image of a family sitting at a table while stew boils in a pot is likely fantasy, since there is almost no archaeological evidence of furniture in poor households, and large iron implements were prohibitively expensive. Again, the study of material culture provides a useful reminder of the distortions of modern stereotypes, as well as evidence of the subsistence economy that predominated for much of the Middle Ages.
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The housewares and furnishings that we know most about belonged to the merchant and noble classes and date to between the 13th and 15th centuries, when population growth, economic stability, expanded trade, and urbanization led to the increased production and documentation of domestic goods. For those who could afford them, standard household items included chests, benches, long tables, cupboards that doubled as side tables, linens, rugs, table coverings, and beds covered with hangings or entirely enclosed (as with the lit-clos of Brittany). The wealthier could afford chairs, open dressers to display tablewares, and buffets to exhibit goldware and other finery. A noble household with multiple residences would have some furniture built into the walls to impede theft, other furniture designed for portability (such as tables on trestles), and many chests in which to put housewares, linens, and wall hangings. The appearance of joined furniture in the 15th century, first in the Low Countries but soon elsewhere in Europe, replaced heavy panels with solid frames filled in with light panels, greatly reducing the weight and cost of furniture, and making it more portable (The Secular Spirit: Life and Art at the End of the Middle Ages, ed. Timothy B. Husband and Jane Hayward, 1975; Penelope Eames, Medieval Furniture, 1977; Histoire de la vie privée, vol. I and II, ed. Philippe Ariès, Georges Duby, et al., 1985–1987; Rebecca Martin, Textiles in Daily Life in the Middle Ages, 1985; Geoff Egan, The Medieval Household: Daily Living c. 1150–c. 1450, 1998; Malcolm Vale, The Princely Court: Medieval Courts and Culture in North-West Europe, 1270–1380, 2001; The Medieval Household in Christian Europe, c. 850–c. 1550: Managing Power, Wealth, and the Body, ed. Cordelia Beattie, Anna Maslakovic, and Sarah Rees Jones, 2003; The European Linen Industry in Historical Perspective, ed. Brenda Collins and Philip Ollerenshaw, 2003; David Alban Hinton, Gold and Gilt, Pots and Pins: Possessions and People in Medieval Britain, 2005). In addition to these basics, the wealthiest households also had numerous objects that doubled as both sumptuous forms of decoration and functional wares. Tapestries beautified interiors and displayed wealth and taste, while providing insulation and privacy (Adolfo Salvatore Cavallo, Medieval Tapestries in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1993; Guy Delmarcel, Flemish Tapestry, 1999; Medieval Fabrications: Dress, Textiles, Clothwork, and other Cultural Imaginings, ed. E. Jane Burns, 2004). Costly tablewares of ceramic and glass served as containers (Rachel Tyson, Medieval Glass Vessels found in England, c. AD 1200–1500, 2000; Karl Hans Wederpohl, Glas in Antike und Mittelalter: Geschichte eines Werkstoffs, 2000; Danièle Alexandre-Bidon, Une Archéologie du goût: Céramique et consommation (Moyen-Âge-temps modernes), 2005). Among the more impressive objects for table service were enamelled gemellions, shallow bowls used to pour water over the hands, and metalwork aquamani-
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lia in human and animal form, which served as pitchers (Lions, Dragons, and other Beasts: Aquamanilia of the Middle Ages, Vessels for Church and Table, ed. Peter Barnet and Pete Dandridge, 2006). Military Objects Few aspects of medieval material culture have had a more enduring appeal than arms and armor. Many of the accoutrements we associate with the medieval knight already existed among the mounted warriors of the Alanic and Germanic tribes of antiquity: helmet; undergarment covering arms, torso, and legs; body armor; spear; horse armor. This gear, minus the horse armor and combined with the short-sleeved mail shirt of Roman soldiers, a sword, a scabbard, and a shield, had become that of the early 9th-century noble warrior as stated by the Carolingian Lex ripuaria. By the 11th century, the mounted knight was present across Western Europe; as cavalry warfare became more common, the round Viking shield was replaced by the elongated “Norman” shield, which covered the rider’s left (jousting) side from eye to knee (Terence Wise, Saxon, Viking and Norman, 1979; Richard Underwood, Anglo-Saxon Weapons and Warfare, 1999; Ulrich Lehnart, Kleidung und Waffen der Früh- und Hochgotik 1150–1320, 2001; A Companion to Medieval Arms and Armour, ed. David Nicolle, 2002). Military conflict within and beyond Europe, along with the codification of chivalric practices, led to the rapid evolution and refinement of armor in the final centuries of the Middle Ages. Crusaders took to wearing sleeveless surcoats over their mail shirts and cloth coverings over their helmets to protect them from the sun; this became the fashion throughout Europe in the 12th century and long thereafter. During the same period, the appearance of a new helmet covering the face propelled the development of heraldry as a means for recognizing knights in tournaments and battles (Michel Pastoureau, Traité d’héraldique, 1979; David Nicolle, Arms and Armour of the Crusading Era, 1050–1350, 1999). More complete leg armor led to the diminishing of shield sizes in the 13th century, which also saw the introduction of the padded undergarment (acton), shoulder joint armor (ailettes), and the return of horse armor (Ewart Oakeshott, A Knight and his Horse, 1998). During the first half of the 14th century, crossbows became powerful enough to send bolts through shields and mail, leading to the development of plate armor. After 1380, when the plate armoring of the arms and torso had become common, shields were rarely used in the field by mounted knights. Swordsmen continued to use round shields (bucklers), crossbowmen pavises (large rectangular shields with protruding ridges in the middle) (David Edge and John Miles Paddock, Arms and Armour of the Medieval Knight, 1988; Kelly
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Devries, Medieval Military Technology, 1992; Jim Bradbury, The Routledge Companion to Medieval Warfare, 2004). During the final flourishing of armor, in the 15th and 16th centuries, decorative suits were designed for kings and emperors by the finest artists of the period, including Leonardo, Mantegna, and Dürer (Heroic Armor of the Italian Renaissance: Filippo Negroli and his Contemporaries, ed. Stuart W. Pyhrr and José-A. Godoy, 1998; Ulrich Lehnart, Kleidung und Waffen der Spätgotik, 2000). Beyond their military uses, arms and armor were intimately connected to chivalric symbolism and social identity. The naming of swords in literature, their identification with the mythical heroes who bore them, and the attribution of special powers to them reflected the magical thinking and mythologizing of weaponry that the Middle Ages shared with all warrior cultures. Kings and nobles were buried with swords, or depicted on tombs in armor, as a sign of their status, of their personal combat history, and of their membership in a warrior brotherhood. Heraldry, crests, elaborately wrought shields, and brilliantly shining armor were all means of projecting power and magnifying military charisma. Arms and armor represented a unique marriage of the material, the imaginary, and the social (Chivalric Literature: Essays on Relations between Literature and Life in the later Middle Ages, ed. Larry D. Benson and John Leyerle, 1980; Maurice Keen, Chivalry, 1984; Richard Barber, The Knight and Chivalry, 1995). Medieval civilization invented or adapted numerous other objects for military use. Bows and arrows, slings, axes, maces, ball-and-chain whips, flails, and knives all served as personal weapons along with the sword, lance, and crossbow. The widespread construction of stone fortresses in the 11th and 12th centuries renewed the need for siege engines such as wheeled siege towers, catapults (replaced by trebuchets in the late Middle Ages), and battering rams. The appearance of gunpowder and cannons in the 14th century began the slow process by which many kinds of medieval armor and weaponry became obsolete (Arms, Armies, and Fortifications in the Hundred Years War, ed. Anne Curry and Michael Hughes, 1994; Kelly Devries, Guns and Men in Medieval Europe, 1200–1500: Studies in Military History and Technology, 2002; Robert Douglas Smith and Kelly Devries, The Artillery of the Dukes of Burgundy, 1363–1477, 2005). Ritual Objects The greatest number of furnishings to survive from the Middle Ages were made for liturgical use, a testament both to the Church’s immense investment in material production and to its preservationist culture. While the altar was the most sacred such object, many others were needed that were
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also constructed, used, and destroyed following strict canonical rules (John B. O’Connell, Church Building and Furnishing: A Study in Liturgical Law, 1955). Special containers in the shape of pyxes and doves held the consecrated host and were hung at the altar to safeguard against vermin. These were also stored in locked cupboards built into the wall of the sanctuary and, during the last three days of Holy Week, in the receptacle known as the Easter sepulcher (Pamela Sheingorn, The Easter Sepulchre in England, 1987). The altar space could be enclosed by a ciborium (canopy set on four columns), by balustrades surmounted by a pergola, by a choir screen in the form of an arcade or solid wall, or by an ironwork grille (Thresholds of the Sacred: Architectural, Art Historical, Liturgical, and Theological Perspectives on Religious Screens, East and West, ed. Sharon E. J. Gerstel, 2006). In a cathedral, seating was limited to the bishop’s throne and to stools or benches for the clergy attending the bishop. In the late Middle Ages, choir stalls were provided for the lower clergy, canons, and musicians; seating for the laity did not become common until the 16th century (Dorothy and Henry Kraus, The Gothic Choirstalls of Spain, 1986; Charles Tracy, English Gothic Choir-Stalls, 1200–1400, 1987). Readings were performed from raised ambos, pulpits, or from the jube. Many kinds of illumination, in the form of both lamps and candles, were employed, as were elaborate metalwork chandeliers and candelabra (David R. Dendy, The Use of Lights in Christian Worship, 1959). Tapestries and banners might be hung in the choir, crossing, or nave to celebrate particular saints or display wealth and prestige (Laura Weigert, Weaving Sacred Stories: French Choir Tapestries and the Performance of Clerical Identity, 2004). Other ritual objects included special containers for blessed water and oil, censers, funereal furniture, musical and signaling devices, and numerous processional objects such as crosses, paintings, umbrellas, and canopies (J. Charles Cox and Alfred Harvey, English Church Furniture, 1908; Friedrich and Helga Möbius, Ecclesia ornata: Ornament am mittelalterlichen Kirchenbau, 1974; Margaret English Frazer, Medieval Church Treasuries, 1986; Enamels of Limoges: 1100–1350, ed. Elisabeth TaburetDelahaye and Barbara Drake Boehm, 1996; Objects, Images, and the Word: Art in the Service of the Liturgy, ed. Colum Hourihane, 2003; Justin E.A. Kroesen and Regnerus Steensma, The Interior of the Medieval Village Church, 2004). Perhaps the most striking fusion of sacred meaning and material function was visible in reliquaries. Relics themselves inhabit a liminal zone between the physical and the spiritual, and the receptacles made for them inspired goldsmiths, enamelers, sculptors, and painters to achieve some of the most luminous effects and sophisticated craftsmanship of the medieval period. Combining wood, copper, silver, gold, enamel, rock crystal, gem
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stones, intaglios, cameos, and other precious materials, reliquaries simultaneously showcased the saint, protected his or her relics, and invited the contemplation and prayers of the faithful (Marie-Madeleine Gauthier, Les routes de la foi: Reliques et reliquaires de Jérusalem à Compostelle, 1983; Materielle Kultur und religiöse Stiftung im Spätmittelalter: Internationales Round-Table-Gespräch, Krems an der Donau, 26. September 1988, ed. Gerhard Jaritz, 1990; Luigi Canetti, Frammenti di eternità: Corpi e reliquie tra antichità e Medioevo, 2002; Reliquiare im Mittelalter, ed. Bruno Reudenbach and Gia Toussaint, 2005). Spolia and Foreign Objects In many cities and regions of medieval Europe, the Roman past remained a material presence for centuries. Indeed, the notion of a rupture between antiquity and the Middle Ages is belied by the continuous use and upkeep of Roman infrastructure well after the fall of Rome. Long into the medieval period, temples, arenas, amphitheaters, bath complexes, cemeteries, fortifications, roads, and aqueducts still dotted the European landscape, giving rise to legends about their origins and, often, providing ready sources of building material. Especially in heavily Romanized areas such as Spain, the south of France, and Italy, spolia were regularly used to fill foundations, build houses, and to provide jambs, lintels, window frames, columns, capitals, and altars for churches. Reliquaries and jewelry often employed Roman intaglios and cameos, perhaps the most famous example being the reliquary of Sainte Foy at Conques. Spolia certainly appealed to medieval builders and patrons as ready-made objects of structural integrity and fine craftsmanship, but their importance was more than practical or decorative. These objects, often made of the finest material (marble, gem stones), were tangible signs of wealth and prestige. More importantly, they tied the possessor or object in which they were reintegrated to the imperial past (like the intaglios reset in Ottonian brooches) or to the origins of Christianity (like the bas-relief late antique tombs reused in churches) (Michael Greenhalgh, The Survival of Roman Antiquities in the Middle Ages, 1989; Ilene Forsyth, “Art with History: The Role of Spolia in the Cumulative Work of Art,” Byzantine East, Latin West: Art-Historical Studies in Honor of Kurt Weitzmann, ed. Christopher Moss and Katherine Kiefer, 1995, 153–62; Dale Kinney, “The Concept of Spolia,” A Companion to Medieval Art: Romanesque and Gothic in Medieval Europe, ed. Conrad Rudolph, 2006). Like spolia, objects of foreign manufacture exerted great fascination over medieval European society and exposed it to unknown materials, artisanal techniques, and aesthetic vocabularies. Among the most prized of these were
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silks produced in Asia, Byzantium, and the Islamic kingdoms. While silk had been known in the West during antiquity, silk production did not reach Western Europe until the 13th century, and even thereafter foreign silks retained their mystique and value. Moreover, the patterns on these textiles were copied by Western artists and diffused through pattern books, sculptures, and manuscript illuminations, greatly enriching the medieval visual repertory. Byzantine icons, enamels, and ivories also provided new modes of representation to artists all over Europe, and reinforced the Western notion of a sophisticated and marvelously wealthy empire. It has even been argued that this contact with the riches of Byzantium and the Islamic realms helped fuel the Crusades, and especially the sacking of Constantinople in 1204 – a vivid illustration of how material culture shapes identity (in this case, a sense of Western inferiority) and spurs behavior (Al-Andalus: The Art of Islamic Spain, ed. Jerilynn D. Dodds, 1992; The Glory of Byzantium: Art and Culture of the Middle Byzantine Era, A.D. 843–1261, ed. Helen C. Evans and William D. Wixom, 1997; Adrian J. Boas, Crusader Archaeology: The Material Culture of the Latin East, 1999; Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261–1557), ed. Helen C. Evans, 2004; Philip Ditchfield, La culture matérielle médiévale: L’Italie méridionale byzantine et normande, 2007; Venice and the Islamic World, 828–1797, ed. Stefano Carboni, 2007). Animal Objects Medieval people lived in much closer proximity to the animal world and used animals in many more ways than most in the West do today. Because most of the medieval population lived on agriculture and animal husbandry at a subsistence level, every part of a slaughtered or hunted animal was used. The hide could be made into clothing or bags; rawhide could be cut into strips and used for laces, straps, loose pouches, and drums, or kept in sheets and used as vellum; hide hardened through boiling and drying could be used for book pouches, coffers, shields, or body armor; removed hair could be used as insulation or for weaving; wool, of course, was the basis of the medieval textile industry and one of the most important commodities in medieval society (Leather and Fur: Aspects of Early Medieval Trade and Technology, ed. Esther Cameron, 1998). Feathers could be used for insulation, pillow and blanket stuffing, fletching for arrows, or writing quills. The muscle, brain, ears, tongue, heart, liver, intestines, kidneys, testicles, and tail could all be eaten; the fat could be eaten, used as a lubricant, or used to make torches; hooves could be crushed and made into glue; cleaned intestines could be used as sausage skins, or dried for instrument cordage or bowstrings; the sinew could be dried and pounded to make thread, fishline, bowstring, lashing,
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and snare lines; the bones could be broken and their marrow eaten, or else carved into fishhooks, awls, or needles; the bladder could be blown up into a ball. Nor were farm and forest animals the only ones exploited by the medieval population. In northern Europe, walrus tusks were carved into sculptures, and whalebone was used for needles, smoothing boards, combs, and other tools (Arthur MacGregor, Bone, Antler, Ivory and Horn: The Technology of Skeletal Materials since the Roman Period, 1985; Kathleen Biddick, The Other Economy: Pastoral Husbandry on a Medieval Estate, 1989; Pam J. Crabtree, West Stow, Suffolk: Early Anglo-Saxon Animal Husbandry, 1989; Norbert Benecke, Archäozoologische Studien zur Entwicklung der Haustierhaltung: In Mitteleuropa und Südskandinavien von den Anfängen bis zum ausgehenden Mittelalter, 1994; Elizabeth C. Parker and Charles T. Little, The Cloisters Cross: Its Art and Meaning, 1994; Joyce E. Salisbury, The Beast Within: Animals in the Middle Ages, 1994; Breaking and Shaping Beastly Bodies: Animals as Material Culture in the Middle Ages, ed. Aleksander Pluskowski, 2007; Naomi Jane Sykes, The Norman Conquest: A Zoological Perspective, 2007). Other animal parts, though known to medieval society, inhabited a mythical realm because their source was rarely or never seen. Such was the case with elephant ivory, a highly prized material with an exotic mystique. Throughout the Middle Ages, oliphants made from the end of elephant tusks were decorated with elaborate carvings and kept in noble and ecclesiastical treasuries as signs of wealth and as quasi-magical objects (Avinoam Shalem, The Oliphant: Islamic Objects in Historical Context, 2004). Beginning in the 13th century, the growth of international trade routes brought great quantities of raw ivory as far as northern France and England, leading to a surge in the production of ivory writing tablets, devotional panels, and statues (Paul Williamson, An Introduction to Medieval Ivory Carvings, 1982; Images in Ivory: Precious Objects of the Gothic Age, ed. Peter Barnet, 1997). Of even greater value were narwhal tusks, commonly denoted in cathedral and royal inventories as “unicorn horns.” Surviving accounts and examples show that, skeptical though the learned might have been about the existence of unicorns, for centuries these horns were carved into cups for kings and emperors, ground up for medicinal use, and hung out of reach to prevent theft, such was the enduring power of the legend about the purifying magic of the “unicorn’s” horn (Margaret B. Freeman, The Unicorn Tapestries, 1976; Fred Bruemmer, The Narwhal: Unicorn of the Sea, 1993).
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Craftsmen One of the more striking facts about medieval craftsmen is that they inhabited nearly all social spheres – lay and ecclesiastical; rural and urban; peasant, bourgeois and, in the later Middle Ages, even aristocratic. In an era with no mass production and little industrialization, every community needed people with the skills to produce the objects its economy and culture demanded. Even so, the urban expansion and population growth that began in the 11th century led to three important developments in the role of craftsmen. The first of these, broadly speaking, witnessed the shift of many forms of expertise from monasteries to towns, particularly as pertained to more sophisticated arts such as goldsmithing and manuscript making. For example, Saint Eligius was a goldsmith and cleric who rose to become bishop of Noyon in 641, while in the later Middle Ages it was Parisian laymen who dominated the profession in northern France and acquired an international reputation (Éva Kovács, L’âge d’or de l’orfèvrerie parisienne: Au temps des princes de Valois, 2004). Similarly, while monasteries were the primary centers of book production through the high Middle Ages, the rise of universities and of lay readers brought manuscript making into cities and the hands of lay artisans and scribes (Christopher Dehamel, A History of Illuminated Manuscripts, 1986; Jonathan J. G. Alexander, Medieval Illuminators and their Methods of Work, 1992; Richard and Mary Rouse, Manuscripts and their Makers: Commercial Book Producers in Medieval Paris, 1200–1500, 2000). The second development was the increasing specialization and organization among craftsmen. Guilds began to reappear in the 11th century in order to protect craftsmen from the interference of feudal lords, to regulate competition, to ensure quality, and to guard trade secrets. The guild system ensured the education of artisans through apprenticeships, but did not ensure employment; it is important to remember that craft guilds were primarily organizations for masters, or employers, and not for the many tradesmen who worked for them. Guilds were also social groups who performed religious and other services, such as maintaining chapels in local churches or subsidizing the staging of mystery plays (Clifford Davidson, Technology, Guilds, and Early English Drama, 1996). Through such organization, craftsmen attained substantial power in their towns and cities (Artistes, artisans et production artistique au Moyen Âge: Colloque international, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, Université de Rennes II, Haute-Bretagne, 2–6 mai 1983, ed. Xavier Barral I Altet, 1986–1990; Antony Black, Guilds and Civil Society in European Political Thought from the Twelfth Century to the Present, 1984; Richard MacKenney, Tradesmen and Traders: The World of the Guilds in Venice and Europe, c. 1250–c. 1650, 1987; Steven A. Epstein, Wage Labor and Guilds in Medieval Europe, 1991).
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The third development related to the lives of medieval craftsmen resulted from this increased power, which led to greater regulation on the part of urban and royal authorities, and to resentment among workers not protected by guilds. Thus King John II of France ordered in 1355 that every goldsmith have a personalized stamp to impress on his wares to regulate quantity and quality; thus workers allied with the peasants during the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt in England, a clear sign that they identified more with the aggrieved lower class than with the masters they worked for (R.B. Dobson, The Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, 1983; Samuel K. Cohn, Jr., Lust for Liberty: The Politics of Social Revolt in Medieval Europe, 1200–1425: Italy, France, and Flanders, 2006). Technology Medieval technology was marked by rupture and continuity with antiquity. A great many medieval tools and production techniques descended directly from the Romans; others were lost in certain parts of Europe but not others, or lost in Europe but not in Byzantium and north Africa, whence they were reintroduced to Europe. Glassmaking, metalworking, and textile production give a general sense of how technology remained traditional but also advanced in the Middle Ages. After the fall of Rome, some parts of northern Europe, like Britain, lost glassmaking technology entirely, while others lost sophisticated craftsmanship and the ability to make colorless glass; glassmaking was only reestablished in England around 1240 (Five Thousand Years of Glass, ed. Hugh Tait, 1991). But glassmaking continued in Italy, arriving in Venice by at least the 7th century, where it appears the art of glass decolorizing was never lost; subsequently Venetian glass would become the most prized and technically advanced of all European glass (Attilia Dorigato, L’Arte del vetro a Murano, 2002). The major medieval advances in metalworking were the invention of wiredrawing, which had appeared in Scandinavia by the early Viking period; the use of water to power the drop-hammers that beat iron rods and bars extracted from the furnace, which began in the 12th century; and the invention of the blast furnace in the Rhineland in the early 15th century. The invention of plate armor in the 14th century was a notable addition to the medieval armory (Alan Williams, The Knight and the Blast Furnace: A History of the Metallurgy of Armour in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period, 2002). There is no evidence that techniques for working with nonferrous metals changed with the passage from antiquity to the Middle Ages (De re metallica: The Uses of Metal in the Middle Ages, ed. Robert O. Bork, 2005). The technological transformations witnessed in textile production were more profound than in glassmaking and metalworking, and date to the sec-
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ond half of the Middle Ages, when increased wealth and population led to sharp increases in demand at the same time that expanded international trade introduced new machinery. The warp-weighted loom, which was probably of Chinese origin, appeared in Western Europe in the late 11th century. In the 12th century, another Chinese invention, the reeling drum for spinning large skeins of yarn, also appeared in the West. The spinning wheel, a device of ancient origin, appeared in Europe in the twelfth century, as did carding, a combing process that forces wool fibers to run parallel and thus enhances lacing and felting. Fullers, like metalworkers, turned to waterpowered drophammers in the twelfth century, so that fulling became the first thoroughly mechanized process in European industrial history (F. P. Thomson, Tapestry: Mirror of History, 1980; John H. Munro, Textiles, Towns and Trade: Essays in the Economic History of Late-Medieval England and the Low Countries, 1994; Dominique Cardon, La draperie au Moyen Âge: Essor d’une grande industrie européenne, 1999). Most technical know-how was transmitted orally and by demonstration in the Middle Ages. We therefore derive most of our knowledge of medieval technology, especially for the early and high Middle Ages, from artifacts. An extraordinary exception to this rule is the 12th-century technical treatise De diversis artibus by the Benedictine monk who called himself Theophilus. This invaluable document discusses in great detail, among other arts, painting, glassmaking, metalworking, bone carving, and the working of precious stones. A rare statement of both aesthetic principles and technical practice, Theophilus’s treatise provides a trace of the vast body of knowledge, experience, and lore that had accumulated among medieval craftsmen by the 12th century (Erhard Brepohl, Theophilus Presbyter und die mittelalterliche Goldschmiedekunst, 1987; Heinz Horat, Der Glasschmelzofen des Priesters Theophilus: Interpretiert aufgrund einer Glasofen-Typologie, 1991). By the end of the Middle Ages, Europe possessed technologies unknown to the ancient (European) world – clocks, galleys, artillery, paper, printing equipment, eyeglasses. What this list demonstrates, first of all, is that European technology was never a self-contained sphere. Many of these devices, like the warp-weighted loom and reeling drum, had come to Europe from the East, just as many materials – ivory, silk, lapis lazuli – had come from beyond Europe to transform its art, dress, and economy. This list, then, is also significant for what it tells us about the material world’s impact on the world of ideas and actions – about how things shape behavior and history. The printing press and paper were catalysts for the Reformation; larger ships and better weaponry enabled the age of exploration and colonialism, which exploded traditional notions about the Earth’s geography and inhabitants.
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As just these two examples demonstrate, technology was one of the main forces that brought an “end” to the Middle Ages – or, seen through the lens of continuity, one of the forces with which medieval society transformed, and achieved greater control over, its world (A History of Technology, ed. Charles Singer et al., 1954–1984; Lynn White, Jr., Medieval Technology and Social Change, 1962; Science and Technology in Medieval Society, ed. Pamela O. LONG, 1985; Frances and Joseph Gies, Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel: Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages, 1994; Chiara Frugoni, Medioevo sul naso: Occhiali, bottoni, e altre invenzioni medievali, 2001; Medieval Science, Technology, and Medicine: An Encyclopedia, ed. Thomas F. Glick, Steven J. Livesey, and Faith Wallis, 2005). B. History of Scholarship The rise of the study of material culture over the past thirty years reflects the dissatisfaction that humanists, social scientists, curators, and conservators who work with objects have felt as they confronted disciplinary boundaries and inadequate methodologies. A way was needed to assess artifacts both in their materiality – as the products of a specific time, place, and technique – and as expressions of human thought, feeling, behavior, and relationships. Therefore, at their core, material culture studies unite approaches developed in archaeology and anthropology, the former providing object-focused analysis, the latter ways to integrate objects into cultural networks. Just as material culture studies recognize no hierarchy of artifacts, they also eschew disciplinary categories. In contemporary journals, studies, and academic programs devoted to material culture, one finds history, art history, archaeology, anthropology, linguistics, decorative arts, crafts, folk art, design, and a variety of scientific methodologies all brought to bear on the origins and functions of objects (Jules David Prown, “Mind in Matter: An Introduction to Material Culture Theory and Method,” Winterthur Portfolio 17/1 [1982]: 1–19; Beth Preston, “The Function of Things: A Philosophic Perspective on Material Culture,” Matter, Materiality and Modern Culture, ed. P. M. GravesBrown, 2000, 22–49; Bill Brown, “Thing Theory,” Critical Inquiry 28.1 [2001]: 1–22; Journal of Material Culture; The Material Culture Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison). To a great extent, the history of Medieval Studies is the history of the study of medieval artifacts from an interdisciplinary perspective. In other words, material culture studies have not transformed Medieval Studies; rather, they apply to all artifacts approaches that have existed for generations among medievalists, who have had to be creative in their interpretive methodologies because their evidence is often so scant. Medieval art and
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architectural historians have long had to consider historical documents, rituals, artisanal and building techniques, and a host of other factors in order to interpret objects and sites. Philologists and literary historians, who had to account for the material conditions in which texts were produced and disseminated, developed the science of codicology, which has since moved from the medievalist domain to the study of all books. Medievalists have also shown great ingenuity in harnessing the sciences in their analyses of material culture. Carbon 14 dating has been used on a vast range of artifacts of biological origin; dendochronology has aided with the dating of many wood structures, such as cathedral roof supports; neutron activation analysis has revealed the provenance of stone sculptures and ceramics; architectural historians rely on laser measuring and computer-aided design to reconstruct building programs; and conservators have made great strides in determining the chemical compositions and application techniques of all manner of pigments, dyes, and bonding agents. The Internet has increased exponentially the presence of medieval material culture, from museum websites to videos of craftspeople employing medieval techniques, which has led to new understandings of materiality and to new opportunities for teaching and research. In one of history’s great ironies, medieval material culture may be more accessible to us now than it was to its contemporaries. Select Bibliography Material Culture: A Research Guide, ed. Thomas J. Schlereth (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1985); Roberta Gilchrist, Gender and Material Culture: The Archaeology of Religious Women, 1994; Material Cultures: Why Some Things Matter, ed. Daniel Miller (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998); Material Culture and Medieval Drama, ed. Clifford Davidson (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 1999); Material Culture and Cultural Materialisms in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, ed. Curtis Perry (Turnhout: Brepols, 2001); The Material Culture of Sex, Procreation, and Marriage in Premodern Europe, ed. Anne L. McClanan and Karen Rosoff Encarnación (New York: Palgrave, 2002); A Companion to Medieval Art: Romanesque and Gothic in Medieval Europe, ed. Conrad Rudolph (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006).
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Medievalism A. ”Medievalism”/ “Mittelalter-Rezeption” “The Middle Ages Are Everywhere” is the title of a monograph published in 1997 by German historian Manfred Fuhrmann (Überall ist Mittelalter: Von der Gegenwart einer vergangenen Zeit). Fuhrmann argues that the impact of the Middle Ages on our present world can still be witnessed in all parts of Europe, the daily life and behavior of many Europeans, as well as the designs of cities and towns, the many cathedrals and castles, and the rituals of the Catholic (and of course also the Orthodox) church, are influenced by medieval history. For example, modern modes of greeting others and performing gallantry toward women are inherited from the Middle Ages. European emigrants brought parts of this medieval heritage to the New World. There are, of course, situations outside Western Europe that are more or less comparable; for example, in Eastern Europe, Muslim countries, India, Central Asia, China, and Japan. During the Renaissance, artists and scholars developed their own concepts of the revival of classical antiquity by judging the former centuries as “Dark Middle Ages.” Yet as Kurt Flasch (Aufklärung im Mittelalter? Die Verurteilung von 1277: Das Dokument des Bischofs von Paris, 1989) and others have stressed, many roots of modern Europe, its “Sonderweg” (particular route) can be traced to the Middle Ages (Der europäische Sonderweg, ed. Rolf Peter Sieberle, 2000; Michael Mitterauer, Warum Europa? Mittelalterliche Grundlagen eines Sonderwegs, 2003). The use of medieval topics, works, and names far beyond the Middle Ages has always been conscious (German scholars called it “Wirkungsgeschichte” of the Middle Ages), but academic research on this – and approach now called “Medievalism” and Mittelalter-Rezeption – was not widespread in the humanities, and especially in philology, until the 1970s. Both terms, “Medievalism” and Mittelalter-Rezeption, have dual meanings – one referring to a tendency to employ the Middle Ages for modern purposes (movies, novels, music, etc.), and the other referring to academic research of this process. The English word “Medievalism” dates from the late 19th century, whereas the German phrase Mittelalter-Rezeption was conceived by Gerard Kosielek in 1977 (Mittelalterrezeption: Texte zur Aufnahme altdeutscher Literatur in der Romantik, 1977); both terms primarily now refer to academic research, but the other meaning is still sometimes applicable. Systematic research in the U.S., and the UK began with Leslie J. Workman (1927–2001) and his scientific group (above all his wife, Kathleen Ver-
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duin). The first issue of the journal Studies in Medievalism was published in 1979. Several years later, The Year’s Work in Medievalism was founded, and in 1986, they began with a series of conferences on Medievalism. Workman identified influential authors for his concept of Medievalism; these included: Alice Chandler, A Dream of Order (1970); and Norman Cantor, Inventing the Middle Ages: The Lives, Works, and Ideas of the Great Medievalists of the Twentieth Century (1991) (see also Richard Utz: “Speaking of ‘Medievalism’: An Interview with Leslie J. Workman,” Medievalism in the Modern World: Essays in Honor of Leslie Workman, ed. id. and Tom Shippey, 1998), 433–49; and in the same festschrift: Richard Utz and Tom Shippey, “Medievalism in the Modern World: Introductory Perspectives,” 1–13). The first conference on Mittelalter-Rezeption took place in Europe, also in 1979, at the University of Salzburg (Austria), and the proceedings were published in the same year: Mittelalter-Rezeption: Gesammelte Vorträge des Salzburger Symposions “Die Rezeption mittelalterlicher Dichter und ihrer Werke in Literatur, Bildender Kunst und Musik des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts” (ed. Jürgen Kühnel, Hans-Dieter Mück, and Ulrich Müller, 1979). This was followed by several conferences in Salzburg, in the beginning organized and edited by Jürgen Kühnel (University of Siegen), Hans-Dieter Mück (Literaturarchiv Marbach), Ursula and Ulrich Müller (Salzburg): Mittelalter-Rezeption [I] (see above); Mittelalter-Rezeption II: Gesammelte Vorträge des 2. Salzburger Symposions “Die Rezeption des Mittelalters in Literatur, Bildender Kunst und Musik des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts” (1982); Mittelalter-Rezeption III: Gesammelte Vorträge des 3. Salzburger Symposions “Mittelalter, Massenmedien, Neue Mythen” (1988). The Salzburg philologists (among them Siegrid Schmidt) also co-organized conferences at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland (Mittelalter-Rezeption IV: Medien, Politik, Ideologie, Ökonomie, ed. Irene Von Burg, Jürgen Kühnel, Ulrich Müller, and Alexander Schwarz, 1991), in Wetzlar, Germany (Artus-Mythen und Moderne: Aspekte der Rezeption in Literatur, Kunst, Musik und in den Medien, ed. Sieglinde Hartmann, Thomas Le Blanc, Ulrich Müller, and Bettina Twrsinek, 2005), and Schöppenstedt, Germany (Mittelalterrezeption im 21. Jahrhundert: Neue Medien, ed. Joachim Behr, with Charlotte Papendorf, 2006, see Eulenspiegel-Jahrbuch 46 [2006]: 13–183). In 1990, Kathleen Verduin, Leslie J. Workman, and Ulrich Müller also organized a joint congress at Kaprun Castle (near Salzburg): Mittelalter-Rezeption V: Gesammelte Vorträge des V. Salzburger Symposions/ Year’s Work in Medievalism 5 (Burg Kaprun, 1990) / Papers from The Fifth Annual General Conference on Medievalism 1990 (ed. Ulrich Müller and Kathleen Verduin, 1996). There were also conferences at the University of Odense, Denmark, in 1991 (The Medieval Legacy: A Symposium, ed. Andreas Haarder, Jørn Piø, Reinhold Schröder, and
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Preben Meulengracht Sørensen, 1982); the University of Greifswald, German Democratic Republic, in 1979 (Rezeption deutscher Dichtung des Mittelalters: Ausgewählte Beiträge von der Jahrestagung des Arbeitskreises ‘Deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters’ zum Thema ‘Rezeption mittelalterlicher Dichtung in der Literatur der DDR,’ 1982); and at the Washington University at St. Louis, Missouri, in 1982 (Das Weiterleben des Mittelalters in der deutschen Literatur (ed. James F. Poag and Gerlinde Scholz-Williams, 1983). Of great importance was also a congress in 1983, which was organized by Peter Wapnewski et al. in Berlin (see below). Prototypes for the European Mittelalter-Rezeption have been the concepts of Wirkungsgeschichte by the philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer (Wahrheit und Methode, 1965) and the philologist Hans-Robert Jauss (Literaturgeschichte als Provokation der Literaturwissenschaft, 1969, several reprints). Medievalism and Mittelalter-Rezeption were born from a rising public interest in history, especially in medieval and exotic cultures, in the 1960s, as demonstrated by book publications, exhibitions, medieval markets, and festivities, movies, and TV-productions. Newspapers in the German-speaking regions invented a new term for this, “Mittelalter-Boom” (‘boom of the Middle Ages’). Some aspects of this boom are pseudo-medieval or simply wrong, but they have nevertheless created public interest. Academic research has partly been a reaction to heated discussions at the universities about the relevance of the humanities since 1968, above all, in the philologies; thus many younger scholars were involved in the beginning. This field of research has definitively been accepted as part of the philologies by a symposion of the “Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft” (DFG) in Berlin, organized by Peter Wapnewski, together with Joachim Bumke, Thomas Cramer, Volker Mertens, Ulrich Müller (‘Kuratoren’), Ursula Liebertz-Grün, Silvia Schmitz, Anselm Hänsch, Hans-Dieter Mück, and Irene Erfen-Hänsch (‘Redaktoren’): Mittelalter-Rezeption: Ein Symposion (ed. Peter Wapnewski, 1986). Political problems between the two Germanies and West Berlin instigated the so-called German-German “Elefantentreffen” (meeting of the elephants) in the East Berlin apartment of Margit and Rolf Bräuer (Professor at the University of Greifswald; see Ulrich Müller, Mittelalter-Rezeption IV, 1981, 521–23). There were also many sessions about Medievalism/Mittelalter-Rezeption at the big medieval conferences in Kalamazoo (Western Michigan University, Medieval Institute; several proceedings edited by Sibylle Jefferis) and Leeds (University of Leeds, Institute for Medieval Studies). The names of the participants in these world-wide symposiums and sessions about Medievalism/Mittelalter-Rezeption, and the contents of the many proceedings, read like an international ‘Who’s Who’ in this academic
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field (for France there must be added Danielle Buschinger, University of Amiens, who directed several relevant symposiums) (articles about Mittelalter-Rezeption/Medievalism can now be found in recent reference books, for example: Rüdiger Krohn, “Mittelalterrezeption,” Literaturlexikon: Begriffe, Realien, Methode [II], ed. Volker Meid, 1993; Literaturlexikon: Autoren und Werke deutscher Sprache, ed. Walther Killy, vol. XIII, 117–20; and Ulrich Müller, “Mittelalterrezeption,” Metzler Lexikon Literatur: Begriffe und Definitionen, ed. Dieter Burdorf, Christoph Fasbender, and Burkhard Moennighof, 3rd ed. 2007, 506–07). It seems inexplicable that the term Mittelalter-Rezeption (just as “New Philology”) is missing in the new edition of the Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturwissenschaft (1997–2003), not to speak of non-German reference works, although two medievalists were members of the editorial team of six scholars. B. Types of Approaches to Medievalism According to Ulrich Müller (“Formen der Mittelalter-Rezeption II, Einleitung,” Mittelalter-Rezeption [1986]: 507–10; also “Vorwort,” Mittelalter-Rezeption III [1988]: III–VII) the large field of Medievalism/ Mittelalter-Rezeption can be subdivided into four parts: (1) The creative (“schöpferische”) Mittelalter-Rezeption: Topics, works, themes, and also authors of the Middle Ages, are used for new works in a creative way; (2) the reproducing (“reproduktive”) Mittelalter-Rezeption: Medieval works are reconstructed in a way, which is supposed to be ‘authentic,’ according to their medieval context, for example by musical performances or renovations (paintings, buildings etc.); (3) the scholarly (“wissenschaftliche”) Mittelalter-Rezeption: Medieval authors, works, events, objects, or concepts are studied and explained using the methods of the the relevant academic disciplins; (4) the political-ideological (“politisch-ideologische”) Mittelalter-Rezeption: Works, themes, ‘ideas’ are used for political purposes to legitimate or denounce (for example: the ideology of ‘crusade’).” In most cases, several types of “reception” are combined. Depending on the dominant motifs and goals, different categories of verification must be used: To divide between “right” or “wrong” is only possible for (2) and (3); the matter of taste and ideology is decisive in (1) and (4).
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C. Examples of Medievalism It is completely impossible to cover the process and research of Medievalism/ Mittelalter-Rezeption in one single article with necessary depth and breadth. Only some brief outlines and examples can be presented. Much more information can be found, in detail, in the monographs and proceedings mentioned in this article. Incidents (like battles), or names of historical and literary men and women from the Middle Ages have never really fallen into oblivion, but they have lost importance since the periods of Renaissance and Baroque. Until today there are no profound comparative studies of the diverse and varying situations and evolutions of Medievalism in individual parts of Western Europe, but it is easy to realize that there have been differences among developing nations like England, Scotland, France, Spain on the one hand, and Italy, and Germany on the other, which were politically dissolved regions until the end of the 19th century. Interest in the Middle Ages arose and has intensified since the end of the 18th century as a result of Romanticism and the beginnings of European patriotism and nationalism. Rulers and warriors of the Middle Ages became important for national purposes (for example Charlemagne, Roland, Jeanne d’Arc, El Cid, King Arthur, and Saladin in the Arab countries), and even for chauvinistic propaganda (the myth of the Nibelungs or the defeat of the Serbian kingdom by the Ottoman army at the Kosovo Polje in 1389). Medievalism and Mittelalter-Rezeption can be observed in all aspects of modern culture: literature, music, art, architecture (for example ‘Gothic’ railway stations), etc. The following paragraphs mainly, but not exclusively, focus on literature, and they only present examples. There is no comprehensive monograph about the modern tradition of medieval epics and novels, just a brief survey by Ulrich Müller (“Das Nachleben der mittelalterlichen Stoffe,” Epische Stoffe des Mittelalters, ed. Volker Mertens and Ulrich Müller, 1984, 424–48; see also: Elisabeth Frenzel in cooperation with Sybille Grammetbauer, Stoffe der Weltliteratur, 10th ed. 2005; Elisabeth Frenzel, Motive der Weltliteratur, 1976; Gegenwart als kulturelles Erbe: Ein Beitrag der Germanistik zur Kulturwissenschaft deutschsprachiger Länder, ed. Bernd Thum, 1985; Medieval German Voices in the 21st Century: The Paradigmatic Function of Medieval German Studies for German Studies, ed. Albrecht Classen, 2000; Lili 38.151 [September 2008], 5–169: “Erfindung des Mittelalters”); but there are numerous studies about specific medieval myths, legends, and works, both in book form and articles. Profound studies about Medievalism in the UK were presented by Mark Girouard (The Return to Camelot: Chivalry and the English Gentleman, 1981), and Michael Alexander (Medievalism: The
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Middle Ages in Modern England, 2007), and a broader survey, also including the US, by Veronica Ortenberg, In Search of the Holy Grail: The Quest for the Middle Ages (2006). D. The Nibelungs, the Germans, and the Austrians The Middle High German Nibelungenlied (ca. 1200) was not regarded as a national work in the Middle Ages; it was just a successful heroic epic among other tales and novels – unlike the epics of Homer or the Old French chansons de geste (“songs of actions and battles,” for example about Charlemagne, Roland, and Guilleaume d’Orange and his clan), which had an early national significance. The Nibelungenlied fell into oblivion until several important manuscripts were rediscovered in Vorarlberg (Hohenems Castle, Austria) and St. Gall (Switzerland). At first, interest in this and other Middle High German epics was moderate, but during the wars against Napoleon I around 1800, it gradually became a national epic (“Nationalepos”) like Homer’s Iliad in ancient Greece. This progress is well documentated, above all, by Otfrid Ehrismann (Das ‘Nibelungenlied’ in Deutschland: Studien zur Rezeption des ‘Nibelungenlieds’ von der Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts bis zum Ersten Weltkrieg, 1975; id., Nibelungenlied 1755–1920: Regesten und Kommentare zu Forschung und Rezeption, 1986), Werner Wunderlich (Der Schatz des Drachentöters: Materialien zur Wirkungsgeschichte des Nibelungenlieds, 1977), Joachim Heinzle (Die Nibelungen: Sage-Epos-Mythos, ed. Joachim Heinzle et al., 2004), and the “Nibelungen Encyclopedia” (The Nibelungen Tradition: An Encyclopedia, ed. Frank G. Gentry, Winder McConnell, Ulrich Müller, and Werner Wunderlich, 2002; see also Ulrich Schulte-Wüwer, Das Nibelungenlied in der deutschen Kunst des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts, 1980; and Die Nibelungen: Bilder von Liebe, Verrat und Untergang, ed. Wolfgang Storch, 1987). Scholars and translators like Friedrich Heinrich von der Hagen (1807), August Zeune (1814), and Karl Simrock (1827) promoted its national meaning and politicians used it for propaganda. The “Nibelungen-Treue” (Nibelungian fidelity) of the German Empire for the Habsburg Empire before World War I is notorious; after the empire’s defeat, the so-called ‘Dolchstoss-Legende’ arose (this is the political fiction that the armies were not defeated in battles, but at home, with a dagger stabbed into them from behind); and the infamous result was a public speech by the Nazi leader Hermann Göring who, in 1943, compared the disastrous defeat of the German army at Stalingrad with the carnage of the Burgundian Nibelungs, provoked by the excessive revenge of Kriemhilde at King Etzel’s court – both of them, according to Göring, were “heroic.” After World War II, the legend of the Nibelungs became ideologically dubious in the two Germanies and in Austria, but probably not in Switzerland. Since the
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mid-1960s, scholars have begun to discuss the Nibelungenlied in the context of politically dominated Mittelalter-Rezeption, and some years later serious research of its problems and and qualities as an epic of the early 13th century assumed center stage, but now without nationalistic tendencies. For a number of years the Viennese singer Eberhard Kummer has performed the complete Nibelungenlied, using a medieval ‘Nibelungen’ melody; in 2007 it was published by the Chaucer Studio, Provo, UT (2 MP3 discs, ca. 20 hours). E. Medieval Myths and the Operas of Richard Wagner That several legends and protagonists of the Middle Ages are still more or less well-known today is undoubtedly stimulated by the popularity of the operas of Richard Wagner (1813–1883): The literary legends, myths, and tales about Tannhäuser and the Contest of the Singers at the Wartburg, about the Grail, Parzival, and Lohengrin, about Tristan and Isolde, and above all about Wotan, Brünhilde, Siegfried, and Hagen were revived by him, and his operas have a world-wide reputation today, although Wagner, too, was temporarily used for ideological purposes, in spite of the anti-Semitism found in some of Wagner’s essays (but most likely not in the libretti of his operas). Sources for Wagner’s tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen (first performance: Bayreuth 1876) were only partly the Nibelungenlied, but especially Scandinavian texts: songs of the Edda, and prose-sagas like the Völsunga saga and Thidreks saga; these have been documented and studied in several monographs and articles (for example: Peter Wapnewski, Der traurige Gott: Richard Wagner in seinen Helden, 1978; William O. Cord, The Teutonic Mythology of Richard Wagner’s ‘The Ring of the Nibelung,’ 3 vols., 1989–1991; Elizabeth Magee, Richard Wagner and the Nibelungs, 1990; Richard Wagner und sein Mittelalter, ed. Ursula and Ulrich Müller, 1989; Ulrich Müller, Oswald Panagl et al., Ring und Gral: Materialien und Beiträge zu Wagners späten Musikdramen, 2002; Wagner Handbook, ed. Ulrich Müller and Peter Wapnewski, trans. John Deathridge, 1992 [German version: 1986]; Wagner Compendium: A Guide to Wagner’s Life and Music, ed. Barry Millington, 1992). Unlike in his late operas about Tristan and Isolde (1865) and Parsifal (1882), Wagner did not re-interpret the Nibelungen legend radically. Instead, he kept its basic lines, but combined Germanic and Ancient Greek mythology. In recent years, Wagner’s Ring has been recorded many times and produced world-wide at opera houses, not only by the grand ones, but also, often with the same artistic quality, by smaller and more moderate ones. Many more opera composers have used medieval material: Henry Purcell (King Arthur, 1691), Giuseppe Verdi (I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata, 1843), Claude Debussy (Pelléas et Mélisande, 1902), Ernest Chausson (Le roi Arthus,
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1903), Harrison Birtwhistle (Gawain, 1991), Olivier Messiaen (Saint François d’Assisse, 1975–1983), or Kaija Saariaho (L’amour de loin, 2000); Robert Schumann conceived a list of medieval operas which contains the same topics as Wagner’s, but he never composed even a single one. Regarding Arthurian music, Richard Barber edited a collection of papers, King Arthur in Music (2002). An exhaustive list of musical theatre about the Middle Ages, composed after 1945, can now be found in Andrea Schindler’s book (Mittelalter-Rezeption im zeitgenössischen Misiktheater, 2009). F. King Arthur, the English, and Americans – and the European Continent The Arthurian legends have been and continue to be a patriotic or national myth in the English-speaking countries, first in England and later in America. In medieval Europe they were mostly regarded as a “social myth,” namely the international ideology of the Christan knight. This interpretation, which has been dominant for centuries, was created by an author from Northern France, Chrétien de Troyes, between 1160 and ca. 1185. His courtly romances about Erec and Enide, Lancelot and Gueneviève, Ivain, and Perceval and the Grail became paragons of medieval secular romances, for which, of course, he used various sources, and which later were frequently retold, enlarged, merged, and mingled in many European languages. Of utmost importance for the later ‘Medievalism’ and Mittelalter-Rezeption was the prose compilation of the legends and tales about King Arthur, the Knights of his Round Table, the magician Merlin, the quest for the Grail, and the disastrous love stories of Lancelot and Guenevere, and Tristan and Isolde, conceived by the English Thomas Malory (†1471): His Morte d’Arthur, for which he used primarily French novels en prose, became the the first secular and most popular printed book in England (William Caxton, 1469); it is influential and still widely read today. The so-called Arthurian Revival and its long-lasting impact in the arts, literature, and music have been described and examined in numerous monographs and articles. For the 19th century, the poet Alfred Lord Tennyson deserves to be mentioned above all as “father of the Arthurian Renaissance in Victorian England” (David Staines, “Tennyson, Alfred Lord,” The New Arthurian Encyclopedia [1996]: 446–48), as best represented by his poetic cycle The Idylls of the King (1832–1889). Academic painters like William Dyce, James Archer, Joseph Noël Paton, Thomas Woolner, John Lyston Byam Shaw, Frank Dicksee, and John Williams Winterhouse, then Pre-Raphaelite artists like Edward Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Arthur Hughes, finally illustrators like Julia Margaret Cameron, Audrey Beardsley (and in
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France Gustav Doré), did their part (Barbara Tepa Lupack with Alan Lupack, Illustrating Camelot, 2008). Often their works were “medieval only in superficial details of costume and setting; it reflected instead current taste” (Debra N. Mancoff, “Arthurian Revival,” The New Arthurian Encyclopedia [1996]: 22), and – one must add – contemporary ideology (impressive and appropriately illustrated monographs are: Roger Simpson, Camelot Regained: The Arthurian Revival and Tennyson, 1800–1849, 1989; Muriel Whitaker, The Legends of King Arthur in Art, 1990; Debra N. Mancoff, The Arthurian Revival in Victorian Art, 1990). This kind of Arthurian Revival, like Victorian idealism, came to an end with World War I, but its results can still be seen today. In the UK and U.S., not dozens but hundreds of books have been published that translate, retell, modernize, and transpose the ancient legend, above all in novels, but also in short stories and even in guide books for Arthurian traveling. Beverly Taylor and Elisabeth Brewer (The Return of King Arthur: British and American Arthurian Literature since 1900 [recte 1800], 1983), Raymond H. Thompson (The Return from Avalon: A Study of the Arthurian Legend in Modern Fiction, 1985), and Veronica Ortenberg (In Search of the Holy Grail: The Quest for the Middle Ages, 2006) presented extensive surveys; Alan and Barbara Tepa Lupack described the importance of the Arthurian legend in the U.S. (King Arthur in America, 1999), where John F. Kennedy’s administration very soon after the president’s assassination was identified with King Arthur’s Camelot, an identification which, according to Alan J. Lerner, was a result of Kennedy’s love of Lerners’s and Loewes’ s musical, Camelot (1960). Arthurian names are also often used in popular culture (for example the “Excalibur,” a huge hotel in Las Vegas, or “Merlin” as a name for PC-shops). All relevant names associated with medieval myths from all over the world (not only the US and UK), and even many names of minor importance, can be found in the exhaustive New Arthurian Encyclopedia (ed. Norris J. Lacy, associate ed. Geoffrey Ashe, Sandra Ness Ihle, Marianne E. Kalinke, and Raymond H. Thompson, updated paperback edition 1996 [with separate updates: Arthurian Literature 18 (2001), 22 (2005), 26 (2009)]). Only some authors of Arthurian novels can be mentioned here: Mark Twain, John Steinbeck, T. H. White, Mary Stewart, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Diana L. Paxson, A. A. Attanasio, Thomas Berger, Gillian Bradshaw, Stephen R. Lawhead, Sharan Newman, Susan Shwartz, Rosemary Sutcliff, Bernard Cornwall, Parke Godwin/Kate Hawks, Peter Vansittart, Phyllis Ann Karr, T. A. Barron, Nancy McKenzie, Rosalind Miles, Sarah Zettel, Anna Elliott. T. S. Eliot, in his influential poem The Waste Land (1922), used the story of the wounded Grail King (Fisher King); the American Walker Percy (Lancelot, 1978) transposed the legend of Lancelot, a sinner, to New Orleans; the British
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David Lodge (Small World, 1984), the grail quest into the modern world of travelling scholars. A special case is the bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code (2003) by the American author Dan Brown. It is an “extraordinary publishing phenomenon,” which “brought the Grail back into the public eye” (Richard Barber, The Holy Grail: The History of a Legend, 2nd ed. 2005, 371–72). The novel used, some even think plagiarized, the conspiracy theory of a pseudo-historical book, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln (1980), which is primarily, but erroneously, based on a hoax of the French Pierre Plantard and two of his friends (see also Nickolas Haydock, Movie Medievalism: The Imaginary Middle Ages, 2008). In a different way, an Arthurian revival can also be discovered in France, for example the very successful reconstitution of the legend of Tristan and Iseult by the philologist Joseph Bédier (1900), the play Les chevaliers de la table ronde (The Knights of the Round Table, 1937) by Jean Cocteau, and the wellknown movie L’éternel retour (1943), based on a screenplay of the same author which transposes the Tristan legend into the years around 1940. In the German-speaking countries Wagner’s operas dominated the reception of the Arthurian legend, which means there was an “Arthurian tradition without the King” (Ulrich Müller, “Artus-Rezeption ohne König Artus: Zur deutschen Artus-Rezeption unter dem Einfluß von Richard Wagner,” Moderne Artus-Rezeption, 18.–20. Jahrhundert, ed. Kurt Gamerschlag, 1991, 143–66; see also Ulrich Müller, “Narrated Europe: ‘Epic Myths’ and Modern Europe,” The Medieval Text: Methods and Hermeneutics: A Volume of Essays in Honor of Edelgard E. DuBruck, ed. William C. McDonald and Guy R.Mermier, 1990, 269–79). That means that in German literature, Parzival/Parsifal and the Grail were important, like in the play Das Spiel vom Fragen by the Austrian dramatist Peter Handke (1990), especially in the philosophy (Anthroposophy) of Rudolf Steiner (Rudolf Meyer, Zum Raum wird hier die Zeit: Die Gralsgeschichte, 1980), and the depth-psychology of C. G. Jung (Emma Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz, The Grail Legend, 1986 [German version 1960]). The first Arthurian novel in German was written by the Austrian Wilhelm Kubie (Mummenschanz auf Tintagel, 1946 [‘Masquerade at Tintagel’]; see the exhaustive and indispensable monograph of Siegrid Schmidt, Mittelhochdeutsche Epenstoffe in der deutschsprachigen Literatur nach 1945: Beobachtungen zur Aufarbeitung des Artus- und Parzival-Stoffes in erzählender Literatur für Jugendliche und Erwachsene mit einer Bibliographie der Adaptationen der Stoffkreise Artus, Parzival, Tristan, Gudrun und Nibelungen 1945–1981, 1989; there Kubie’s novel is reprinted). The situation changed rapidly when since the 1960s translations
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of English and American Arthurian novels, and Arthurian movies (see below) became known in the German-speaking countries. Finally, the monumental play Merlin oder Das Wüste Land by Tankred Dorst and Ursula Ehler (1981) made the Arthurian legend well-known there on the stages, a Baroque profusion of images, unique in its blending of drama, epic storytelling, and song. It portrays the rise and fall of a civilization, which in contrast to the English tradition ends in catastrophe and leaves nothing to hope for: Human inadequacy destroys the “utopia” of the Round Table (Rüdiger Krohn, “‘Die Geschichte widerlegt die Utopie’? Zur Aktualität von Tankred Dorsts Bühnenspektakel ‘Merlin oder Das Wüste Land’,” Euphorion 78 [1984]: 160–79); the drama instigated the creation of several “sequels,” among them Christoph Hein’s Die Ritter der Tafelrunde, the so-called “Play of the Political Change” of 1989 (Wende) in the two Germanies. Last but not least, a completely new Arthurian novel, conceived and invented by the philologist Tanja Weiss, should be mentioned: the novel (allegedly by a fictitious Tanja von dem Rübenberge: Bannerträger der Nacht, 2003) is Arthurian in style, and it tells knightly adventures using the form of courtly verses and rhymes (but in modern German); the book is a fictional edition, and probably the brightest parody of philological editing ever written: there are not only a bibliography and a list of manuscripts included, but also detailed information about the transmission of the text (“Textkritischer Apparat”) and even facsimiles, and miniatures – everything invented and fictitious. The retellings and modernizations of medieval novels and legends became well-known again, and important novels, epics, tales, and short-stories from the Middle Ages were translated. Siegfried Grosse and Ursula Rautenberg created an exhaustive documentation of translations and adaptations in German literature only: Die Rezeption mittelalterlicher deutscher Dichtung: Eine Bibliographie ihrer Übersetzungen und Bearbeitungen seit der Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts (1989). Although the bibliograpy does not list translations and adaptations of foreign languages, it presents a nearly exhaustive number of entries. It is noteworthy when a monograph combines lingustic and philological methods in the field of Medievalism/Mittelalter-Rezeption, as when Alexander Schwarz presented such a book, in which he analyzes and compares the central love scene of the Tristan and Isolde legend along the centuries: Sprechaktgeschichte: Studien zu den Liebeserklärungen in mittelalterlichen und modernen Tristandichtungen (1984).
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G. The Middle Ages and the Movies The most popular adaptations of medieval stories were realized by the movies and TV. For a long time, most scholars neglected this area of modern Medievalism, with only some exceptions, see, for example, Frank Gentry or John Margetts. Finally, the American scholar Kevin J. Harty published several impressive books about the Middle Ages in the movies: Cinema Arthuriana: Essays on Arthurian Film (1991, rev. ed. 2002), and King Arthur on Film: New Essays on Arthurian Cinema (1999). An indispensable documentation for everybody, who deals with ‘medieval movies,’ is Harty’s The Reel Middle Ages: American, Western and Eastern European, Middle Eastern and Asian Films About Medieval Europe (1999). More recent publications on this topic are John Aberth, A Knight at the Movies: Medieval History on Film (2003); The Medieval Hero on Screen: Representations from Beowulf to Buffy (ed. Martha W. Driver and Sid Ray, 2004); François Amy de la Bretèque, L’Imaginaire médiéval dans le cinéma occidental (2004); and Nickolas Haydock, Movie Medievalism (2008) (see also Veronica Ortenberg, “Camelot Goes Celluloid, “In Search of the Holy Grail, 2006, 193–223).Only a few years earlier, severals scholars had already published a number of articles about “medieval cinema” in the abovementioned series, Studies in Medievalism (in German in Mittelalter-Rezeption, 1–5; in Mittelalterrezeption, ed. Wapnewski, 1986; and in Gamerschlag’s collection of papers, 1991). The first German book on medieval movies was published in 2006: Mittelalter im Film (ed. Christian Kiening and Heinrich Adolf, 2006). Unfortunately, the concept developed here and the list of the movies described are both partly insufficient. Some of the medieval movies are of excellent cinematographic quality, for example Fritz Lang’s Die Nibelungen (in 2 parts: Germany, 1924); L’Eternel retour by Jean Delannoy, a modern adaption of the Tristan and Isolde legend, based on a script by Jean Cocteau (France, 1943); The Seventh Seal (Det Sjunde Inseglet: Ingmar Bergman, Sweden, 1957); The Virgin Spring (Jungfrukällan, Ingmar Bergman, Sweden, 1959); Saladin (Youssef Chahine, Egypt, 1963); Lancelot du Lac (Robert Bresson, France, 1974); Perceval le Gallois (Eric Rohmer, France, 1978). Harty (1999) registers altogether 564 movies, some of which deserve to be mentioned here: Ivanhoe (Richard Thorpe, Great Britain, 1952); The Knights of the Round Table (Richard Thorpe, USA/UK, 1953); Camelot (Joshua Logan, USA, 1967, based on the musical of Frederick Loewe and Alan J. Lerner, 1953); Lion in Winter (Anthony Harvey, UK, 1968); Parzival (Walter Blank, tv, Germany, 1980); Excalibur (John Boorman, UK, 1981); Feuer und Schwert (‘Fire and Sword’ – The legend of Tristan and Isolde: Veith von Fürstenberg, Germany, 1981); I Paladini, loosely adapted from the Italian epics about
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Orlando (Giacomo Battiato, Italy, 1983); Ladyhawke [sic], the story of two lovers temporarily transformed by a jealous bishop and sorcerer into a female hawk and a male wolf (Richard Donner, USA, 1985); The Name of the Rose / Der Name der Rose (Jean-Jacques Annaud, Germany, 1986 – after the bestseller of Umberto Eco, Il nome della rosa, 1980); First Knight – The story of Arthur, Guenevere and their noblest knight (Jerry Zucker, USA, 1995); Kingdom of Heaven – About the defeat of Jerusalem against Saladin in 1189 (Ridley Scott, 2005). By far the most popular topic for medieval movies is Robin Hood: Harty (1999) mentions the first Robin-Hood movie from 1908, and many famous actors have presented the role of the charming outlaw: Douglas Fairbanks (Robin Hood, 1922), Errol Flynn (The Adventure of Robin Hood, 1938), Patrick Barr (The Story of Robin Hood and His Merry Men, 1952), Kevin Costner (Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, 1991, with an uncredited appearance of Sean Connery as King Richard Lionheart); also appaling was the animated version of Wolfgang Reitherman for the Walt Disney Productions (Robin Hood, 1973). A real medieval cult movie continues to be Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones, UK, 1975), which in 2006 became a successful Broadway musical (Spamalot). There have also been several tv mini-series about medieval legends, for example about Merlin, Arthur, Tristan and Isolde, and the Nibelungs. H. The Middle Ages, Science Fiction and the Computer Games Most scholars, even specialists of medieval movies, forget that medieval, above all Arthurian “structures,” are also used for films about the American Wild West (for example, Shane, 1953, with Alan Ladd as a cowboy-Lancelot, arguably one of the best classical Westerns), for fantasy books and films, and above all for science fiction novels and movies; see J. R. R. Tolkien’s novel The Lord of the Rings and the three films by Peter Jackson (The Fellowship of the Ring, 2001; The Two Towers, 2002; The Return of the King, 2003). Tolkien’s novels are a modern heroic epic, the story of which was invented by a philologist specialized in medieval languages and heroic epics. Interestingly, recent investigations have unearthed how much modern concerns with race, gender, and class have informed medieval films (Race, Class, and Gender in “Medieval” Cinema, ed. Lynn Ramey and Tison Pugh, 2007). Medieval structures can also be found in movies like those about the Star Wars (with science fiction knights, riding on space ships, but eventually fighting with swords), Krull (1983), or Dune (1984; TV 2000). One medieval cult science fiction movie is Zardoz (1974, directed by John Boorman, with Sean Connery). The medieval quest for the grail was used as a pattern in 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968), Solaris (1972), and Stalker (1979), the
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latter two by the Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky. Stalker, with its medieval structure, can be named one of the most impressive science fiction films ever made. Until now, no comprehensive study about the medieval traditions in the fields of fantasy and science fiction (novels and films) was written, except Karoline Firch’s small book Die Wiederkehr des Mythos: Zur Renaissance der Artus-Mythen in der modernen Fantasy-Literatur (1998), and the same can be said about former role-playing-games and modern electronic games which combine quest and fightin – beloved by young people, but nearly ignored by scholars; see several articles in the proceedings mentioned above (Willibald Kraml and Elisabeth Werner, “Computer-Aventiure,” Mittelalter-Rezeption III [1988]: 609–26; Otto Kölbl, “Das Mittelalter in Videospielen: Was kann man daraus lernen?” Mittelalterrezeption im 21. Jahrhundert [2006]: 81–96; see also Ulrich Müller, “Moderne Gral-Questen: Vom Nachleben des ‘Epischen Mythos’ der sinnsuchenden Reise: Fragmentarische Beobachtungen und Bemerkungen zu einigen modernen Dramen und Romanen sowie zu science fiction-Filmen von Stanley Kubrick und Andreij Tarkovskij,” Georg Mayer zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. Ursula Bieber and Alois Woldan, 1991, 69–92; and id., “Auf der Suche nach dem Gral? Säkularisierte Filmmythen,” Artus-Mythen und Moderne, 2005, 17–29). I. Medieval Songwriters: Walther von der Vogelweide, François Villon and Others Modern songwriters and also some scholars have emphasized that in some respects, contemporary popular songs can be compared with medieval songs of the trobadors, trouvères, and minnesinger. Among others, the French chansonnier Georges Brassens (“Le moyenageux” 1966) and the German Wolf Biermann have identified François Villon as one of their predecessors. Franz Josef Degenhardt and the Italian cantautore Angelo Branduardi rewrote Walther von der Vogelweide’s poems. Some scholars have published a few articles dealing with these relationships, but here also there is no comprehensive monograph. The Salzburg doctoral dissertation by Siegrid Neureiter-Lackner is available only as manuscript (Schöpferische Rezeption mittelalterlicher Lieder und Dichtersänger in der Gegenwart 1945–1989: Analyse und Rezeption, 1990); see also several articles in some of the above mentioned proceedings and collections of essays (Mittelalter-Rezeption II/III, 1982/1988; Das Weiterleben des Mittelalters in der deutschen Literatur, 1982; Medieval German Voices in the 21st Century, ed. Albrecht Classen, 2000). Beside countless examples of creative Medievalism, there is a lot of performative Mittelalter-Rezeption: medieval music concerts, LPs, and CDs. The monograph by Annette Kreutziger-Herr (Ein Traum vom Mittelalter: Die Wiederentdeckung mittelalter-
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licher Musik in der Neuzeit, 2003), and the compendium edited by Wolfgang Gratzer and Hartmut Möller (Übersetzte Zeit: Das Mittelalter und die Musik der Gegenwart, 2001) deal with both types in detail (regarding performances, see the articles of Martin Elste and Robert Lug in Übersetzte Zeit, 2001). A different approach is pursued by Tanja Weiss which finds a concise explanation in the title of her monograph: Minnesang und Rock – Die Kunstgattung ‘Aufgeführtes Lied’ in ihrer Ästhetik & Poetik: Aufführung und ihre Bedingungen für die Liedinterpretation (2007). A very special case of creative Mittelalter-Rezeption is the so-called “Preislied” by Walther von der Vogelweide (probably 1203). The German scholar and poet August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben took it as a model for his “Song of the Germans” (“Lied der Deutschen”), written in 1841, and he used the melody Joseph Haydn had composed for the anthem of the Habsburg Empire (“Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser” [God save Emperor Franz]). Fallersleben’s song was patriotic, and thus also was the meaning of the ominous verses, “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles / Über alles in der Welt” (“Germany is [for me] above all,” that is: more important than everything else); Fallersleben wrote these verses when there was still no Deutschland, but just a collection of separate medium and small German-speaking countries. Several years later, the mentioned verses were understood as nationalistic announcements of a rising new Empire (since 1871); this song became the national anthem of Germany only after World War I, and it was ironically the Social-Democratic German president Friedrich Ebert who choose the words of Fallersleben, because the poet, who was also a professor at the university of Breslau, Prussian Silesia, was accused of having been a revolutionary and was expatriated by the Prussian government. The song was politically used and mis-used by the Nazis; there were heated discussions about it subsequently, but with the foundation of the Federal Republic of Germany only its third stanza (about unity and justice for Germany) became the national anthem. Since 1990 the old song is again used for the now reunited country. Information about this extraordinary example of MittelalterRezeption was presented by Kurt Herbert Halbach and Rolf Ehnert (“Walther: Lehrer der Deutschen: Zur Rezeption Walthers von der Vogelweide in der Dichtung und Kunst des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts,” MittelalterRezeption I [1979]: 225–55; “Walther von der Vogelweide, Hoffmann von Fallersleben und Schiller/ Hölderlin: Rezeption und Convergenz,” op.cit., 40–62), Peter Wapnewski (“Die Deutschen und ihr Lied: Eine Nation auf der Suche nach sich selbst in ihrer Hymne,” Das neue Europa, ed. Margarita Mathiopoulos, 1992, 290–319, now in Peter Wapnewski, Zusammenschreibungen: Gesammelte Schriften, 1994, 477–506), and Ulrich Müller
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(“‘Deutschland, Deutschland, über alles’? Walther von der Vogelweide, Hoffmann von Fallersleben and the ‘Song of the Germans’: Medievalism, Nationalism and/ or Fascism,” Medievalism in the Modern World [1998]: 115–29). I. The Middle Ages, Science Fiction and the Computer Games Both Leslie J. Workman (Medievalism in the Modern World, 1998: Interview), and Hans-Joachim Behr (Preface to Mittelalterrezeption im 21. Jahrhundert: Neue Medien, 2006) remember the academic problems with Medievalism/Mittelalter-Rezeption as they experienced them in the beginning. Behr (2006, 14) reports that, in 1979, older colleagues told him this euphoria would vanish quickly. “But experience revealed that the prophet had erred, because ‘Rezeptionsforschung’ has probably produced more publications than did research about editions and topoi in literature together. There is no end in sight, not only because there are many texts […] still ‘waiting’ to be explored, but because there is a ‘Medienwandel’ (changing of the media) which could not have been imagined in 1979 and which evolves more and more suprisingly and fast.” And finally: Feminism created new interest in the Middle Ages, which have also been rediscovered by modern esoteric and alternative groups. Select Bibliography Mittelalter-Rezeption I–V (= Göppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik 296, 358, 479, 550, 630), ed. Ulrich Müller et al. (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1979–1996); Ulrich Müller, “Das Nachleben der mittelalterlichen Stoffe,” Epische Stoffe des Mittelalters, ed. Volker Mertens and Ulrich Müller (Stuttgart: Kröner, 1984), 424–48; Mittelalter-Rezeption: Ein Symposion, ed. Peter Wapnewski (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1986); Siegfried Grosse and Ursula Rautenberg, Die Rezeption mittelalterlicher deutscher Dichtung: Eine Bibliographie ihrer Übersetzungen und Bearbeitungen seit der Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1989); Medievalism in the Modern World: Essays in Honor of Leslie Workman, ed. Richard Utz and Tom Shippey (Turnhout: Brepols, 1998); Kevin J. Harty, The Reel Middle Ages: American, Western and Eastern European, Middle Eastern and Asian Films About Medieval Europe (Jefferson, NC, and London: McFarland, 1999); Medieval German Voices in the 21st Century: The Paradigmatic Function of Medieval German Studies for German Studies, ed. Albrecht Classen (Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi, 2000); Übersetzte Zeit: Das Mittelalter und die Musik der Gegenwart, ed. Wolfgang Gratzer and Hartmut Möller (Hofheim/Ts.: Wolke, 2001); Annette Kreutziger-Herr, Ein Traum vom Mittelalter: Die Wiederentdeckung mittelalterlicher Musik in der Neuzeit (Cologne, Weimar, and Vienna: Böhlau, 2003); Elisabeth Frenzel (10th ed. in cooperation with Sybille Grammetbauer), Stoffe der Weltliteratur (1962; Stuttgart: Kröner, 2005).
Ulrich Müller
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Medievalism in Modern Children’s Literature A. Introduction Modern children’s literature all over the world features nearly all literary topics of medieval everyday life. This article emphasizes English/American children’s literature (Christine Bimberg, Perspektiven der englischsprachigen Kinder- und Jugendliteratur: Perspectives on Childrens’s Literature in English, 2000; Daniel T. Kline, Medieval Literature for Children, 2003) and German children’s literature (Siegrid Schmidt, Mittelhochdeutsche Epenstoffe in der deutschsprachigen Literatur nach 1945: Artus- und Parzival Stoff in erzählender Literatur für Jugendliche und Erwachsene, 1989. This literature can be divided into two genres, fiction and non-fiction. B. Non-Fictional Children’s Literature The earliest children’s literature was created for educational purposes. “During the Middle Ages the Venerable Bede […] and St. Anselm all wrote school texts in Latin […]” (The Columbia Encyclopedia [1952], 1031). These non-fiction books were used to inform readers about the ways of the world, but they are not considered school books. They included information about history and the state of present-day affairs. This content is generally presented as definitions, descriptions and illustrations, meant to address children of various ages. Information meant for younger children frequently included large pictures and the description of the pictures. Information for older children was given in explanatory texts. Today there are two types of non-fiction books on medieval phenomena. The first type presents a single topic throughout the centuries, with developments to that topic given chronologically, as on a timeline. One example of this is Peter Kent’s, A Slice through the City: A Voyage of Discovery from Stone Age to Nowadays (1995, German translation 1996). Kent provides 10 two-page chapters about different historical periods. The fourth and the fifth chapters deal with the early and high Middle Ages. These chapters show small houses for the farmers, a bigger house for the noblemen and – in the high Middle Ages – citizens’ houses surrounding a castle. Further illustrations depict religion, medieval theatre, and the building methods used at that time. The text teaches the readers about the beginning of the Middle Ages, the growth of the cities, different kinds of buildings, trade, and leisure activities. Various layers of the earth are also shown, providing a view of historical remains from earlier times.
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Another example by Kent is Fabulous Feasts (first published in 1998, German version 1999). Kent describes feast traditions from 8000 B.C.E. to 1951 C.E. He also chooses different geographical locations, including Egypt, Greece, Rome, Scandinavia, South America and India. Only one of the 11 chapters deals with the Middle Ages, at 1400. The picture (a fictional painting) shows a great meal at a noble court. The reader can see nobles, servants, knights and fools, and even some commoners who are observing the event. There is very little text; there are only two lists that tell the reader what was available to eat and drink at such feasts. The special quality of this book is that it is interactive – the reader has to find the meals and drinks in the picture that are listed. The second type of non-fiction book presents a single Medieval subject. Similar topics are presented in both English/American and German children’s literature of this sort. The favourite topics are castles, knights, the crusades, a general overview of the Middle Ages, and medieval cities and food. One example is Pamela White’s Exploration in the World of the Middle Ages 500–1500 (2005). This book includes extensive information about these centuries all over the world, from Asia to Europe and even the “New World.” The book treats geographical, political and cultural aspects of the Middle Ages while addressing children of about 12 years of age. There are fewer illustrations and more textual explanations than in the books previously mentioned. In another example, Neil Grant’s The Medieval World (2001), there is an introduction to inform readers about the structure of the book and how to use it. One chapter includes maps, fact boxes, illustrations of historical figures, paintings, and modern depictions and photos of the places described. As the title predicts, the book seeks to educate readers about the whole world during the era spanning 500–1500 C.E. Similar structures can be found in books about knights and castles. For example, Marie Farré and Dominique Thibault, Stolze Burgen, Edle Ritter (1998). This book, for children about eight years of age, concentrates on Europe and presents aspects of building a castle and the cultural environment inside a castle. Another example is Christopher Gravett and Brett Breckon’s, Medieval Knight/Die Welt der Ritter (1996, English with German translation). This book also concentrates primarily on Europe. It depicts the various equipment and tasks of a knight, and includes timetables and maps of the crusades. Tony McAleavy’s Life in a Medieval Castle (2003), concentrates on Great Britain. The book includes pictures of Medieval manuscripts and castles, and fictional drawings. This text-heavy book addresses children of about 12 years of age. Three more examples are important because of their special structure and/or content: Stephen Biesty’s Cross-Sections: Castle: Inside an Amazing
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14th Century Castle (1994) seems at first glance to be a very big picture book, but the extraordinary cross-section pictures of a castle present much information about the structure of a castle and its inhabitants, including both realistic elements and humorous curiosities. A child of six or twelve years could look at one picture for minutes or more. A second example is Marc Cels’s Arts and Literature in the Middle Ages (2005). This book contains a historical and geographical introduction to the Middle Ages, with African, Byzantine, and Muslim Art as the center of attention. The creation of different types of art, including architecture, sculptures, stained-glass windows, manuscripts, literature, and music and musical instruments, are described in text and depicted through images drawn from manuscripts. There are also photos of the objects themselves. The final example is Freya Stephan-Kühn’s Viel Spaß im Mittelalter (1996). This book is partly fiction and partly-non fiction. Stephan-Kühn treats such historical topics as childhood and learning in the Middle Ages, social structures, church and religion, living and clothing, and eating. She does not describe all these, but rather combines the historical phenomena with a story about two children and a monk living in the Middle Ages. She tells the story with several types of text, including prose, reports, letters, comic strips, and pictures of rulers and manuscripts. This is also an interactive book because there are riddles, recipes and opportunities for children to color some of the pictures. These few examples demonstrate a great variety in non-fictional children’s literature dealing with the Middle Ages. A large number of these books come from the English/American tradition. This means there is a tendency to leave the European point of view and include the history and culture of other continents during the same time period. C. Fictional Children’s Literature It is not clear if the first fictional children’s books originated in the Middle Ages (such as Thomas Malory’s Morte d’Arthur, as claimed by the Columbia Encyclopedia [1952], 1205), or if this form of literature began not before the early 19th century (Sheila Egoff, Worlds Within: Children’s Fantasy from the Middle Ages to Today, 1988). In any case, both ideas of the origin of children’s literature came together in the 19th century (since about 1840), during a flowering of children’s literature (Columbia Encyclopedia [1952]: 1031) when Medieval subjects were picked up and retold for children (Barbara T. Lupack, Adapting the Arthurian Legends for Children, 2004). For example, the tradition of retelling Geoffrey Chaucer in Great Britain (Velma B. Richmond, Chaucer as Childrens’s Literature: Retellings from the Victorian and Edwardian Eras. 2004) and retelling the Nibelungenlied in the German-speaking world (Werner
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Wunderlich and Andreas Härter, “Nibelungenhelden? Zur Vorbildwirkung von Heldensagen auf jugendliche Leser,” Waz sîder da geschach: AmericanGerman Studies on the Nibelungenlied, ed. Ulrich Müller and Werner Wunderlich, 1992, 231–47). It is not possible to discuss easily even a fraction of the copious fictional children’s literature dealing with medieval topics that has been produced in the last two centuries (Adrienne Gavin and Christopher Routledge, Mystery in Children’s Literature: From Rational to the Supernatural, 2001). The subjects chosen for children and some methods for retelling historical events are important to note. There are two different methods to adapt medieval material, themes, and topics for modern children’s literature. The first is to retell a medieval story in total or in parts. The other method is to choose figures or objects from medieval literature or life and use them to create a new fictional narrative (Warum nicht einmal Mittelalter: Lektüreempfehlungen für Schule und Freizeit, ed. Maria Dorninger, 2004). The most frequently treated medieval epic tale in German children’s literature was, until the 1970s, the Nibelungenlied. Retellings of this epic can be found in legendary tales (Sagenbücher) of the 19th and 20th century, and in novels written for young readers. The Nibelungenlied was also created (or: adapted) for a special type of drama for use in the classroom, mainly in the 1930s and 1940s. The plot was given in a very conservative manner, constructing the figures and events in a conservative old-fashioned manner, for instance with traditional construction of gender roles in general and with male heros as the absolute protagonists (Maren Bonacker, “Die Liebe jedoch war tabu: Kinder- und jugendliterarische Adaptationen des Artus-Mythos im Viktorianischen England und heute,” Von Mythen und Mären, ed. Gudrun Marci-Boehncke, 2006, 110–26). Auguste Lechner, an Austrian author, retold nearly all well-known medieval stories in a similar way, but each in its own novel: Nibelungenlied, 1954; Herzog Ernst: Jenseits des Goldenen Nebels, 1958; Parzival, 1965; Wolfdietrich: Das Königsgrab im gelben Felsen, 1967; Gudrun: Die geraubte Königstochter, 1968; Die Rolandsage, 1975; König Artus,1985; Iwein, 1988 (Antonie Schreier-Hornung, “Mittelalter für die Jugend: Auguste Lechners Nacherzählungen von Nibelungenlied, Rolandslied und Kudrun” Mittelalter-Rezeption, vol. 3, ed. Ulrich Müller, 1988, 181–98). Beginning in about the 1960s there was a great change in German children’s literature. The traditional authorities, such as teacher and priests, and traditional methods of educating were suddenly discussed in public and in children’s literature (this begins tendency, however, can already be observed in stories that had been published many years earlier and continue to be published today, such as Astrid Lindgren, Pippi Longstocking, 1946, and Otfrid Preussler, Die kleine Hexe, 1957; see Margary Hourihan, Decon-
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structing the Hero: Children’s Literature, 1998). Heroes changed their gender roles, specific abilities, and characters (Girls, Boys, Books, Toys: Gender in Children’s Literature and Culture, 1999, ed. Beverly Clark). Beside the Nibelungenlied numerous medieval subjects were treated in different types of literary genres, such as novels, dramas, and narratives, and religious legends (Jörg füllgrabe, “Dietrich von Bern: Ein alternativer germanisch-deutscher Heldenentwurf,” Von Mythen und Mären, ed. Gudrun Marci-Boehncke, 2006, 373–95). For instance, Arthurian subject matter has gained popularity in various forms. At first it was adapted for books of legendary tales. The legend is greatly abridged and then retold in these books. In the 1970s and 1980s many translations from English and American literature – partly from children’s literature for German speaking children, partly from novels for adult readers that were adapted for children – were published. For example, Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur’s Court was translated in several versions for adults (Lore Krüger 1967 and 1982, Franz H. Link 1981), for children (Katarina Horbatsch 1977, Walter Widmer 1977, short version of Lore Krüger’s translation in 1984) and for comic-strips (Hank Morgan am Hofe König Arthurs, 1973, 1976). The adaptation of Twain’s story includes critical discussion of the Middle Ages, medievalism, and the present times. Rosemary Sutcliff’s stories about the Arthurian legend were translated into German in 1979 and 1980. An Austrian adaptation about Arthur and his knights was published in 1977: W. J. M. Wippersberg, Erik und Roderik. Erik and Roderik are young knights from the same region who find themselves in constant, farcical warfare with one another. When the elderly, impoverished King Arthur and his debased knights want to live at the cost of the two knights, they form an alliance. Eventually Erik and Roderik prevent through trickery Arthur’s intended raid on France, which Arthur falsely calls a holy war (W. McDonald and S. Schmidt, “Wippersberg W. J. M,” The New Arthurian Encyclopedia, ed. Norris lacy, 1996, 519). Through examples like this, readers can see this critical approach to the Middle Ages, primarily in regard to medievalism and its traditional heroes (These traditional heroes are mainly very strong, they are good fighters, rigidly regard traditional hierarchy and some of them are political powerful; the so-called ‘new heroes’ are not physically strong but very intelligent and they prefer to speak to one another than to fight. The most important point is the discourse about different ways to solve a problem. Similar discussions also take place with the Nibelungen material, for instance in Ingo Sax’s Das Ding der Nibelungen, 2001. The Nibelungen figures in this school play make fun of themselves and one another. Most critical treatment of this material is found in literature for
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adults. This making fun of medieval heroes was also popular in 1970s children’s literature (Siegrid Schmidt, “Die Nibelungen respektlos gesehen?” Von Mythen und Mären, ed. Gudrun Marci-Boehncke, 2006, 322–40). Wippersberg’s Erik and Roderik includes another new aspect of retelling medieval materials: The book includes some traditional figures but adds new characters and a new plot. This method of combining medieval literary elements with contemporary ones is also used in the following decades by English/American and German authors. This ultimately resulted in a connection between different genres, the medieval retellings and fantasy literature. For example, Gerald Morris’ books were translated by Gabriele Haefs in 2002. Sir Thomas Malory’s version of King Arthur serves as the backdrop in Morris’ books, but Morris’ figures and their adventures build new stories. The most popular example of the connection of a new story and medieval literary elements is Joanne K. Rowling’s Harry Potter. Rowling connects her child-magician, Harry, with elements of fantasy literature like big spiders and other monsters, witches and castles, but she also mentions concrete medieval literary figures such as Merlin. Rowling also includes details of modern day life such as school and cars, etc. Rowling creates a new hero who is, unlike the traditional medieval heroes, not brave, strong and successful from the beginning. He needs his friends and must learn a lot before he can reach that point. In English/American and German children’s literature, also other Medieval subjects have been retold. For instance, in the English speaking world the retellings of Chaucer and Thomas Malory have a long tradition, as do various versions of Beowulf. Mark Twain’s adaptation also plays an important role in the English/American Arthurian tradition. Moreover there is one medieval topic that can only be found in English versions, not in German ones: Gawain and the Green Knight (Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, ed. Miriam Miller and Jane Chance, 1986). In the last two decades there has been an increasing number of novels for children, both in English and in German, that deal with everyday life in the Middle Ages or with groups of people such as crusaders, witches, monks and wise women. For example, Karen Cushman, The Midwife’s Apprentice (“Alyce und keine andere”), 1993/1995; Isolde Heyne, Jerusalem ist weit, 1993; Harald Parigger, Der schwarze Mönch 1994; and Waltraut Lewin and Miriam Markgraf, Die Hexe, 2002. The dragon is another creature that frequently comes to mind when people today discuss the Middle Ages. Stories about this animal, however, have changed in the last 50 years. Until the 1960s, a dragon was simply a monster that had to be killed by the hero. More recently, the dragons in children’s literature have become friendly: Hans Baumann,
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Die Kinder und der große Drachen, 1979; Jack Kent, There Is No Such a Thing as a Dragon (“Drachen gibt’s doch gar nicht”), 1975; Walter Schmögner, Das Drachenbuch, 1972; Franz Sales Sklenitzka, Drachen haben nichts zu lachen, 1979. Dragons have changed in character just as much as human heroes have inmodern children’s literature. Medieval subjects also have an intercultural aspect; they are popular almost everywhere in the world and in international children’s literature (Jack Zipes, Sticks and Stones: The Troublesome Success of Children’s Literature form Slovenly Peter to Harry Potter, 2002; Evelyn Freeman, Global Perspectives in Children’s Literature, 2001) In other countries there are stories about regional folk literature as well as retellings of English, French and German medieval tales. In Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius, for example, books are published containing retellings of some stories about King Arthur: Hovardas Pailas, Karalius Arturas ir apvaliojo stalo riteriai, 1999. Pailas tells the story of King Arthur from his birth until his entrance into Avalon. In Michel Rio’s Morgana: Bretony Princesé, 2001, Rio tells the story of Morgane almost exactly as Marion Zimmer-Bradley does, but in a much shorter version. These titles prove that some literary subjects are well known internationally. There are also other medieval figures popular around the world, with Charlemagne as a good example (Siegrid Schmidt, “Intercultural Medieval Myths,” Translation and Transgression: Formen und Verfahren: Interkulturelle Probleme und Chancen der Übersetzung, ed. Siegrid Schmidt and Ulrich Müller, 2008, 255–64). There are many similarities between German and English fictional children’s literature. Obviously, the same stories appear when they have been translated from English into German. But there also are similar developments in the methods of retelling a medieval topic: there are adaptations of medieval stories and there are stories about medieval figures and everyday life. The third similarity between English and German children’s literature is the books’ different types and characters of the heroes and the social and ethical values conveyed at large (Fred Inglis, Values and Meaning in Children’s Fiction, 1981). Both the English and German traditions of retelling medieval stories for children began with the embedding of the dominant conservative and – to some extent – nationalistic value system. Approximately 150 years later, medieval heroes have become democratic and international figures. D. History of Research and Didactic Approaches Literary critics have seriously discussed children’s literature for the past 35 years. Before that, children’s literature was only part of a child’s education or was considered trivial. The didactic aspect of children’s literature, especially in children’s literature about the Middle Ages, is also important in both lan-
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guages today. Günther Bärnthaler and Ulrike Tanzer, Fächerübergreifender Literaturunterricht: Reflexionen und Perspektiven (1999), describe and discuss several examples for teaching literary texts at school. Four of the examples deal with medieval topics. The same didactic series “Information zur Deutschdidaktik” edited a special book by Werner Wintersteiner, Mittelalter (2001), presenting medieval topics for use in schools. The general cultural and historical aspects and new media play an important role in this book. Franz and Martina Mittendorfer produced a book with practical teaching material, Minne und Mäzene: Neue Materialien zur Literatur des Mittelalters, 1999. See also Approaches to Teaching the Arthurian Tradition, ed. Maureen Fries and Jeannie Watson, 1992, and Approaches to Teaching World Literature: Chaucer’s Caterbury Tales, ed. Joseph Gibaldi, 1980. These contain corresponding information and materials for the English speaking world. Today, children’s literature is also discussed in light of gender construction, the history of ideas, and critical and literary history. For example, Dorothea Markert, Momo, Pippe Rote Zora … und was dann? Leseerziehung, weibliche Autorität und Geschlechterdemokratie, 1998. Select Bibliography Bruno Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1975); Carmen Bravo-Villasante, Weltgeschichte der Kinder- und Jugendliteratur: Versuch einer Gesamtdarstellung (Hanover: Hermann Schroedel Verlag, 1977); Swantje Ehlers, “Historisches Erzählen in Kinder- und Jugendliteratur,” Von Mythen und Mären, ed. Gudrun Marci-Boehncke (Hildesheim and New York: Olms 2006), 94–109; Bettina Hürlimann, Three Centuries of Children’s Books in Europe (Zurich: World Publishing Company, 1967); Von Mythen und Mären: Mittelalterliche Kulturgeschichte im Spiegel einer Wissenschaftler-Biographie: Festschrift für Otfrid Ehrismann (Hildesheim and New York: Olms, 2006); Mittelalter-Rezeption III, ed. Ulrich Müller, et. al. (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1988); John Stephens and Robyn McCallum, Retelling Stories: Framing Culture: Traditional Story and Metanarratives in Childrens’s Literature (New York: Routledge, 1998); Kay Vandergrift, Children’s Literature: Theory, Research and Teaching (Englwood: Libraries Unlimited, 1990); Geschichte der deutschen Kinder- und Jugendliteratur, ed. Reiner Wild (Stuttgart and Weimar: Metzler Verlag, 2002).
Siegrid Schmidt
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Mentalities in Medieval Studies In the spirit of Marc Bloch’s declaration that “the interrelations, confusions, and infections of human consciousness are, for history, reality itself,” scholars of mentalité (mentalities, Mentalität, mentalidad, mentalità) attempt to identify essential patterns in collective attitudes as manifested in the documents and artifacts of a given period (The Historian’s Craft, 1954, 151). Jacques le goff describes mentalities as “the unitary expression of the spirit of past societies,” which finds voice in the “mechanical discourse of the past” (“Mentalities: a history of ambiguities,” Constructing the Past: Essays in Historical Methodology, ed. Jacques Le Goff and Pierre Nora, 1985, 169). Peter Dinzelbacher defines mentalité as the “totality of modes and contents contained in the thoughts and feelings that inform a given social collective at a particular time” (Europäische Mentalitätsgeschichte, 1993, xxi). These definitions highlight four presuppositions that most studies in mentalities share: (1) that social collectives take precedence over the fate of individuals as objects of analysis; (2) that values and attitudes of collectives receive a higher priority than chronologies or events; (3) that these values and attitudes remain accessible to the historian despite the frequently formulaic language of sources; (4) and that a totality of knowledge is attainable for a given time frame. In summary, scholars of mentalité seek nothing less than the incremental mapping of a social collective’s inner landscape. A. The Annales Tradition Because most scholars of mentalité employ concepts and methods derived from the work of annalistes such as Lucien Febvre, Bloch, Fernand Braudel, Le Goff and Georges Duby, some of whom specialized in early modern history, a brief exposition of key terms and methods is essential to our understanding of the presuppositions that inform research into inner landscapes of social collectives. La nouvelle histoire defined itself in opposition to traditional historiography as embodied in Treitschke’s truism that “men make history” (Fernand Braudel, On History, 1980, 10). Its goal was to transcend the narrow obsession of traditional historians with great men, individual events, and political developments. The quest for narrative veracity was abandoned in favor of a new goal of totality; the narrow range of documentary sources was expanded to include evidence gathered by geologists, archeologists, climatologists, economists, and sociologists, thereby privileging interdisciplinarity; the chronology of individual events as determined by causality was subsumed under Braudel’s tripartite model of temporality;
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and the interdependence of historical sources and historiographical practice found acknowledgement in a more self-conscious, yet still positivist subjectivity. When Braudel declares unequivocally, “There is no unilateral history,” he states the precept informing the new-historical notion of totality (On History, 10). Not only do the Annales historians reject the possibility of an exact recreation of historical events – not to mention the value of such a practice – they also deny the ability of a single discipline or theory to do justice to “the complex, intermeshed reality” in which all individuals necessarily find themselves. Although individual studies or theories remain by definition oversimplifications of historical complexity, they “have set us progressively farther along the path of transcending the individual and the particular event” (On History, 10). Bloch uses the stages of human life as an analogy: “Having grown old in embryo as mere narrative, for long encumbered with legend, and for still longer preoccupied with only the most obvious events, [the study of history] is still very young as a rational attempt at analysis” (Marc Bloch, The Historian’s Craft, 1954, 13). Achieving totality meant for the Annales historians not only the necessity of working between and across disciplines, but also the freedom to consult and analyze sources which previously had been the exclusive province of other disciplines. In his masterpiece, La Méditerranée et le monde méditerranéen à l’époque de Philippe II (1949; The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World, 1972–3), Braudel drew upon research in climatology and geography, as well as in economic and social history. Braudel believed that historians were uniquely qualified to collect, synthesize, and analyze all such data. “For me, history is the total of all possible histories – an assemblage of professions and points of view, from yesterday, today, and tomorrow” (On History, 34). The mass of data required for total history finds interpretive structure in Braudel’s tripartite model of temporality. In the eyes of Braudel and his Annales students, “history is … the study of time in all of its manifestations” (On History, 69). At the basis of all historiography is the “history of man in his intimate relationship to the earth,” called the longue durée. It is a history “almost changeless, … slow to alter, often repeating itself and working itself out in cycles which are endlessly renewed” (On History, 12). Here climate, geography, landscape, mineral deposits, types of agriculture, flora and fauna all have their roles to play. Superimposed upon “almost changeless” time, is a temporal sphere of medium changes and cycles, dominated by the phenomenon of conjoncture, in which historical phenomena occur and recur in vast networks of lateral dependencies. This medium temporal sphere is made up of economic factors on the one hand – price curves, demographic progres-
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sions, movements of wages, variations in interest rates and productivity – and social factors on the other hand – political institutions, linguistic change, religious reforms, and civilizations. The cycles tend to run in decades or generations. Finally, there is the short time span of “historic events” as a journalist might experience them, the temporal sphere of catastrophes and “the mediocre accidents of daily life.” Braudel does not deny the significance of such events, but rejects as superficial the focus of narrative history on chronology, causality, and origins. Braudel’s temporal model transforms history from a linear series of events and decisions into an infinite nexus of interactions among cycles operating at different frequencies of time. This universal vision of history requires a new kind of historian. Traditional historians are for Braudel like landscape painters who attempt to reproduce every detail of the reality before them even as they suppress their own roles as observers. The result, Braudel asserts, can only be superficiality with the illusion of objectivity. Instead new historians should, in Bloch’s view, work like master lute-makers who reshape the raw material of nature into a beautiful instrument (The Historian’s Craft, 1954, 27). In the process, the reconstruction of the past achieves a productive reciprocity with the sensibilities of the present (Braudel, On History, 1980, 37). In denying the possibility of objectivity and historical veracity, Annales historians reject the naïve positivism of 19th-century historiography. Nevertheless, knowledge of the past becomes possible through the judicious exercise of proper judgment; insight remains possible for historians who work in the awareness of their limitations; and historical inquiry transpires within a dialectic. Despite greater receptivity to theory in the fourth generation, la nouvelle histoire never wholly abandoned its positivist roots. B. Theoretical Approaches to mentalité Because leading annalistes have resisted engagement with theory, systematic attempts at developing theoretical constructs for the study of mentalities have tended to occur outside of France. Frantisek ˇ Graus, Peter Dinzelbacher, and Aaron Gurevich all argue that scholars of mentalities assume a position analogous to that of a foreign visitor in a contemporary culture. As Graus notes, “Everyone who spends an extended period of time in an unknown environment becomes aware that people act and react differently than what he has been used to” (Frantisek Graus, Mentalitäten im Mittelalter, 1987, 12). The alienation of the foreign visitor from what seems to be a “confusing and contradictory ménage of customs, rituals and reactions” deepens as his own reactions and responses continue to meet with bewilderment, criticism or hostility. The foreigner who wishes to assimilate must decipher
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a “code,” the unwritten rules, customs and norms that shape individual responses to social interaction. Cultural anthropologists can rely upon direct interaction and observation in their attempts to decipher this code; historians of mentalité have the more daunting task of working through artifacts and documents. They look beyond the surface of words and events to discover the thoughts, feelings, and prejudices of a given collective at a given time. Dinzelbacher (1948; Linz, Austria) an historian specializing in legal, social, and cultural history of the Middle Ages, remains one of the few medievalists to contribute substantially both to the theory and to the practice of the study of mentalities. Following his studies in Graz und Vienna, Dinzelbacher received his doctorate in history from the University of Vienna in 1973. His Habilitation followed in Stuttgart in 1978, where he has held an Associate Professorship since 1998. He also holds the position of Honorarprofessor at the University of Vienna. In 1999–2000 he was a visiting fellow at the School of Historical Studies of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Dinzelbacher is one of the principal editors of the interdisciplinary medieval journal Mediävistik. In the anthology Europäische Mentalitätsgeschichte: Hauptthemen in Einzeldarstellungen, 1993 (2nd ed. 2008), Dinzelbacher offers a brief and systematic introduction to mentalité. Modes of thought (Denkweisen) are the particular approaches that a given group at a given time devotes to processing information. This information can originate in the outside world of the group studied or in the inner world of the group’s psyche. Dinzelbacher defines objects of thought (Denkinhalte) as the “generally accepted notions and ideological, political, religious, or aesthetic concepts that inform the individual areas of religion, culture, and art. They must have the ability to be verbalized and they must be the object of discursive reflection in the documents related to the group” (Mentalitätsgeschichte, xxiii). In addition to modes of thought, there are also modes of feeling (Empfindungsweisen), which consist of the sometimes subconscious application of values or value judgments to the routine perceptions of daily life. These also include aesthetic criteria that the group subconsciously applies to works of art, fashion, technical objects, or music. Objects of feeling (Empfindungsinhalte) comprise all possible social and psychological generators of feeling, including objects of prejudice or stereotyping. Theoreticians of mentalité define actions in the broadest possible sense, to include verbal and written communication, including gestures, many of which may be interpreted in contexts other than those intended by their authors. Dinzelbacher lists key areas for analysis which I reproduce here without the accompanying examples: the relationship of body and soul;
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attitudes regarding youth and aging; expressions of fear and hope; notions of joy, sorrow, and happiness; interpretations of illness and healing; attitudes and rituals surrounding death; individuality, the family and society; social values; the meaning of work and festivals; structures of power; attitudes towards violence, war, and peace; ethics and systems of justice; aesthetic experience; religiosity; attitudes towards nature and the environment; cosmology; notions of time and space; forms of thought and analysis; and modes of communication. As Dinzelbacher notes, each social collective’s attitudes towards each example must be exhaustively studied before a “global image of collective mentality” can emerge for a given period. Dinzelbacher’s Angst im Mittelalter: Teufels-, Todes- und Gotteserfahrung: Mentalitätsgeschichte und Ikonographie (1996) surveys one of the primary human emotions in its cultural context. Important here is the addition of iconography, so that scholars benefit from Dinzelbacher’s analysis of the depiction of fear in text and image. Here he draws on his earlier research in the literature of medieval visionaries and mystics. Like Le Goff, Dinzelbacher recently tried his hand at a more comprehensive cultural history. The volume Europa im Hochmittelalter 1050–1250: Eine Kultur- und Mentalitätsgeschichte, Kultur und Mentalität (2003) contains an insightful and accessible survey of medieval attitudes designed for the educated lay reader. The volume opens with a sweeping survey of the social and economic background of the collectives under discussion, followed by a chapter on the transitions of feudal structures before turning to notions of individuality, the individual and society, and the individual and the natural world. (Kristina Wengorz, review of Angst im Mittelalter, http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/rezensionen/2004–3–101). Frantisek ˇ Graus (1921; Brno (Brünn), Czech Republic – 1989; Basel, Switzerland), a Czech historian specializing in Bohemia and Western Europe in the later Middle Ages, attempted a more systematic definition of mentalité in the Konstanz Working Group on Medieval History’s anthology, Mentalitäten im Mittelalter, 1987. After receiving his school diploma in 1940, Graus studied history and paleography at the Universities of Brno and Prague. His university career was interrupted during the Nazi occupation by his arrest and internment in concentration camps. After the defeat of the Nazis, Graus returned to his studies in Prague, earning his doctorate in 1948/9. He held an archival post at the Staatliches Historisches Institut in Prague until 1950, where he was awarded his Habilitation. After two years as a lecturer on medieval history at the Karls-Universität, Graus was called to a professorship at the newly founded Historical Institute of the Czechoslavakian Academy of Sciences. There he served as Editor in Chief of the journal Ceskosloven-
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sky Casopis historicky. Following the events of the Prague Spring, in 1970 Graus was forced to resign his post and to emigrate to West Germany. He accepted a position as Ordentlicher Professor at the University of Gießen. In 1972 he was called to a similar position in Basel, where he remained until his death in 1989 (Susanna Burghartz ed., Spannungen und Widersprüche: Gedenkschrift für Franti ˇsek Graus, 1992); “Frantisek Graus,” Der Konstanzer Arbeitskreis für Mittelalterliche Geschichte 1951–2001: Die Mitglieder und ihr Werk: eine bio-bibliographische Dokumentation, vol. 2, ed. Jürgen Petersohn, 2001, 149–57). In his introduction, Graus rejects any method that relies solely upon direct description of social behavior or phenomena. Rather, the historian of mentalité works to decipher the opinions (Meinungen) and attitudes (Verhaltensweisen) brought forth by the range of expectations (Erwartungshorizont) within a given collective (Mentalitäten, 14–16). Mentalities remain one level of abstraction removed from opinions and attitudes. Opinions and attitudes may be described, but mentalities can only be tested by the analysis of opposites within the “bandwidth” of social and moral expectations. Graus seeks to define mentalité negatively against most other traditions in the context of historiographical praxis. Thus mentalities are not directly accessible through ideologies, dogmas or doctrines, which are codified by definition. They cannot be limited to a social history of ideas, nor can they be articulated by the members of collectives themselves. They cannot be defined exclusively against cultural notions of “the Other.” Models of national character and class structure also fail ultimately because of regional and social variants (Mentalitäten, 17–19). Graus also opposes as untenable past attempts to define a particular Zeitgeist, even as he rejects the exclusive application of the longue durée. Instead he prefers the comparative study of differing attitudes within smaller manifestations of a social collective. As he asserts, “What can be historically determined is always only a conglomerate of components with differing temporal dimensions, a ‘contemporaneousness of noncontemporary elements’” (Mentalitäten, 23). Graus finally arrives at the following definition: “Mentality is the collective voice of long-term attitudes and opinions articulated by individuals within groups. They are never uniform, often contradictory, and form specific internalized patterns. Mentalities find expression both in specific receptivity to certain stimuli as well as in varieties of reactions. They cannot be articulated by insiders, but they can be tested and verified” (Mentalitäten, 17). Although the least vulnerable of all theories of mentality to deconstructive challenges, Graus’s theory becomes problematical in its application. Indeed, several historians cited in this article do not meet Graus’s criteria. Nonetheless, Graus’s introduction is useful
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in combating the overgeneralization and unsystematic application of criteria that undercut the effectiveness of earlier mentality studies. The Russian medievalist Aaron Gurevich’s (1923; Moscow, USSR) essays on historical anthropology, although hampered by his limited access to contemporary scholarship during the Cold War, are innovative in their consistent application of theory to the new historiography (Historical Anthropology of the Middle Ages, 1992). Born in Moscow to a secular Jewish family, Gurevich overcame anti-semitism and to complete his studies in medieval history at the University of Moscow, earning his doctorate in 1950. Unable to find employment in Moscow, he took a position in Kaliningrad at the provincial university. In Kaliningrad he developed his interests in Old Norse literature, the subject of his successful postdoctoral dissertation in 1966. He taught at the Moscow Institute of Philosophy for two years before moving to Institute of World History at the Moscow Academy of Sciences (Yelena Mazour-Matusevich, “Writing Medieval History: An Interview with Aaron Gurevich,” JMEMS 35 [2005]: 122–157; Leonore Scholze-Irrlitz, Moderne Konturen historischer Anthropologie: Eine vergleichende Studie zu den Arbeiten von Jacques Le Goff und Aaron J., 1994). At the heart of Gurevich’s critical enterprise is the search for mentalité as Weltanschauung or world view à la Max Weber. This search necessarily occupies itself with collectives, for “a world-view is not so much possessed by individuals as it is the possessor of them” (Historical Anthropology, xiii). For Gurevich, historical anthropology transforms traditional historiography in three essential areas: the nature of sources, the self-awareness of the historian, and the conscious choice of cultural phenomena. First, sources are to be evaluated much more broadly, according to the model of semiotics; they transcend documents to encompass all possible artifacts. Furthermore, they must be examined “not as inanimate artifacts but as the creation of the human psyche.” In this way the interdisciplinarity of Bloch and Braudel finds its complement in the diversity of sources themselves. Second, historians must never lose sight of their own cultural backgrounds and biases as they wrestle with medieval alterity. Like Graus, Gurevich aims here to create a dialogue between the present subject and its historical subjects which arises inevitably in the intellectual tensions of misunderstanding. He traces this reciprocity of past and present back to Huizinga, but locates its theoretical exposition in the aesthetic theory of Bakhtin. Third, Gurevich acknowledges the indebtedness of the mentalité-historians to Marxist social history, especially in their focus on conjoncture and collectives. For Gurevich, authentic historiography strives to decipher the world view of popular culture. At the same time he does not exclude the history of elites from the
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process, preferring a dialectic between elite and popular history. Finally, gurevich decries the “dehumanization” of history at the hands of both doctrinaire Marxists and the Annales school. “The entire range of human moods, beliefs, convictions, values and moral judgments should form part of the structure of historical explanation” (Historical Anthropology, 12). C. Landmark Mentalité-Studies within the Annales Tradition Any discussion of scholarship on mentalité by medieval historians begins with Marc Bloch (1886; Lyon, France – 1944; Saint-Didier-de-Formans, France), French historian and co-founder of the Annales school of historiography. Born in Lyon into an Alsatian family of assimilated Jewish intellectuals, Bloch grew up in Paris. His superior performance in the elite lycée Louis-leGrand won him early entrance to the world-famous Ecole Normale Supérieure. Bloch spent 1908 studying in Berlin and Leipzig before returning to Paris for three years of dissertation work with Thiers Foundation support. In 1912 Bloch obtained a one-year appointment to the lycée in Montpellier. His subsequent assignment to the lycée of Amiens in the Picardy was interrupted by the outbreak of the Great War. In the next four years he saw combat in Champagne and Algeria and was awarded the Legion of Honor. Following the war Bloch took a position as head of the Institute of the Middle Ages at the French university in Strasbourg. Here he made the acquaintance of Lucien Febvre. The highlight of their collaboration was the founding of the Annales d’Histoire Économique et Sociale, in 1929, which would, under various editors as the Annales: Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations, transform the study of history in the 20th century. In 1936 Bloch followed Febvre to Paris, taking a post at the Sorbonne as professor of economic history. In World War II Bloch fought on behalf of his country until its defeat and occupation. Sometime in late 1942 he joined the French resistance and was captured in Paris and executed by the Gestapo in 1944. The influence of Bloch’s historiography has been profound and immense. Although his research was limited by his military service, he still produced major works on royalty and miraculous healing (Les rois thamaturges, 1924; The Royal Touch, 1973); on French rural history (Les caractères originaux de l’histoire rurale française, 1931; French Rural History, 1966); and on the social structure of western and central Europe (La societé féodale, 1939/1940; Feudal Society, 1961). In Les rois thaumaturges, Bloch “incorporated insights from medicine, psychology, and anthropology into his investigation of the origins, development, and durability of the gigantic fausse nouvelle, the belief in the royal miracle of the healing of scrofula” (Fink, Mark Bloch: A Life in History, 1989, 109). “Because of Bloch’s use of the Durkheimian term ‘collective
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consciousness’ and his search for evidence in a wide variety of documents, Les rois has also been termed a forerunner of what is imprecisely termed the history of mentalités” (Fink, Marc Bloch, 111). Innovative but controversial in Les caractères originaux was Bloch’s division of medieval French society into three rural orders, influenced more by geography and culture than by races or national origins. His decision to focus almost exclusively on the peasantry, as well as his use of conditions documented in the recent past as a means of interpreting medieval conditions have provoked criticism (Norman F. Cantor, “The French Jews. Louis Halphen and Marc Bloch,” Inventing the Middle Ages: The Lives, Works, and Ideas of the Great Medievalists of the Twentieth Century, 1992, 118–60, here 145–6). La société féodale, Bloch’s masterful two-volume study of feudalism and its unifying principles, begins with a portrait of European geopolitics centered around conditions of disruption and destruction brought about by persistent Moslem, Magyar, and Norse incursions. The chapter on material conditions analyzes in broad strokes the economic conditions of the time. Bloch then turns to mental landscapes, notions of time and space, varying systems of justice and inheritance, the oral tradition, the symbiosis of Latinity and vernaculars, and customs of the family, all of this before examining the attributes of vassalage and the fief. The second volume concerns itself with sociopolitical factors, the transformation of the nobility, and the evolution of political organizations and judicial institutions. The result is a vivid and yet dynamic portrait of a way of life which evolved in response to social and economic disruption over several hundred years. Bloch’s Apologie pour l’histoire, ou, Métier d’historien, 1949 (The Historian’s Craft, 1980) sets forth with admirable clarity his approach to history and, by implication, to mentalité. As Norman Cantor reflects, “[The Historian’s] Craft became the clarion call for a generation of transatlantic historians who gave free rein to the historical imagination, who used concepts from the social and behavioral sciences as vehicles of exploration, who disdained narrative history for structural analysis, and who wrote social history from data – some of them quantitative – that revealed patterns of human behavior” (Inventing the Middle Ages, 1991, 141). Bloch borrowed methods from Vidalian geography and Durkheimian sociology, but with important modifications. “Rather than examining landscapes to uncover an explanatory enchaînement leading to geographical laws, he hoped [through reference to geography] to add some concreteness to his understanding of a particular social reality … Unlike Durkheimian sociology, he refused to make a strict separation between the individual and the social and argued that as a study of conscious beings, history must examine motives.” (Susan W. Friedman, Marc Bloch, Sociology and
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Geography: Encountering Changing Disciplines, 1996, 177–79). Bloch’s enduring legacy is reflected in the interdisciplinary approach to history which evolved through the work of Febvre’s protégé Braudel and the “third generation” of annalistes – Le Goff, Duby, and Le Roy Durie – into the predominate historiography in France and in the United States. Now being eclipsed by changing demographics, the consolidation of feminist approaches within the American medieval academy, and the growing interest in medieval-Byzantine, medieval-Jewish, and medieval-Arabic studies, Bloch’s legacy helped to shape the course of medieval history during the last half of the 20th century. Among the “Third Generation” of annalistes, Jacques Le Goff’s prolific research on multifarious aspects of medieval life earned him the title “cultural anthropologist of medieval Europe.” His approach, known as “historical anthropology,” combines methodologies of the new historiography, economics, and sociology. Of his own nascent years as a medievalist, Le Goff has said, “The concept of ‘civilisation’ appealed to me. A cultural approach, the notion even of civilization, the crossing of disciplines, carried with it a sense of the living, of bringing people and a social fabric back to life …” (Jacques Le Goff, My Quest for the Middle Ages, 2003; À la recherche du Moyen Âge, 2006, 10). The interdisciplinary totality which Le Goff calls “civilisation” becomes accessible through the modes in which it is represented. “Here is a historian who has taken the most concrete of medieval realities – time, space, work, trade, the body, social order, institutions – and studied them as perceived realities, as the products and vehicles of representation” (Stuart Clark, “Le Goff, Annales, and ‘the Future,’” The Work of Jacques Le Goff, ed. Miri Rubin, 1997, 261). Le Goff’s goal in his researches on medieval mentalities has been to describe convincingly “the attitudes and sensitivities of a people as they were shaped by a certain economic and technical conditioning, by a social structure, and by the antagonism of dominant forces” (Lester little, review of Le Goff’s Le civilisation,” Speculum 42 [1967]: 175–77, here 176). Also noteworthy is the transcendent role le goff assumed as “intellectual authority” and “indispensable cultural touchstone” for France, Italy and a large segment of the progressive medievalist community in the United States (André Vauchez, “Le Goff and Italy,” The Work of Jacques Le Goff, ed. Miri Rubin, 1997, 71–76, here 71). Born in Toulon to an academic family – his father was professor at a lycée – , Le Goff took preparatory classes for the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Marseilles before spending several months with the maquis in the Alps. After Paris was liberated he enrolled at the lycée Louis-le-Grand, beginning his studies at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in 1945. He studied at the Uni-
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versity of Prague from 1947–48. Still in the process of completing his dissertation, Le Goff obtained a one-year appointment to the lycée in Amiens, studied in Oxford (1951–2) and at the Ecole française in Rome (1952–3) before occupying a position in the Faculty of Letters at Lille from 1954–1959. In 1962, he took a position at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. He succeeded Fernand Braudel as director in 1972 and also served for many years as editor of the flagship journal of the new historiography, Annales, Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations (Miri Rubin, ed., The work of Jacques Le Goff and the Challenges of Medieval History, 1997; Leonore Scholze-Irrlitz, Moderne Konturen historischer Anthropologie: eine vergleichende Studie zu den Arbeiten von Jacques Le Goff und Aaron J. Gurjewitsch, 1994). Le Goff’s wonderfully nuanced portrait of medieval temporality, “Temps de l’Église et temps du marchand,” Annales. HSS 15 [1960]: 417–33 (“Merchant’s Time and Church Time in the Middle Ages,” Time, Work & Culture in the Middle Ages, 1980, 29–42), set a standard for studies in mentalities. Le Goff contrasts the canonical hours of the convent, with their unequal divisions and variations influenced by the liturgical year and the seasons with the precise division of the day into hours controlled by the evolving technology of the clock. At once evocative of the differences in world view the understanding of time can evoke, Le Goff’s article also achieves a dynamic aspect of mentalities in conflict and in transition. Even more influential was Le Goff’s La naissance du Purgatoire, 1981 (The Birth of Purgatory, 1984) in which he traces the conceptual roots and social implications of the transformation of the Christian cosmos through the emergence of a new dimension of afterlife. “Le Goff argued that the rise of the idea of purgatory formed part of ‘the transformation of feudal Christianity,’ that there were connections between intellectual change and social change. At the same time he insisted on the ‘mediation’ of ‘mental structures,’ ‘habits of thought,’ or ‘intellectual apparatus;’ in other words, mentalities, noting the rise in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries of new attitudes to time, space, and number, including what he called ‘the book-keeping of the after-life’” (Peter Burke, The French Historical Revolution, 1990, 72). Among the problematical aspects of Le Goff’s study remain the rather arbitrary process by which he arrives at purgatory’s genesis, the paucity of references to the cultural contexts from which tales of the afterlife emerged, and the lack of analysis of the sociological dimensions of purgatory itself (Richard Trexler, review of The Birth of Purgatory,” AE 13 (1986): 160–61, here 160). The essays contained in Le Goff’s L’imaginaire médiéval: essais (1985), provide a number of examples of his “scientific” method: “First, as he himself claims, he gives priority to the history of words: “The history of words is
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history itself. When terms appear or disappear or change their meaning, the movement of history stands revealed … A second element of Le Goff’s method entails an effort to combine a structuralist’s eye for codes “vestimentary,” alimentary, linguistic) and oppositions (nature and culture; country and city; left and right; father and son; inside and outside) with a historian’s eye for change and context” (Sharon Farmer, review of The Medieval Imagination, AHR [1990]: 473–74, here 474). In his longer historical surveys of the Middle Ages, such as La civilisation de l’Occident medieval, 1977, Le Goff has argued for the importance of what he calls popular culture as an object of historical study. “At the heart of Le Goff’s … vision is an argument for two distinct cultures, the one clerical and bookish, the other popular, oral, and customary, the first accessible through traditional intellectual and spiritual categories, the second mainly through cultural anthropology and comparative religions” (John van Engen, “The Christian Middle Ages as an Historiographical Problem,” AHR 91 [1986]: 519–52, here 529). Le Goff’s vision of the Middle Ages has been attacked mainly on three grounds: He allegedly tries to inject an anachronistically Marxist interpretation into his saga of popular culture; through his refusal to write about the elites, he paints a one-side, very dark and overly primitive portrait of the complexity of medieval life; and he assumes that “folkloric” sources, “despite stereotyping, repetition, and elaboration, preserve a core of authentic experience and belief alien to the Christian establishment,” something that is essentially unprovable (Van Engen, “The Christian Middle Ages, 1986, 531). Certainly the most visible of all medievalists active in the study of mentalities, the French historian Georges Duby (Paris; 1919 – Provence, 1996), was perhaps the leading practitioner of la nouvelle histoire in post-war medieval studies. Born in Paris, Duby passed his agrégation in Lyon in 1942. His doctoral work was done at the Sorbonne, where his thesis was approved in 1953. He subsequently was appointed to the Chair of Medieval Social Studies in the History Department at Aix-en-Provence, where he founded the Center for Study of Mediterranean Societies. In 1970, Duby received a coveted post at the Collège de France, from which he developed extensive collaboration and networks of support with colleagues from Belgium, Britain, the United States, and Eastern Europe. In 1974, he was inducted into the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres and at the height of his fame, in 1987, to the Académie française. Duby died at his country home in Provence in 1996 (Claudie Duhamel-Amado and Guy Lobrichon, Georges Duby, l’écriture de l’histoire, 1996; “Georges Duby,” EH, ed. Kelly Boyd, 1999, 326–28).
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Duby’s research may be said to have proceeded in three phases, all of which touch upon some aspect of mentalité. His initial research into the society of Macon and rural economies (La société aux XIe et XIIe siècles dans la région mâconnaise, 1953; Lineage, nobility, and chivalry in the region of Macon, 1976), and L’économie rurale et la vie des campagnes dans l’occident medieval (1962; Rural Economy and Country Life, 1968), undertook the analysis of traditional historical sources with the subjective style of his idol Marc Bloch. Duby’s middle period (Le Dimanche de Bouvines, 1973; The Legend of Bouvines, 1990), and Les trois ordres ou l’imaginaire du féodalisme, 1978 (The Three Orders, 1980), featured intensive involvement with the possibilities of mentalité. In his final phase, Duby moved beyond Bloch to work on the boundaries between mentalité and the history of ideologies (Le chevalier, la femme et le prître: le mariage dans la France féodale, 1981; The knight, the lady, and the priest, 1983), and Mâle Moyen Âge (1988; Love and Marriage in the Middle Ages, 1994). In his contribution to ego-histoire, Duby argues against any access to historical truth through pure objectivity. Instead he sees the obligation of animation falling to the historian, making connections in order that history comes alive (Georges Duby, L’histoire continue, 1991; History Continues, 1994, 43–4). Indeed, Duby never shied away from the use of conjecture and speculation to fill in the gaps that documents inevitably leave, a tendency that caused his work to be questioned by traditional historians. At the same time, Duby urges historians to strive for as much objectivity as possible in their work with sources and artifacts (History Continues, 44–5). Duby’s middle phase was dominated by a methodological transformation from the re-creation of economic and social conditions through distillation of sources to the exposition of medieval collective attitudes. “Until then I had expected the documents to instruct me as to the truth of the facts whose memory it was their mission to preserve. I now realized that this truth is inaccessible and that the historian can approach it only through a mediator, the witness, whom he must examine not as to the facts he relates but as to the manner in which he reports them” (History continues, 82). Through the evaluation of the narrator’s manner, Duby then would attempt to decipher the attitudes of the collectives that the narrator described. In his book Li Dimanche Duby focuses not so much on the “battle that made France” itself as on the reception and depiction of the battle over the centuries. “The ‘newness’ of Duby’s event history is found in the function which Duby attributes to the event. It certainly does not correspond to the extraordinary, singular, change-producing event of traditional historical narratives, nor, however, does it correspond to those iterable ‘elements’ that are the subject matter of serial history. Duby’s third way, inspired by anthropology, consists in using
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the battle as a ‘révélateur’ in order to learn something about the culture – or in this concrete example, about feudal society at the beginning of the thirteenth century” (Axel Ruth and Jocelyn Holland, “The Battle of Bouvines: Event History vs. Problem History,” MLN 116 (2001): 816–43). Duby’s particular focus is the mentalité of knights and soldiers: “I observed them as Margaret Mead had observed the Manus” (History continues, 93). In his classic study Les trois ordres, Duby sought to “measure the influence of mental categories on the fate of human societies,” (94) producing “not simply a history of the idea of trifunctionality,” but rather “an attempt to trace the ways in which the meaning of the trifunctional model changed according to the social location of its user, whereby it came to validate entirely different sets of propositions about the ideal nature of society” (Gabriele Spiegel, review of Les trois orders, AHR 87 [1982]: 263). Duby sought to illuminate “the relations between the material and the mental in the course of social change” by tracing the evolution of traditional representations of medieval society in terms of three orders, those who pray, those who fight, and those who work. Of particular interest to scholars of mentalities is Duby’s research into how the metaphor of the three orders was continually rediscovered, reinvented, and employed to justify any number of differing social and feudal structures. In this way Duby illuminates the dynamic interaction between mentalities and ideology and attempts to show how this interaction was exploited to consolidate power relationships. Both studies stand as landmark achievements of mentalité. Duby devoted himself in his subsequent research to aristocratic marriage and gender issues. His analysis of aristocratic attitudes towards marriage (Le chevalier, la femme et le prítre, 1981, and Mâle Moyen Age, 1988) focused more on ideological concerns and less upon the attitudes of larger collectives, even if the emphasis remained on the representations of the societal and spiritual functions of marriage as they developed in the High Middle Ages. Although he rejected pure materialism, Duby nonetheless examined medieval marriage customs through the quasi-Marxist lens of class perceptions. Hampered by his insistence on traditional sources and by his unwillingness to accept basic tenets of feminist medieval studies, Duby’s two forays into the mentalité of gender were less enthusiastically received, (Jo Ann McNamara, Speculum 74 (1999): 732–3). Nonetheless, Duby’s willingness to explore the mentalities of medieval women makes him almost unique among practitioners of mentalité. The five-volume anthology, Histoire des femmes en occident (1991; A History of Women in the West, 1992) which he coedited with Michelle Perrot, includes a number of insightful gender studies.
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Yet another landmark in the history of mentalité came with the publication of Philippe Ariès’s L’enfant et la vie familiale (1960; Centuries of Childhood, 1962). Although not a study of medieval mentalities, Ariès’s claim that no true sense of childhood (le sentiment de l’enfance) developed until the 17th century sparked a world-wide debate regarding medieval and early-modern mentalities. Scores of books and articles on medieval notions of childhood and family life have succeeded in refuting Ariès’s generalizations regarding the Middle Ages, but the influence of his work on medieval studies of childhood and death remains unquestioned. Even a selective survey of mentalité must include Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie’s (1929; Les Moutiers-en-Cinglais, France) innovative reading of inquisitional interrogation records in the form of a anthropological study of community. His Montaillou, village occitan de 1294 à 1324, 1975 (Montaillou, 1978) greatly accelerated two important trends in the study of mentalities: the move towards microhistory, that is, towards achieving a totality of data for a smaller geographical or social area; and the ability to uncover socio-historical data by reading between and against the intentions of the documentary source. Son of a Norman family of aristocratic landowners – his father served as Minister of Agriculture under the Vichy regime – Le Roy Ladurie attended the Collège Saint-Joseph in Caen, the Lycèe Henri-IV in Paris and the Lycée Lakanal in Sceaux before earning his agrégation in History from the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. He went on to study history at the Sorbonne, receiving his doctorate for his thesis on the peasants of Languedoc. Between 1955 and 1963 he occupied a series of secondary and university posts in Montpellier, as well as an adjunct position at the CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research). In 1973 Le Roy Ladurie was awarded the Chair for Modern History at the prestigious Collège de France. He also served as the Director of the Bibliothèque nationale from 1987 to 1994. Le Roy Ladurie is not only one of the most influential annalistes of the Third Generation, he also has become one of the leading intellectuals and commentators of the Parisian cultural scene. Le Roy Ladurie concentrated his research on the early modern period, focusing on the sociological effects of climate change and on the lives of the peasants, but in Montaillou, he draws on the inquisitional records of Bishop Jacques Fournier, the future Pope Benedict XII, who kept meticulous and detailed notes of interviews with 114 residents of Montaillou and the surrounding area of Languedoc. Le Roy Ladurie’s innovation was to read the records as artifacts of peasant society rather than as documents of the inquisition. The result is “a fascinating picture of the social and cultural structure
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of a backward, illiterate, unsanitary and rather disagreeable Pyrenean village society of the early fourteenth century” (P.S. Lewis, Review of Montaillou, EHR 92 [1977]: 371–73). Categories explored include marriage and love, death, childhood, social relationships, religion, morality, and magic, set against the backdrop of the longue durée of geography and climate. Le Roy Ladurie’s surprising discovery was that the domus, “a domestic group of co-residents” served as the “unifying concept in social, family, and cultural life,” more important than social hierarchy, religious affiliation or economic status (Montaillou, 1978: 25). Three aspects of the book were especially controversial: 1) Le Roy Ladurie’s colloquial, deliberately unscholarly style, which made the book accessible beyond the narrow community of scholars; 2) his decision to eschew a traditional scholarly apparatus; 3) and his assumption that the villagers’ testimony could be taken largely at face value, even though it was recorded in a different language by scribes with their own political and religious agendas (Leonard Boyle, “Montaillou Revisited,” Pathways to Medieval Peasants, ed. J. A. Raftis, 1981, 119–40). Nevertheless, Montaillou endures as a classic of medieval microhistory and as a monument to the insights available through the application of techniques developed for the study of mentalities. The Polish historian Bronislaw Geremek made especially significant contributions to our understanding of marginalized lives in late-medieval Paris. His book His Ludzie marginesu w âsredniowiecznym Paryçzu XIV–XV wiek (1971; The Margins of Society in Late-Medieval Paris, 1987) applied Le Roy Ladurie’s microhistorical approach to a single urban environment, a method also employed with considerable success by early modern historians like Natalie Davis and Carlo Ginzburg. Born in Warsaw, Geremek received his degree in history from the University of Warsaw in 1954. From 1956–1958 he engaged in graduate studies at the École pratique des hautes études in Paris. He subsequently earned his doctorate in medieval history from the Historical Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences in 1960. After serving as the Director of the Centre for the Study of Polish Culture at the Sorbonne between 1960 and 1965, geremek returned to Warsaw, where he held a number of posts at the Historical Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences between 1965 and 1985. In 1985 he resigned his posts to serve the Polish state before returning to the Historical Institute and being awarded a full professorship in 1990. In 1992–3 he was visiting professor at the Collège de France. Geremek “uses every possible source to recreate the milieu and the social topography of the late-medieval Parisian underworld, including its criminals, clerks and bohemians, beggars, and prostitutes,” suppplement-
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ing late-14th-century judicial registers with “hospital accounts, chronicles, and literary sources, such as François Villon’s poetry” to weave together “a coherent picture of the low life of late-medieval Paris … The great strength of the book is the author’s care in creating the environment in which the marginals functioned” (Barbara Hanawalt, review of The Margins of Society, Speculum 64 [1989]: 947–49). As an example of mentalité, Geremek’s research was groundbreaking in its devotion to marginal collectives, sparking a series of comparable studies such as Michael Mollat’s on the poor of the Middle Ages, Miri Rubin’s on alms and hospitals of medieval Cambridge, and Leah Otis’ on prostitutes of Languedoc. If anyone may be said to anchor the fourth generation, it would be JeanClaude Schmitt (1946; Colmar, France), a French historian best known for his researches into popular culture of the Middle Ages as well as for his championing of historical anthropology. His approach takes some of its inspiration from mentalité as developed in the work of Bloch and Le Goff. The Alsatian Schmitt studied at the Sorbonne before pursuing graduate studies in paleography at the Ecole nationale des Chartes in Paris. He received his doctorate in history in 1973 and took a position for two years at the L’Ecole pratique des hautes études before becoming an assistant at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales from 1975 to 1983. In 1981 he was a visiting fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Schmitt succeeded his mentor Le Goff as head of the EHESS in 1983. Since then he has accepted visiting professorships at several leading universities of Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Schmitt’s researches into the cult of Sainte Guinefort, Le saint lévrier: Guinefort (1979; The Holy Greyhound: Guinefort, 1983) seek to uncover in sources compiled by the noble elite the roots and motifs of peasant legend as an expression of popular culture. To overcome the limitations of the written sources, schmitt draws upon geography, art, sculpture, architecture and landscape description. Schmitt’s monograph on medieval ghosts, Les revenants: les vivants et les morts dans la société médiévale (1994; Ghosts in the Middle Ages, 1998) is even more wide-ranging, exploring notions of life and death, of the body and the soul, of interiority and exteriority and of kinship. Schmitt’s most influential and also most controversial claim, advanced in his books and in his collection of essays, Le corps, les rites, les rêves, le temps: essais d’anthropologie médiévale (2001) is on behalf of what he calls “popular culture,” the solution that he and his mentor le goff proposed for the problem of Christianization. “At the heart of Le Goff’s and Schmitt’s vision is an argument for two distinct cultures, the one clerical and bookish, the other
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popular, oral, and customary, the first accessible through traditional intellectual and spiritual categories, the second mainly through cultural anthropology and comparative religions” (John van Engen, “The Christian Middle Ages as an Historiographical Problem,” AHR 91 [1986]: 519–52, here 529). As Schmitt argues, “La ‘Religion’ … ne consiste pas en la conviction privée d’un croyant: c’est un imaginaire social qui contribue, par la représentation (mentale, rituelle, imagée) d’un ailleurs qu’on peut nommer le divin, à ordonner et à légitimer les relations des homes entre eux” (Jean-Claude Schmitt, “Une histoire religieuse du Moyen Âge est-elle possible?,” Le corps, les rites, les rêves, le temps, 2001, 31–41, here 36). Schmitt prefers a model of cultural conflict and by reading church documents “against themselves” à la Marc Bloch , he demonstrates not only how written language constituted “an extraordinarily powerful tool of control,” but he also wishes to unearth through the use of sociological, anthropological and psychological models the “rituals, myths, spatial and temporal structures” of popular culture which the Christianity was trying to subdue (Jean-Claude Schmitt, “Religion, Folklore, and Society in the Medieval West,” Debating the Middle Ages: Issues and Readings, ed. Lester K. little and Barbara H. rosenwein, 1998, 376–87). D. Contributions Outside of the Annales School It is hard to overestimate the influence of the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga (1872; Groningen, Netherlands – 1945; De Steeg, Netherlands) on mentalité. Huizinga’s Herfsttij der Middeleeuwen, 1919 (The Waning/Autumn of the Middle Ages, 1924/1996) stands as one of the early classics of medieval mentalité-studies (Walter Prevenier, “Johan Huizinga en de geschiedschrijving der 20e eeuw: Dwarsligger of kind van zijn tijd?,” DVG 11 [1973]: 74–82). Son of a physician and professor at the University of Groningen, Huizinga studied Indian literature and culture at the University, earning his doctorate with a thesis on Sanskrit drama. From 1897 to 1905 he taught high school in Haarlem, where he spent his final two years as an unpaid lecturer in Indiology at the University of Amsterdam and published on Sanskrit and Indian culture. In 1905 he was called to the chair of Netherlands history at the University of Groningen, where he focused his research on the early history of Haarlem. In 1914 he took the chair in general history at the University of Leiden. He spent his remaining years in Leiden until the German occupation closed the Unversity in 1940. In 1942 Huizinga resigned his position and was subsequently arrested for insubordination and sent to a detention camp. He was freed in 1942 and spent the final three years of his life in De Steeg near Arnhem, where he died in 1945.
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Huizinga’s unique approach to history had its roots in three areas: 1) He approached medieval and early modern history as an Orientalist, having come to Sanskrit through Arabic, thereby ensuring that his view of culture and mentalité was cosmopolitan; 2) He was himself a skilled graphic artist, which meant he approached the Middle Ages with aesthetic sensibility; 3) Through his long friendship with Andre Jolles, he was comfortable with a proto-structuralist, interdisciplinary approach to cultural history. In his brief reminisces, “My Path to History,” Dutch Civilisation in the Seventeenth Century and Other Essays (1968), 244–76, he downplays his erudition, the depth of his historical training, and his Latinity. Huizinga’s masterpiece, the Herfsttij, was originally focused on the art of the Van Eyks, but evolved into a study of “the entire (chiefly aristocratic and Francophone) cultural sensibility of much of northwestern Europe” (Edward Peters and Walter P. Simons, “The New Huizinga and the Old Middle Ages,” Speculum 74 [1999]: 587–620, here 606). The reader is struck by the preeminence of the sensual in Huizinga’s world. “Just as the contrast between summer and winter was stronger then than in our present lives, so was the difference between light and dark, quiet and noise. The modern city hardly knows pure darkness or true silence anymore, not does it know the effect of a single small light or that of a lonely distant shout” (Huizinga, Autumn, 1996, 2). Huizinga’s principal aim was to evoke a culture caught between the impossibilities of world denial and world reform. “There remained only the alternative of dreaming – for those who could afford to dream – in a world ruled by darkness and perceived by its inhabitants only through an impossibly polarized sensorium and in sharply contrasting colors” (Peters and Simons, “The New Huizinga” [1999]: 608). Huizinga’s use of vivid anecdotes drawn from a multitude of sources brings behaviors and attitudes to life which are incomprehensible to modern sensibilities. Huizinga’s analysis of these incongruous actions underscores the otherness of the later Middle Ages, not only in contrast to modernity but also to the more rational and ordered interactions of the 12th century. Modern scholars of mentalities would reject Huizinga’s presupposition that such generalization was possible for the collective of all medieval Europeans. They would also question his selective and sometimes undifferentiated use of biographical sources. Still, after Huizinga, it was impossible to think about the Middle Ages or the Renaissance in the same way. The image of the Dark Ages had been replaced by descriptions of processes of decline and change, focused largely upon behaviors and attitudes. The German historian Arno Borst’s (1925; Alzenau, Germany) attempt to introduce the term Lebensformen (modes of life) into the historiographical
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lexicon resulted in an unsuccessful but nonetheless interesting foray into the study of mentalité (Lebensformen im Mittelalter, 1973). After serving in the Wehrmacht during the war, Borst began his university studies in Göttingen, earning his doctorate in 1951 for a thesis on Cathar dualism. Herbert Grundmann called him to Münster as his Assistent, where his massive study of attitudes towards language and meaning, Der Turmbau von Babel, won him his Habilitation in 1961. After a year as a visiting professor in Münster, Borst was called to a chair at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, where he became disillusioned by the political turmoil of the 60’s and moved to the University of Konstanz in 1968. In 1990 he retired to Emeritus status, continuing his association with the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, the Constance Work Group for Medieval History, and the foundation he had set up in his own name for the support of the study of history (Arno Borst, “My Life,” Medieval Worlds: Barbarians, Heretics, and Artists in the Middle Ages, 1992, 244–50; in German: Barbaren, Ketzer, und Artisten: Welten des Mittelalters, 1988; “Arno borst,” Der Konstanzer Arbeitskreis für Mittelalterliche Geschichte 1951–2001: Die Mitglieder und ihr Werk: Eine bio-bibliographische Dokumentation, vol. 2, ed. Jürgen petersohn, 2001, 45–54). Lebensformen find definition in the “attempts of a collective to satisfy essential needs of existence such as eating and drinking; furthermore they consist of conventions and institutions of society such as codes of ethics or family structures; finally they find expression in the behavior of the community towards foreigners” (Lebensformen, 1973, 19). Crucial for borst is the notion that Lebensformen are “not immutable ethical norms, but rather historically determined rules of behavior” within communities which are continually changing. For each concept or category such as “space,” “rights,” “death, “teachers,” or “Mohammedans,” Borst provides several brief anecdotes or excerpts drawn from a wide variety of documentary sources. Particularly valuable is the open-ended nature of his analysis, in which he highlights interesting modes of medieval alterity without insisting that on their universal applicability for the Middle Ages. But Borst’s approach also does not link his insights to the totality of attitudes within particular communities, which lessens its applicability in practical terms and runs the risk of his commentaries lapsing into superficiality or irrelevance With the notable exception of Duby’s five-volume anthology, Histoire des femmes, 1991, which he co-edited with Michelle Perrot, both the analysis of women’s collectives and notable contributions by feminist medievalists have remained on the margins of mentalité-studies. The work of Caroline Walker Bynum (1941; Atlanta, Georgia), an American historian whose pioneering research in the 1970’s and 1980’s transformed our understanding of medi-
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eval notions of gender, the body, and their spiritual significance, illustrates how the methods of mentalité can find useful application in the study of medieval attitudes towards gender. A product of the Atlanta public schools, Bynum spent two years at Radcliffe College before receiving her B.A. from the University of Michigan. She did her Masters and doctoral work at Harvard, earning her Ph.D. in 1969. Her first teaching positions were in the history department at Harvard (1969–1973) and then in the Department of Church History at the Harvard Divinity School (1973–1974). Bynum then moved to the University of Washington in Seattle where she was awarded tenure and a full professorship. Since 1988 she has been Full Professor of History at Columbia University, holding the Morris A. and Alma Schapiro Chair from 1990 to 1999. A winner of numerous teaching awards, Bynum is a fellow of the Medieval Academy of America. She has served as an essential link between the disciplines of history, art history and women’s studies among American medievalists. In Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages (1982); Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (1987); and Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion (1991), Bynum “posits a fundamental gender dichotomy in cultural forms which produces in women a greater bodily sensibility, a heightened awareness of the flesh, and a privileged attachment to the meaning of food … This dichotomy could be transcended in Christian culture only by that transcender of all polarities, Christ, who combines human and divine, priestly man and nurturing woman.” (Miri Rubin, “Medieval Bodies, Why Now and How?” The Work of Jacques Le Goff, ed. Miri Rubin, 1997, 209–219, here 212). Holy Feast and Holy Fast, to cite just one example, “was in fact an argument against isolating a single aspect of religious practice such as food abstention both from other food practices (such as the Eucharist, food multiplication miracles, food distribution, etc.) and from other forms of denial and celebration (such as extreme asceticism or mystical ecstasy)” (Carolyn Walker Bynum, “My Life and Works,” Women Medievalists and the Academy, ed. Jane Chance, 2005, 995–1006, here 997). The value of Bynum’s research for feminist approaches to mentalité lies in her productive interaction with the work of Victor Turner in sociology as well as with traditional art-historical approaches to gender, sexuality, and the body. She has shown how descriptions and visions of mystical interactions with the Divine were not necessarily gendered, how women’s asceticism could be linked to an innovative women’s spirituality of imitatio, and how women’s understanding of their own bodies did not necessarily conform to modern notions of gender and sexuality. The response of Bynum’s
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feminist-medievalist critics, who argued for more emphasis on feminist critical sensibility for the analysis of medieval ascetic practices like fasting and self-mortification, has generated a lively debate as well as productive studies on the meaning of the body related to mentalité. Although scholars of mentalities always have drawn extensively from research in sociology, economics, and geography, and more recently from the history of architecture and archeology, there has been less productive interaction with art historians. (Notable exceptions are Huizinga’s Herfsttij der Middeleeuwen, 1921, and Duby’s Les temps des cathedrals, 1976.) The approach of Jeffrey Hamburger (1957; London, UK), an American art historian, to medieval religious life exemplifies a particularly promising path in religious and cultural history related to mentalité. Hamburger attended the Hopkins Grammar School in New Haven before spending his undergraduate years at Yale. He did his Masters and doctoral work in Art History at Yale. His prizewinning dissertation on the Rothschild Canticles appeared in the Yale University Press and won the John Nicholas Brown Prize for an outstanding first book from the Medieval Academy of America. Hamburger first taught at Oberlin College from 1986 to 1997 before moving to the University of Toronto for two years, where he became a full professor. Since 2000 he has taught in the Department of History of Art and Architecture at Harvard. In his book Nuns as Artists: The Visual Culture of a Medieval Convent, 1997, Hamburger attempts to reconstruct the visual repertoire of the Dominican nuns of Walburga in all of its aspects. For Hamburger’s nuns, images assumed their traditional functions, namely as illuminations, to depict significant moments in salvation history and in the classical Gregorian sense as signa that “spur the memory and the affections of those unable to rely on words alone.” Small drawings, sculptures and dolls served the nuns as aids to devotion, as commentaries on devotion, and as spurs to memory and meditation, but they also assumed the function of keepsakes, amulets, and talismans. Hamburger’s book is not only interdisciplinary in its merging of historical, art historical and literary historical analysis; it also focuses upon a social collective at the turn of the 15th century in order to map some of the features of its spiritual sensibility. In 1999 Nuns as Artists won the Jacques Barzun Prize in Cultural History from the American Philosophical Society as well as the Otto Gründler Prize from the International Congress on Medieval Studies. Hamburger’s monumental study of medieval religious iconography, The Visual and the Visionary. Art and Female Spirituality in Late Medieval German (1998) makes an enduring contribution to the interaction of text and image in fashioning spiritual vocabulary and attitudes in women’s religious collectives of the later Middle Ages.
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E. The Future of Studies in Mentalities Fundamental tenets of mentalité such as interdisciplinarity, the integrative analysis of documents with other artifacts, the focus on collective consciousness, especially outside elite circles, and the self-conscious exercise of reconstruction against the literal sense of the text have won widespread acceptance both in medieval and early modern studies. The proliferation of such methods also has served to highlight their limitations: 1) an over-emphasis on otherness at the expense of long-term continuity; 2) a tendency to overgeneralize about collective attitudes; 3) an overly simplistic equivocation of documentary assertions with collective consciousness; and 4) a failure to develop underlying theoretical constructs and a consistent methodology (Leonard Boyle, “Montaillou Revisited,” Pathways to Medieval Peasants, ed. J. A. Raftis, 1981, 119–40) and John Van Engen, “The Christian Middle Ages as an Historiographical Problem,” AHR 91 [1986]: 519–52). In recent decades Mentalité has evolved into more of a method than a movement, having been absorbed largely into historical anthropology for the purpose of studying popular culture (Jean-Claude Schmitt, “Religion, Folklore, and Society in the Medieval West,” Debating the Middle Ages: Issues and Readings, ed. Lester K. Little and Barbara H. Rosenwein, 1998, 376–87). Nonetheless, the methods of mentalité remain essential tools for medievalists interested in the archaeology of medieval attitudes. Select Bibliography Georges Duby, “L’histoire des mentalités,” L’histoire et ses méthodes: Recherche, conservation et critique des têmoignages, ed. Charles Samaran (Paris: Gallimard, 1961), 937–66; Philipp Ariès, “L’histoire des mentalités,” La nouvelle histoire, ed. Jacques Le Goff, Roger Chartier, and Jacques Revel (Brussels: Editions Complexe, 1978), 402–23; Jacques Le Goff, “Mentalities: a History of Ambiguities,” Constructing the Past: Essays in Hstorical Methodology, ed. Jacques Le Goff and P. Nora (Cambridge and Paris: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 166–80; Frantisek ˇ Graus, Mentalitäten im Mittelalter: methodische und inhaltliche Probleme (Sigmaringen: J. Thorbecke, 1987); Mentalitäten: Geschichte zur historischen Rekonstruktion geistiger Prozesse, ed. Ulrich Raulff and André Bruguière (Berlin: Wagenbach, 1989); Aaron Gurevich, Historical Anthropology of the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992); Europäische Mentalitätsgeschichte: Hauptthemen in Einzeldarstellungen, ed. Peter Dinzelbacher, 2nd ed. (1993; Stuttgart: A. Kröner, 2008); Patrick H Hutton,“History of Mentalities,” Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Witing, ed. Kelly Boyd (London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1999), 800–02.
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Metrology
Metrology A. General Outline General Definition. Metrology is the study of measurement. Its historical branch concerns itself with norms and conditions, the objects and methods of measurement, the conversion of old measures into the metric system, and measuring systems themselves, especially in the pre-metric period. There is no independent ‘medieval’ branch of metrology; methodologically, research into the metrology of the Middle Ages is often grouped with research into the early modern period, and even up to the introduction of the metric system in the 19th century, despite significant differences of source material, instruments available and material historical factors. Objects of Study / Thematic Fields. The objects of study for medieval metrologists are the norms and procedures of measurement, as well as the mental systems of order and social practices connected with them. These measurements were used for raw materials, trade goods, and taxable property (lengths, volumes, weights, amounts). Land surveying and town planning also belong here, as well as measurement of money-weights, and time. Medieval scholars of the liberal arts working within musica developed their own theory of measurement. The linguistic expression of the measurement forms constitutes a separate sub-area of research. The medical measurement of the human body inspired by the medieval principle of ordo, and the religiously motivated measurement of acts of piety and fruits of religion, however, constitute a marginal area. Like the ‘measurement’ of literary and musical monuments, they are essentially characterized by an interpretative scheme based on number symbolism and number-based composition, and should be mainly treated from this perspective. B. Central Research Goals The Conversion of Medieval Measurements to Metric: A central aspect of medieval metrology is the conversion of medieval units to metric, with the aim of facilitating reading of the sources. In this respect, metrology is an auxiliary discipline of economic history. Overviews of the medieval and early modern trading weights and measures in England, France and Italy can be found in the work of Ronald Edward Zupko (England: A Dictionary of English Weights and Measures: From Anglo-Saxon Times to the Nineteenth Century, 1968; British Weights and Measures: A History from Antiquity to the Seventeenth Century, 1977; A Dictionary of Weights and Measures for the British Isles: The Middle Ages to the
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Twentieth Century, 1985; France: French Weights and Measures before the Revolution: A Dictionary of Provincial and Local Units, 1978; Italy: Italian Weights and Measures from the Middle Ages to the Nineteenth Century, 1981). Zupko explains each unit of measurement listed with a short history of their developments, their metric equivalent, a short account of sources and explanation of terminology. Because of the highly summary, concise character, the data must be checked in individual cases. For Germany, see the works of Harald Witthöft (passim), who also always gives metric equivalents. Ulrich Rebstock, “Weights and Measures in Islam,” Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures, 1997, vol. II, 2255–67, provides information also about medieval traditions in the Islamic world. Reference works on “old” weights and measures do not, as a rule, discuss medieval usage, or do so in such general terms that extreme caution must be observed in using the information they contain. Reconstruction of Medieval Systems of Measurement: For German speaking Europe, Harald Witthöft’s monograph Umrisse einer historischen Metrologie zum Nutzen der wirtschafts- und sozialgeschichtlichen Forschung: Maß und Gewicht in Stadt und Land Lüneburg, im Hanseraum und im Kurfürstentum/Königreich Hannover vom 13. bis zum 19. Jahrhundert, 2 vols., 1979, is definitive. The author combines the reconstruction of old trading weights and measures in the metric system with the development of an integrated theoretical structure. The positivist conversion of individual instances is accompanied by a depiction of the intrinsic logic and coherence of north-east European system of weights and measures. The author sees its basis as lying in the Carolingian system of money-weight; cf. Harald Witthöft, Münzfuß, Kleingewichte, ponus caroli und die Grundlegung des nordeuropäischen Mass- und Gewichtswesens in fränkischer Zeit, 1984. The systematic logic of the historical system of measures is also emphasized in the introductory volume Introduction à la métrologie historique, ed. Bernard Garnier, Jean-Claude Hocquet, Denis Woronoff, 1989. In this, it is demonstrated by careful analysis that, in French speaking areas, there were always three ensembles of measures competing in the pre-metric age. First, the ‘working measures’ found in daily life; second the measures connected with specific techniques or situations of use; thirdly the official measure based on the pied du Roi, and the livre poids de marc etc. This is placed within a comparative framework in Jean-Claude Hocquet, Anciens systèmes de poids et mesures en Occident, 1992. Social Historical and Integration of Measuring Customs into Daily Life: A social historical and ethnographic perspective is offered by Witold
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Kula, Les mesures et les hommes, trans Joanna Ritt, rev. K. Pomian and J. Revel, 1984, on Polish and French measurements in the 16th and 17th century, which is methodologically fundamental for the Middle Ages also. He considers the social construction of measures, their situational functionality, their objective and symbolic representations as well as the process of measurement, almost without any interest in metrical conversions. The aim is the description of measures between variability and stability. With its concern with how weights and measures were integrated into everyday life, the study corresponds to the historical-semantic interest in the pre-metric measurement terms of Karl Menninger, Zahlwort und Ziffer: Eine Kulturgeschichte der Zahl, 1934 (however, reference has been chiefly made to the second, rev. and extended ed. of 1958, rpt. ed. 1979). Research into numerical words and measurement terminology was last summarized and reviewed by Georg Schuppener, Die Dinge fassbar machen: Sprach- und Kulturgeschichte der Maßbegriffe im Deutschen, 2002. The study only partly covers the Middle Ages, and also has no claim to study the sources critically. Material Remains: Medieval measures only survive in small numbers, and are often difficult to date and contextualize. Their study has not produced any coherent scholarly discussion. Most finds and analyses are published disconnectedly in the relevant journals and series. Especially relevant is a monograph (summarizing a series of articles which proceeded it) on stone capicity measures in the French tradition (Germain Darrou, Enquête sur les mesures de capacité en pierre, 2005) as well as the stock-taking by Harald Witthöft, “Das Erfassen der gegenständlichen Überlieferung zur historischen Metrologie im Gebiet des Deutschen Reiches bis 1871: Ein Forschungsvorhaben gefördert durch die Stiftung Volkswagenwerk 1980–1985,” Die historische Metrologie in den Wissenschaften: Philosophie – Architektur und Baugeschichte – Geschichte der Mathematik und der Naturwissenschaften – Geschichte des Münz-, Maß- und Gewichtswesens, ed. Harald Witthöft, Ivo Schneider, and Albert Zimmermann 1986, 285–337. History of Quantification: In contrast to the every-day, practical aspect of weights and measures, a fifth research interest centers on showing the beginnings of modern scholarship. Studies in this field are devoted, above all, to the development of learned study of measurement. The thesis that the perception of and emphasis placed on qualitative differences in European society was replaced by a prioritizing of the formulation of quantitative differences in the late Middle Ages is represented by Alfred Crosby, The Measure of Reality: Quantification and Western Society, 1250–1600, 1997. A source-based
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analysis of musicological writings of the 14th century with a demonstration of (a) a speculative theory of measures which preceded empirical measurements and (b) the function of music as an epistemological model and be found in Ulrich Taschow, Nicole Oresme und der Frühling der Moderne: Die Ursprünge unserer modernen quantitativ-metrischen Weltaneignungsstrategien und neuzeitlichen Bewusstseins- und Wissenschaftskultur, 2 vols., 2003. Joel Kaye, Economy and Nature in the Fourteenth Century. Money, Market Exchange, and the Emergence of Scientific Thought, 1998 provides a thorough analysis of the medial and metrological function of money in the epistemological context of the 14th century. Statistically and Digitally-Supported Surveys of the Evidence: Finally, and bordering on scientific metrology, there is interest in the statisticalmetrological analysis of historic sources. The first volume of the journal Histoire & mesure (1986ff.) played a foundational role here, especially the opening article by Jean-Philippe Genet, “Histoire, Informatique, Mesure,” Histoire & mesure 1 (1986): 7–18, as did the relevant chapter in Alain Guerrau, À l’avenir d’un passeée incertain: Quelle histoire du moyen âge au XXIe siècle?, 2001, 163–90. Archeometric approaches also belong in this field, cf. Albert Hesse, “Introduction à l’archéométrie,” Historie et mesure 9 (1994): 209–12. The work is chiefly applied in the field of the history of architecture, cf. for example Wolfgang Wiemer, Baugeometrie und Massordnung der Abteikirche Ebrach: Ergebnisse einer Computeranalyse – zugleich Einführung in die Methodik, 1995. C. Terminological Definition The colloquial expression ‘measure’ includes – though the distinction is frequently ignored, either conceptually or explicitly – on the one hand ‘(measurable) quantity’ (‘attribute of a phenomenon, a body or substance, which may be distinguished qualitatively and determined quantitatively’) as well as the ‘unit’ (‘particular quantity, defined and adopted by convention, with which other quantities of the same kind are compared in order to express their magnitudes relative to that quantity’). The ‘measurement’ is the ‘set of operations having the object of determining a value of a quantity’. These definitions are taken from the International Vocabulary of Basic and General Terms in Metrology, ed. International Organisation for Standardization, 1984, 4th ed. (English/French); trans. of 2nd ed. of 1993: Internationales Wörterbuch der Metrologie, ed. Deutsches Institut für Normung e.V., 1994, rpt. 2001 (German/English), a normative publication for scientific-technical usage. The terms and methodology of modern metrology are ultimately derived from Hermann von Helmholtz, “Zählen und Messen, erkenntnistheoretisch betrachtet,” Philosophische Aufsätze, Eduard Zeller zu seinem fünfzigjährigen
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Doctor-Jubiläum gewidmet, 1887, 17–52 (rpt. in Hermann von Helmholtz, Schriften zur Erkenntnistheorie, ed. Moritz Schlick, Paul Hertz, 1921, 99–129, rpt. ed. Ecke Bonk 1998). The instrumental and conceptual differences of historical measurement have been made only partly the object of theoretical consideration. Generally, the attempt is made to reconstruct and reproduce the historical conceptions found in the sources (though normally neither coherently nor conceptually ordered). This applies particularly to the work of Harald Witthöft (passim), who historicized the term aequalitas, connected by Charlemagne with the formation of a measurement system, and uses it as a key term. Ludolf Kuchenbuch went one stage further back and, in a series of studies investigated the conceptual achievements of the early seigneurial administration, which underlie all system formation (most recently “Ratio vel numerus: Numerische und rechnerische Aspekte der seigneurialen Güter- und Einkünfteverwaltung im 9. Jahrhundert,” Status und Poetik der Zahl: Ordnungsangebote, Gebrauchsformen und Erfahrungsmodalitäten des ‘numerus’ im Mittelalter, ed. Moritz Wedell, 2010, forthcoming). On the terminological discussion, cf. further Jean-Philippe Massonie, “Introduction à la théorie de la mesure,” Histoire et mesure 3 (1988): 7–18, and the section on the history of measures in Moritz Wedell, Zeigen, zählen und erzählen: Semantische und praxeologische Studien zum numerischen Wissen im Mittelalter, 2010, forthcoming. Franck Jedrzejewski, Histoire universelle de la mesure, 2002, 9–43, developed an epistemological framework for measures from a modern perspective and with the aim of producing a typology. D. History of Scholarship, Schools of Thought, Approaches D1. State of Scholarship a. Literature Reviews Three literature reviews on historical metrology (focused on Germany) have been produced by Harald Witthöft. The first, “Sammelbericht – Literatur zur historischen Metrologie 1945–1982,” VSWG 69 (1982): 515–41, is deepened by an analysis which continues into the middle of the 19th century in “Zur Entwicklung von Gegenstand und Methode der historischen Metrologie und zum Stand der Forschung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland,” Acta Metrologiae Historicae: Travaux du 3e Congrès International de la Métrologie Historique (Linz 1983), ed. Gustav Otruba 1985, 5–38, and supplemented by the study “Ökonomie, Währung und Zahl – Wirtschaftgeschichte und historische Metrologie: Ein Literatur- und Forschungsbericht 1980–2007,” Vierteljahrschrift für Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte 95 (2008): 25–40. The last par-
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ticularly considers monographic research and essentially serves to classify the author’s publication. From a French perspective comes a progress report with historical background: Jean-Claude Hocquet, “La Métrologie, voie nouvelle de la recherche historique,” Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 1990, 59–76. b. Beginnings – up to 1975 Reception of Antiquity in the 16th and 17th Centuries. Modern research into the history of metrology begins with the writings which attempt, from a medical standpoint, to reconstruct antique measures, cf. Georgius Agricola, Schriften über Maße und Gewichte (Metrologie) [1550], trans. Georg Fraustadt and Walter Weber (Georgius Agricola – Ausgewählte Werke 5), 1959; Dominicus Massarius, De ponderibus et mensuris medicinibus libri tres, 1584, with a discussion by Conradus Gesnerus, Mensurae apud veteres Graecos et Latinos scriptores usitatae, liquidorum et aridorum, ita dispositae, ut quae wunt maioris ponderis semper praecedant. The medical interest was supplemented by a historical-theological concern (Heinrich Bünting, De monetis et mensuris Sacrae Scripurae. Das ist/ Ein eigentümliche Ausrechnung und Beschreibung aller Müntz und Masse in heiliger Schrift. Darin (…) alle Korn und Weinmasse der Hebreer/ Griechen und Lateiner/ so viel deren im Alten und Newen Testament gedacht (…), 1583 (rpt. 1632) and shortly thereafter by a further-reaching interest in fiscal and economic history, cf. Rechenbergus Adamus, Historiae rei nummariae veteris scriptores aliquot insigniores ad lectionem sacrarum et profanum scriptorum utiles, 1692, with discussions by Philippus Labbe, Bibliotheca nummaria ex theologis, iuris consultis, medicis ac philologis concinnata et in duas partes tributa: I. De antiquis numismatibus, hebraeis, graecis, armenis, II. De monetis, ponderibus et mensuris, as well as Johannes Caspar Eisenschmid, De ponderibus et mensuris veterum Romanorum, Graecorum, Hebraeorum; (…) nec non de valore pecuniae veteris disquisitio nova (…), 1708 (rpt. 1737), and Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d’Anville, Traité des mesures itinéraires anciennes et modernes, Paris 1769 (cf. further the bibliography compiled by Witthöft, 55–60). Occasionally a critical methodology for the reconstruction of older measures appears (Matthew Raper, “Enquiry into the Measure of the Roman Foot,” Philosophical Transactions 51 (1759/60): 774–823). Trade-Determined Conversion of Measures, 16th–19th Centuries. Examination of the contemporary measures systems increase into the 18th and 19th century. This is a result of the growth in trans-regional trade, and the resulting necessity to convert local units. The merchant handbooks produced from the late Middle Ages on are a particularly useful source of information. Cf. John E. Dotson, Merchant Culture in Fourteenth Century Venice:
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The Zibaldone da Canal, 1994, and the data in Ars Mercatoria: Handbücher und Traktate für den Gebrauch des Kaufmanns/ Manuels et traités à l’usage des marchands, 1470–1820. Eine analytische Bibliographie in 6 Bänden, ed. Jochen Hoock, Pierre Jeannin, vols. 1–3, 1991, 1993, 2001 have so far appeared. Conversion to the Metric System and New Interest in History. In the 19th century, the adoption of the metric system in continental Europe was the occasion of an intensive preoccupation with the conversion of old measures to new ones (on this cf. supplement 2 of Cahiers de métrologie: Mise en application du système métrique, ed. Désiré Roncin, 1985, and Genèse et diffusion du système métrique. Actes du Colloque: La naissance du système métrique. Musée national des techniques (1989), ed. Bernard Garnier, Jean-Claude Hocquet, 1990). French conversion tables are listed in the library catalogue of Bernard Garnier; on German-speaking Europe see the bibliography by Witthöft, 105–19, for Italy Tavole di Ragguaglio fra le nuove e le antiche misure e fra i nuovi e gli antichi pesi della Repubblica Italiana pubblicate per ordine del Governo, 1803 (Northern Italy) and Angelo Martini, Manuale di metrologia ossia misure, pesi e monete in uso attualmente e anticamente presso tutti i popoli, 1883. At the same time, classical philology produced differently accented working methods and impressive results, especially those of August Boeckh, Metrologische Untersuchungen über Gewichte, Münzfüße und Maße des Alterthums in ihrem Zusammenhange, 1838 (rpt. 1978). Independently of this, Karl Lamprecht’s economic historical source studies appeared towards the end of the century (Deutsches Wirtschaftsleben im Mittelalter, 2 vols, 1886 (rpt. 1969), 3–16, 481–512). These were initially influential within legal historiography, and were used in the debates on the origins of German town constitutions between Gustav Schmoller and Georg von Below, which became bitterly polemical (Georg von Below, Der Ursprung der deutschen Stadtverfassung, 1889, Gustav Schmoller, Die Verwaltung des Maß- und Gewichtswesens im Mittelalter, 1893). Further sources, supporting Schmollers were published by Georg Küntzel, Über die Verwaltung des Maß- und Gewichtswesens in Deutschland während des Mittelalters, 1894. Trends up to the Beginning of the 20th Century. The interest of classical philology in fiscal history continued to influence the classification of metrology within the sub-discipline of numismatics into the 20th century. The trend corresponds to the displacement of research into historical measures from the universities into the local history associations and their publications. These were partly run by interested laypeople, and were periodically disconnected from the methodological trends of the universities (Schauinsland, Deutsche Gaue etc.). French scholarship of the 20th century begins with the work of Paul Guilhiermoz on medieval weights and measures in the French-speaking world (the last being “Remarques diverses
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sur les poids et mesures du Moyen Âge,” Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes 80 [1919]: 5–100) and from the 1920s on has been chiefly concerned with the agrarian measure inherited from antiquity, cf. for example Joseph Bourrilly, Mesures agraires en Provence, 1928; Henri Navel, Recherches sur les anciennes mesures agraires normandes: Acres, vergées et perches, 1932; Marc Bloch, “Le témoignage des anciennes mesures agraires,” Annales d’histoire économique et sociale (1934): 280–82. The Breadth of Research, 1930s-1970s. Influential work from the mid twentieth century includes the summary of research into an aspect the history of surveying by David Hannerberg, Die älteren skandinavischen Ackermaße: Ein Versuch zu einer zusammenfassenden Theorie, 1955, the studies of technology and artefact history by Fritz Schmidt, Geschichte der geodätischen Instrumente und Verfahren im Altertum und Mittelalter, 1935; Armand Machabey, La métrologie dans les musées de province et sa contribution à l’histoire des poids et mesures en France depuis le XIIIe siècle, 1962, and Nils Sahlgren, Äldre svenska spannmålsmått: en metrologisk studie, 1968, as well as the ground-breaking history of the scales by Bruno Kisch, Scales and Weights: A Historical Outline, 1965. The tabulated, historical-typological survey by Hans-Joachim von Alberti, Maß und Gewicht: Geschichtliche und tabellarische Darstellung von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart, 1959 is much quoted, but very unsatisfactory for the purposes of medievalists. Anne-Marie Dubler’s local historical work Masse und Gewichte im Staat Luzern und in der alten Eidgenossenschaft, 1975, locates the territorial distribution of weights in a systematic cartographic representation. The state of Italian scholarship in the period is described by Alfredo Ferraro, Dizionario di metrologia generale, 1965, the Danish by Poul Rasmussen, Mål og vaegt, 1967, and the Swedish by Sam Owen Jansson, Måttordbok: Svenska måttstermer före metersystemet, 1950. For Southeastern Europe cf. Milan Vlajinac, Re ˇcnik na ˇsih starih mera u toku vekova (Dictionary of our old Measures and Weights through the Centuries), 4 vols., 1961–1974, Zlatko Herkov, Na ˇse stare mjere i utezi (Our old Measures and Weights), 1973, Mere na tlu Srbije kroz vekove (Measures on Serbian Soil through the Centuries), 1974. The Islamic tradition is portrayed by Walther Hinz, Islamische Maße und Gewichte, umgerechnet ins metrische System, 1955. These studies laid the foundations for the development of historical metrology from the late seventies on. c. 1975–1995 The trends of scholarship in the 1970s-90s emerge clearly from the representative journals and series. They cover, methodologically and thematically, a very wide spectrum of approaches. Despite this fundamental heterogeneity, a number of accents can be distinguished among the various programs.
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Proceedings of the Colloquia of the International Committee for Historical Metrology (Acta Metrologiae Historicae). The beginnings of coordinated communication of research can be found in the series of colloquia held since 1975 by the International Committee for Historical Metrology (CIMH), which reveal the stages of the institutionalization of the subject. (Bibliographic details of the congress proceedings 1975–1992, not published as a coherent series, can be found, with their tables of content, in the bibliography of Heit/Petry (vol. 2). The colloquia represent the broad field of research in central Europe. The contributions tend to concentrate on the systems of older weights and measures (in a local and comparative perspective, including criticism of simple conversion of old measures to new ones), the description of measuring objects and sources on weights and measures. The first two volumes are characterized by a stronger presence of Eastern European authors. The papers for the fifth colloquium were dedicated to state efforts to control weights and measures. Proceedings of the Colloquia of the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (C.N.R.S.) (Cahiers de métrologie). A second focus of research was founded in 1981 by a colloquium of the Institut d’Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine (I.H.M.C.) (Les anciens systèmes de mesures: projet d’enquête métrologique [Table ronde du 17 octobre 1981 Caen], ed. Centre national de la recherche scientifique. Institut d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, 1982). The aims of the loosely allied research group were formulated as: 1. the foundation of a specialized library, 2. the publication of a comprehensive bibliography, 3. the generation of a comprehensive atlas of weights and measures and a handbook of metrologie. The undertaking led, in 1983, to the foundation of the Cahiers de métrologie, which are also edited by the I.H.M.C. of the C.N.R.S. and aim to be a research guide for all researchers concerned with metrological questions. The journal, which covers all epochs, remains thematically true to the program detailed in the first volume: “La métrologie, c’est d’abord la recherche de l’objet, de l’instrument, d’est ensuite la quête du document qui permettra, surtout aux historiens, de calculer une équivalence, c’est infin, par l’étude des systèmes, le passage à des catégories de pensée et d’action.” (Bernard Garnier, “En Préambule,” Cahiers de métrologie 1 [1983]: 3). The Journal Histoire & mesure. Building on the French tradition of histoire quantitative, the periodical Histoire & mesure has been published since 1986 (also edited by C.N.R.S.). As well as to the traditional historical metrological research, it is dedicated to digital data-processing and to the newer archeometric methods for the surveying of surviving artifacts. It aims, via an integrated field of research, to inform and to begin a discussion about its perspectives and problems (“Editorial,” Histoire & mesure 1 (1986): 5–6). In
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the course of time, the technological focus of the periodical has shifted to the application of statistical methods in the subject of history. The journal’s program entails the subdivision of every issue into (1) Outils et démarches, (2) Histoire de la mesure, (3) Mesure de l’histoire. The contributions related to the Middle Ages thus go beyond the depiction of grain, land and building measures to cover subjects such as the history of coins and money, the statistical analysis of sources, as well as questions of lexicometrics, prosopography, and population history questions. Its archeometric sections include history of ceramics, settlement and nutrition. Tables of content, abstracts and some full text articles can be found at http://histoiremesure.revues.org (last accessed on Apr. 21, 2010). The Series Ordo et Mensura is an addition to the field of general descriptions of projects, finds and analysis. Methodologically speaking, it orients itself towards the work of the general editors Dieter Ahrens und Rolf A. C. Rottländer (programmatic: Rolf A. C. Rottländer, Antike Längenmaße: Untersuchungen über ihre Zusammenhänge, 1979, updated in id., “Fortschritte bei der Materialsammlung vormetrischer Längenmaße und deren Buchstabencode,” Ordo et Mensura II: 2. Internationaler und interdisziplinärer Kongress für Historische Metrologie (1991 Trier), ed. Dieter Ahrens, Rolf A. C. Rottländer, 1993, 85–107). This methodology gives positivistic-statistical techniques precedence over historical or research-history derived contextualizations; cf. for instance Albrecht Kottmann, “Das Differenzverfahren, ein sicherer Weg zur Bestimmung von Längen und -gewichtseinheiten,” Ordo et Mensura VII: 7. Internationaler Interdisziplinärer Kongress für Historische Metrologie (München 2001), ed. Florian Huber, Rolf A. C. Rottländer, 2002, 41–53, and Wolfgang Rieger, “Ein Verfahren zur Bestimmung von Maßvermutungen,” ibid., 54–64. On methodological debates, see for example the controversy between Rottländer and Witthöft in Ordo et Mensura III: 3. Internationaler Interdisziplinärer Kongress für Historische Metrologie (1993 Trier), ed. Dieter Ahrens, Rolf A. C. Rottländer, 1995, 24–35. The series has a particular focus of interest on architectural measurement. Other. As well as the journal Bulletin or the Society of Historical Metrology (Japan, 1979–), which has no geographical or temporal limits, the collectors’ periodicals Maß und Gewicht: Zeitschrift für Metrologie (Germany, 1986–, focusing on the 16th–19th century) as well as Equilibrium, the magazine of the International Society of Scale Collectors (Great Britain) as well as Libra, ed. Maurice Stevenson, London, 1962–, should be mentioned.
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D2. Schools of Thought Both because of the heterogeneity of approach and the weak institutionalization of research into Historical Metrology, one cannot speak of the formation of schools of thought in the precise sense. Nevertheless a couple of positions can be distinguished. a. Trade Measures Jean-Claude Hocquet. The work from the circle around Hocquets analyses the measures found in written sources or as material objects in terms of their place in everyday, practical, institutional or political/ lordship history, which are always developed and understood from their complex local situations. Hocquet himself is chiefly concerned with the development of systems of measures, especially as they were used to manage interregional trade relations, particularly the salt trade. On those closest to his position, cf. the work of Pierre Portet and in the wider context the publications of Cahiers de métrologie, of which Hocquet has been a co-editor since 1988. Harald Witthöft. Harald Witthöft’s work foregrounds the systematic aspect of measures, and is intended as a structural theory. The aequalitas demanded by Charlemagne did not mean a metrical identity of measures, but that they be readily and mutually convertible. In the medieval tradition, all trading measures are transferable in that sense, and in particular can be related back to the weight of money. In Witthöft’s perspective the measures system shows a stability, which reaches from antiquity to the 18th century and covers the whole measures system of the north-east European aerea. It is distinguished from French studies by a larger claim to geographic and chronological generalization. Closest to this approach are the source and object historical studies of Heinz Ziegler (collected in Heinz Ziegler: Studien zum Umgang mit Zahl, Maß und Gewicht in Nordeuropa seit dem Hohen Mittelalter, ed. Harald Witthöft, 1997) and Elisabeth Pfeiffer (particularly the monograph, mostly without reference to sources or scholarship, Die alten Längen- und Flächenmaße: ihr Ursprung, geometrische Darstellung und arithmetische Werte, 2 vols., 1986). Witthöft’s theses have been accepted in all areas of historical research, mostly without criticism. For an overview of his diverse work, see the bibliography in ‘Vom rechten Maß der Dinge’: Beiträge zur Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte. Festschrift für Harald Witthöft zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Rainer S. Elkar et al., 2 vols., 1996, 773–804, and the notes in Harald Witthöft, “Über Korn und Brot – Geld und Münze. Rechte Zahl und aequalitas als gerechter Preis in Mittelalter und Neuzeit,” Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte 93 (2006): 438–79.
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b. Architectural Surveying and Town Planning Architectural Surveying. In the area of the history of the built environment, particularly sacred architecture, the older practice, which began with idealized ground plans and interpreted them allegorically has retreated behind an exact surveying and measuring of the building as it exists. There are now varying positions with regard to the determination of measurements. a) research which considers measures in the context of the immediate local written sources: cf. the volume edited by Philippe Bernardi, Mesurer les bâtiments anciens, und the studies of Günther Binding; lastly id. and Susanne Linscheid-Burdich, Planen und Bauen im frühen und hohen Mittelalter nach den Schriftquellen bis 1250. Lateinisch und Deutsch, 2002, 101–56. b) the survey method: this privileges advanced, non-historically oriented, computer aided processes (Wolfgang Wiemer, Friedrich Balck, Werner Heinz) against the emphasis given to manual, conceptually historicizing surveying techniques, for instance in Alain Guerreau. c) Retrieval of the underlying historical measures: within the framework of the publication series Ordo et mensura the positivistic, chronologically generalizing branch of historical metrology associated with Ralf A.C. Rottländer has formed its own school. Town Planning. The discussions around the surveying and measuring of towns is largely dictated by discipline. The idea of a stringently planned and rapidly populated core from which towns developed (as assumed in art history, historical geography) opposes the thesis that towns developed their structures in a long, complex process (assumed by urban history, increasingly urban archeology). On the rivalry between the schools, cf. Matthias Untermann, “Planstadt, Gründungsstadt, Parzelle: Archäologische Forschung im Spannungsfeld von Urbanistik und Geschichte. Einführungende Bemerkungen,” Die vermessene Stadt: Mittelalterliche Stadtplanung zwischen Mythos und Befund, ed. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Archäologie des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit, 2004, 9–16, and Martina Stercken, “Gebaute Ordnung: Stadtvorstellungen und Planungen im Mittelalter,” Städteplanung – Planungsstädte, ed. Bruno Fritzsche, Hans-Jörg Gilomen, and Martina Stercken, 2006, 15–37. D3. Recent Research a. Systems Building on the monographic studies, the following publications have discussed the matter of the system underlying medieval weights and measures: programmatically in Jean-Claude Hocquet, “Methodologie de l’histoire des poids et mesures le commerce maritime entre Alexandrie et Venise dur-
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ant le haut Moyen Age,” Mercati e mercanti nell’Alto Medioevo: L’area euroasiatica e l’area mediterranea, ed. Centro italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 1993, 847–83, and, summarizing older research, Harald Witthöft, “Maß und Regio. Herrschaft, Wirtschaft und Kultur: Von aequalitas, Einheitlichkeit und langer Dauer,” Jahrbuch für Regionalgeschichte 24 (2006): 49–75. Pierre Portet reflects upon the genesis of the system in the Carolingian period in “Remarques sur les systèmes métrologiques carolingiens,” Le moyen âge: Revue d’histoire et de philologie 97 (1991): 5–24, as does Harald Witthöft in “Von Möglichkeiten und Grenzen einer legalen europäischen Metrologie in Mittelalter und Neuzeit,” Ordo et Mensura IV/V: Internationaler Interdisziplinärer Kongress für Historische Metrologie: Ordo et mensura IV (1995 Schloß Hohentübingen), Ordo et Mensura V (1997 München), 1998, 394–404. Local systems are analyzed by Jean-Marie Yante, “Poids et mesures dans le pays de Luxembourg-Chiny (XIIIe-XVIe siècles),” Cahiers de métrologie 11/12 (1994): 13–16, Pierre Portet, “Le système métrologique de Paris au Moyen-Age,” ibid. 463–88; Markus A. Denzel, “Münz- und Währungssysteme in der Levante nach Pegolottis ‘Practica della mercatura’,” Ordo et Mensura III: 3. Internationaler Interdisziplinärer Kongress für Historische Metrologie (1993 Trier), 1995, 384–402, as well as John E. Dotson, and Ulrich Rebstock, Rechnen im islamischen Orient, 1992, 112–29. b. Objects of Study Agrarian Surfaces. General methodological preconditions are formulated by Bruno Andreolli, “Misurare la terra: metrologia altomedievale,” Uomo e spazio nell’alto Medioevo, ed. Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 2003, 151–91, and Gérard Chouquer, “Les formes des paysages médiévaux: déclaration d’ouverture de controverse,” Au-delà de l’écrit: Les hommes et leurs vécus matériels au Moyen Âge à la lumière des sciences et des techniques – Nouvelles perspectives (Actes du Colloque international de Marche-en-Famenne, 16–20 octobre 2002), ed. René Noël, Isabelle Paquay and Jean-Pierre Sosson, 2003, 167–95. For a case study, see Cédric Lavigne, Essai sur la planification agraire au Moyen Âge: les paysages neufs de la Gascogne médiévale (XIIIe–XIVe siècles), 2002. Via the medieval measuring out of the agrarian field divisions the author develops a method which connects use of planimetric techniques based on air photography with topographic maps and field allocation records of the 19th century, as well as the differentiated study of medieval charters. More general regional studies are offered by Kenneth P. Witney, “Kentish Land Measurements of the Thirteenth Century,” Archaeologia Cantiana: Being Contributions to the History and Archaeology of Kent 109 for 1991 (1992): 29–39, and Jean-Marie Martin, “La mesure de la terre en Italie méridionale (VIIIe-XIIe siècles),” Histoire & me-
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sure 8 (1993): 285–93, as well as the monograph by Anna Dunin-Wasowicz, Die Vermessung von Dorf und Flur in den Ländern der polnischen Krone vom 16. bis in das 19. Jh.: Agrotechnik, Landmessbräuche und metrologische Traditionen, 2000, whose methodology is based on Hannerberg. The arithmetic practice of land surveying is reconstructed in Monique Zerner, René Lozi, and Jean-André Cancellieri, “Quelques réflexions inspirées par un document cadastral de la fin du XVe siècle: Pratique de l’arithmétique et mesure de la terre,” Histoire & mesure 8 (1993): 295–312. The practical use of instruments and the experts who wielded them are approached in the works of Aguiar Aguilar, Maria Maravillas, “Las aplicaciones del quadrante de senos en agrimensura através de un tratado árabe oriental del siglo XIV,” Ciencias de la natureza en Al-Andalus: Textos y estudios IV, ed. Camilo Álvarez de Morales, 1996, 93–113, Manuel Riu Riu, “Reflexions sobre el destre, la cana de destre i l’agrimensor Jaume de Sanctacília,” Mediaevalia 9 (1990): 191–201, id., “Problemas de metrología aplicados a la estructuración del suelo: medidas lineales y de superficie,” Experimentació arqueològica sobre conreus medievals a l’Esquerda, 1991–1994: Arqueologia experimental, aplicació a l’Agricultura medieval mediterrànie, ed. Imma Ollich, 1998, 70–76, as well as Martínez Carrillo, Maria de los Llanos, “Sobre las medidas agrarias en la Baja Edad Media: los sogueadores,” Homenaje a la professora Carmen Orcástegui Gros (Arágon en la Edad Media 14–15), ed. Facultad de Filosofi y Letras, Departamento de Historia Medieval, Ciencias y Técnicas Historiográficas y Estudios Arabes e Islámicos, 1999, 1005–13. Food. Salt: The fundamental studies are those by Witthöft and Hocquet, which were developed using the history of salt production and the salt trade. Marija Zaninovi c-Rumora ´ analyzes a local Croatian system in “Solne mjere otoka Paga od 14. do 16. stoljeca ´ (“Salt measures on the island of Pag from the 14th to 16th centuries”)”, Radovi Zavoda za povijesne znanosti Hazu u Zadru 38, ed. Mate Sui c, ´ (1996), 97–102, as does Josip Kolanovi c, ´ “Fibenski metroloski ˇ sustav u 15. stoljecu ´ (“The Metrical System of Fibenik in the 15th Century”)”, Arhivski vjesnik 37 for 1994 (1995): 189–207. Grain: The origins of the corn measure and its connection to other measures in the Rhineland is analyzed by Youri L. Bessmertny, “Combien pesait la maldra de grain? Note sur les rendements du grain dans la Rhénanie des XIIe et XIIIe siècles,” Histoire & Mesure 5 (1990): 213–20 and for the South Italian area by Rita Compatangelo, “Unités de mesures agraires et cadastres romains: stabilité et variabilité des mesures en Italie méridionale,” ibid., 221–57. By contrast, questions of morality are at the foreground of the study by Miguel Ángel Barbero, “‘Blanca la harina, negras las conciencias’: Acarreadores y fieles de peso en la Baja Edad Media hispánica,” Fundación.
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Fundación para la Historia de España (Argentina) 6 (2004): 207–18. Bread: Alain Guerreau provides information on bread measures: “Mesures du blé et du pain à Mâcon (xive-xviiie siècles),” Histoire & mesure 3 (1988): 163–219; see also James Davis, “Baking for the Common Good: a Reassessment of the assize of Bread in Medieval England,” Economic History Review 57 (2004): 465–502, and Miguel Ángel Barbero, “De engañifas, trapacerías y otras transgresiones: Molinos en la Baja Edad Media hispánica,” Sociedad y Memoria en la Edad Media: Estudios en homenaje de Nilda Guglielmi, ed. Ariel Guiance, Pablo Ubierna, 2005, 61–70. Wine and beer: Orientation on medieval wine measures in France and Catalonia can be found in Pierre Portet, “Les mesures du vin en France aus XIIIe et XIVe siècles d’après les mémoriaux de la Chambre des comptes de Paris,” Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes 149 (1991): 435–46, and Gaspar Feliu i Montfort, “Les mesures del vi a Catalunya abans de la reducció de 1585,” Jornados sobre la viticultura de la conca mediterrània, 1995, 617–25. Kerstin Schukowski and Katrinette Bodarwé examine beer measures from the point of view of morality “‘Wenn ich je in diesen Gefäßen falsches Maß gegeben habe, so soll dieses Haus verbrennen’: Von Professionalität und Geschäftsmoral,” Stadt der Frauen: Szenarien aus spätmittelalterlicher Geschichte und zeitgenössischer Kunst, ed. Annette Kuhn and Marianne Pitzen, 1994, 38–39, and V. T. van Vilsteren, “Niet meer dan een stampe or twe …,” Zwols Historisch Tijdschrift 8 (1991): 58–62. On the practical-geometrical preconditions of the calculation of cubic capacity of vessels, see the important studies by Menso Folkerts, most recently “Die Faßmessung (Visierkunst) im späten Mittelalter und in der frühen Neuzeit,” Visierund Rechenbücher der frühen Neuzeit, ed. Rainer Gebhardt, 2008, 1–36. Ad Meskens, Germain Bonte, Jacques De Groote, Mieke De Jonghe, and David A. King describe an unusual early document in “Wine-Gauging at Damme: The Evidence of a Late Medieval Manuscript,” Histoire & mesure 14 (1999): 51–77. Buildings. Research into medieval architectural measures is extraordinarily diverse and heterogeneous. The current state of debate is described in a series of collected essays. The thematic issue Mesurer les bâtiments anciens of the journal Histoire & mesure 16, issue 3/4 (2001) aims methodologically at a synthesis of the reconstruction of surveying practices of the object and the analysis of archival sources. The themes are the origins and use of local units (buildings/material), the role of costing calculations in measurement practices, as well as a comprehensive theoretical consideration of the relationship between measure, representation and social structures. The most recent methodological relevant publications are Texte et archéologie monumentale. Approches de l’architecture médiévale (Actes du colloque d’Avignon, 30 nov.-2 déc. 2005),
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ed. Philippe Bernardi et al., “L’atelier: données provençales sur la place du travail au Moyen Âge,” Cadre de vie et manières d’habiter (XIIe–XVIe siècles), ed. Danièle Alexandre-Bidon, Françoise Piponnier, and Jean-Michel Poisson, 2006, 117–24. The thematic volume Ad Quadratum: The Practical Application of Geometry in Medieval Architecture, ed. Nancy Wu, 2002, by contrast, uses various source types (sketch plans and model drawings, surveys of buildings, measures of buildings, and analysis of proportions), to focus on the planning of medieval buildings. The reconstructions connect the precise status of the genuine measurement with the respective state of knowledge of practical-geometry and arithmetic, its case-by-case implementation in building practice, and the question of the role of the underlying medieval units (cf. also Binding). An approach based on the aesthetics of measure, first rejected by Konrad Hecht and again justifiably criticized by Alain Guerreau among others (Konrad Hecht, “Maß und Zahl in der gotischen Baukunst,” Abhandlungen der Braunschweigischen Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft 21 (1969): 215–326; 32 (1970): 105–263; 33 (1971/72): 25–236; Alain Guerreau, “L’analyse des dimensions des édifices médiévaux. Notes de méthode provisoires,” Paray-le-Monial, Brionnais-Charolais: Le renouveau des études romans. IIe colloque scientifique international de Paray-le-Monial (2–3–4 octobre 1998), ed. Nicolas Reveyron, 2000, 327–35) has recently been revived by Werner Heinz, Musik in der Architektur: Von der Antike zum Mittelalter, 2005. On the wider implications of this issue, also considered from the point of view of the history of the discipline, cf. Adriano Peroni, “Ordo et mensura nell’architettura altomedievale,” Uomo e spazio nell’alto Medioevo, ed. Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 2003, 1055–117. Towns. Medieval town planning has recently been intensely discussed from the standpoint of historical metrology. A connection between building and town measures in the metrological-political framework of the Lombard communes of the 12th century is reconstructed by Emanuele Lugli, “A Mathematical Land: measurements in twelfth-century Modena and the Po valley,” Status und Poetik der Zahl: Ordnungsangebote, Gebrauchsformen und Erfahrungsmodalitäten des numerus im Mittelalter, ed. Moritz Wedell, forthcoming. Archaeological, historical and town history research have formed independent traditions in order to explain the shape of medieval towns, in which measurement in the metrological sense played an implicit role. On the state of research cf. Stercken. The generalizing, measurement practice based approach of Klaus Humpert, Martin Schenk, Entdeckung der mittelalterlichen Stadtplanung, 2001, challenged the disciplines of archeology and history. Though it is now basically disproved, it triggered a far reaching metrological discussion. Cf. the volume of conference proceedings, Die ver-
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messene Stadt: Mittelalterliche Stadtplanung zwischen Mythos und Befund, ed. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Archäologie des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit, 2004. The Holy, Measures, and Number Symbolism. The transfers between the metrological and the holy belongs to the margins of measuring. Corresponding studies include Gustav Otruba, “Die Bedeutung ‘heiliger Längen’ im Rahmen der Kulturgeschichte, insbesondere des österreichischen Raumes,” Acta Metrologiae Historicae III: Das Wiegen und Messen und der Staat, ed. Jean-Claude Hocquet, with Cornelius Neutsch and Karl Jürgen Roth, 1992, 203–22; Richard Hüttel, “Heilige Maße – Wegstrecken in Jerusalem und anderswo,” Ordo et Mensura III: 3. Internationaler Interdisziplinärer Kongress für Historische Metrologie (1993 Trier), 1995, 300–05, as well as Thomas Lentes: “Die Vermessung des Christus-Körpers,” Glaube – Liebe – Hoffnung – Tod: Ausstellung der Kunsthalle Wien/Graphische Sammlung Albertina, ed. Christoph Geismar-Brandi, Eleonora Louis, 1995, 144–47, and the study on the culture of signs on the measurement of the side wound of Christ in various media by Christina Lechtermann, “Maßnahmen – Die Wunde zwischen Schrift, Bild und Zahl”, Vom Körper zur Schrift, ed. Maria Schnitter, Elisabeth Vavra, and Horst Wenzel, 2007, 231–52. The normed measures found in church buildings form a borderline area here, especially the question as to how far the medieval stoups and baptismal fonts were cast and used as measures (Franz German, “Ein romanischer Weihwasserkessel als zentrales Weinmaß,” Rheinische Heimatpflege 15 (1978): 283–88; Reinhold Spichal, Waren mittelalterliche Taufbecken auch verkörperte Raummaße?, 1999. In a metaphorical sense, the measuring and allocation of prayer and penance can also be included in holy measures; cf. Arnold Angenendt, Thomas Braucks, Rolf Busch, Thomas Lentes, and Hubertus Lutterbach, “Gezählte Frömmigkeit,” FmSt 29 (1995): 1–71. A further marginal area is formed by the measurement of the body; on this cf. Faith Wallis, “Counting all the Bones: Measure, number and weight in early medieval texts about the body,” Status und Poetik der Zahl. Ordnungsangebote, Gebrauchsformen und Erfahrungsmodalitäten des numerus im Mittelalter, ed. Moritz Wedell, forthcoming. The problematic area of the role of symbolic, numerically coded measurements in works of art has not been systematically and seriously developed since the seventies and the breakdown of the exaggerated interpretative approaches applied up till then. The current state of art in this research field is represented in the Lexikon der mittelalterlichen Zahlenbedeutungen, ed. Heinz Meyer and Rudolf Suntrup, 1987, while introductions are provided by Max Wehrli, “Zahlenallegorese, Zahlenallegorie,” Literatur im deutschen Mittelalter: Eine poetologische Einführung, 1984 (2nd ed. 2006), 214–35; “Zahlensymbolik,” Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie, vol. 4, 1972, 560–61; Laurenz Lüt-
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teken, “Zahlensymbolik,” Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, vol 9, 1998, 2127–36. Other. Textile measures in France are analyzed by Simonne AbrahamThisse, “Les aunes des drapiers au Moyen Age,” Cahiers de métrologie 11/12 (1994): 385–99, and from the perspective of the history of work, Dominique Cardon, “Arachné Ligotée: la fileuse du Moyen Age face au drapier,” Médiévales: langue, textes, histoire 30 (1996), 13–22. A brooch incorporating measures is described by Niamh Whitfield, “Design and Units of Measure on the Hunterston Brooch,” Northumbria’s Golden Age, ed. Jane Hawkes and Susan Mills, 1999, 296–314. Objects containing measures from the context of various churches in the Hessian region are studied by Peter Weyrauch, “Metrologische Untersuchungen an kleinen Objekten,” Ordo et mensura VII: 7. Internationaler Interdisziplinärer Kongress für Historische Metrologie (München 2001), 2002, 238–54. c. Measuring Objects Apart from the interdisciplinary summaries by Darrou and Witthöft, the description of medieval measuring objects lies above all in the field of archaeology and is only gradually coming in within the field of interest of history. Scales and Weights. The biggest group of objects are fine scales and money weights. The research is predominantly oriented to the documentation of the materiality of the objects, reflecting the subject traditions, but also their condition. A comprehensive summary, particularly concerned with surviving fine scales, is by Heiko Steuer, Waagen und Gewichte aus dem mittelalterlichen Schleswig: Funde des 11. bis 13. Jahrhunderts aus Europa als Quellen zur Handels- und Währungsgeschichte, 1997. Supplementary funds from eastern Europe are documented by Anna Bogumila Kowalska, “Wczesnosredniowieczne ´ wagi ze Szczecina” (“Frühmittelalterliche Waagen aus Szczecin”), Przeglad Archaeologiczny 47 (1999): 141–53; Miroslav Marcinkowski, “Wagi i odwarniki kupieckie ze Starego Miasta Elbl‰ga” (“Scales and Merchant Weights From the Old Town of Elbing”), Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnej 50 (2002): 44–52, and Ján Hunka, “Vzácny nález miskovitych ´ závazí ˇ z Banskej Bystrice” (“Bowl-Shaped Weights From Banská Bystrica”), Archaeologica historica 25 (2000): 369–83. A Viking weight and its links to contemporary Islamic norms is described by Monika Maleszka, “A Viking Age Weight From Cleat, Westray, Orkney,” Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scottland 133 (2003): 283–91. A lead pound weight from Prague old town is described by Zdenek ˇ Dragoun, “Nález olovené ˇ Hrivny ˇ v Betezové ˇ ulici na Starém
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Mest ˇ eˇ prazském” ˇ (“The Find of a Lead Pound Weight in the Prague Old Town”), Archaeologica historica 26 (2001): 359–64. A comprehensive private collection with stone weights, which partly reaches into the medieval period is documented by Gerhard Eiselmayr, “Spätmittelalterliche und neuzeitliche Steingewichtsstücke aus Österreich,” Acta Metrologiae Historicae II: Bericht über den 4. Internationalen Kongress für Historische Metrologie veranstaltet vom Internationalen Komitee für Historische Metrologie (Linz 1986), ed. Harald Witthöft with Cornelius Neutsch, 1989, 41–66. Public Normed Measures. Darrou’s collection has not been supplemented by any over-all study on publicly displayed normed measures. Stone measures from Istria are described in Sena Seculic, “Zur Erforschung der mittelalterlichen Maße in Istrien,” Acta Metrologiae Historicae II: Bericht über den 4. Internationalen Kongress für Historische Metrologie veranstaltet vom Internationalen Komitee für Historische Metrologie (Linz 1968), ed. Harald Witthöft with Cornelius Neutsch, 1989, 227–38, and id., “‘Kamenica’ – Das Steinmaß der Burg Medvedgrad bei Zagreb aus dem 13. Jh. Jahrhundert,” Acta Metrologiae Historicae III: Das Wiegen und Messen und der Staat, ed. Jean-Claude Hocquet, with Cornelius Neutsch and Karl Jürgen Roth, 1992, 258–67. Research into the ensemble of measures at the foot of Freiburg Minster is collected in Peter Kalchthaler, “‘Dieser Zuber achtmal aufgehäuft …’: Maße und Marktinschriften am Fuß des Freiburger Münsterturms,” eichen – wiegen – messen um den Freiburger Münstermarkt (Ausstellung vom 31. Januar bis 27. April 2003), ed. Augustinermuseum Freiburg, 2003, 45–48. The significance of the surviving measuring objects in the implementation of civic norms is the subject of Sven Schütte, “Der archäologische Befund als Quelle der Verwirklichung städtischer Normen,” Die Vielfalt der Dinge: Neue Wege zur Analyse mittelalterlicher Sachkultur (Internationaler Kongreß Krems an der Donau 4. bis 7. Oktober 1994), ed. Helmut Hundsbichler, Gerhard Jaritz, and Thomas Kühtreiber, 1998, 359–73 and Lugli. E. Medieval Terminology There is no definitive monograph on medieval terminology in any language (but cf. Menninger, Zupko, and Schuppener). In a general perspective, isolated observations are offered in Jean Haudry, “Beobachtungen über die indogermanische Benennung des Messens,” Ordo et mensura II: 2. Internationaler und interdisziplinärer Kongress für Historische Metrologie (1991 Trier), 1993, 15–21, and Werner Besch, “… sein Licht (nicht) unter den Scheffel stellen,” Deutsche Sprache in Raum und Zeit: Festschrift für Peter Wiesinger zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. Peter Ernst, Franz Patocka, 1998, 463–77. On the role of contact between languages, see Elke Grab-Kempf, “Reflexe von ar. habb
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(Koll.), habba (Nom.un) als Bezeichnungen für Maße, Gewichte, Tribute, Bruchteile, sowie als Benennung des Kleinsten und Geringsten in den iberoamerikanischen Sprachen,” Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie 115 (1999): 464–71, and on usage in Hebrew or Welsh manuscripts cf. Magdalena Nom de Déu and Joep Ramon, “Terminología metrológica en los manuscrittos hebraicos medievales del Archivo General de Navarra,” Las abreviaturas en la enseñanza medieval y la transmisión del saber (Rubrica: Paleographica et diplomatica studia 4) 3 (1990), 273–80, and Pierre-Yves Lambert, “The Old-Welsh Glosses on Weights and Measures,” Yr Hen laith: Studies in Early Welsh, 2003, 103–34. F. Quantification of Medieval Remains The digitally supported quantitative-statistical methods do not belong to the field of historical metrology in the strict sense. Nevertheless they constitute an emerging branch of the relevant research. Digitally Supported Surveying of Buildings. A range of IT-based instruments have been developed to serve the metrological documentation of older buildings. Cf. Wiemers’s use of the instrument BMD and the introduction to the Trigomat system by Friedrich Balck (on the method, Friedrich Balck, “Computergestützte Vermessung und zeichnerische Dokumentation,” Gebäudeinformationssysteme: Abschlußbericht des DVW-Arbeitskreises 6 (Ingenieurvermessung und FIG-Symposium vom 5. bis 7. April 1995 an der Technischen Universität Braunschweig. Institut für Geodäsie und Photogrammetrie), ed. Bodo Schrader, 1995, 175–84; on its use id., “Computergestützte Vermessung der Domvorhalle in Goslar,” Ordo et Mensura IV/V: Internationaler Interdisziplinärer Kongress für Historische Metrologie: Ordo et mensura IV (1995 Schloß Hohentübingen), Ordo et Mensura V (1997 München), ed. Dieter Ahrens and Rolf C.A. Rottländer, 1998, 329–40). The topometric method, appropriated by Dieter Dirksen and others from medical techniques, which is particularly suitable for the exact measurement of surfaces (important in epigraphy) cf. Dieter Dirksen, Y. Kozlov, Gert von Bally, “Cuneiform surface reconstruction by optical profilometry,” Optical Technologies in the Humanities (Optics Within Life Science IV), ed. Dieter Dirksen, Gert von Bally, 1997, 257–59 (on its application, see Maria Shinoto, Zoltán Böröcz, Carsten Thomas, Dieter Dirksen, Joseph Maran, and Gert von Bally, “Topometrical Measurements in Tiryns, Greece. Report on a Co-Operate Project Between Physics and Archaeology,” Archaeological Informatics: Pushing the Envelope. CAA 2001 (Proceedings of the 29th conference, Gotland April 2001), ed. Göran Burenhult, Johan Arvidsson, 2002, 181–89).
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Digitally Supported Analysis of Ground Conditions, and Finds of Ceramics and Bones. The area of archeometric studies also encompasses the digitally supported methods for the assessment of excavation sites (François Djindjian, “Nouvelles méthodes pour l’analyse spatiale des sites archéologiques,” Histoire & mesure 5 (1990): 11–34) and the results of geophysical studies (Michel Magny, “Les fluctuations des lacs jurassiens et subalpins au Moyen Âge,” Histoire & mesure 8 [1993]: 5–17), as well as, most recently Cédric Panissod, Michel Dabas, “La reconnaissance des sols historiques urbains par méthodes géophysiques,” Histoire & mesure 14 [1999]: 221–48). The analysis of ceramic finds has a special place here, cf. Hugo Blake, “Sizes and measures of later medieval pottery in north central Italy,” Material Culture in Medieval Europe, ed. Guy de Boe and Frans Verhaeghe, 1997, 221–50, further Pascal Chareille, Philippe Husi, “Méthode d’analyse quantitative et statistique de la céramique de Tours,” Histoire & mesure 11 (1996): 19–51, and Philippe Husi, Richard Tomassone, and Pascal Chareille, “Céramologie et chronologie: De l’analyse factorielle au modèle linéaire: les sites d’habitats de la ville de Tours,” Histoire & mesure 15 (2000): 3–32. Also of relevance is the nutritional history-based approach of Frédérique AudoinRouzeau, “Compter et mesurer les os animaux: Pour une histoire de l’élevage et de l’alimentation en Europe de l’Antiquité aux Temps Modernes,” Histoire & mesure 10 (1995): 277–312. Statistical Source Analysis. The theory and methodology of the digitally aided statistical text analysis also forms part of the statistical radicalization of perspectives on historical metrology (programmatic: Alain Guerreau, “Pourquoi (et comment) l’historien doit-il compter les mots?,” Histoire & mesure 4 (1989): 81–105), which has been particularly used in research into the development of social structure, trade and climate (paradigmatic: the contributions under the rubric Mesure de l’histoire in the journal Histoire & mesure.) G. Current Issues and Future Trends Metrology is integrated into a broad interdisciplinary spectrum of research interests. For that reason, historical metrological research is and will for the near future continue to be formed by the various discipline-specific desiderata. Three trends may be observed across subject boundaries: first, a stronger weight given to archeology and the interdisciplinary conversation about the transferability of archaeological data and historical methods of questioning; secondly a more precise analysis of the cultural techniques (instruments and written practices) of measurement and their integration into the history of rationalization; thirdly, a stronger emphasis on metrological perspectives in
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the commercialization of agrarian and industrial production. In the face of the increasing density of historical-metrological research, the development of new forms of chronotopographical synthesis and representation of the existing scholarship may be expected. An adequate theoretical modeling of medieval measurement practice has still not been developed, especially with regard to the spatial and temporal movement of measures. Select Bibliography Bibliographies: The first comprehensive bibliography of Historical Metrology, Bibliographia Metrologiae Historicae pro uso interno Instituti historici Academie scientiarum et artium Slavorum meridionalium, ed. Miroslav Kurelac, Zlatko Herkov, 3 vols. 1971, 1973, 1975, includes both West and East European research, in particular the older metrological literature from the 16th century onwards. Each volume is ordered alphabetically by author. The volumes of the general selected bibliography, Bibliographie zur Historischen Metrologie (Wissenschaftliche Arbeitshilfen zur Geschichte des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit 7 und 7,2), ed. Alfred Heit, Klaus Petry, 2 vols. 1992, 1995, are each divided into a systematic and a geographic section. The geographically ordered entries, in turn, are divided into German scholarhip and that of other European countires. At almost the same time, and as part of his multivolume metrological handbook, the comprehensive bibliography compiled by Harald Witthöft appeared (Deutsche Bibliographie zur historischen Metrologie: Das deutsche und deutschsprachige Schrifttum. Erweitert um ausgewählte Arbeiten zur historischen Metrologie europäischer und außereuropäischer Staaten, ed. Harald Witthöft, with Karl Jürgen Roth and Reinhold Schamberger, 1991). It aims at a complete account of German scholarship, as well as at including further selected work from other European contexts. The basic structure divides general metrology (I) from specific forms (II). The titles relating to specific territorial areas, lordship or epochs are found in a geographical section sorted, as in Heit/Petry by country, region and place (III). Further information on the French area can be found in Olivier Guyotjeannin, “Métrologie française d’ancien régime: Guide bibliographique sommaire,” Gazette des archives 139 (1987): 233–347, as well as Bernard Garnier, “La Bibliothèque de l’I.H.M.C,” Cahiers de métrologie 2 (1984): 87–111. A specialized bibliography on the history of the terminology of measures is found in Georg Schuppener, Die Dinge fassbar machen, 2002, 471–506, and the bibliography of accompaniying Pierre Portets’ Bertrand-Boysset-Edition deals with the practical-geometric and history of mathematics aspect of medieval metrology http://boysset. ifrance.com/boysset/introduc.htm (last accessed on Apr. 21, 2010). Selected references in the appendix to Jedrzejewski’s typological study guide to epistemological frameworks (Franck Jedrzejewski, Histoire universelle de la mesure, 2002, 376–414). The Chinese area is coverd by Ulrich Theobald, Hans Ulrich Vogel, with the assistence of Zhang Lihong, Zhan Xuejun, and Alexei Volkov, Chinese, Japanese und Western Research in Chinese Historical Metrology: A Classified Bibliography (1925–2002), 2004 [http://www.sino.uni-tuebingen.de/index.php?s=file_download&id=4; last accessed on Apr. 21, 2010]. Literature: Hermann von Helmholtz, “Zählen und Messen, erkenntnistheoretisch betrachtet,” Schriften zur Erkenntnistheorie, ed. Moritz Schlick and Paul Hertz
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(Berlin: Springer, 1921), 99–129 (rpt. ed. Ecke Bonk, Vienna and New York: Springer, 1998); Alltag im Spätmittelalter, ed. Harry Kühnel (Graz and Vienna: Edition Kaleidoskop, 1984), 29–37; Jean-Claude Hocquet, La métrologie historique: Que sais-je? 2972 (Paris: P.U.F., 1995), 15–40; Harald Witthöft, “Maße und Gewichte,” Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde, 2nd ed., vol. 19 (2001), 398–418; Withold Kula, Les mesures et les hommes, trans. Joanna Ritt, rev. K. Pomian et J. Revel (Paris: Edition MSH, 1984); Alfred Crosby, The Measure of Reality: Quantification and Western Society, 1250–1600 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); Joel Kaye, Economy and Nature in the Fourteenth Century. Money, Market Exchange, and the Emergence of Scientific Thought, 1998; Alain Guerreau, “L’analyse des dimensions des édifices médiévaux: Notes de méthode provisoires,” Paray-le-Monial, Brionnais-Charolais: Le renouveau des études romans. IIe colloque scientifique international de Paray-le-Monial (2–3–4 octobre 1998), ed. Nicolas Reveyron, Michel Rocher, and Marie-Térèse Engel (Paray-le-Monial: Amis de la Basilique Romane, 2000), 327–35; Heiko Steuer, Waagen und Gewichte aus dem mittelalterlichen Schleswig: Funde des 11. bis 13. Jahrhunderts aus Europa als Quellen zur Handels- und Währungsgeschichte: Zeitschrift für Archäologie des Mittelalters, supplement 10 (Cologne and Bonn: Habelt, 1997).
Moritz Wedell
Museums and Exhibitions A. Introduction The traditional form of the modern museum begins in the 18th century. A closer look at that model shows that the roots of the word, “museum,” and the phenomenon of the museum can be traced to antiquity and ancient Egypt. Geoffrey Lewis, in his History of Museums (2006), explains the etymology of “museum” and traces the word’s development through the centuries: “The word has classical origins. In its Greek form, mouseion, it meant ‘seat of the Muses’ and designated a philosophical institution or a place of contemplation. Use of the Latin derivation, museum, appears to have been restricted in Roman times mainly to places of philosophical discussion” (Geoffrey Lewis and Gottfried Fliedl, The History of Museums: Zur Geschichte des Museums [2007], 9). Stepping forward to the Middle Ages, “The word museum was received in 15th-century Europe to describe the collection of Lorenzo de Medici in Florence, but the term conveyed the concept of comprehensiveness rather than denoting a building. By the 17th century museum was being used in Europe to describe collections of curiosity” (ibd. For example, Ole Worms’ Collection in Copenhagen and John Tradescant’s Collection in Lambeth/UK – now a London borough – were such institu-
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tions). In 1677, the collection in Lambeth became property of Elias Ashmole; it was transferred to the University of Oxford, and a special building, called Ashmolean Museum, was constructed for it. “Use of the word museum during the 19th and 20th century (still) denoted a building housing cultural material to which the public had access” (Geoffrey Lewis and Gottfried Fliedl, History of Museums/Geschichte des Museums [2007], 11). Researchers in the humanities began to deal with the museum phenomenon in the 18th century: “Along with the identification of a clear role for museums in society, there gradually developed a body of theory the study of which is known as museology” (Geoffrey Lewis, The History of Museums [2006], 2). The particular applications of that theory – conservation and display, borrowing from other disciplines and techniques, the general requirement of the museum and its public – is called museography. It was first used in Caspar Friedrich Neickelius’s Museographie oder Anleitung zum rechten Begriff und nützlicher Anlegung der Museuorum oder Raritätenkammern (1727). The term museology was first mentioned by Philipp Leopold Martin in Die Praxis der Naturgeschichte (1869). The collections and cabinets themselves varied considerably in their approaches and concepts over the centuries. “[…] The collection of things that might have religious, magical, economic, aesthetic or historical value or that simply might be curiosities were undertaken worldwide by groups as well as by individuals” (Geoffrey Lewis, The History of Museums, 2006, 3). B. The Museum in the Middle Ages There was often a close link between the church and ruling class in the Middle Ages. “In Medieval Europe collections were mainly the prerogative of princely houses and the church,” (Geoffrey Lewis and Gottfried Fliedl, The History of Museums [2007], 18). Sea travel between the Italian peninsula, the Continent and England facilitated the movement of antiquities. “Henry of Bois, Bishop of Winchester, is reported to have bought ancient statues during a visit in Rome in 1151 […] Exotic material from other areas entering Italian ports soon found its way into royal collections, while the Venetian involvement in the Fourth Crusade early in the 13th century resulted in the transfer of the famous bronze horses from Constantinople to the San Marco Basilica in Venice” (Geoffrey Lewis and Gottfried Fliedl, ibid.). Similar royal collections were also established elsewhere in Europe: “King Matthias I. of Hungary maintained his paintings in Buda and kept Roman antiquities at Szombathely Castle (West Hungary) during the 15th century. Maximilian I. of Austria acquired a collection for his castle in Vienna” (Geoffrey Lewis, The History of Museums [2006], 4), in addition to his numerous other cultural activ-
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ities as Emperor. Italian noble families maintained impressive collections, as well. One of these is Cosimo de Medici’s collection in 15th-century Florence. “The collection was developed by his descendents until it was bequeathed to the state in 1743, to be accessible ‘to the people of Tuscany and all Nations’” (Geoffrey Lewis, ibid.) It is important to note that collections moved out from behind closed doors and into the public sphere. Yet, not all collections, cabinets, and museums could be available to the public at the same time. For example, there were still specialized personal natural history collections (Luca Ghini at Padua, Conrad Gesner, Felix Platter [Basel, Switzerland] and John Tradescant [London]), historical collections (Paolo Giovio, Como, Italy), the archaeological collection of Venice (these collections remained behind closed doors), and illuminated manuscripts gathered by Sir Robert Cotton in England (Geoffrey Lewis and Gottfried Fliedl, The History of Museums [2007], 20–21). Those collections normally were known as cabinets (Kabinett, Kammer, Kunstkammer, Wunderkammer, Rüstungskammer, Naturalienkabinett) (Geoffrey Lewis and Gottfried Fliedl, ibid.). “For the less specialized collector, works such as Museographia by Casper F. Neickelius (1727), were generally available to aid in classification, care of a collection, and the identification of potential sources from which collections might be developed […]. Another product of the age was the learned society, many of which were established to promote corporate discussion, experimentations, and collecting” (Geoffrey Lewis and Gottfried Fliedl, ibid.). Better-known societies date from the 17th century. For example, the Royal Society (London, 1660), Academy of Sciences (Paris, 1666), Society of Antiquaries (London, 1707). C. The Modern Museum The idea of the public exhibition was further developed in the late Middle Ages: The Renaissance collections were mainly open for nobles. The collections “were symbols of social prestige and served as an important element in the traditions of the nobility and the ruling families. … The new collectors, concerned with enjoyment and study and the advancement of knowledge …” (Geoffrey Lewis, The History of Museums [2006], 8) wanted to transmit all this into the public domain. There were efforts in Italy in the 16th century to show private collections to a public audience but the, “first corporate body to receive a private collection, erect a building to house it, and make it publicly available was the University of Oxford. The gift was from Elias Ashmole: containing much of the Tradescant collection … The resulting building which eventually became known as the Ashmolean Museum opened in 1683” (ibid.).
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The 18th century was the founding era of the great museums, such as the British Museum in London in 1759, and the Louvre in Paris in 1793. The British Museum was based on the collections of Sir Robert Cotton, Robert Harley (first Earl of Oxford) and Sir Hans Sloane. These great museums had three basic ideas: to improve the knowledge of a broader public, and to mediate democratic ideas and national (mainly Diderot’s proposal) ideas. Consequently these museums were for many years free of charge to enable a large number of people to visit. Similar efforts can be observed all over Europe. Especially in Italy, above all Rome, the neoclassical architecture of museums (such as the Vatican) set the standard for all museums in European countries for at least half a century. The idea of national museums spread across the world. “In 1773 in the United States the Charlton Library Society of South Carolina announced its intention to form a museum … the Peale Museum was opened in 1786 in Philadelphia by painter Charles Wilson Peale” (Geoffrey Lewis and Gottfried Fliedl, The History of Museums [2007]: 25). The Peale Museum displayed spheres of agriculture, herbal medicine and art. Some 50 years later museums became intercultural. Asian and African collections became popular with the advent of colonialism. Some of these museums of art and culture still exist, for example the Prado in Madrid, Spain, the Alte Pinakothek (art collection of the dukes of Wittelsbach, designed by Leo von Klenze) in Munich, Germany and Museumsinsel in Berlin, Germany. The concept of national identity increased in the 19th century, influencing museums all over Europe. National and regional museums were founded from France to Hungary and Austria (Graz, Innsbruck, Salzburg 1811–1834). The most important theme in these museums was the history of the nation itself. “Increasing interest in antiquities (in connection with the national history) led to the excavation of local archaeological sites and had an impact on museum development” (Geoffrey Lewis and Gottfried Fliedl, The History of Museums [2007], 34). New museum developments were influenced by industry and science. In the 19th century, “museums were also viewed as a vehicle for promoting industrial design and scientific and technical achievement. Such a promotion was the motivation behind the precursor of the Victoria and Albert Museum,” in London (Geoffrey Lewis and Gottfried Fliedl, ibid.). Museums in the United States were held similar interests in history, society and art. “James Smithson, an Englishman … wishes to see established in the US an institution ‘for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men.’ In 1846 the U.S. Congress accepted his bequest …” (Geoffrey Lewis and Gottfried Fliedl, ibid.) and this Smithson’s institution exhibits, “all objects of art and curious research … natural history, plants and
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geological and mineralogical specimens,” (Historical document: Smithsonian charta 1846, § 50, 1). “It was during the second half of the 19th century that museums began to proliferate in Europe; civic pride and the free education movement were among the causes of the development. About 100 opened in Britain … while 50 were established in Germany” (Geoffrey Lewis, The History of Museums [2006], 13). This boom also occurred in South America, Asia and Africa. This data shows that the development of museums is always connected with social and cultural developments, both national and international. This development of museums in quantity and quality increased in the 20th century and this development confirmed the relation between social and cultural processes. The Russian Revolution in 1917 and the end of the central-European monarchies (Germany, Austria) after World War I (1919) substantially influenced, or rather changed, cultural life. “In some countries new approaches were developed; in others museums continued to reflect their diverse ancestry … (In Russia) Not only was much of the country’s artistic, historic, and scientific heritage brought together in museums, but other types of museums emerged as well. … In Germany a large number of regional museums were established after World War I to promote the history and important figures of the homeland, and they undoubtedly encouraged the nationalistic tendencies that led to the Nazi era” (Geoffrey Lewis and Gottfried fliedl, The History of Museums [2007], 39). “Encouragement” might lend too much honor to the museums’ influence, however the museums surely provided a confirmation of national ideas. These relationships show that museums also contain a political dimension. In the U.S. in the early 20th century there was a great desire “to establish a coherent past – a movement that was widely encouraged through private patronage. In the industrialized world new types of museums appeared” (Geoffrey Lewis, The History of Museums [2006], 16). These new museums presented information about the recent past and everyday-life. Museums about everyday life were not confined to the U.S. Open-air museums first were founded in Sweden and in the Netherlands (Netherlands Openluchtmuseum, Arnheim in 1912), followed by Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia (1926), and Cardiff (1947). These tendencies increased after World War II and a third boom began in the 1970s. After 1945, “Museums became an educational facility, a source of leisure activity, and a medium of communication. Their strength lay in the fact that they were repositories of the ‘real thing,’ which – unlike the surrounding world of plastics, reproduced images, and a deteriorating natural and human environment – could inspire and invoke a sense of wonder, reality, stability, and even nostalgia. … in exhibition work, educators developed facilities for
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both students and the public, … There was a perceptible shift from serving the scholar, as befits an institution holding much of the primacy evidence of the material world, to providing for a lay public as well,” (Geoffrey Lewis and Gottfried Fliedl, The History of Museums [2007], 41–42). The result was an increasing number of visitors. Museums and their teams consequently could generate, “a better understanding among the inhabitants of the reasons for cultural, social and environmental change,” and so, “Contemporary museum development has been much influenced by changing policies in public sector …” (ibid.) and vice versa. This new kind of museum, with its interactive museum-teaching, influenced consciousness and knowledge of the inhabitants and was advantageous for all. D. The Middle Ages in the Modern Museum The Middle Ages play an important role in the latest developments of museums, mainly in Europe and in the USA. There were an increased number of Medieval exhibitions in the 1970s, right when museums generally experienced a great boom. In her article, “Das Mittelalter – ein ideales Ausstellungsobjekt?” (Mittelalter-Rezeption: Ein Symposion, ed. Peter Wapnewski, 1986, 346–53) Elisabeth Werner discusses two of the first great exhibitions on the Middle Ages, ‘1000 Jahre Babenberger in Österreich’ (1976 in Stift Lilienfeld, Austria), and ‘Die Kuenringer: Das Werden des Landes Niederösterreich’ (1981 in Stift Zwettl, Austria). Before these two exhibitions there was a major exhibition in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1977 that focused on the Hohenstaufen dynasty (see in the list below), ‘Die Zeit der Staufer’. In the following decades, many museums and exhibitions treating Medieval topics opened their doors. These exhibits can be divided into historical and literary exhibitions. In some exhibitions and museums, the Middle Ages are only part of the whole project, and sometimes only one aspect of the Middle Ages is treated. The role and tasks of the scientists and scholars who are involved in creating the exhibitions can be different. The presentations also can be classified according to architectural aspects if they were organized in a special museum building or in an original historical building. Architecture can be considered an additional component regarding the general development of museums. According to Geoffrey Lewis, “Many buildings of historical significance have been adapted to house museums,” especially since the 1990s (Geoffrey Lewis and Gottfried Fliedl, The History of Museums [2007], 44). For this article it is not possible to provide even an approximately complete list of all museums and exhibitions dealing with the Middle Ages. Instead the reader will find a short list of types of Medieval exhibitions and
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some examples of these from recent years, including also a listing of the diverse tasks of the scholars and some examples of catalogues and literature. In general, an exhibit dealing with the Middle Ages is included in virtually all European and American (cultural) history museums, and in some national and regional art museums, for example the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Pinakothek in Munich, the Historical Museum in Vienna, and the ‘Salzburg Museum’ in Austria. Scholars of art history, history, and education are involved in these projects to design and mediate the exhibitions. A special method for presenting exhibits about the Middle Ages can be found in historical or reconstructed castles and monasteries. According to Lewis, the first museum in a castle was maintained by Princess Izabella Czartoryska near Warsaw, Poland, in Pulawy Castle-Garden in the early 19th century. In general, a medieval castle itself is a museum and includes information that presents the history of the castle and its environment (e. g., the Marienburg/Malbork, in Poland, where the Teutonic Order had its residence for three centuries). Most of the monasteries are still active, but in spite of this there are also special kinds of exhibitions in monasteries. For example, a monastery’s library and history can be presented in an exhibition area. Two outstanding examples are Castle Neuschwanstein in Bavaria, Germany, and The Cloisters in New York. The castle of the Bavarian King Ludwig II, however, is not medieval, and only includes numerous 19th century frescoes depicting Medieval myths such as the Nibelungen, Tristan, and Parsifal (they were painted in connection with and inspired by Richard Wagner’s operas, therefore the spelling is ‘Parsifal’ instead of the Middle High German Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach’s text). Historians and scholars of German literature have dealt with these topics in various articles (see: Hans Dieter Mück, “Das historistische Mittelalter Ludwig II: Die Entwicklung Neuschwansteins von der Burg Lohengrins und Tannhäusers zum Gralstempel Parzivals,” Die Rezeption des Mittelalters in Literatur, bildender Kunst und Musik des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts, ed. Jürgen Kühnel and Ulrich Müller, 1982, 195–246; Ulrich Müller, “Hohenstaufen,” Mittelalter Mythen, ed. Werner Wunderlich and Ulrich Müller, 2008, 317–32; Siegrid Schmidt, “Der Mythos in den Mauern – Zum Beispiel Burg Neuschwanstein” op. cit., 671–80; and Martin Schubert, “Disney’s Traumschlösser,” op. cit., 201–12). The Cloisters as a building, for instance, was transported from France to the USA; see below in the list of the museums.
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E. Historical Museums The Metropolitan Museum – Medieval part, New York (reconstructions of Medieval churches and knighthood). The Cloisters, New York. Bonnie Young and Malcolm Varon, A Walk through the Cloisters (1979): “The initial imagination was that of the American sculptor George Grey Barnard. Before 1914, when he lived in France, Barnard collected much of the architectural material seen in The Cloisters today, including the columns and capitals of the Saint-Guilem, Cuxa, Bennefont, and Trie Cloisters […]. The design for their structure was entrusted to Charles Collens, the architect of the Riverside Church in New York. Collens’s first consultant in the planning was Joseph Breck, Assistant Director of the Metropolitan Museum. Upon Breck’s death in 1933, the responsibility passed to his colleague James J. Rorimer. Collens and Rorimer, architect and curator, worked closely together throughout the construction period to determine the final form of the building.” “After four years of construction beginning in 1934, The Cloisters opened in 1938. It is not a copy of any particular medieval structure, but an ensemble of rooms and gardens that suggest, rather than duplicate, the European originals. The rooms and halls and chapels of the main floor are built around the largest of the four cloisters, the one from Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa. On the lower floor … are the Gothic Chapel, the walls of which rise the height of the two floors, and two garden cloisters, the Bonnefont and the Trie-en-Bigorre (places in France) […]” (Geoffrey Lewis, The History of Museums [2006], 4–5). Die Zeit der Staufer: Geschichte, Kunst, Kultur, Catalogue, ed. Reiner Haussherr, vol. 1–5 (1977); 1000 Jahre Babenberger, Stift Lilienfeld, Austria, 1976, Catalogue, ed. E. Zöllner and K. Gutkas, Katalog des Niederösterreichischen Landesmuseums Nr. 66. (1976); Die Kuenringer: Das Werden des Landes Niederösterreich, Stift Zwettl, Austria, 1981, Catalogue, ed. H. Wolfram and K. Brunner, Katalog des Niederösterreichischen Landesmuseums Nr. 110 (1981); St. Peter in Salzburg: Das älteste Kloster im deutschen Sprachrraum, Salzburg, 1982, Catalogue, Schätze europäischer Kunst und Kultur, ed. Amt der Salzburger Landesregierung (1982); Wehrhafte Stadt: Das Wiener Bürgerliche Zeughaus im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert, Catalogue, by Günter Düriegl, 101. Sonderausstellung Historisches Museum Wien (1986); Die Ritter, Burgendländische Landesausstellung Burg Güssing, Catalogue, ed. Harald Pricker (1990); Ritterburg und Fürstenschloss, Catalogue, ed. Herbert Wurster and Richard Loibl, Archiv des Bistums Passau, vol. 1/2 (1998); Schauplatz Mittelalter, Kärntner Landesausstellung, Friesach, Catalogue, ed. Barbara Maier and Günther Hödl, vol. 1–2 (2001); Kaiser Heinrich II. 1002–1024, Bamberg, Catalogue ed. Josef Kirmeier, Bernd Scheidmüller et al. (2002); Kaiser
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Maximilian I: Bewahrer und Reformer, Reichskammergerichtsmuseum Wetzlar, Catalogue, ed. Georg Schmidt-von Rhein (2002). The following exhibits were of particular importance: Museum Judenplatz – zum mittelalterlichen Judentum, 2004, Catalogue, Museum Judenplatz, ed. Gerhard Milchram (2004). The curator commented: “Als Mitte der 90er Jahre die Wissenschaftler der Wiener Stadtarchäologie unter Dr. Ortolf Harl die Reste der mittelalterlichen Synagoge auf dem Judenplatz entdeckten und Zug um Zug freilegten, war dies für die Fachwelt nicht nur eine große Entdeckung, für manche Mittelalterforscher war es sogar ein Sensation. Die Funde bestätigten die Vermutungen der Wissenschaftler, dass sich auf dem Judenplatz eine bedeutende jüdische Ansiedlung mit einem wichtigen religiösen Zentrum befunden hat. Einer der damals bedeutendsten jüdischen Gelehrten, Isaak ben Mose, auch Or Sarua genannt, ist aufgrund der schriftlichen Quellen, die wir kennen, in Wien gewesen” (6; “When in the middle of the 1990s the scholars of the Viennese city-archaeology department, under the direction of Dr. Ortolf Harl, discovered the remnants of the Jewish synagogue and excavated them step by step, this was not only a great discovery for the discipline, but for some scholars it was a real sensation. These discoveries confirmed the assumption by some scholars that there had been a Jewish settlement and an important religious center in the Jewish Square. One of the most important Jewish scholars, Issak ben Mose, also called Or Sarua, had been in Vienna at that time, according to the available literary sources”). The basic walls of the synagogue and the reconstruction of the old settlement and its development are presented. Im Fluss – Am Fluss, 950 Jahr Stift Lambach, Jubiläumsausstellung, Catalogue, ed. Benediktinerstift Lambach (2006); Maximilian I.: Triumph eines Kaisers: Herrscher mit Europäischen Visionen, 2006; Heiliges Römisches Reich Deutscher Nation, Berlin and Magdeburg, 2006, Catalogue: Heiliges Römisches Reich Deutscher Nation, 962 bis 1806: Von Otto dem Großen bis zum Ausgang des Mittelalters, ed. Matthias Puhle and Claus-Peter Hasse, part I, (2006). It includes a list of the most important international medieval exhibitions (603–59). This exhibition took place in two cities, in Magdeburg (treating the Middle Ages) and Berlin (treating the 19th century and the 20th until the end of the monarchy). The catalogue has three parts, two covering the exhibitions and one containing essays by various scholars: historians, art historians, architects, and philosophers. There is an additional collection of the papers that were written for a congress that was organized just before the opening of the exhibition. The main catalogue shows the numerous tasks of science and humanities in connection with such
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a great event. Cecilie Hollberg, Martina Junghans, Gabriele Köster, Heike Pöppelmann, Thilo Reichelt, and Alexander Schubert worked together on the scholarly organization. There were also educational specialists in the exhibitions (Thilo Reichelt, special part: Wolfgang Hugk, KarlHein Kärgling), for public relations specialists, (Alexander Schubert), specialists for the exhibition’s design and legends (Karin Kanter, Gabriele Köster, Sabine Liebscher, Alexander Schubert), library specialists (Helga Schettge), and a large supporting staff. The sheer manpower needed to run the exhibition provides enough proof that such an exhibition, of a topic that deals with nearly 1,000 years, is a very complex challenge. F. Medieval Literature in Musems and Exhibitions Das Nibelungenlied, Hohenems, Austria, 1979, Elmar Vonban, Nibelungenlied: Ausstellung zur Erinnerung an die Auffindung der Handschrift A des Nibelungenliedes im Jahre 1779 im Palast zu Hohenems (1979). The most important scholars dealing with the Nibelungenlied wrote articles for the catalogue (Achim Masser, Sigrid von Moisy, Hermann Reichert, and Walter Salmen). Subsequently an International Congress with well-known medivalists (Achim Masser, Ulrich Müller, Alfred Ebenbauer, Klaus Zatloukal, Peter Stein, Otfrid Ehrismann, and Walter Haug) was organized in the small town of Hohenems. It was the first time that the reception of the Middle Ages, or Medievalism, other than the traditional Nibelungen-topics, was included in a serious exhibition and in a scholarly congress. Die Neidhart-Fresken, Vienna, Austria, exhibition since 1982, Catalogue, Eva-Maria Höhle, Renata Kassal-Mikula et al., Neidhard-Fresken um 1400: Die ältesten profanen Wandmalereien Wiens (1982). It is not an exhibition in the traditional sense, insofar as visitors observe only the rooms with the frescos in the historical house in Vienna, Tuchlauben 1. Die Nibelungen: Bilder von Liebe, Verrat und Untergang, Catalogue, ed. Wolfgang Stock (1987); Wolfram Museum, Wolframs Eschenbach, Germany, open since 1994 (see the model: Museum Wolfram von Eschenbach: Kann man Literatur ausstellen? ed. Anton Seitz, 1994). This is one of the first and few museums dedicated to a single medieval author. The scholarly adviser was one of the most famous scholars of Middle High German literature of the last decades, Karl Bertau. The ideas and texts of the exhibition and of the catalogue were created by a Wolfram von Eschenbach scholar, Dietmar Peschel-Rentsch, supported by Oskar Geidner and Hartmut Beck. The artificial design for all of Wolfram’s works (Parzival, Titurel, Willehalm, and his songs) was created by Michael Hoffer with the assistance of Albrecht Gribl and Rainer Köhnlein.
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Der Gral: Artusromantik in der Kunst des 19. Jahrhunderts, Catalogue, ed. Reinholf Baumsterk and Michael Koch (1996). The exhibition presents a plethora of information about the Grail, and the catalogue also includes articles by scholars of Medieval literature and history, such as Ulrich Müller, Annemarie Eder, Ulrich Rehm, Michael Petzet, Oswald Georg Bauer, Debora Mancoff, and Johannes Zahlten. Vom Codex zum Computer: 250 Jahre Universitätsbibliothek Innsbruck, Catalogue, ed. Walter Neuhaus and Eva Ramminger, Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum (1996); Schätze der schwarzen Kunst: Wiegendrucke,Catalogue and Exhibition by Irene Erfen, Landesarchiv Greifswald (1997); Das Buch des anonymen Dichters, Nibelungen-Museum Worms, open since 2001 (also the title of the museum guide). This is the second permanent museum in a German-speaking country that deals with a single medieval literary text and its context. The Nibelungenlied is not presented with historical items like manuscripts, but mainly by pictures from the 19th and 20th centuries. The literary material that (re)tells the story of the Nibelungen already comes to life in Worms with congresses and festivals. New dramas were written for Worms and were performed there the first time. For example, Moritz Rinkes’ play, Die Nibelungen, played first onstage at the Nibelungen-Festival in Worms in 2003. Der Turmbau zu Babel: Ursprung und Vielfalt von Sprache und Schrift, Catalogue, ed. Wilfried Seipel, vol. 1–3b (2003). The main, and perhaps unusual, topic of this exhibition was the language: presented through art and discussed with various pictures of The Construction of the Tower of Babylon. There were also pictures, sounds, texts of various languages, and information about nearly all known languages on Earth, from ancient Egyptian to modern languages and dialects. This exhibition filled a huge palace near Graz and took place in connection with ‘Graz as the Capital of Worldwide Cultural Heritage’ in 2003. Many linguistic scholars worked for this exhibition and its catalogue, for example Oswald Panagl and Hubert Haider (Salzburg). Das Nibelungenlied und seine Welt, Karlsruhe, 2003. This exhibit presented the Nibelungenlied from its literary origins to its cultural reception in the 20th century with original objects (old weapons, stones, tools of everyday life) and examples of its original language (i. e., boards with examples of Middle High German text), with reconstructions and, most notably, with the original and most important manuscripts of the Nibelungenlied and of the Klage (manuscripts A, B, C, D, and fragments). Scholars of the different aspects of the Nibelungenlied assisted with the exhibit in various capacities. For example, scholarly literature was displayed in the exhibit, for instance the visitor could have a look at these books and they could listen to interviews with
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some of theses scholars which were recorded on tapes (the catalogue gave the whole list of these works from the last 150 years). Mainly Joachim Heinzle, Lothar Voetz and Johannes Zahlten were responsible for all scholarly tasks for the exhibition. Deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters, Catalogue by Ulrich Montag and Karin Schneider, Bayerischer Staatsbibliothek (2005). The Bavarian State Library in Munich presents a historical exhibition with valuable manuscripts nearly every year. Select Bibliography Education in Museums: Museums in Education, ed. Timothy Ambrose (Edinburgh: HMSO/Scottish Museums Council, 1987); Marcel Broodthaers, Musée d’Art Moderne à Vendre. Département des Aigles, Section Financière (Paris: de Musée d’Art, 1979); Die Medien der Geschichte, ed. Fabia Crivellaria, Kay Kirchmann et al. (Constance: UVK Verlagsgesellschaft, 2004); Je näher man ein Wort ansieht, desto ferner sieht es zurück: Zur Geschichte des Museums, ed. Gottfried Fliedl (Vienna and Graz: Verlag der Museumsakademie Joaneum, 2007); Walter Grasskampf, Museumsgründer und Museumsstürmer: Zur Sozialgeschichte des Kunstmuseums (Munich: C. H Beck, 1981); Diethard Herber, Das Museum und die Dinge: Wissenschaft – Präsentation – Pädagogik (Frankfurt a. M. and New York: Campus Verlag, 1996); Eilean Hooper-Greenhill, Museum and the Shaping of Knowledge (London: The Heritage Care, 1992); Eilean HooperGreenhill, Seeing the Museum Through the Visitor’s Eyes (London: The Council for Museums and Galeries, 2002); Geoffrey Lewis, “The History of Museums,” Encyclopedia Britannica (London: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2006) and: http://www.muuseum.ee/ uploads/files/g._lewis_the_history_of_museum s.pdf (last accessed on Jan. 17, 2008); Thomas D. Meier and Hans R. Reust, Medium Museum: Kommunikation und Vermittlung in Museen für Kunst und Geschichte (Bern, Stuttgart, and Vienna: Verlag Paul Haupt, 2000). Bibliographies: Humboldt Universität Berlin: http://www2.hu-berlin.de/museums paedagogik/studienarchiv/studwerkz (last accessed on Jan. 30, 2009); Museumspädagogik (Teaching Museums) – Literaturliste 1990–2002 (international bibliography 1990–2002), produced by Hildegard Schmid and Ursula Köhler (Verein für Museumspädagogik Baden-Württemberg e.V., Germany, 2003).
Siegrid Schmidt
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Music in Medieval Studies
Music in Medieval Studies A. Introduction In Medieval Studies music involves various aspects of the discipline, including the practice of music in medieval institutions, music as an academic and philosophical subject, the practice of music in the church and other venues, and references to music in literature. Within those areas, music notation, the written evidence for executing compositions, has evolved from the various methods used for chant in late antiquity to more rhythmically oriented styles crucial for polyphonic compositions of the 14th century and later eras. While notation captures elements of a work so that it can be reproduced, the execution involves variables which can result in different interpretation. As one of the performing arts, the practice of music involves various traditions that have evolved over the years, and while it is possible to perform music from the Middle Ages, it is impossible to gauge precisely the resulting sounds. Performing practice, as it is called, must recreate various situations, so that modern musicians can arrive at performances that are informed through knowledge of the period. B. History of Music From the historical perspective, the medieval period in music exists between late antiquity and the Renaissance, the era concerning the 8th through 14th centuries, prior to the style shift that is perceptible between 1450 and 1550. Among the earliest to recognize the medieval era as an historic period is Filippo Valini who, in a treatise that dates to 1382, distinguished between the ancient and modern styles, with a significant era separating the two. Later commentators pointed to the period for various reasons, and it is also important to recognize in music the shift in musical style that is audible in the music itself. While the music of the Renaissance contains intervals of thirds and sixths, these were allowed less prominently in the medieval era, which broadly exhibited a preference for the perfect intervals, that is, unisons, octaves, fifths and fourths. Treatises in music of the time pointed to such choices when it came to instruction on composition, a topic that was not necessarily taught in the curriculum of the era, but certainly discussed among the cognoscenti. Such discussions point to thought more characteristic of the latter part of this somewhat broad historic period, in contrast to the more philosophically oriented ideas that emerged earlier in the era, when the influence of ancient culture is more evident. In fact, the development of musical thought within the medieval era bears further consideration from several perspectives. These include the for-
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mal study of music in the university curriculum as part of the seven liberal arts, as well as the practice of music in both the sacred and secular traditions. Music had been traditionally included in the academic quadrivium, along with arithmetic, astronomy, and geometry as the four arts that complement the trivium, which involve logic, rhetoric, and grammar, the three subjects at the core of the liberal arts. Understood in this context, music was a component in the education of an individual, alongside those other disciplines and, thus, shows the art to be an important intellectual endeavor. The precision and exactness of the art emerge when music is juxtaposed to geometry – music being continuity in motion, while geometry is continuity at rest. At the same time, the study of music involves the measurement of pitch based on the monochord and the explication of rhythm as related to poetic modes. Unlike the approaches to musical study which rely on music literature and repertoires, as occurs, perhaps, more frequently in the modern era, the orientation of writers on music in the medieval era retains a conceptual orientation. The discussions in the various treatises were related to theories of mode, mensuration, and polyphony without necessarily reference to stylistic issues or matters of affect or expression. Only in the late 19th through 20th centuries has attention been given to the repertoires of music produced in the middle ages, which encompass various genres and forms, including chant, organum, and the motet. Secular forms include monophonic and polyphonic compositions that mirror the poetic forms, as found in the ballade, virelai, and roundelay, with the element of textual repetition having an influence on those musical structures. Beyond the aspects of music that are intrinsically connected to the art is poetry, both in the verses found in the liturgical chants, including those found in the sequences, as well as in the secular sphere, where the poetic and musical forms may be seen to intersect. Of the secular music that emerged in the Middle Ages, is the Roman de Fauvel, a 14th-century work that involves verse attributed to Gervais de Bus set by the composer Philippe de Vitry in the Ars Nova style. At other levels, the links between poetry emerge with some composers, like Guillaume Machaut, who was respected for both poetic and musical works. A further aspect of medieval music involves reference to the art in literature and the graphic arts.
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C. Medieval Musical Practice At the core of medieval musical practice is liturgical chant, which was the mode of cantillating texts in the ordinary and proper of the Christian Mass. While various traditions existed well into the Middle Ages, the efforts of Pope Gregory the Great to unify practice have conveyed the eponymous term Gregorian Chant to that body of music from what has been termed the golden age of chant. In addition to such chant associated with the Mass and other services, it also involves tropes, prosulas, sequences, Latin song, and is part of liturgical drama. Those latter kinds of monophonic music are ascribed by some to the silver age of chant. Related to chant are some polyphonic works derived from chant. Firmly rooted in the tradition and practice of the time, organum and discant polyphony by necessity used chant as a point of departure, and chant serves as the cantus firmus in motets, that is, melodic formulae which are the basis for the more freely composed musical lines built around it. The corpus of chant encompassed various regional and local traditions, such that the conception of Gregorian chant, especially with reference to the Liber usualis as a repository of chant may be understood as a development of a later time. While the monophonic texture of chant may be regarded as a pervasive part of the medieval music, early polyphony emerged in the 12th century, with Aquitanian manuscripts and also in the well-known Codex Calixtinus. Polyphony may be found in various urban centers, such as Paris, where the works of the famous Leonin are found in the Magnus Liber Organi; following Leonin, Perotin, whose facility was noted in his day. Discant clausulae, that is self-contained sections of polyphony, demonstrate increasingly intricacy, as tripla and quadrupla, that is, works respectively in three and four parts were composed. While these works are part of larger structures, discrete compositions evolved in the form of conductus. Along with these kinds of works, the motet developed, including the isorhythmic motet with its intersection of sacred and secular elements that did not necessarily reflect the arbitrary distinction between such modes of expression that are more properly associated with later eras. While chant retains hegemony in sacred rites and rituals, such practice is augmented though the inclusion of the polyphonic music specifically composed and based on chant repertoire. In this context, polyphonic settings of the Mass developed, and represent efforts to pursue multi-movement formal structures, along with the various approaches taken to compose motets, multivoice compositions that involve religious texts and subjects. Works like these differ from traditional chant in being newly composed, that is, music written by individuals for use on specific occasions and preserved in writing for rep-
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etition later. The practice of writing music involved non-verbal notation that had to address the challenges of pitch and rhythm to preserve the composers’ conceptions of the sounds that would accompany the given texts. Such composition of music was an innovation that exposed the medieval world to the creation of new works as an artistic effort that stood apart from the almost spontaneous practice of performing chant as traditionally executed. Such formalization of musical thought is significant for the way in which it introduced to the Western world the idea of musical works. D. Music in Manuscripts / Music Notation The place of music in the culture of the medieval era is apparent in various ways. Beyond the extant music manuscripts and treatises that provide firsthand evidence of its presence in that period, references to music occur in the literature of the time. Beyond literary references to musical works, musicmaking, and musical instruments, pictorial allusions to music may be found in the iconography of the time, with depictions of singing and musical instruments. Music notation is also part of some dramatic manuscripts, including those associated with liturgical drama. The performance of music from the medieval period involves re-creating a tradition that has become discontinuous in modern practice. The effort to recover the music has involved the Monks of Solesmes, whose publications reproduced manuscripts that reach back toward antiquity and involve transcriptions that bring those materials into modern notation. By extension, the transcription involves some decisions that give shape to notation that is not entirely intelligible, since it is divorced from a continuous tradition of performance. Laudable as they are, the Solesmes are not necessarily the only interpretation of the notation, but remain among the best-known modern versions of early chant. At the core of the Solesmes efforts is the notational practice of the time, which involved neumes, a mode of denoting pitches with some aspects of relative duration. The notation associated with St. Gall gave way to other modes of notation, including Daseian, with systems of notation becoming during this period increasingly precise in representing the durations so that the resulting performances could be more predictably consistent. At the same time, the notation also lent itself to setting down contrapuntal textures that could be performed with accuracy. In fact, in the 14th century, the so-called mannerist composers used color to indicate various mensurations, and thus arrive at pieces that involved intricate time-values. While color notation (the second color usually being red) fell out of practice in the late Middle Ages, some aspects of the practice influenced later practices in notation. Overall,
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though, the kinds of music notation shifted, just as musical values changed, and modern performers sometimes choose to play the music of the Middle Ages and Renaissance in facsimile as a means of capturing the style and avoiding the editorial hand which may be part of playing from transcriptions. Within the context of what followed in the Renaissance, the medieval era was a crucial time for music, as various concepts took shape, including the concept of a musical work, systems of notation, and the development of polyphonic compositional techniques. Most importantly, the use of music shifted from its ritual use in Christian liturgy to a performing art of its own. The discipline of music as an academic pursuit also developed as philosophical stances based on antiquity gave way to increasingly detailed discussions of mensuration and other ideas essential to the medieval style, and that involved distinctions between sacred and secular styles. Those distinctions sometimes blurred in motets which used both sacred and secular texts, both of which might be constructed over a tenor part derived from a liturgical source. Such complex interactions are not unique to music, but reflect, in a sense, the culture of the period, which resulted, in part, from the tension between such perceived differences. E. History of Research Recent scholarship has involved various investigations of the conceptualizations of medieval music, which often may be seen to say as much about the times in which they emerged as the period that they concern. Katharine Bergeron’s account of the development of modern conceptions of chant offers perspectives that can be used in pursuing other kinds of medieval music. Taking a cue from Bergeron, those familiar with medieval music can point to the Solesmes efforts which began in the 1880s as a crucial unified effort to explore a body of medieval music in depth, that is, to identify the works, examine the sources, delineate the paleographic aspects of those materials, and to interpret them for modern generations. With the resulting Solesmes publications, modern culture had a new and bold reexamination of one of the crucial aspects of medieval music culture, chant, which was at the core of not just the liturgy practiced, but also the newly composed tropes, organum, clausulae, and motets. This was an important contribution to scholarship, by which Dom Guéranger attempted to restore the practice of plainsong without the accountrements of the late 19th century. Dom Guéranger was succeeded by various members of his Benedictine community, whose efforts also resulted in such practical editions of chant in the first decades of the 20th century as the Liber Usualis, the Liber Gradualis and other pre-Vatican II respositories of chant.
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While music of the Middle Ages was not ignored, studies in the first half of the 20th century were isolated. It would take the groundbreaking work of Gustav Reese (1899–1977) to shape the study of medieval music. His comprehensive study of the period in Music in the Middle Ages, 1940, was at once a summation of information on the music and conceptions of the literature, such that any new research would need to refer to Reese’s work. His study of medieval music not only summarized the entire period conceptually, but it also inspired further research for generations of musicologists. About fifteen years later the perspectives of Reese found their way into the New Oxford History of Music (NOHM, and it is significant that the subject divides between two volumes in this series. While important as a reference work, the NOHM study is a collection of articles by specialists and lacks the comprehensive vision that Reese gave to his study. Nevertheless, the detailed articles in the NOHM demonstrate the vitality of the subject in their focus on various elements of medieval music. Reese’s publisher, W. W. Norton & Co., included Reese’s Music in the Middle Ages in the period histories that were part of its Books that Live in Music series, and only in 1978 did Norton release a single volume to succeed Reese, Medieval Music by Richard H. Hoppin (1978), the first in its series entitled Norton Introduction to Music History. Hoppin’s text represents the level of scholarship three decades after Reese’s pioneering efforts and the extensive bibliography in Hoppin’s book is evidence of the flowering of research in this area. While no new repertoires were uncovered, Hoppin’s work demonstrated a stronger familiarity with the music at a time when the performance practice movement in music had some strong proponents of medieval literature, like David Munrow and others. By extension, Jeremy Yudkin’s single-volume study of Medieval Music (1989) demonstrates the importance of musicological study with music analysis with its incorporation of extensive, anthology-like examples into the text. Such familiarity may be the result of a deeper knowledge of the music of the Middle Ages through the work of publication of The Notation of Medieval Music by Carl Parrish (1957), another Norton effort. While Reese was responsible for his own examples, Parrish offered tools for scholars to examine manuscripts of medieval music in order to arrive at their own transcriptions of the works in modern notation. Parrish distinguished between notational styles, and his concepts were critical for generations of scholars to study further the sometimes challenging or otherwise ambiguous notation of the sacred and secular music in various national traditions. Written at a time when music notation was remarkably precise in giving specific instructions to performers, The Notation of Medieval Music reflects sensitivity to the ambiguities that exist with a living tradition that did not require such spe-
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cificity for performance. While most of Parrish’s efforts shed light on monophonic music, the music of the late Middle Ages benefits from the principles found in The Notation of Polyphonic Music (1953; rev. 5th ed., 1961), in which Willi Apel treats in greater details than Parrish the notation of the Ars Nova, with its use of varying mensurations and the inclusion of color to distinguish rhythmic patterns between those layers. The efforts to decipher and understand the notation of medieval music resulted in increasingly larger numbers of editions of early music in various sets and monuments. This made the music referred to in various articles and studies accessible to scholars and ultimately performers, who found inspiration in music that had lost its currency for generations. A substantial selection of medieval music was included in the Historical Anthology of Music (2 vols., ed. Archibald T. Davison and Willi Apel, 1946), and this set the tone for similar efforts by other anthologizers. One of the remarkable publications of this kind is the Oxford Anthology of Medieval Music selected and edited by W. Thomas Marocco and Nicholas Sandon (1972) which stands out because of the detailed commentary which accompanies each piece. With the foundation offered by Reese and the investigations of notation by Parrish and also by Apel, modern scholars had the tools for exploring the literature of the Middle Ages not through editions, as found with music of the Common Practice era, but firsthand, through a working knowledge of the materials in facsimile and, for those scholars who pursued it, direct studies of the sources. In a sense the efforts of musicology allowed those interested to have access to the subject by making not only the concepts comprehensible, but also opened the sources to study. The situation differs from that which existed in the late 19th century, when this was the domain of specialists. In contrast, libraries of various sizes owned not only the studies which included some facsimiles of music, but also entire volumes of medieval music in facsimile. While this was first used for study, eventually such materials found their ways into the hands of performers who played from them directly rather than rely on transcriptions. About a century after the rediscovery of medieval music, Daniel LeechWilkinson offered some sobering insights into the period in the persuasive study entitled The Modern Invention of Medieval Music (2002). If music culture by its nature is based on extant and living traditions, the study of medieval music reflects an act of intellectual recovery, rather than some sort of restoration of a practice. Leech-Wilkinson explores some of the misconceptions about Medieval practice that reflect more the period in which they were written than the realities of the Medieval, of which the extant documentation offers relatively few tangible ideas, compared to the more extensive
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documentation associated with later eras. Some of the transcriptions that circulated in histories of music and surveys of music theory, especially those of Hugo Riemann, seem closer to arrangements along the lines of Romantic practice, rather than the more diplomatic treatment of manuscript sources in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Essentially the idea of medieval music required efforts that place theory into practice, but never actually reflect the continuity which may be seen in other traditions. Much of the initiative in studies of medieval music has emerged from the German and Anglo-American sphere, and those who pursue various topics within this area of research will also find specific studies of various national repertoires in what are now Italy, France, Spain, and other areas by scholars in those countries. Moreover, the bibliographies in the various works cited below point to the intergenerational dialogue that has occurred between scholars in various traditions and also to directions that need further exploration. It is also important to consider the unique situation with music in which performance brings alive certain aspects of research. In addition to the work of David Munrow in the United Kingdom, various other performers have made contributed to the recorded history of medieval music. Among the latter are René Clemencic, who brought to performance the famous Carmina Burana; the Hilliard Ensemble, which has recorded some of the music of the Ars Nova; the Ensemble Organum, and other groups, who devote their efforts to this repertoire. In addition to Leech-Wilkinson’s important study, various other new perspectives are the result of ethnographic investigations, such as Peter Jeffrey’s Re-Envisioning Past Musical Cultures: Ethnomusicology in the Study of Gregorian Chant (1995). Jeffrey’s approach offers some fine insights that should guide scholars in directions that are necessary and useful for understanding this critical period in Western culture. The questions that arise from such discussions allow for rediscovering the music of the Middle Ages and the culture in which it was created. The resulting efforts are laudable for showing the relevance of medieval music in modern culture, which has its roots in many of the ideas that emerged in this crucial period in Western civilization. Select Bibliography Willi Apel, The Notation of Polyphonic Music 900–1600 (Cambridge, MA: Mediaeval Academy of American, 1953; rev. 5th ed., 1961); Margaret Bent, “The Grammar of Early Music: Preconditions for Analysis,” Tonal Structures in Early Music, ed. Cristle Collins Judd (New York: Garland Publishers, 1998), 15–59; Katherine Bergeron, Decadent Enchantments: The Revival of Gregorian Chant at Solesmes (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998); Heinrich Besseler, Die Musik des Mittelalters und der Renaissance
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(Potsdam: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft Athenaion, 1925, rpt. 1931); Richard L. Crocker, An Introduction to Gregorian Chant (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000); David Hiley, Western Plainchant: A Handbook (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993; rpt. 1995); Richard Hoppin, Medieval Music (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1978); id., Medieval Music: An Anthology (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1978); The New Oxford History of Music 2: Early Medieval Music up to 1300, ed. Don Anselm Hughes (London: Oxford University Press, 1954); The New Oxford History of Music 3: Ars Nova and the Renaissance 1300–1540, ed. Don Anselm Hughes and Gerald Abraham (London: Oxford University Press, 1960); Daniel Leech-Wilkinson, The Modern Invention of Medieval Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); The Oxford Anthology of Music: Medieval Music, ed. W. Thomas Marocco and Nicholas Sandon (London: Oxford University Press, 1977); Carl Parrish, The Notation of Medieval Music (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1957; rev. ed., 1959); Gustav Reese; Music in the Middle Ages (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1940); Hugo Riemann, Studien zu Geschichte der Notenschrift (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1878); Arnold Schering, Handbuch der Musikgeschichte bis zum Ausgang des 18. Jahrhunderts (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1914); Jeremy Yudkin, Music in Medieval Europe (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1989). Online Resources: Chant Homepage: http://www.music.princeton.edu/chant_html/ Solesmes (Gregorian Chant): http://www.solesmes.com/GB/gregorien/hist.php?js=1
James L. Zychowicz
Mysticism A. General Definition Mysticism is the belief in union with the Divine and the pursuit of such union; it manifests itself in almost all cultural, religious, and philosophical traditions (Bruno Borchert, Mysticism: Its History and Challenge, 1994). In its broadest sense mysticism refers to a belief system that recognizes occult or supernatural powers. Mircea Eliade relates its earliest manifestations to shamanism (Shamanism, 1964), and Robert Charles Zaehner posits a type of mysticism, monistic or nature-based, that is drug-induced (Mysticism: Sacred and Profane, 1957). Discussion here will focus on theistic mystical experiences in Western Christianity. Mysticism in early Eastern religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism shares features with the Western Christian mystical tradition, but the primary sources of Christian mysticism of the European Middle Ages are Greek philosophy, the Jewish tradition, and early Christianity itself (Andrew Louth, The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition. From Plato to Denys, 1981; Kurt Ruh, Geschichte der abendländischen Mystik, vol. 1: Die
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Grundlegung durch die Kirchenväter und die Mönchstheologie des 12. Jahrhunderts, 1990; Bernard McGinn, The Foundations of Mysticism, 1991; Otto Langer, Christliche Mystik im Mittelalter, 2004). The word “mysticism” derives from the Greek noun ‘secret’ or ‘ceremony’ and the verb ‘to close one’s eyes (or lips).’ The Greeks characterize the mystical union as a ritual by which the initiate gains knowledge of the unspeakable secret, namely how the mortal life can unite with the life of a god. The initiate guards the secret by remaining silent and contemplates it by shutting his eyes to the world. The term “mysticism” was introduced into modern scholarship in 17th-century France (Michel de Certeau, “‘Mystique’ au XVIIe siècle: Le problème du langage ‘mystique,’” L’Homme devant Dieu: Mélanges offerts au Père Henri de Lubac, 1964, vol. 2, 267–91; Louis Bouyer, “Mysticism, An Essay on the History of the Word,” Understanding Mysticism, ed. Richard Woods, 1981, 42–55). Because of the personal and individualistic nature of mysticism and the mystical experience, it is difficult to provide a comprehensive, generally accepted definition (F. Samuel Brainard, “Defining Mystical Experience,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 64 [1996]: 359–93). William James identifies four general characteristics of the mystical experience: 1) ineffability – it cannot be described or expressed in words; 2) noetic quality – it involves or reveals knowledge or certain truths; 3) transient nature or short duration; and 4) passivity – lack or loss of control by the individual involved (Varieties of Religious Experience, 1902, 380). Evelyn Underhill counters with her own set of attributes, asserting that: 1) mysticism is active and practical, not passive and theoretical; 2) its aims are transcendental and spiritual; 3) the driving force behind mysticism is love; and 4) the union is a definite state, arrived at by a psychological and spiritual process (Mysticism: A Study in Nature and Development of Spiritual Consciousness, 1911, 70–94). In his description of extrovertive mystical states of mind, Walter T. Stace presents a more comprehensive list of traits: 1) the unifying vision, expressed abstractly by the formula “All is One”; 2) the One as a living Presence; 3) the sense of objectivity or reality; 4) such feelings as blessedness, joy, happiness, satisfaction; 5) the feeling that what is apprehended is holy, or sacred, or divine; 6) paradoxicality, and 7) alleged ineffability (Mysticism and Philosophy, 1960, 79). To some degree all of the above characteristics manifest themselves in Western Christian mysticism in the Middle Ages. Attained through contemplation and love, the mystical union may reveal knowledge or ideas that are otherwise inapprehensible; frequently the experience is characterized at least in part by visual or auditory experiences, revealed only to the mystic him- or herself. The union sometimes is described
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in terms of the marriage between a human bride and the Divine bridegroom or as the emptying of the human self through a turning away from the world and a focusing on the Divine, so that the self can be filled with the Divine. The experience frequently is conceived of as a journey, which is accomplished in stages: in contemplation the soul rids itself of worldliness; in the process the soul becomes more attuned to the Divine; ultimately, union is achieved, an experience frequently characterized as ecstasy or rapture (Nelson Pike, Mystic Union: An Essay in the Phenomenology of Mysticism, 1992). The nature of the mystical union has been the subject of much debate, which Daniel Merkur summarizes in “Unitive Experience and the State of Trance,” Mystical Union and Monotheistic Union, 1989, ed. Moshe Idel and Bernard McGinn, 1989, 125–53 (republished as Mystical Union in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam: An Ecumenical Dialogue, 1996). The challenge of characterizing the mystical experience is compounded by inherent dichotomies. Speculative mysticism foregrounds the role of the intellect and knowledge, whereas affective mysticism invokes the framework of emotion and love (affect). Mystical experiences have been viewed as the intersection between the rational and the emotional (Grace Jantzen, Power, Gender, and Christian Mysticism, 1995) as well as the rational and irrational (Rudolf Otto, Das Heilige: Über das Irrationale in der Idee des Göttlichen und sein Verhältnis zum Rationalen, 1917; The Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry into the Non-Rational Factor in the Idea of the Divine and its Relation to the Rational, 1923; Frits Staal, Exploring Mysticism, 1975). For some mystics the experience is predicated upon a contemplative lifestyle, for others the experience can be reconciled with the vita activa. Stace distinguishes the extrovertive experience that seeks the Divine through the physical senses in the external world from the introvertive experience that is directed inward (The Teachings of the Mystics, 1960). Some experiences seem to occur spontaneously, whereas others are the result of an individual’s own efforts. The latter type is a part of theurgical mysticism (Gregory Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul: The Neoplatonism of Iamblichus, 1995) and is associated more with the kabbalah in the medieval Jewish mystical tradition than with medieval Christian mysticism (Moshe Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives, 1988). Although indwelling, God also is above and separate from all works of creation – hence the theory of transcendence beside that of immanence. Since the world is created in God’s image, it must be good, yet one recognizes that the world is evil and ephemeral. (Rudolf Otto, West-östliche Mystik: Vergleich und Unterscheidung zur Wesensdeutung, 1926; Mysticism East and West: A Comparative Analysis of the Nature of Mysticism, 1932). God may be defined in positive terms – kataphatic mysticism – but in the Christian tradition the ineffability of the experience more often
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leads to a discussion of apophatic or negative theology, the describing of God in terms of what God is not (Thomas Keating, Intimacy with God, The Christian Contemplative Tradition, 1996). Michael Sells characterizes apophatic language as “un-saying” or “speaking-away” (Mystical Languages of Unsaying, 1994). Despite their inability to express the inexpressible, many mystics have given voice to their experiences; William P. Alston raises the question as to whether their words are to be understood literally (Divine Nature and Human Language, 1989). In an attempt to explain the unio mystica, medieval Christian mystics devoted much of their energy to resolving the paradoxes above. When successful in the eyes of the Church of Rome, like Thomas Aquinas, their teachings became doctrine; when considered in conflict with established religious tenets, they were deemed heretical, like Meister Eckhart, whose idea of an allpervasive power in which all things were one led to charges of pantheism. Whereas some mystical writings emanated from great teachers and preachers of the Middle Ages, others derived from a nun’s or layperson’s communion with the Divine, which revealed visions or truths the individual felt compelled to communicate to others. The Church sometimes acknowledged and accepted such revelations and prophecies, such as those of Hildegard of Bingen, and sometimes condemned them as heresy, as in the case of Na Prous Boneta, a Spiritual Franciscan who was burned at the stake. Extreme ascetic practices and other nonconformist behavior that fostered or accompanied the unitive experience were at times accepted or even lauded, such as Henry Suso’s great love and devotion to Christ that led him to inscribe the name of Jesus on his chest. In other situations such practices and behaviors were deemed excessive or in violation of acceptable norms: the Beguine Marguerite Porete’s characterization of a love between the soul and the Divine that necessitated no intermediary, a challenge to the Church’s role as spiritual conciliator, led to her being burned at the stake (Elizabeth Alvilda Petroff, “Women, Heresy, and Holiness in Early Fourteenth-Century France,” Medieval Women’s Visionary Literature, 1986, 276–98). The relationship between religion and magic also manifests itself in the study of mysticism and has led to the study of the question of the Divine or diabolical origins of the mystical experience (Marcello Craveri, Sante e streghe, 1980; Peter Dinzelbacher, Heilige oder Hexen? Schicksale auffälliger Frauen in Mittelalter und Frühneuzeit, 1995; Richard Kieckhefer, “The Holy and the Unholy: Sainthood, Witchcraft and Magic in Late Medieval Europe,” Christendom and Its Discontents: Exclusion, Persecution, and Rebellion, 1000–1500, ed. Scott Waugh and Peter Diehl, 1996, 310–37; Barbara Newman, “Possessed by the Spirit: Devout Women, Demoniacs, and the Apostolic Life
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in the Thirteenth Century,” Speculum 73 [1998]: 733–70; Nancy Caciola, Discerning Spirits: Divine and Demonic Possession in the Middle Ages, 2003), as well as associations between mysticism and other esoteric movements (Arthur Versluis, Magic and Mysticism: An Introduction to Western Esoteric Traditions, 2007). The unusual nature of the experience often brings into question the mystic’s psychological state and mental stability. Focusing on the techniques of meditation and renunciation, Arthur Deikman has posited a psychological model of the mystical experience (“Deautomatization and the Mystic Experience,” Understanding Mysticism, ed. Richard Woods, 1980, 240–69). The relationship between medieval mystics’ experiences and hysteria has been studied in general (Cristina Mazzoni, Saint Hysteria: Neurosis, Mysticism, and Gender in European Culture, 1996; Jerome Kroll, Bernard Bachrach, and Kathleen Carey, “A Reappraisal of Medieval Mysticism and Hysteria,” Mental Health, Religion, and Culture 5 [2002]: 83–98), and with regard to specific groups, e. g., 13th-century holy women (Amy Hollywood, “Ventriloquizing Hysteria: Fetishism, Trauma, and Sexual Difference,” Sensible Ecstasy: Mysticism, Sexual Difference, and the Demands of History, 2002, 236–73 [241–66]), and individuals (Julia Long, “Mysticism and Hysteria: The Histories of Margery Kempe and Anna O.,” Feminist Readings in Middle English Literature, ed. Ruth Evans and Leslie Johnson, 1994, 88–111). The relationship of the mystical experience to a physiological condition has been suggested as well. Charles Singer claims that visions of Hildegard of Bingen exhibit characteristics of scintillating scotoma, a visual aura commonly associated with certain kinds of migraines (“The Visions of Hildegard of Bingen,” From Magic to Science. Essays on the Scientific Twilight, 1958), a theory revisited by Oliver Sacks (Migraine. The Evolution of a Common Disorder, 1970). B. Origins and Development of Western Christian Mysticism 1. Origins and Early Development Although many early religions and philosophies have strong elements of mysticism, most significant to the development of Western Christian mysticism in the Middle Ages are ideas found in Greek philosophy, Judaism, and early Christianity itself. The idea of deliberately shutting one’s eyes to external things in order to concentrate on the Divine knowledge, which is in reality within humans themselves, is part of Neoplatonic philosophy, and one that connects early philosophers such as Plotinus, Proclus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite with later Christian mystics (William R. Inge, Christian Mysticism, 1899). In order to describe the relation-
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ship between humans and the Absolute, philosophers first needed to define the Absolute, i. e., to define God. One description characterized God in terms of what God is not, the theologia negativa. (Deirdre Carabine, The Unknown God: Negative Theology in the Platonic Tradition: Plato to Eriugena, 1995). Another invoked the scala perfectionis, the ladder of perfection, by which the soul attempted to ascend (or less frequently descend) to union with God. Paths or stages of spiritual life were identified: the via purgativa, illuminativa, and unitiva; purged from worldliness, the soul is enlightened regarding Divine truth and thus prepared for union with the Divine. The 5th-century mystical writer Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite was closely associated with these descriptions (Andrew Louth, Denys, the Areopagite, 1989; McGinn, The Foundations of Mysticism, 157–82). Philosophers also postulated where recognition of the Absolute occurred: The Neoplatonists’ intellectus agens gave rise to the apex mentis or synderesis of Bonaventure and the Fünklein of Meister Eckhart (Endre von Ivánka, “Apex mentis. Wanderung und Wandlung eines stoischen Terminus,” Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie 72 [1950]: 129–76). Subsequent centuries witnessed the continuation and amplification of inherently Neoplatonic ideas. The most notable and influential proponent through the Carolingian era was Augustine (354–430) (John J. O’Meara, “Augustine and Neoplatonism,” Recherches augustiniennes 1 [1958]: 91–111). His ideas remained in the philosophical foreground, as other great thinkers such as Gregory the Great (ca. 540–604), Alcuin (735–804), and Rhabanus Maurus (ca. 780–856) provided commentary on and amplification of his works (McGinn, “Augustine: The Founding Father,” The Foundations of Mysticism, 228–62). John Scottus Eriugena (ca. 800–ca. 877) translated the works of Pseudo-Dionysius into Latin and propounded the dialectical Platonic mysticism that had a profound influence on Meister Eckhart and Nicholas of Cusa in later centuries (Alois Haas, “Eriugena und die Mystik,” Eriugena Redivivus: Zur Wirkungsgeschichte seines Denkens im Mittelalter und im Übergang zur Neuzeit, ed. Werner Beierwaltes, 1987, 254–78; Dermot Moran, The Philosophy of John Scottus Eriugena: A Study of Idealism in the Middle Ages, 1989; McGinn, “The Entry of Dialectical Mysticism: John Scottus Eriugena,” The Growth of Mysticism, 1994, 80–118). Around the year 1000 fundamentals of Scholasticism began to emerge (Martin Grabmann, Die Geschichte der scholastischen Methode. Nach gedruckten und ungedruckten Quellen, vol. 1: Die scholastische Methode von ihren ersten Anfängen in der Väterliteratur bis zum Beginn des 12. Jahrhunderts, 1909). In the 12th century, the Scholastic method was fostered by Peter Abelard (1079–1142), Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109), Hugh of St. Victor (1096–1141), Richard of St. Victor (died 1173), and Peter the Lombard (ca. 1100–ca. 1160) (“The Reli-
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gious World of the Twelfth Century,” Christian Spirituality: Origins to the Twelfth Century, ed. Bernard McGinn, John Meyendorff, and Jean Leclercq, 1986, 194–228; Kurt Ruh, Geschichte der abendländischen Mystik, vol. 1, 1990; McGinn, “The Victorine Ordering of Mysticism,” The Growth of Mysticism, 1994, 363–418). In the 13th century, the academic method was applied by Bonaventure (1221–1274), Albertus Magnus (ca. 1206–1280), and most notably Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) to the question of the relationship between reason and faith (Bernard McGinn, “Bonaventure,” The Flowering of Mysticism, 87–112). Bonaventure introduced the concepts of the apex mentis and the scintilla (synderesis); his writings had a profound influence on later preachers. Heinrich Suso Denifle successfully propounded a relation between Scholasticism and medieval German mysticism (Die deutschen Mystiker des 14. Jahrhunderts: Beitrag zur Deutung ihrer Lehre, ed. Otwin Spiess, 1951). Scholastic influence began to wane in the mid-14th century, although it was occasionally still evident, e. g., in the works of John Gerson (1363–1429). 2. Mysticism in Germany and the Low Countries The greatest number of medieval mystics resided in German-speaking territories, the first appearing in the Central Rhineland in the 12th century. Concentration along the Rhine led some scholars to adopt the term “Rhineland mysticism,” albeit in reference to the 13th and 14th centuries (Jeanne Ancelet-Hustache, Master Eckhart and the Rhineland Mystics, 1957; Alain de Libera, La mystique rhénane d’Albert le Grand à Maitre Eckhart, 1994). The tradition began with Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179). Religious thinker, prophet, reformer, correspondent with ecclesiastical and worldly leaders, healer, composer, dramatist, and poet, the Benedictine abbess was a renaissance woman in her time (Heinrich Schipperges, Die Welt der Hildegard von Bingen, 1997; The World of Hildegard of Bingen: Her Life, Times, and Visions, trans. John Cumming, 1998; Barbara Newman, Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World, 1998). The sapiential and theological content of Hildegard’s writings has been examined (Barbara Newman, Sister of Wisdom. St. Hildegard’s Theology of the Feminine, 1987); her cosmic perspective explored (Hans Liebeschütz, Das allegorische Weltbild der heiligen Hildegard von Bingen, 1930, rpt. 1964; Peter Dronke, “The Allegorical World-Picture of Hildegard of Bingen: Revaluations and New Problems,” Hildegard of Bingen: The Context of her Thought and Art, ed. Charles Burnett and Peter Dronke, 1998, 1–16); her poetic texts explicated (Barbara Newman, Symphonia: A Critical Edition of the Symphonia armonie celestium revelationum, 1988, rev. 1998); and her musical compositions embraced by medieval musicologists as well as New Age enthusiasts (Richard Souther, Vision: The Music of Hildegard von
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Bingen, 1994). Hildegard’s contemporary Elisabeth of Schönau (1138–1165) was known for her visionary experiences as well; Elisabeth’s works include a collection of her visions, letters, and a version of the St. Ursula legend (Anne L. Clark, Elisabeth of Schönau: A Twelfth-Century Visionary, 1992). In the 12th century, Christocentric love mysticism emerged in contrast to the mystical tradition informed by Scholasticism. In his sermons on the Song of Songs and his treatise On the Love of God (De diligendo deo), Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) described the Church as the bride of Christ, an image adopted by many mystics to characterize their own relationship with the Divine. Love mysticism (Minnemystik) or bride mysticism (Brautmystik) enjoyed particular resonance within the beguine movement (Barbara Newman, “La mystique courtoise: Thirteenth-Century Beguines and the Art of Love,” From Virile Woman to WomanChrist: Studies in Medieval Religion and Literature, 1995, 137–67). The lay urban movement of the beguines and beghards was established in the Low Countries and along the Lower Rhine (L. J. M. Philippen, De Begijnhoven: Oorsprong, Geschiedenis, Inrichting, 1918; Ernest McDonnell, The Beguines and Beghards in Medieval Culture: With Special Emphasis on the Belgian Scene, 1954; Martina Wehrli-Johns and Claudia Opitz, Fromme Frauen oder Ketzerinnen? Leben und Verfolgung der Beginen im Mittelalter, 1998; Walter Simons, Cities of Ladies: Beguine Communities in the Medieval Low Countries, 1200–1565, 2001). The language of love permeated the writings of women mystics like Hadewijch of Antwerp (Paul Mommaers, Hadewijch: Writer, Beguine, Love Mystic, with Elisabeth Dutton, 2004), as well as the religious women associated with the community of Helfta in Germany. The Helfta community was a center of learning and piety in the second half of the 13th century and the home to three religious women whose writings are extant: Mechthild of Magdeburg (ca. 1210–1282), Mechthild of Hackeborn (1214–1298), and Gertrud the Great (1256–1301) (Mary Jeremy Finnegan, The Women of Helfta: Scholars and Mystics, 1962, rev. 1991; Carolyn Walker Bynum, Jesus as Mother. Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages, 1982, 170–262; Rosalynn Voaden, “All Girls Together: Community, Gender and Vision at Helfta,” Medieval Women in their Communities, ed. Diane Watt, 1997, 72–91; Michael Bangert, “Die sozio-kulturelle Situation des Klosters St. Maria in Helfta,” ‘Vor dir steht die leere Schale meiner Sehnsucht’: Die Mystik der Frauen von Helfta, ed. Michael Bangert and Hildegund Keul, 1999, 29–47). A beguine most of her life, Mechthild of Magdeburg spent her final years at Helfta, where the last part of her Flowing Light of the Godhead (Fließendes Licht der Gottheit) was recorded; the 1990s witnessed the publication of a new critical edition (Hans Neumann and Gisela Vollmann-Profe, Mechthild von Magdeburg, ‘Das fliessende Licht der Gottheit’: nach der Einsiedler Handschrift in kri-
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tischem Vergleich mit der gesamten Überlieferung, vol. I: Text, 1990, vol. II: Untersuchungen, 1993) and new English translations (e. g., Frank Tobin, trans., The Flowing Light of the Godhead, 1998). The Flowing Light describes Mechthild’s visionary experiences and characterizes the love relationship between her and Christ. Replete with love imagery from the chivalric tradition and the Song of Songs, the work mixes prose and poetry; the content as well as the evocative and erotic language account for its status as one of the most wellknown mystical texts of the Middle Ages (Frank Tobin, Mechthild von Magdeburg: A Medieval Mystic in Modern Eyes, 1995; Elizabeth A. Andersen, The Voices of Mechthild of Magdeburg, 2000). The visions of Mechthild of Hackeborn and her teachings concerning true devotion to God are chronicled in the Book of Special Grace (Liber specialis gratiae) (Alois M. Haas, “Themen und Aspekte der Mystik Mechthilds von Hackeborn,” Geistliches Mittelalter, ed. Haas, 1984, 373–91). The Herald of God’s Loving-Kindness (Legatus divinae pietatis) documents the mystical conversion experience of Gertrud the Great (Gertrud Jaron Lewis, “Gertrud of Helfta’s Legatus divinae pietatis and ein botte der götlichen miltekeit: A Comparative Study of Major Themes,” Mysticism: Medieval and Modern, ed. Valerie M. Lagorio, 1986, 58–71); Gertrud’s Spiritual Exercises (Exercitia spiritualia) relate the meditative and liturgically based life she led at Helfta (Gertrud the Great of Helfta. Spiritual Exercises, trans. Gertrud Jaron Lewis and Jack Lewis, 1989). The earliest women mystics were members of traditional orders, e. g., the Benedictines and the Cistercians. In the Low Countries connections between the Cistercians and the women’s communities remained in subsequent centuries (Herbert Grundmann, “Zur Geschichte der Beginen im 13. Jahrhundert,” Archiv für Kulturgeschichte, 21 [1931]: 296–320), but in Germany the greatest number of women mystics belonged to the mendicant orders, especially the Dominican order. Herbert Grundmann’s study of the development of the new orders and their influence on and connection with religious women remains a useful resource (Religiöse Bewegungen im Mittelalter: Untersuchungen über die geschichtlichen Zusammenhänge zwischen der Ketzerei, den Bettelorden und der religiösen Frauenbewegung im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert und über die geschichtlichen Grundlagen der deutschen Mystik, 1935; Religious Movements in the Middle Ages: The Historical Links between Heresy, the Mendicant Orders, and the Women’s Religious Movement in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Century, trans. Steven Rowan, 1995). The tradition of the Franciscan Armutsmystik was most prevalent in the northwest German-speaking territories and the Low Countries, whereas the Dominican influence was more pervasive further south. The mendicant influence manifested itself especially in the relationships that developed between male confessors and their female spiritual charges;
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friars as well as secular priests guided and supported religious women, and personal relationships were not infrequent. John B. Freed discusses spiritual supervision of the beguines (“Urban Development and the ‘cura monialium’ in Thirteenth-Century Germany,” Viator 3 [1972]: 311–27), and John Coakley considers the bonds between male and female religious in the mendicant orders (“Gender and the Authority of Friars: The Significance of Holy Women for Thirteenth-Century Franciscans and Dominicans,” Church History 69 [1960]: 445–60; “Friars as Confidants of Holy Women in Medieval Dominican Hagiography,” Images of Sainthood in Medieval Europe, ed. Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski and Timea Szell, 1991, 222–46). The new monastic orders profoundly influenced prevalent religious contours and gave rise to the “New Mysticism.” According to McGinn, three developments are manifest in this movement: “1) new attitudes toward the relation between world and cloister; 2) a new relationship between men and women in the mystical path; and, finally, 3) new forms of language and modes of representation of mystical consciousness” (The Flowering of Mysticism, 12; McGinn, “Men and Women and the Origins of the New Mysticism,” The Flowering of Mysticism, 31–69; Steven Fanning, “The New Mysticism,” Mystics of the Christian Tradition, 2001, 85–94). The New Mysticism was particularly prevalent along the Rhine, especially the Upper Rhine, where remarkable mystical activity is documented. Speculation and theories abound regarding why mysticism should have flowered at this time and in this area: sociologically it allowed for expression by less educated women, philosophically it represented to some extent the popularization of Scholasticism, and literarily it offered the opportunity to relate unusual spiritual experiences in the vernacular (Joseph Bernhard, Die philosophische Mystik des Mittelalters von ihren antiken Ursprüngen bis zur Renaissance, 1922). Ernst Bergmann characterizes the mystical movement in Germany at this time as the philosophical counterpart to Minnesang, the courtly love tradition and the apex of medieval German literature (Geschichte der deutschen Philosophie, vol. I: Die deutsche Mystik, 1926). In her contextualization of the development, Evelyn Underhill notes that periods of great mystical activity seem to follow immediately after periods of great artistic, material, and intellectual civilization (Mysticism, 453). In contrast Josef Quint views the circumstances in negative terms, citing cultural decline and the desire for a remedy for disharmony between God and humankind as the setting for the flowering of German mysticism (“Mystik,” Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturgeschichte, 2nd ed., 1965, vol. 2, 545). Johan Huizinga’s characterization of the 14th century as the beginning of the “waning” or “autumn” of the Middle Ages is relevant as well: the aristocratic culture was in a state of de-
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cline; secular and Church powers were battling for supremacy; natural disasters – earthquakes, the Black Death – were taking their toll. However, times were no better in other parts of Europe, and thus the question remains unanswered. The mystical writings of the 13th and 14th centuries in Germany frequently are divided into two groups: the scholarly, more philosophical works of Meister Eckhart and other adherents of speculative mysticism, and the more personal, emotional, and lyrical works, usually by female religious. Meister Eckhart (1260–1328), along with his students John Tauler (1300–1361), and Henry Suso (ca. 1295–1366) constitute the triumvirate of “great German mystics” (James M. Clark, The Great German Mystics. Eckhart, Tauler and Suso, 1949; Josef Quint, ed., Textbuch zur Mystik des deutschen Mittelalters: Meister Eckhart, Johannes Tauler, Heinrich Seuse, 1952; Alois M. Haas, Nim din selbes war: Studien zur Lehre von der Selbsterkenntnis bei Meiser Eckhart, Johannes Tauler und Heinrich Seuse, 1971). Their extant writings reflect the commonly perceived personality of each: Eckhart’s intellectually based, theologically charged tracts and sermons; Tauler’s practical sermons, filled with anecdotes and advice; and Suso’s florid autohagiography and poetic devotional and epistolary literature. The writings of the three Dominicans distinguish themselves not only on the basis of content and genre but also with regard to language: depending upon his audience, Eckhart wrote in Latin or in German; Tauler and Suso, writing primarily for religious women and the laity, recorded their works almost exclusively in the vernacular. Meister Eckhart was a teacher and preacher, a philosopher and a mystic (James M. Clark, Meister Eckhart, 1957; Kurt Ruh, Meister Eckhart: Theologe, Prediger, Mystiker, 1985; Niklaus Largier, Bibliographie zu Meister Eckhart, 1989). His theology, grounded in Neoplatonism and Scholasticism, is associated with the speculative tradition and champions the elevation of the mind and transcendence through the intellect (John Caputo, “Fundamental Themes in Meister Eckhart’s Mysticism,” The Thomist 42 [1978]: 197–225; Frank J. Tobin, Meister Eckhart: Thought and Language, 1986; Richard Woods, Eckhart’s Way, 1990; Bernard McGinn, The Mystical Thought of Meister Eckhart, 2001). Eckhart’s interests lie in studying the mystical union rather than attempting to attain it. According to Eckhart, humans possess their existence only in and through God. God is immanent in the soul’s ground, and the Word is born in the soul. An awareness of this point of contact between mankind and God is the fúnklin, tolde, or grunt; it is attained through contemplation, and it is the mystic’s goal to uncover and nurture it, so that God may be revealed. Eckhart’s writings exemplify the paradoxical expression inherent in the mystical experience (Cyprian Smith, The Way of Paradox: Spiritual Life as
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Taught by Meister Eckhart, 1987; Bruce Milem, The Unspoken Word: Negative Theology in Meister Eckhart’s German Sermons, 2002). Statements in his writings concerning matters such as the “coeternity” of God and the world, the distinction between God and the Deity, the divinization of man, and the “nothingness” of created things resulted in suspicions of pantheism and charges of heresy. Tauler spent most of his life in Strassburg and Basel, preaching to mixed lay congregations as well as Dominican women (Louise Gnädinger, Johannes Tauler: Lebenswelt und mystische Lehre, 1993; Bernard McGinn, “John Tauler the Lebmeister,” The Harvest of Mysticism, 2005, 240–96). His sermons described an experiential and practical mysticism; they inspired through their down-to-earth language, rich in imagery, and their call to the active life (Ephrem Filthaut, ed., Johannes Tauler: Ein deutscher Mystiker. Gedenkschrift zum 600. Todestag, 1961). Confessor and preacher, Suso produced the most popular meditative texts of the Middle Ages, employing a style rich in chivalric and love imagery. His Exemplar includes a third-person narrative of his life – part autobiography and part autohagiography – devotional tracts, and letters that betray homiletic characteristics (Ephrem Filthaut, ed., Heinrich Seuse. Studien zum 600. Todestag, 1366–1966, 1966; Heinrich Seuses Philosophia spiritualis: Quellen, Konzept, Formen und Rezeption, ed. Rüdiger Blumrich and Philipp Kaiser, 1994; Alois M. Haas, Kunst rechter Gelassenheit: Themen und Schwerpunkte von Heinrich Seuses Mystik, 1995). Like many in the Order of Preachers, Eckhart, Tauler, and Suso were charged with the cura monialium, the care of religious women. In the case of Eckhart, spiritual guidance extended to the beguines as well (Bernard McGinn, ed., Meister Eckhart and the Beguine Mystics, Hadewijch of Brabant, Mechthild of Magdeburg, and Marguerite Porete, 1994; Amy M. Hollywood, The Soul as Virgin Wife: Mechthild of Magdeburg, Marguerite Porete, and Meister Eckhart, 1995). Tauler and Suso also ministered to pious laypersons, the Friends of God, in the Upper Rhine region. The mystical ideas and experiences of the Dominican men were complemented by those of the religious women; the women either recorded themselves what had been revealed to them or had it recorded by others in their religious community. Among the extant works are the revelations of Margareta Ebner (1291–1351) and Christina Ebner (1277–1355), as well as nine sisterbooks (Schwesternbücher) that chronicle the lives and experiences of numerous women in communities in the Dominican province of Teutonia (Gertrud Jaron Lewis, By Women, for Women, about Women: the Sister-Books of FourteenthCentury Germany, 1996; Ruth Meyer, Das ‘St. Katharinentaler Schwesternbuch’:
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Untersuchung, Edition, Kommentar, 1995; Rebecca L. R. Garber, Feminine Figurae: Representations of Gender in Religious Texts by Medieval German Women Writers, 1100–1375, 2003; Albrecht Classen, The Power of a Woman’s Voice, 2007, 231–69). The tradition of the Rhineland mystics continued with the Friends of God, a loosely organized group of religious and lay persons strongly influenced by the Dominican tradition who embraced a pious lifestyle; the most well-known was Rulman Merswin (1310–1382) (Rufus Jones, The Flowering of Mysticism: The Friends of God in the Fourteenth Century, 1939). The message of simple piety and a life of virtue founded on divine grace also was contained in the Theologia Deutsch, an anonymous tract from the 14th century to which Martin Luther made references in his writing. The term deutsche Mystik has been used for more than a century and a half primarily in reference to the tradition of the 14th century associated with Eckhart and his followers (Wilhelm Preger, Geschichte der deutschen Mystik im Mittelalter: Nach den Quellen untersucht und dargestellt, 3 vols., 1874–1893; Alois M. Haas, “Deutsche Mystik,” Geschichte der deutschen Literatur, III/2: Die deutsche Literatur im späten Mittelalter 1250–1370, ed. Ingeborg Glier, 1987, 234–305). The 14th century witnessed renewed interested in mysticism in the Low Countries. John Ruysbroeck (ca. 1293–1381) provided spiritual counsel and wrote of unmediated union with God (Oliver Davies, God Within. The Mystical Tradition of Northern Europe, 1988). The Brethren of the Common Life called for spiritual renewal; the disciplined life they espoused, set forth by Thomas à Kempis (1380–1471) in De imitatio Christi (Imitation of Christ) and by Gerhard Groot (1340–1384), attracted religious and laity (Devotio moderna) (Robert E. Lerner, The Heresy of the Free Spirit, 1972; John Van Engen, Sisters and Brothers of the Common Life: The Devotio Moderna and the World of the Later Middle Ages, 2008). The works of several early Renaissance figures continued the mystical tradition, among them The Vision of God by the canon lawyer Nicholas of Cusa (Clyde Lee Miller, “Nicholas of Cusa’s The Vision of God,” An Introduction to the Medieval Mystics of Europe, ed. Paul Szarmach, 1984, 293–312; Andrew Weeks, “The Finite and the Infinite: The Humanistic Mysticism of Nicholas of Cusa,” in his German Mysticism from Hildegard of Bingen to Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Literary and Intellectual History, 1993, 99–116). Likewise, the spiritual tradition among women persisted in early modern times (Werner WilliamsKrapp, “Frauenmystik und Ordensreform im 15. Jahrhundert,” Literarische Interessenbildung im Mittelalter. Mauracher Symposion 1991, ed. Joachim Heinzle, 1993, 301–13).
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Focusing on the personal relationship between the individual and God, scholars of mysticism in the late 19th century such as Wilhelm Preger argued that late medieval German mystics were precursors of the 15th-century German Reformers (Geschichte der deutschen Mystik), a theory vehemently refuted by Heinrich Seuse Denifle (Die deutschen Mystiker des 14. Jahrhunderts). The dispute followed confessional lines. 3. The Mystical Tradition in England The mystical tradition in England flourished beginning in the 13th century (David Knowles, The English Mystical Tradition, 1961; Wolfgang Riehle, Studien zur englischen Mystik des Mittelalters unter besonderer Berücksichtigung ihrer Metaphorik, 1977, translated as The Middle English Mystics, trans. Bernard Standring, 1981). Only in England did anchoritic spirituality gain widespread acceptance; rules and guides such as the Ancrene Wisse were produced for individuals, mostly women, who adopted an eremitic lifestyle (Rotha Mary Clay, The Hermits and Anchorites of England, 1914; Ann K. Warren, Anchorites and Their Patrons in Medieval England, 1985). In the 14th century, a number of spiritual writings that provided spiritual instruction were penned by Richard Rolle (ca. 1290–1349), Walter Hilton (ca. 1340–1396), and the anonymous author of the Cloud of Unknowing (Phyllis Hodgson, Three Fourteenth-Century English Mystics, 1967). Hope Emily Allen was the first to draw attention to the writings of Rolle (Writings Ascribed to Richard Rolle, Hermit of Hampole, and Materials for his Biography, 1927, rpt. 1966); his works are notable for their style and content, as well as what they reveal regarding the personality of the author (Nicholas Watson, Richard Rolle and the Invention of Authority, 1991). Hilton’s Scale of Perfection describes the soul’s journey along stages of spiritual development towards perfection through a life of penance; the work was a very popular piece of devotional literature among the laity before the Reformation (Joseph E. Milosh, The Scale of Perfection and the English Mystical Tradition, 1966; Gunnel Cleve, Mystic Themes in Walter Hilton’s Scale of Perfection, Book I, 1989, and Basic Mystic Themes in Walter Hilton’s Scale of Perfection, Book II, 1994). Another spiritual guidebook of the period, the anonymous Cloud of Unknowing has attracted scholarly attention with regard to the nature of the mysticism it espouses (William Johnston, The Mysticism of The Cloud of Unknowing, 1967, rpt. 2000), its theological underpinnings (Rosemary Ann Lees, The Negative Language of the Dionysian School of Mystical Theology: An Approach to the Cloud of Unknowing, 1983), as well as questions concerning its authorship (Annie Sutherland, “The Dating and Authorship of the Cloud Corpus: A Reassessment of the Evidence,” Medium Aevum 71 [2001]: 82–100).
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Two of the most well-known figures associated with English mysticism are products of the 14th and 15th century: Julian of Norwich (1342–ca. 1416) and Margery Kempe (ca. 1373–1438). Following her visionary experiences, Dame Julian adopted the life of an anchoress, taking up residence in a cell attached to the church in Norwich that now bears her name and serving as a counselor to those who visited her. Her Showings also provided guidance to others; the text, which survives in two different redactions, is remarkable for its sensual and allegorical language and its teaching on the motherhood of God (Grace Jantzen, Julian of Norwich: Mystic and Theologian, 1988; Denise Nowakowski Baker, Julian of Norwich’s Showings: From Vision to Book, 1994; Julian of Norwich: A Book of Essays, ed. Sandra McEntire, 1998; Frederick Christian Bauerschmidt, Julian of Norwich and the Mystical Body Politic of Christ, 1999; The Writings of Julian of Norwich, ed. Nicholas Watson and Jacqueline Jenkins, 2005). The Book of Margery Kempe describes the travels and mystical experiences of the Norfolk laywoman. Margery advocated and herself practiced an ascetic lifestyle; her unusual behavior, specifically her weeping, led to accusations of Lollardy and to rejection of her religious experiences as fraudulent – by her contemporaries as well as by scholars and readers today (Clarissa W. Atkinson, Mystic and Pilgrim: The Book and the World of Margery Kempe, 1983; Karma Lochrie, Margery Kempe and Translations of the Flesh, 1991; Margery Kempe: A Book of Essays, ed. Sandra McEntire, 1992; Lynn Staley, Margery Kempe’s Dissenting Fictions, 1994; Albrecht Classen, The Power of a Woman’s Voice, 2007, 271–308). With the Dissolution of the Monasteries between 1538 and 1541, members of religious orders were expelled from England. Nonetheless, writings of the 14th-century English mystics were copied and distributed on the continent, especially from the Benedictine communities at Cambrai and Paris. In England recusants continued to foster the mystical tradition (Neglected English Literature: Recusant Writings of the 16th–17th Centuries, ed. Dorothy L. Latz, 1997). 4. Medieval Mystics in Other Areas of Europe There are fewer extant records in other European countries to document a mystical tradition; however, across the continent there were several notable figures. In her writings Angela of Foligno (ca. 1248–1309) related the stages in her journal toward God; later in life she became a Franciscan tertiary (Vita e Spiritualità della Beata Angela de Foligno, ed. Clément Schmitt, 1987). Canonized in the 15th century, Catherine of Siena (1347–1380), a Dominican tertiary, received the stigmata and served as a counselor to those in the secular and ecclesiastical hierarchy. Her letters, prayers, and dialogue with God em-
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phasized her devotion to the Sacred Heart and her concern with Church reform (Suzanne Noffke, Catherine of Siena: Vision Through a Distant Eye, 1996). Also concerned with reform was St. Bridget (Birgitta) of Sweden (1302–1373), who severed her ties with the Swedish court to take up the challenge of battling corruption in Rome; her revelations revealed her devotion to and veneration of Christ and Mary (Claire L. Sahlin, Birgitta of Sweden and the Voice of Prophecy, 2001). The lives and experiences of these and many other mulieres sanctae have been documented and studied (Brenda Bolton, “Mulieres sanctae,” Women in Medieval Society, ed. Susan Mosher Stuard, 1976, 141–58; Valerie Lagorio, “The Medieval Continental Women Mystics: An Introduction,” An Introduction to the Medieval Mystics of Europe, ed. Paul Szarmach, 1984, 161–93; Amy Hollywood, “The Religiosity of the Mulieres Sanctae,” in her The Soul as Virgin Wife, 1995, 26–56). In Spain, Ramon Llull (Raymond Lull, 1232–1315) abandoned life at the royal court for the religious life; his philosophical ideas were very popular, although his mystical beliefs were condemned by the pope (Joaquím Xirau, Vida y obra de Ramón Lull, filosofía y mística, 1946; Miriam Thérèse Olabarrieta, The Influence of Ramon Lull on the Style of the Early Spanish Mystics and Santa Teresa, 1963). Spanish mysticism reached its zenith in the 16th century: the founder of the Jesuits, Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556), authored his Spiritual Exercises; Teresa of Avila (1515–1581) described the inward journey toward the Divine in her Interior Castle (Santa Teresa y la literatura mística hispánica: actas del I Congreso Internacional sobre Santa Teresa y la Mística Hispánica, ed. Manuel Criado de Val, 1984); and John of the Cross (1545–1591) characterized the search for God in the Dark Night of the Soul (Poesía y mística: Introducción a la lírica de san Juan de la Cruz, ed. Emilio Orozco Díaz, 1959). Spanish visionary women such as Sor Juana de la Cruz first appeared on the scene at the end of the 15th century and into the 16th century (Marcel Bataillon, Erasmo y España: Estudios sobre la historia spiritual del siglo xvi, 1966; Ronald E. Surtz, The Guitar of God: Gender, Power, and Authority in the Visionary World of Mother Juana de la Cruz [1481–1534], 1990). 5. The Medieval Mystical Tradition in Judaism The High Middle Ages was a period of diverse developments in Jewish philosophy and spirituality, including the rationalistic philosophy of Moses Maimonides (1135–1204), the Ashkenazi Hasidic movement, and the kabbalah (Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, 1961; Elliot R. Wolfson, Through a Speculum That Shines. Vision and Imagination in Medieval Jewish Mysticism, 1994; Joseph Dan, Jewish Mysticism, vol. II: The Middle Ages, 1998). The collection of essays edited by Moshe Idel and Bernard McGinn
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explores some potential connections between the Jewish and Christian mystical traditions (Mystical Union). C. History of Research, Schools of Thought, Approaches An introduction to the concept of mysticism is found in all major reference works dealing with the Middle Ages (e. g., Dictionary of the Middle Ages and the Lexikon des Mittelalters) as well as philosophy and religion (e. g., the Dictionnaire de spiritualité ascétique et mystique, doctrine et histoire, The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and The Encyclopedia of Religion). There is even a dictionary of mysticism, which focuses on the European tradition (Peter Dinzelbacher, Wörterbuch der Mystik, 1989, 2nd ed., 1998). A number of useful bibliographies have been published in recent decades. Umesh D. Sharma and John Arndt offer a listing of general titles in Mysticism:A Select Bibliography (1973). Mary Ann Bowman limits her bibliography to Western mysticism (Western Mysticism. A Guide to the Basic Works, 1978) but includes works related to the history, practice, and experience of mysticism as well as English translations of the writings of Western mystics from ancient to modern times. Gertrud Jaron Lewis provides comprehensive documentation of scholarship about German female mystics in the Middle Ages (Bibliographie zur deutschen Frauenmystik des Mittelalters, 1989). Resources for the English mystics include: Valerie Lagorio and Ritamary Bradley, The 14th-Century English Mystics: A Comprehensive Annotated Bibliography (1981), and Michael E. Sawyer, A Bibliographical Index of Five English Mystics: Richard Rolle, Julian of Norwich, the Author of ‘The Cloud of Unknowing’, Walter Hilton, Margery Kempe (1978). A number of journals focus on scholarship related to Christian mysticism in the Middle Ages. Founded in 1926, the Jesuit publication Zeitschrift für Aszese und Mystik became Geist und Leben: Zeitschrift für christliche Spiritualität in 1947; it maintains its focus on the Christian tradition. Studies in Spirituality, published since 1991 by the Titus Brandsma Institute in Nijmegen, promotes spirituality as a science; multi-disciplinary in its approach, the journal includes mostly articles concerned with the Judeo-Christian traditions. The Revue d’ascétique et de mystique appeared from 1920 to 1971; publication continued as the Revue d’histoire de la spiritualité but was suspended in 1977. Begun by Valerie Lagorio and Ritamary Bradley in 1974, the 14th Century English Mystics Newsletter was renamed Mystics Quarterly in 1984 and was relaunched in 2010 as the Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures. Excluding occultism, magic, the esoteric, and the merely mysterious from its definition of “mystical,” the journal publishes editions as well as articles with a focus on the Western Middle Ages but broadened its focus with the most recent name
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change. The annual Studia Mystica, founded in 1978, offers articles on mysticism and visionary literature in any cultural or religious tradition, including essays that employ interdisciplinary and comparative approaches; publication ended in 2003. Vox Benedictina by Peregrina Publishing had a broader scope than its title implies; although it ceased publication in 1994, it was succeeded by Magistra: A Journal of Women’s Spirituality in History. Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality was begun by The Johns Hopkins University Press in 2001 with the goal of encouraging research in the field of Christian spirituality as well as creative dialogue with other non-Christian traditions. Twentyfive essays from the journal have appeared in Minding the Spirit. The Study of Christian Spirituality, ed. Elizabeth Dreyer and Mark Burrows (2005). Many other useful collections of essays have been published in recent decades. Altdeutsche und altniederländische Mystik, ed. Kurt Ruh (1964) and Grundfragen der Mystik, ed. Werner Beierwaltes, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and Alois M. Haas (1974), shed light on various aspects of Christian mysticism, in particular German medieval mysticism. Christian Spirituality: vol. 1: Origins to the Twelfth Century and Christian Spirituality: vol 2: High Middle Ages and Reformation (ed. Jill Raitt, 1987) appear in the series World Spirituality: An Encyclopedic History of the Religious Quest, ed. Ewert Cousins; the volumes introduce selected aspects of Western Christian mysticism. Two recent Festschriften for Gotthard Fuchs – Gottesfreundschaft: Christliche Mystik im Zeitgespräch (ed. Dietlind Langner, Marco A. Sorace, and Peter Zimmerling, 2008) and Mystik: Herausforderung und Inspiration (ed. Thomas Pröpper, 2008) – include essays on the European Middle Ages, modern mystics, and non-Christian traditions. Several monograph series have been introduced in recent decades that serve as forums for textual editions or critical examinations of mystical texts from the European Middle Ages. Among them are the Peregrina Translation Series; the Library of Medieval Women and Studies in Medieval Mysticism, both by Boydell and Brewer; and Mystik in Geschichte und Gegenwart by Frommann-Holzboog. An overview of various mystical traditions is found in: Sidney Spenser, Mysticism in World Religion (1963), Edward Geoffrey Parrinder, Mysticism in the World’s Religions (1976), and Bruno Borchert, Mysticism. Its History and Challenge. Basic surveys of mysticism comparative in nature include those by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki (Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist, 1957), Annemarie Schimmel (Mystical Dimensions of Islam, 1975), Toshihiko Izutsu (Sufism and Taoism: A Comparative Study of Key Philosophical Concepts, 1983), and Dan and Lavinia Cohn-Sherbok (Jewish and Christian Mysticism: An Introduction, 1994). The essays in Mysticism and the Mystical Experience: East and West (ed.
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Donald H. Bishop, 1995) examine various traditions; Bishop’s introduction (11–37) offers an overview of the 20th-century debate regarding the definition and nature of mysticism. William Harmless employs a case-study approach to his studies of six Christian mystics – among whom are four medieval figures: Bernard of Clairvaux, Hildegard of Bingen, Bonaventure, and Meister Eckhart – and explores mystical elements in Islam and Buddhism as well in Mystics (2008). Latin editions of works of many mystics mentioned above were published in the Acta Sanctorum Bollandiana in the 17th century or in the Patrologia Latina series, edited and published by Jacques-Paul Migne between 1844 and 1855. Critical editions of writings in Latin and in the vernacular began to appear in the 19th century. Since the 1980s English translations of key writings of Christian (and other) mystics have appeared in the Classics of Western Spirituality series. Text anthologies include those edited by Louis Dupré and James A. Wiseman (Light from Light: An Anthology of Christian Mysticism, 1988); Harvey Egan (An Anthology of Christian Mysticism, 1991); John R. Tyson (Invitation to Christian Spirituality: An Ecumenical Anthology, 1999); and Bernard McGinn (The Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism, 2006). Among the earliest comprehensive chronological examinations of Christian mysticism is the incomplete study by Johann Joseph von Görres (Die christliche Mystik, vols. 1–4, 1836–1842, and vols. 1–5, 1879). The second volume of the Histoire de la spiritualité chrétienne is devoted to medieval spirituality (Jean Leclercq, François Vandenbroucke, and Louis Bouyer, La spiritualité du moyen âge, 1961). The appendix to Underhill’s Mysticism provides a brief chronological narrative of Christian mysticism from its beginnings through the 18th century; it remains a popular, readable introduction in English. Two multi-volume histories of mysticism have appeared in the past two decades, one in German and one in English. Kurt Ruh’s Geschichte der abendländischen Mystik (1990–1999) comprises four volumes: the foundations of Western mysticism from the Church Fathers through monastic theology to the 12th century; female mysticism (Frauenmystik) and early Franciscan mysticism; Dominican mysticism and its Scholastic background; and mysticism in the Low Countries from the 14th through the 16th century. Bernard McGinn’s series titled The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism (1991–2005) includes: The Foundations of Mysticism (1991) from the Jewish, Greek, and Early Christian roots; The Growth of Mysticism (1994) through the 12th century; The Flowering of Mysticism (1998) from 1200 to 1350; and The Harvest of Mysticism in Medieval Germany (2005) from 1300 to 1500. All four volumes also have been translated into German.
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Several histories and anthologies of European mysticism provide a bridge between medieval and modern times: Friedrich-Wilhelm Wentzlaff-Eggebert, Deutsche Mystik zwischen Mittelalter und Neuzeit (1943); Ray C. Petry, Late Medieval Mysticism (1957); Andrew Weeks, German Mysticism from Hildegard of Bingen to Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Literary and Intellectual History (1993). Scholars continue to debate the definition of mysticism; Steven Payne provides an overview of ongoing controversies (“Mysticism, Nature of,” Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward Craig, 1998, vol. 6, 627–34). The nature of mysticism has been a key issue for the last half century. Perennialists champion the idea of common features to the mystical experience across cultures and traditions (Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy, 1945; Stace, Mysticism and Philosophy; Robert K. C. Forman, ed., The Problem of Pure Consciousness, 1997). In contrast, constructivist theory maintains that the nature of the mystical experience is largely determined, i. e., “constructed,” by the individual’s cultural background (Ninian Smart, “Understanding Religious Experience,” and Stephen Katz, “Language, Epistemology, and Mysticism,” Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis, ed. Katz, 1978; and three additional volumes edited by Katz: Mysticism and Religious Traditions [1983], Mysticism and Language [1992], and Mysticism and Sacred Scripture [2000]). Wayne Proudfoot maintains that religious experience cannot be viewed as distinct from either religious beliefs and practices or grammar and linguistic strictures (Religious Experience, 1985). Identifying Izutsu, McGinn, Idel, and Sells as a third group in the debate, one that distinguishes between the mystical experience and the textual account of the experience, F. Samuel Brainard reviews the issue and offers a representative bibliography (“Defining Mystical Experience”). Summaries of schools of thought, approaches, and recent scholarship can be found in several recent publications of Bernard McGinn. In “A Brief Critical Bibliography on Christian Mysticism,” which concludes The Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism, 553–59, McGinn cites 20 classic interpretations of mysticism from 1880 to 1980 as well as 25 recent studies from 1980 to 2005. In “Theoretical Foundations: The Modern Study of Mysticism,” an appendix to The Foundations of Mysticism, 265–343, he provides a comprehensive and masterful survey of modern theories of mysticism. Noting that no general survey of modern theories of mysticism currently exists, McGinn provides what he characterizes as an eclectic and personal view. The overview consists of three sections – theological approaches, philosophical approaches, and comparativist and psychological approaches – supplemented by copious notes and an extensive bibliography. Lastly, McGinn’s brief essay on mysticism in The New Westminster Dictionary of Christian Spirituality
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(ed. Philip Sheldrake, 2005, 19–25) offers a pithy chronicle of the evolution of mysticism in the Western context into the 18th century and characterizes current debates in the field. D. Current Issues and Future Trends With the editing and translating of texts in the late 19th century, interest in mysticism increased. The final decades of the 20th century witnessed renewed attention to mysticism by scholarly and lay audiences and a proliferation of editions and English translations. Previous studies often examined lives and texts from a single perspective – historical, linguistic, literary, philosophical, or theological – but current academic research regarding mysticism has become interdisciplinary and comparative in nature. 1. Women, the Feminine, and Mysticism The significance of the lives and works of medieval women mystics was reevaluated in the second half of the 20th century, and a scholarship boom in the area occurred in the 1980s, beginning with several notable introductions by Valerie Lagorio: “The Continental Women Mystics of the Middle Ages: An Assessment,” The Roots of the Modern Christian Tradition: The Spirituality of Western Christendom, vol. 2, ed. E. Rozanne Elder, 1984, 71–90, and “The Medieval Continental Women Mystics: An Introduction,” An Introduction to the Medieval Mystics of Europe, 161–93. Margaret Wade Labarge devotes a chapter to women mystics in A Small Sound of the Trumpet (1986), as does Peter Dronke in Women Writers of the Middle Ages: A Critical Study of Texts from Perpetua (†203) to Marguerite Porete (†1310) (1984). Three volumes of Medieval Religious Women, edited by John A. Nichols and Lillian Thomas Shank (I: Distant Echoes, 1984; II: Peaceweavers, 1987; III: Hidden Springs: Cistercian Monastic Women, 1995), include essays on women mystics through the 16th century. Among text anthologies are Shawn Madigan, ed., Mystics, Visionaries, and Prophets: A Historical Anthology of Women’s Spiritual Writings (1998), and Elizabeth Spearing, ed., Medieval Writings on Female Spirituality (2002). Monographs have examined: female mysticism in general (Frances Beer, Women and Mystical Experience in the Middle Ages, 1993; Peter Dinzelbacher, Mittelalterliche Frauenmystik, 1993); selected women mystics (Emilie Zum Brunn and Georgette Epiney-Burgard, Women Mystics in Medieval Europe, 1989); specific communities (Leonard P. Hindsley, The Mystics of Engelthal: Writings from a Medieval Monastery, 1996; Lewis, By Women, for Women, about Women: The Sister-Books of Fourteenth-Century Germany); and women mystics in early modern times (Anne Winston-Allen, Convent Chronicles: Women Writing About Women and Reform in the Late Middle Ages, 2004). There
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is even a bibliography devoted solely to German medieval women mystics (Gertrud Jaron Lewis, Bibliographie zur deutschen Frauenmystik des Mittelalters, 1989). Conferences, especially in Germany, concerning women and mysticism soon followed and resulted in collections of essays edited by Peter Dinzelbacher and Dieter R. Bauer (Frauenmystik im Mittelalter. Wissenschaftliche Studientagung der Akademie der Diözese Rottenburg-Stuttgart 22.–25. Februar 1984 in Weingarten, 1985; and Religiöse Frauenbewegung und mystische Frömmigkeit im Mittelalter, 1988); Kurt Ruh (Abendländische Mystik im Mittelalter. Symposion Kloster Engelberg 1984, 1986); Walter Haug and Wolfram SchneiderLastin (Deutsche Mystik im abendländischen Zusammenhang: Neu erschlossene Texte, neue methodische Ansätze, neue theoretische Konzepte. Kolloquium Kloster Fischingen 1998, 2000); and Eva Schlotheuber and Helmut Flachenecker, Nonnen, Kanonissen und Mystikerinnen: Religiöse Frauengemeinschaften in Süddeutschland: Beiträge zur interdisziplinären Tagung vom 21. bis 23. September 2005 in Frauenchiemsee, 2007). The writings of women mystics take various forms, but descriptions of revelations and visions are the most common. Visionary experiences have been examined from a psychological, phenomenological, as well as a theological perspective (Peter Dinzelbacher, Vision und Visionsliteratur im Mittelalter, 1981; Elizabeth Alvilda Petroff, Medieval Women’s Visionary Literature, 1986). The gendered nature of symbols has been examined most extensively in the works of Hildegard of Bingen (Barbara Newman, Sister of Wisdom. St. Hildegard’s Theology of the Feminine, 1987). More recent studies have identified feminine aspects of the Divine in portrayals of Mary and allegorical figures such as Caritas not only in the writings by the Benedictine abbess but also in those by other mystics (Barbara Newman, God and the Goddesses: Vision, Poetry and Belief in the Middle Ages, 2003; Rosemary Radford Ruether, “Feminine Symbols in Medieval Religious Literature” in her Goddesses and the Divine Feminine: A Western Religious History, 2005, 159–66). 2. Male-Female Relationships The relationship between men and women in the mystical tradition, particularly male confessors and their female spiritual charges, is significant to an understanding of the lives and writings of the medieval mystics (Elizabeth Alvilda Petroff, “Male Confessors and Female Penitents: Possibilities for Dialogue,” Body and Soul. Essays on Medieval Women and Mysticism, 1994, 139–60; John Coakley, Women, Men, and Spiritual Power: Female Saints and their Male Collaborators, 2006). In some cases a genuine friendship evolved (Margot Schmidt, “An Example of Spiritual Friendship. The Correspon-
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dence Between Heinrich of Nördlingen and Margaretha Ebner,” Maps of Flesh and Light. The Religious Experience of Medieval Women Mystics, ed. Ulrike Wiethaus, 1993, 74–92). Oftentimes there was a reciprocal influence on lifestyle and writing (Frank Tobin, “Henry Suso and Elsbeth Stagel: Was the Vita a Cooperative Effort?” Gendered Voices: Medieval Saints and Their Interpreters, ed. Catherine M. Mooney, 1999, 118–35). The male religious visited the communities in person and communicated with the women via letters, which sometimes appear as thinly veiled sermons and sometimes as expressions of the personal relationships that evolved (Wilhelm Oehl, Deutsche Mystikerbriefe des Mittelalters 1100–1550, 1931, rpt. 1972; Debra L. Stoudt, “The Production and Preservation of Letters by Fourteenth-Century Dominican Nuns,” Mediaeval Studies 53 [1991]: 309–26). The relationships also led to the composition of explicitly homiletic and other didactic works by the men as well as (auto)biographies and visionary literature, primarily by the women. Differences in writing style and spiritual content predicated upon gender continue to be examined, e. g., Theresia Heimerl, Frauenmystik – Männermystik? Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede in der Darstellung von Gottes- und Menschenbild bei Meister Eckhart, Heinrich Seuse, Marguerite Porete und Mechthild von Magdeburg (2002), and Sara S. Poor, Mechthild of Magdeburg and her Book. Gender and the Making of Textual Authority (2004). Poor draws attention to the term Frauenmystik itself, which has come under scrutiny (Gabriele L. Strauch, “Mechthild of Magdeburg and the Category of Frauenmystik,” Women as Protagonists and Poets in the German Middle Ages, ed. Albrecht Classen, 1991, 171–86). The traditional dichotomy between speculative and intellectual forms – identified with the masculine – and affective, visionary, and ecstatic forms of mysticism – identified with the feminine – has been re-examined by Amy Hollywood in light of theories of 20th-century French intellectuals like Simone de Beauvoir, Jacques Lacan, and Luce Irigaray (Sensible Ecstasy. Mysticism, Sexual Difference, and the Demands of History, 2002). 3. Lifestyles and Practices of the Mystics Because of the personal nature of the experience, many mystics adopted an eremitic lifestyle, isolated from society and even from others with similar experiences. Already in the 3rd century religious men and women retreated to the deserts of North Africa and Asia Minor to pursue a contemplative life. The experiences of men such as Anthony the Great (ca. 251–356), [Pachomius (ca. 290–346)], Athanasius of Alexandria, John Chrysostom, John Cassian (ca. 360–435), and Augustine of Hippo, as well as women like Matrona and Syncletica are described by Helen Waddell (The Desert Fathers, 1957), Gra-
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ham E. Gould (The Desert Fathers on Monastic Community, 1993), and Laura Swan (The Forgotten Desert Mothers: Sayings, Lives, and Stories of Early Christian Women, 2001). The sayings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers often focus on the virtues of the monastic life and resonate with later generations of mystics (Benedicta Ward, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection, 1975). Although the cenobitic or monastic lifestyle became the norm in Western Europe, individual mystics throughout the Middle Ages embraced the life of solitude. Women usually were not permitted isolated confinement; the anchoresses often lived in a cell attached to a chapel or church (Anneke B. Mulder-Bakker, Lives of the Anchoresses. The Rise of the Urban Recluse in Medieval Europe, trans. Myra Heerspink Scholz, 2005). The practice gained currency among hermits and anchorites in England from the 12th through the 14th century (Elizabeth Robertson, “An Anchorhold of her Own: Female Anchoritic Literature in Thirteenth-Century England,” Equally in God’s Image: Women in the Middle Ages, ed. Julia Bolton Holloway, Constance S. Wright, and Joan Bechtold, 1990, 170–83). The anonymous Ancrene Riwle or Ancrene Wisse was written as a guide for anchoresses (Linda Georgianna, The Solitary Self: Individuality in the Ancrene Wisse, 1981; and Anne Savage and Nicholas Watson, trans., Anchoritic Spirituality: Ancrene Wisse and Associated Works, 1991). The debate concerning the extent to which spirituality of the anchorites can be classified as mysticism is summarized by Mary Agnes Edsall (“True Anchoresses Are Called Birds: Asceticism as Ascent and the Purgative Mysticism of the Ancrene Wisse,” Viator 34 [2003]: 157–86). The lifestyle itself is described in the writings of Christina of Markyate (C. H. Talbot, ed., The Life of Christina of Markyate: A Twelfth-Century Recluse, 1987) and Julian of Norwich (Showings, ed. Edmund Colledge and James Walsh, 1978). In solitude or in community, the medieval mystic focused on prayer and meditation in daily life. The practice of hesychasm began in the first centuries; in some ways like prayer and meditation practices such as yoga, in Eastern religion it has as its goal inner stillness. The stillness is achieved through the repetition of a prayer, accompanied by a certain positioning of the body or disciplined breathing patterns (Tomás Spidlik, La spiritualité de l’Orient Chrétien: manuel systématique, 1978; The Spirituality of the Christian East: A Systematic Handbook, trans. Anthony P. Gythiel, 1986). Some medieval mystics embraced the practice of prayer repetition, and prayer played a key role in the contemplative lifestyle, especially among women. Other practices are informed by recognition of the imitatio Christi and the centrality of the humanity of Christ among medieval mystics. Caroline Walker Bynum’s scholarship is pioneering in this regard (“‘… And Woman
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His Humanity’: Female Imagery in the Religious Writing of the Later Middle Ages,” Gender and Religion: On the Complexity of Symbols, ed. Bynum et al., Boston, 1986, 257–88). Central to the medieval mystical experience are: asceticism, including mortification of the flesh (Lerne leiden: Leidensbewältigung in der Mystik, ed. Wolfgang Böhme, 1985; Alois M. Haas, Gottleiden – Gottlieben. Zur volkssprachlichen Mystik im Mittelalter, 1989) and fasting (Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women, 1987); veneration of Christ, especially the Sacred Heart; and devotion to the Eucharist (Bynum, The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200–1336, 1995; and Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion, 1991). In their recent study, Jerome Kroll and Bernard Bachrach examine the lives of medieval holy persons, including a number of mystics, and suggest that self-injurious behaviors such as laceration of the flesh, sleep deprivation, and fasting – heroic asceticism – could produce altered states of consciousness, including the mystical state (The Mystic Mind. The Psychology of Medieval Mystics and Ascetics, 2005). The corporeal nature of mystical experiences has been examined in terms of their sensual and sensory nature (Rosemary Drage Hale, “‘Taste and See, for God is Sweet’: Sensory Perception and Memory in Medieval Christian Mystical Experience,” Vox Mystica: Essays on Medieval Mysticism in Honor of Professor Valerie M. Lagorio, ed. Anne Clark Bartlett et al., 1995, 3–14; Niklas Largier, “Inner Senses-Outer Senses: The Practice of Emotions in Medieval Mysticism,” Codierung von Emotionen im Mittelalter/Emotions and Sensibilities in the Middle Ages, ed. C. Stephen Jaeger and Ingrid Kasten, 2003, 3–15). Recognition of the physicality of the experience also has led to examination of medieval (and modern) perceptions of the female body and characterizations of gender in mystical texts (Bynum, “The Female Body and Religious Practice in the Later Middle Ages, Fragmentation and Redemption, 181–238; Elizabeth Robertson, “The Rule of the Body: The Feminine Spirituality of the Ancrene Wisse,” Seeking the Woman in Late Medieval and Renaissance Writings: Essays in Feminist Contextual Criticism, ed. Janet E. Halley and Sheila Fisher, 1989, 109–34; Karma Lochrie, “The Language of Transgression: Body, Flesh, and Word in Mystical Discourse,” Speaking Two Languages: Traditional Disciplines and Contemporary Theory in Medieval Studies, ed. Allen J. Frantzen, 1991, 115–40; Ulrike Wiethaus, “Sexuality, Gender, and the Body in Late Medieval Women’s Spirituality: Cases from Germany and the Netherlands,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 7 [Spring 1991]: 35–52; Rebecca L. R. Garber, Feminine Figurae. Representations of Gender in Religious Texts by Medieval German Women Writers 1100–1375, 2003).
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Although contemplation serves as a spiritual focus for most mystics, the active life is evident through some of the practices noted above. The performative nature of the practices and the significance of ritual have been reexamined (Mary A. Suydam and Joanna E. Ziegler, Performance and Transformation: New Approaches to Late Medieval Spirituality, 1999; Niklas Largier, “Scripture, Vision, Performance: Visionary Texts and Medieval Religious Drama,” Visual Culture and the German Middle Ages, ed. Kathryn Starkey and Horst Wenzel, 2005, 207–19). 4. The Mystical Text and Context Frank Tobin summarizes the scholarship on the subject of how the recorded mystical text has been understood by recent scholars (Mechthild von Magdeburg: A Medieval Mystic in Modern Eyes, 1995, 110–33). Among Germanists the more prevalent viewpoint maintains that the texts are literary documents, written with a specific audience in mind (Siegfried Ringler, Viten- und Offenbarungsliteratur in Frauenklöstern des Mittelalters: Quellen und Studien, 1980; id., “Die Rezeption mittelalterlicher Frauenmystik als wissenschaftliches Problem, dargestellt am Werk der Christine Ebner,” Frauenmystik im Mittelalter, 178–200). Historians like Dinzelbacher (Vision und Visionsliteratur im Mittelalter) posit not only the idea of literary visions (“literarische Visionen”) but also experienced (“erlebte”) ones that actually occurred. The ensuing contrast of scholarly positions between Caroline Walker Bynum and Ursula Peters, discussed by Tobin under the rubric of feminine criticism, may be viewed as a continuation of the previous debate. Historical contextualization is central to Bynum’s study Jesus as Mother; it is challenged by Peters, who questions the validity of the texts (Religiöse Erfahrung als literarisches Faktum: Zur Vorgeschichte und Genese frauenmystischer Texte des 13. und 14. Jahrhunderts, 1988). The nexus of literature, history, and hagiography will continue to be a thorny issue for scholars of medieval mysticism. In addition to historical authenticity, authorship of texts has come under scrutiny. How are statements of spiritual unworthiness and lack of education, especially by female authors, to be understood? Who has the authority to write? (Anne Clark Bartlett, Male Authors, Female Readers: Representation and Subjectivity in Middle English Devotional Literature, 1995; Rosalynn Voaden, God’s Words, Women’s Voices: The Discernment of Spirits in the Writing of Late-Medieval Women Visionaries, 1999; Poor, Mechthild of Magdeburg and her Book). The debate regarding the expression of the inexpressible and the paradoxical nature of mystical language continues as well (Jörg Seelhorst, Autoreferentialität und Transformation. Zur Funktion mystischen Sprechens bei Mechthild von Magdeburg, Meister Eckhart und Heinrich Seuse, 2003).
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5. Art and Mysticism In the first half of the 20th century Ernst Benz examined the relationship between mysticism and art (“Christliche Mystik und christliche Kunst [Zur theologischen Interpretation mittelalterlichen Kunst],” Deutsches Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte 12 [1934]: 22–48). In a series of monographs Jeffrey F. Hamburger has investigated: the relationship between art and mysticism (The Rothschild Canticles: Art and Mysticism in Flanders and the Rhineland, 1990; Hamburger, ed., The Mind’s Eye: Art and Theological Argument in the Middle Ages, 2005); art produced by religious women (Nuns as Artists: The Visual Culture of a Medieval Convent, 1997); and art that inspired religious women (The Visual and the Visionary: Art and Female Spirituality in Late Medieval Germany, 1998). Works of art served as manifestations of and inspirations for the mystical experience (Walter Blank, “Dominikanische Frauenmystik und die Entstehung des Andachtsbildes um 1300,” Alemannisches Jahrbuch [1964/65], 57–86; Elisabeth Vavra, “Bildmotiv und Frauenmystik – Funktion und Rezeption,” Frauenmystik im Mittelalter, 201–31). Select Bibliography Evelyn Underhill’s Mysticism serves as a general introduction to the topic, and the Wörterbuch der Mystik by Peter Dinzelbacher provides additional details. The fivevolume history by Kurt Ruh, Geschichte der abendländischen Mystik, and the four volumes by Bernard McGinn, The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism offer a comprehensive foundation, rich notes, and a wealth of bibliographical references.
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N Narratives of Technological Revolution in the Middle Ages A. Introduction Narratives of technological revolution in the Middle Ages are a distinctively 20th-century phenomenon. First articulated by a handful of influential French, British and American historians between the 1930s and 1950s, they can be genealogically linked to narratives of progress across a number of arts and social science disciplines which have invoked the language of revolutionary rupture to characterize a number of notable transformations in human cultures and societies between the Neolithic and modern periods. Two kinds of technological revolution have been claimed for the European Middle Ages by 20th-century scholars: an ‘agricultural revolution’ of the 6th to 9th centuries, and an ‘industrial revolution’ of the 11th to 14th centuries. Scholarly claims for both an industrial revolution and an agricultural revolution in the Middle Ages can be traced back to the 1930s, although they did not become full-blown narratives until the 1950s. Such claims have a relatively complex lineage, but are perhaps best understood as part of a western intellectual tradition going back to the Enlightenment which has sought to account for the radical social and political changes that have occurred throughout the world since industrialization with reference to the marriage of practical and theoretical knowledge characteristic of the modern period. The term ‘revolution’ gained currency and has been widely deployed during the modern period to denote a significant change in the politics, economy or culture of a given society or group of societies over a relatively short period of time. Generally speaking, revolutionary political changes have been identified with particular nations or countries, such as the French Revolution of 1789–1799, and the Russian Revolution of 1917, and are of comparatively short duration. Revolutionary cultural changes, on the other hand, such as the Scientific Revolution of ca. 1540–1690 and the Industrial Revolution of c. 1760–1850 transcend national boundaries, are generally held to be regional in character, and can occur over a period of a century or more. This essay focuses on the use of a particular style of cultural revolution narrative – that of technological revolution – in historical writings from the
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20th century about the European Middle Ages. It seeks to explain the social and political context within which such narratives first arose and how they appear to be genealogically related. The problems with and difficulties arising from individual revolutionary narratives are then flagged, with readers directed to the relevant critical literature. The article concludes with some generic observations about the use of such narratives in contemporary historiography. B. Narratives of Cultural Revolution in the History of Science and Technology Narratives of cultural revolution, particularly in relation to developments in science and technology, have been a common feature of western intellectual discourse since the early 17th century. The use of titles such as Physiologia Nova De Magnete, Magneticisque Corporibus, et de Magno Magnete Tellure by William Gilbert (1544–1603), and the Novum Organum and Instauratio Magna by Francis Bacon (1561–1626), were squarely aimed at distinguishing the intellectual contributions of these early modern scholars from their scholastic and classical predecessors, and setting themselves up as the new authorities on the subjects about which they wrote. Contemporaries of key figures in the Scientific Revolution, such as William Harvey (1578–1657) and Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), were already describing their contributions to natural philosophy, physiology, and the mathematical sciences as ‘revolutionary:’ not in the classical sense of an astronomical cycle or periodic return (as invoked by Renaissance humanists to describe their efforts to return to the Greek and Roman roots of European knowledge ‘purified’ of Islamic and scholastic influences), but in the sense of the overturning of traditional knowledge structures and authorities with long-term consequences. For example, a contemporary of Galileo, Raffaello Maggiotti (1597–1658), wrote to him in 1637 that Harvey’s work on the circulation of the blood “will suffice to revolutionize all of medicine, just as the invention of the telescope has done for astronomy, the compass has done for commerce, and artillery has done for the whole military art” (Jerome Bylebyl, “William Harvey: A Conventional Medical Revolutionary,” Journal of the American Medical Association 239 [1978]: 1295–98). Maggiotti’s argument was a variation on those made by Bacon and others before him that “printing, gunpowder and the magnet […] have changed the whole face and state of things throughout the world” (Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, 1620, Bk. 1, aphorism 129). It was not until the Enlightenment, however, that the now widely accepted modern sense of revolution as the rapid or violent overthrow of existing
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political and cultural norms and institutions came into common usage. Contemporary historians of science such as I. Bernard Cohen, David Lindberg, and H. Floris Cohen have drawn attention to the fact that Enlightenment figures such as Voltaire (1694–1778), Jean le Rond d’Alembert (1717–1783), Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), and the Marquis de Condorcet (1743–1794) consciously deployed revolutionary rhetoric to distinguish the practical mathematical and experimental orientation of 17th- and 18th-century natural philosophers from those of their medieval and even ancient predecessors (I. Bernard Cohen, Revolution in Science, 1985, 197–261; David Lindberg, “Conceptions of the Scientific Revolution from Bacon to Butterfield,” Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution, ed. David Lindberg and Robert Westman, 1990, 6–10; H. Floris Cohen, The Scientific Revolution: A Historiographical Inquiry, 1994, 22–27). 19th- and 20th-century proponents of progress and modernity accepted this rhetoric as an accurate description of the radical social and intellectual transformations that occurred between the 16th and 17th centuries, repeating, reinforcing and elaborating on such claims in history, philosophy and social theory (I. Bernard Cohen, Revolution in Science, 1985, 273–351; David Lindberg, “Conceptions of the Scientific Revolution from Bacon to Butterfield,” Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution, ed. David Lindberg and Robert Westman, 1990, 10–13; H. Floris Cohen, The Scientific Revolution, 1994, 21–121). Major schools of thought from Idealism and Positivism to Marxism embraced this vision of historical rupture, so much so that the term ‘Industrial Revolution’ had already entered common parlance long before it was clearly defined by Arnold Toynbee (1852–1883) in a series of lectures between 1878 and 1883 (Lectures on the Industrial Revolution in England, 1884), as had the term ‘Scientific Revolution’ before it was first clearly defined by the historian of science, Alexandre Koyré (1892–1964), in 1939 (Études Galiléennes, 1939–1940). A common feature of narratives of revolutionary intellectual and technical change during the modern period is the assumption (usually explicit but sometimes not) that earlier periods – and, in particular, the Middle Ages – were marked by intellectual sterility and scientific and technological stagnation. Indeed, modernist exceptionalists of several philosophical and political persuasions across a number of disciplines have relied on narrative forms which sharply distinguish between the modern period and the medieval and ancient periods, emphasizing discontinuity over continuity in the social, political and intellectual spheres. Thus, the Scientific Revolution marked a significant transformation in the aims, methods and techniques of natural philosophy and the physical
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sciences between the medieval and modern periods, while the British Agricultural (or Agrarian) Revolution was characterized by significant improvements in agricultural productivity and output over the essentially medieval techniques that had continued during the early modern period, thereby laying the foundations for, or occurring in parallel with, the Industrial Revolution. Likewise, the Industrial Revolution marked a period during the latter half of the 17th and first half of the 18th centuries when significant advances in agriculture, transport and manufacturing were accompanied by major reorganizations of the economy and labor force. Historians of the Industrial Revolution have generally tended to argue that the industry and technology of the early modern period were in most respects a continuation of medieval trends (Peter N. Stearns, Interpreting the Industrial Revolution, 1991, chapters 1, 2, and 4). Whereas many historians and archaeologists of the ancient world accepted modernist characterizations of their chosen time period as technologically (if not intellectually) stagnant until the late 1970s, medievalists were not so obliging. In his efforts to trace the origins of modern science from an anti-positivist perspective, the French physicist, Pierre Duhem (1861–1916), inadvertently discovered that some important developments in statics and mechanics had occurred during the 14th century in the work of Jean Buridan (1300–1358), Nicole Oresme (1323–1382), and others (Études sur Léonard de Vinci: Ceux qui’il a lus et ceux qui l’ont lu, 3 vols., 1906, 1909, and 191; rpt. 1955; Le système du monde: Histoire des doctrines cosmologiques de Platon à Copernic, 10 vols., 1913–1959). Indeed, Duhem went so far as to locate the beginnings of the still-in-formation concept of the Scientific Revolution in the 14th rather than the 17th century, although he is one of the few scholars, apart from Herbert Butterfield (1900–1979), to have done so (The Origins of Modern Science, 1300–1800, 1949). Although a new generation of professional historians of science, from Lynn Thorndike (1882–1965) and John H. Randall, Jr. (1898–1980) to Annaliese Maier (1905–1971), and Alistair Crombie (1915–1996) tended to stress the continuities between late medieval and early modern developments and downplay the discontinuities, Duhem’s work was an important point of departure from which these scholars sought to reconsider the role of medieval natural philosophy in the development of the sciences.
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C. An ‘Industrial Revolution’ in the Middle Ages Around the same time as the history of science became professionalized, a number of medievalists began taking an interest in the history of technology from a social and economic perspective. In a special issue of the Annales d’histoire économique et sociale published in 1935 and titled “Les techniques, l’histoire et la vie,” Marc Bloch (1886–1944), and Lucien Febvre (1878–1956) put together a collection of articles outlining their views on the formation of a new discipline which they called the history of techniques. In Febvre’s introductory essay for the special edition, one of the three approaches that he recommended for the new discipline was to study the progress of techniques, whether that be slow and incremental, or rapid and precipitous: both technical ‘evolutions’ and technological ‘revolutions’ should be a focus for scholarly attention (“Réflexions sur l’histoire des techniques,” Annales d’histoire économique et sociale 7 [1935]: 533–34). Febvre’s recommendations were an expression of the revisionist historiographical aims of the Annales School, which were to move away from the 19th-century emphasis on regnal shifts and diplomatic history to a new form of history that drew on the insights of multiple disciplines to illuminate cultural mentalities, the lives of ordinary people, and medium and long duration historical processes. In Bloch’s contribution to this same edition of Annales, titled “Avènement et conquêtes du moulin à eau,” he sought to establish the origins and development of the watermill from Roman times to the High Middle Ages. Apparently in an effort to put Febvre’s proposal into practice about the need for historians to form empirically-grounded opinions about the relative progress of different techniques, Bloch made a novel observation: during the second half of the Middle Ages there was a rapid increase not only in the number of mills powered by water, but in the range of industrial processes to which waterpower was applied. He proposed that these developments signified a medieval revolution in the use of power technology that laid the foundations for the Industrial Revolution and the transformation of European society during the modern period (“Avènement et conquêtes du moulin à eau,” Annales d’histoire économique et sociale 7 [1935]: 538–63; trans. “The Advent and Triumph of the Watermill,” Land and Work in Mediaeval Europe: Selected Papers by Marc Bloch, 1967, 136–68). It is worth quoting him briefly on this point: The generations immediately before ours, as well as our own, have witnessed a tremendous revolution in transport, animal traction giving place to purely mechanical forms of energy. Not very different was the revolution that took place in another sphere with the coming of the watermill […] (141).
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Already convinced that the Romans had made relatively little use of watermill technology, Bloch went on to argue that “although the invention of the watermill took place in ancient times, its real expansion did not come about until the Middle Ages” (143). The rest of the paper goes on to explain why the Romans supposedly failed to exploit waterpower, and how and why this medieval expansion came about. The idea that revolutionary changes in technology had occurred during earlier periods than the Industrial Revolution had already been canvassed by V. Gordon Childe (1892–1957), John Nef (1899–1988), and Richard Lefebvre des Noëttes (1856–1936) in the 1920s and early 1930s. In Childe’s case, the concept of a ‘Neolithic Revolution’ was developed by him to denote the first of a series of major transformations in agricultural production in the Middle East that occurred roughly 12,000 to 8,000 years ago, whereas the concept of an ‘Urban Revolution’ was developed to denote the period following the Neolithic Revolution whereby small, non-literate, kin-based agricultural villages were transformed into large, literate, hierarchically-ordered urban centers: the first civilizations (New Light on the Most Ancient East, 1934; “Changing Aims and Methods in Prehistory,” Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 1 [1935]: 1–15; Man Makes Himself, 1936; What Happened in History, 1942). In Nef’s case, his proposal involved a reassessment of the role of coal in the growth of European industry, whereby the first of two ‘industrial revolutions’ in Britain was held to have occurred in the period from 1540 to 1640. Struck by the rapid increase in British coal output that accompanied the decline of the timber industry between the dissolution of the monasteries and the outbreak of the English Civil War, Nef sought to prove his case that these parallel developments were not simply a function of population growth. He argued, to the contrary, that they were the result of “a sharp expansion of native industrial enterprise”, and that clear evidence for this expansion could be found in the ship-building, salt, and glass industries (The Rise of the British Coal Industry, 2 vols., 1932). In Lefebvre des Noëttes’s case, he proposed that the process of technological invention proceeds by sudden leaps rather than gradual transformations, and that such ‘revolutions’ are followed by long periods of inactivity. For example, in his two-volume work De la Marine antique à la marine modern: La révolution du gouvernail, contribution à l’étude de l’esclavage, first published in 1935, he proposed that the invention of the hinged sternpost rudder in the 13th century initiated a revolution in ship design that improved oceanic navigation, enabled enormous increases in tonnage, and made possible the later European voyages of discovery. This ‘great technological leap
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forward’ was analogous to the earlier medieval technical revolution which he believed had been brought about by the invention of the horse harness, to which he had first drawn attention in La force motrice animale à travers les âges (1924) and L’attelage: Le cheval de selle à travers les âges, contribution à l’histoire de l’esclavage (1931). This latter ‘technological revolution’ provided one of the bases for Lynn White, Jr.’s later articulation of an agricultural revolution in the Middle Ages (see below). Thus, we can see how the social milieu in which western scholars were working during the Interwar Period favored conceptions of revolution and radical rupture when describing major cultural transformations in history and prehistory. Only a year before Bloch’s aforementioned paper appeared in Annales, a fellow exponent of the new sub-discipline of the history of technology, Lewis Mumford (1895–1990), had also alluded to the idea that there had been an industrial revolution in the Middle Ages based primarily upon waterpower. In his highly influential book Technics and Civilization (1934, rpt. 1963) Mumford argued in the book’s third chapter – titled “New Sources of Power” – that if power machinery is regarded as one of the primary manifestations of the new capitalist economy, “the modern industrial revolution began in the twelfth century and was in full swing by the fifteenth” (112). Like Bloch, Mumford listed the many industrial processes to which waterpower was applied in the latter half of the Middle Ages, not only grinding grain and pumping water, but pulping rags for paper, hammering and cutting iron, sawing wood, beating hides, spinning silk, felting woolen cloth, sharpening tools and weapons, pulling wire, crushing ore and powering bellows (114–15). Mumford argued that parallel developments were taking place in the application of windpower to agriculture and land reclamation between the 12th and 16th centuries, and that although the “development of wind and water power did not reach its height in most parts of Europe until the seventeenth century […] [p]lainly, the modern industrial revolution would have come into existence and gone on steadily had not a ton of coal been dug in England, and had not a new iron mine been opened” (117–18). Mumford’s views were, therefore, certainly not in agreement with those of his contemporary, Nef, for example. However, Mumford’s and Bloch’s speculations, as suggestive as they may have been, were (to quote Bloch) but “working hypotheses” (“Les ‘inventions’ médiévales,” Annales 7 [1935]: 642). In 1941, the English medievalist, Eleanora Carus-Wilson (1897–1977), provided some empirical evidence to back up Mumford’s and Bloch’s thesis. In her widely read paper “An Industrial Revolution of the Thirteenth
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Century” (The Economic History Review 11 [1941]: 39–60) Carus-Wilson argued that during the 13th century, woolen cloth production had moved from the urban cloth manufacturing centers of England to a number of rural woolgrowing centers due to the rapid process of mechanization of the fulling process: traditional methods of fulling by hand and foot had been replaced by waterpowered fulling mills. Although she did not provide any evidence for the supposed higher profitability of mechanized fulling over manual fulling, she argued that the shift from urban manual production to rural mechanical production led to large-scale social and economic changes that were comparable to those that occurred in the English textile industry during the 18th and 19th centuries (52). She supported these observations with a clear analogy between the widespread social disruption caused by the mechanization of the English fulling industry in the 13th century, and the adverse consequences of the mechanization of the English textile industry in the 18th and 19th centuries: the [13th] century […] witnessed, in fact, an industrial revolution due to scientific discoveries and changes in technique: a revolution which brought poverty, unemployment, and discontent to certain old centres of industry, but wealth, opportunity and prosperity to the country as a whole (39).
In a later paper on the medieval woolen industry, Carus-Wilson wrote that the mechanization of fulling “was as decisive an event as the mechanization of spinning and weaving in the eighteenth century” (“The Woollen Industry,” The Cambridge Economic History, vol. II, ed. Edward Miller, Cynthia Postan, and Michael Postan, 1952, 409). Clearly, this statement was intended as further endorsement of her earlier thesis. The striking vision of medieval technological progress proposed by Mumford, Bloch, Lefebvre des Noëttes, and Carus-Wilson appears to have had a galvanizing influence on a younger generation of scholars in the emergent field of the history of technology, among the most prominent of whom were Robert J. Forbes (1900–1973), Lynn White, Jr. (1907–1987), and Bertrand Gille (1920–1980). Between the 1940s and 1960s, White and Gille articulated the outlines of a persuasive narrative about an innovative technical culture that emerged in the latter half of the European Middle Ages. In his earliest essay on the topic, the technologies invoked by White ranged across examples from the domestic and agricultural spheres, the textile industry, shipbuilding and navigation, to military and mechanical innovations, and advances in architecture and engineering (“Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages,” Speculum 15 [1940]: 141–59). In his mature work, White developed
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many of the themes and insights of this early essay into a more extended argument, focusing on advances in agricultural and mechanical technologies: the stirrup, horseshoe, horse harness, and horse collar; the heavy plough, open fields, and three-field crop rotation; water- and windpower; and the cam, crank, and clockwork (Medieval Technology and Social Change, 1962; “The Medieval Roots of Modern Technology,” Perspectives in Medieval History, ed. Katherine Drew, and Floyd Lear, 1963, 19–34; “The Expansion of Technology 500–1500,” The Fontana Economic History of Europe, vol. 1, ed. Carlo Cippola, 1972, 143–71). Gille’s invocation of medieval technological innovations largely mirrored those described by White, and included “the use of hydraulic energy on a large scale, the practice of iron shoeing as well as modern harnessing, textile developments, the transformations in iron and steel making, and […] the appearance of new types of ships” (Bertrand Gille, Histoire des Techniques l’Encyclopédie de la Pléiade, 1978, trans. The History of Techniques, 2 vols., 1986, 487). White and Gille were adamant that the technological changes they described were so profound in their effects that they initiated a revolution in medieval social and economic conditions. The most compelling evidence for this medieval technological revolution was, they claimed, the rapid growth in the use of ‘non-human sources of power’ from the 10th or 11th century onward (Bertrand Gille, “Le moulin à eau: Une révolution technique medieval,” Techniques et civilisations 3 [1954]: 1–15; Lynn White, Jr., Medieval Technology and Social Change, 1962, 88–89). Gille developed these ideas in a number of essays between the early 1950s and late 1970s, the earliest of which was a short monograph titled Esprit et civilisation techniques au moyen âge (1952) which explicitly stated that there was a mechanical revolution during the latter half of the Middle Ages, the most striking feature of which was the widespread development and application of waterpower. White, on the other hand, appears to have first clearly articulated the notion of an industrial revolution of the Middle Ages in a 1960 essay titled, “Tibet, India and Malaya as Sources of Western Medieval Technology” (AHR 65 [1960]: 515–26). By the late 1960s, Gille, White, and their followers had fleshed out a relatively detailed account of how an ‘industrial revolution of the Middle Ages’ had unfolded, the basic elements of which appear to have been derived from Bloch. The first of these elements was that the Romans had not made any widespread use of waterpower, although they had perfunctorily deployed watermills and water-raising devices for at least half a millennium before the Empire collapsed. The second was that Christian monasteries had led the way in the reintroduction of Roman watermilling technology to
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Western Europe during the Middle Ages. The third involved an invocation of monkish inventiveness as the primary spur to the rapid growth in the use of water- and windpower from the 10th or 11th century onward. Bloch’s views on these matters can be found in the English translation of “Avénement et conquêtes du moulin à eau” titled “The Advent and Triumph of the Watermill” (Land and Work in Mediaeval Europe: Selected Papers by Marc Bloch, 1967, 141–42, 143–46, 148, 150–52, 182). Perhaps the clearest expression of this argument can be found in White’s “Cultural Climates and Technological Advances in the Middle Ages” (Viator 2 [1971]: 171–201), although it first appears in “Dynamo and Virgin Reconsidered” (The American Scholar Spring [1958]; rpt. Dynamo and Virgin Reconsidered, 1968). Gille’s and White’s narrative appears to have been at least partially informed by the Annaliste insight that the role of longstanding cultural institutions such as the Church in historical development should receive more attention. While Bloch’s 1935 paper seems to have provided some of the major themes for the narrative framework of an industrial revolution in the Middle Ages, Carus-Wilson’s work was deployed by historians of technology as an exemplar of rapid medieval industrial development and the new, positive attitude to technical activities which, they claimed, had clearly emerged by the 13th century (see, for example, Lynn White Jr., Medieval Religion and Technology, 1978, 54, 66; Bertrand Gille, “The Problems of Power and Mechanization,” A History of Technology and Invention: Progress Through the Ages, vol. I: The Origins of Technological Civilization, ed. Maurice Daumas, 1969, 456). A second key piece of empirical evidence drawn upon by proponents of an industrial revolution of the Middle Ages to support the idea of revolutionary growth in the use of waterpower was Margaret Hodgen’s calculation that 5,632 watermills are recorded in Domesday Book (“Domesday Water Mills,” Antiquity 13 [1939]: 261–79). This figure continued to be cited in the history of technology literature until the early 1990s, despite Reginald Lennard having stated that the figure was too low in the late 1950s (Rural England: 1086–1135, 1959, 278–80), and H. C. Darby and his colleagues having calculated the now accepted figure of 6,082 mills in the late 1970s (Domesday England, 1977, 361). The third, and perhaps the most widely emulated, supporting strategy deployed by proponents of an industrial revolution in the Middle Ages was the creation of long lists of different types of industrial watermill, and where and when they are recorded in the manuscript sources. The most extensive of such lists was created by a student of White’s, Bradford Blaine, in his doctoral thesis titled “The Application of Water Power to Industry During the Middle Ages” (UCLA, 1966). Blaine’s work, along with that of the medieval-
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ist, Anne-Marie Bautier, was frequently cited by proponents as crucial evidential support for an industrial revolution in the Middle Ages (Anne-Marie Bautier, “Les plus anciennes mentions de moulins hydrauliques industriels et de moulins à vent,” Bulletin Philologique et Historique 2 [1960]: 567–626). This strategy, too, appears to be ultimately derived from Bloch. Thus we can see how a narrative first articulated by Bloch, and to a lesser extent, Mumford, was developed by Gille and White, and embellished with empirical evidence primarily provided by Carus-Wilson, Hodgen, Bautier, and Blaine, to create a compelling case for an industrial revolution in the Middle Ages based on waterpower. In its ‘mature’ form, the argument ran as follows: Although the verticalwheeled watermill was invented in the ancient Mediterranean, it was used exclusively for grinding grain, and then only sporadically due to the prevalence of slaves, negative attitudes toward the banausic arts, and insufficient water resources. It was medieval European ‘engineers’ (trained by, or working in traditions established by, Christian monasteries) who developed the ‘Roman’ watermill’s full potential through their ingenious incorporation into the milling apparatus of a variety of mechanical innovations, including the cam, crank and trip-hammer. The incorporation of these innovations into medieval watermills allowed them to be applied to a range of industrial processes, from fulling cloth and crushing bark and hemp, to forging iron and powering bellows, thus freeing human labor for other purposes, just as the steam engine had done in the late 18th and 19th centuries. The widespread mechanization of industry that occurred in the second half of the Middle Ages led to similar transformations in the medieval economy and society to those seen in the ‘later’ Industrial Revolution. Although White’s Medieval Technology and Social Change was instrumental in popularizing and disseminating the idea that there had been an industrial revolution in medieval Europe, it was given additional impetus by, and can in some respects be seen as culminating in, a widely read work of popular history by Jean Gimpel, La Révolution industrielle du moyen âge (first published in 1976; trans. The Medieval Machine: The Industrial Revolution of the Middle Ages, 1988). Although Gimpel invoked Oswald Spengler’s Der Mensch und die Technik (1931; trans. Man and Technics, 1932) as his main inspiration for the idea that “the foundations of our present technologically oriented society were laid not in the Italian Renaissance or in the English Industrial Revolution, but in the Middle Ages” (viii), the first three chapters of the book on energy, agriculture, and mining are heavily indebted to the narrative articulated by earlier social and economic historians and historians of technology, although frequently without adequate acknowledgement of that scholarly debt.
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Two other influential books that either openly or tacitly accepted the industrial revolution of the Middle Ages thesis are Carlo Cipolla’s Before the Industrial Revolution (1976; rpt. 1981, 1993), and Terry Reynold’s Stronger Than A Hundred Men (1985). The popularity and influence of the theory can still be discerned in recent publications, such as John H. Munro’s “Industrial Energy from Water-Mills in the European Economy, 5th to 18th Centuries: the Limitations of Power” (Economia e Energia, ed. Simonetta Cavaciocchi, 2003, 223–69). While the general scholarly reaction to the thesis appears to have been generally more positive amongst historians of technology than amongst medieval historians and archaeologists, there do appear to have been some national and theoretical divergences. Historians working in the neo-Malthusian tradition most popularly expounded by Michael Postan (1898–1981) tended to be critical or dismissive of the theory, as their assessment of medieval technological achievements was generally negative. Marxists and neoMarxists also tended to be critical of the theory, not because their assessments of medieval technical abilities were negative, but because they reacted against the theory’s lack of engagement with questions of social class and power. Perhaps owing to the stronger evidence for technological progress in medieval France and Italy, French and Italian medievalists appear to have been more receptive of the theory than were British medievalists (see, for example, Robert Philippe, “L’église et l’énergie pendant le XIe siècle dans les pays d’entre Seine et Loire,” Cahiers de Civilisations Médiévale 27 [1989]: 107–17). The more critical reactions to the theory are outlined below. D. Critiques of the Industrial Revolution of the Middle Ages Despite an apparent reluctance amongst historians of science and technology to explore the validity of the thesis that there was an industrial revolution in the Middle Ages until comparatively recently, critical scholarship that has exposed the weaknesses of its central claims and evidential support has grown in size and scope over the last two decades. Amongst the central claims that have been questioned and/or proven to be incorrect are: 1. technological stagnation was a characteristic of Greco-Roman civilization, along with the associated claim that Roman use of water technology was sporadic and infrequent; 2. the technological contributions of the Romans, Chinese, and/or Islamic societies to medieval European industry were not significant or comparable to those originating in Europe;
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3. Christian monasteries were primarily responsible for reintroducing Roman watermilling technology to Western Europe, and dominated the industry until well into the Middle Ages; and 4. monastic innovation can account for many of the technical advances that occurred in industry during the Middle Ages. Questions surrounding the evidential support used by proponents of an industrial revolution in the Middle Ages have focused on the following issues: a.
the piecemeal fashion in which medieval European data on industrial milling was compiled by proponents, and their lack of systematic analysis of those data; b. the geographically restricted evidence for a rapid growth in the industrial uses to which waterpower was applied across most of Western Europe; and c. the geographically restricted evidence for industrial milling being a more profitable activity than grain milling. With respect to argument [1] above that technological stagnation characterized the ancient world, there is now a substantial body of evidence compiled by archaeologists such as Kenneth D. White (Greek and Roman Technology, 1984), Örjan Wikander (Exploitation of Waterpower or Technological Stagnation? A Reappraisal of the Productive Forces in the Roman Empire, 1984), and Kevin Greene (“Perspectives on Roman Technology,” Oxford Journal of Archaeology 9 [1990]: 209–17) which supports the revisionist view that the technological achievements of the Hellenic Greeks and Romans were far more extensive and impressive than was previously accepted by scholars of the ancient world, such as Benjamin Farrington (Science in Antiquity, 1936; rpt. 1969), Moses Finley (“Technology in the Ancient World,” Economic History Review 18 [1959]: 120–25; “Technical Innovation and Economic Progress in the Ancient World,” Economic History Review 18 [1965]: 29–45), and H.W. Pleket (“Technology and Society in the Graeco-Roman World,” Acta Historiae Neerlandica 2 [1967]: 1–25). Greene has further developed these insights in “Technology and Innovation in Context: the Roman Background to Medieval and Later Developments” (Journal of Roman Archaeology 7 [1994]: 22–33), and “Technological Innovation and Economic Progress in the Ancient World: M. I. Finley Re-Considered” (Economic History Review 53 [2000]: 29–59). Furthermore, Wikander (“The Watermill,” Handbook of Ancient Water Technology, ed. Örjan Wikander, 2000, 401–12) and the historian of tech-
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nology, Michael J. T. Lewis (Millstone and Hammer: The Origins of Water Power, 1997), have demonstrated that Roman use of waterpower was also far more widespread and innovative than was previously accepted, and that such use included factory-scale flour production and almost certainly some industrial applications in iron mining and stone quarrying. With respect to argument [2] above, Adam Lucas (“Industrial Milling in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds: A Survey of the Evidence for an Industrial Revolution in Medieval Europe,” Technology and Culture 46 [2005]: 1–30) has summarized the manuscript and archaeological evidence for the widespread use of waterpower by the Romans, Chinese, and Islamic societies, long before an ‘industrial revolution’ is supposed to have occurred in medieval Europe. His paper argues not only that the industrial use of waterpower had clear precedents in earlier civilizations, but that the mechanical innovations required for industrial milling were almost certainly conveyed from those cultures to medieval Europe via Islamic Spain or the Byzantine Empire in the 10th or 11th centuries. Lucas’s book, Wind, Water, Work: Ancient and Medieval Milling Technologies (2006) contains a compilation and analysis of all of the reliable manuscript and archaeological evidence for ancient and medieval industrial mills that he was able to collate at the time of publication. With respect to argument [3] above, Lucas (“The Role of the Monasteries in the Development of Medieval Milling,” Wind and Water in the Middle Ages, ed. Steven A. Walton, 2006, 89–127) has summarized the manuscript and archaeological evidence for the continuation of Roman watermilling practices in early medieval Italy and France, and for watermill usage in Ireland prior to the 7th century. This evidence strongly suggests that Christian monasteries did not, in fact, ‘reintroduce’ the watermill to Western Europe, but were, to the contrary, very much involved in the process of feudal appropriation of existing lands and watermills from communal interests and less powerful social groups. The paper also discusses the English manuscript evidence suggesting that while the Church may have held as many mills as the Crown around the time of the Norman Conquest, that was the peak of its influence, and it does not appear to have ever dominated the powered milling sector in medieval England. With respect to argument [4] above, the two aforementioned papers by Lucas examine the evidence for Benedictine and Cistercian involvement in mill innovation, and conclude that there is indeed some evidence that the Cistercians were innovators in industrial milling, as some previous scholars such as Gille, White, and Gimpel have claimed. There appears to be very little systematic research on the topic of medieval monastic innovation, however.
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The most systematic effort to address the adequacy of the evidential support used by proponents of an industrial revolution in the Middle Ages (issues a, b, and c above) is by Lucas in his aforementioned paper on industrial milling, although important research examining the evidence from medieval England was undertaken by Richard Holt (Mills of Medieval England, 1988, chapter 9) and John Langdon (“Water-Mills and Windmills in the West Midlands, 1086–1500,” Economic History Review 44 [1991]: 424–44; “Lordship and Peasant Consumerism in the Milling Industry of Early Fourteenth Century England,” Past and Present 145 [1994]: 3–42). Lucas argues that a detailed examination of the manuscript evidence drawn on by proponents of an industrial revolution in the Middle Ages, even when augmented by more recent systematic studies, does not warrant the conclusion that a panEuropean industrial revolution ever took place. To the contrary, the most intense areas of industrial milling activity appear to have been certain regions of what we now call France and Italy between the 13th and 15th centuries. The main industries to which waterpower was applied in these regions were cloth, hemp, leather, and timber, as well as some metallurgical processes. In the later Middle Ages, this extended to forging iron and pulverizing and polishing ores. The evidence for the relative profitability of grain milling versus industrial milling appears to have been a factor in determining the extent to which industrial milling was implemented in different regions. In England and Wales, for example, where industrial milling was largely restricted to the fulling industry, fulling mill revenues were significantly lower than those for grain mills, whereas in northern Italy, fulling mill revenues were higher than those for grain mills, and their share of the overall milling sector was significantly higher than in Britain. The generic factors which appear to have made these developments possible included already well-developed local industries in specific commodities or products which had access to regional, national and/or international markets, as well as access to plentiful supplies of running water that could be harnessed for industry. E. The Agricultural Revolution of the Early Middle Ages In a further development that was analogous to the intellectual move made by Toynbee in his invocation of an earlier Agricultural Revolution which laid the foundations for the Industrial Revolution, and of Childe with his invocation of the ‘Neolithic Revolution’ which laid the foundations for his ‘Urban Revolution,’ Lynn White, Jr. proposed in “Technology and Innovation in the Middle Ages” (1940) that there had been an agricultural revolution in the early Middle Ages which laid the foundations for an industrial revolution in the later Middle Ages. However, it was not until the publi-
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cation of Medieval Technology and Social Change (1962) that he fully developed this theory, arguing that the revolution had occurred between the 6th and 9th centuries. The claim that there had been a major transformation, if not a revolution, in early medieval agriculture had been made by a number of medievalists between the 1890s and 1950s, the most notable of whom were August Meitzen (Siedlung und Agrarwesen der Westgermanen und Ostergermanen, der Kelten, Römer, Finnen und Slaven, 1895; rpt. 1963), Marc Bloch (Les Charactères originaux de l’histoire rurale française, 1931; rpt. 1988), and Georges Duby (“La révolution agricole médiévale,” Revue de géographie de Lyon 29 [1954]: 361–66). However, according to the medievalist, Michael Toch, it was White who “presented a theory lucid enough to become part of our understanding of medieval history and sophisticated enough to explain a very complicated process spanning at least three centuries” (“Agricultural Progress and Agricultural Technology in Medieval Germany: An Alternative Model,” Technology and Resource Use in Medieval Europe, ed. Elizabeth Bradford Smith and Michael Wolfe, 1997, 158–69). Amongst the central arguments made by White in support of his theory of an agricultural revolution in early medieval Europe were: 1. the diffusion of the stirrup throughout Europe from Asia enabled the development of ‘mounted shock combat’, which in turn provided the basis for the development of ‘feudalism’ in Europe; 2. the replacement of the Mediterranean ‘scratch plow’ with the ‘heavy plow’ in Francia during the 7th century led to the development of the three-field crop rotation system, as well as open-field, communal agriculture; 3. the introduction of horseshoes and the new horse collar and harness, combined with the growing availability of horse feed, rapidly led to the replacement of less efficient oxen by horses in plow teams; and 4. the growth in the use of the plow and other farm implements (as well as weaponry) was made possible by the opening up of new iron mines in Carolingian times. White first clearly articulated his theory in the first two chapters of Medieval Technology and Social Change. Premised on an argument that appears to have been derived from Lefebvre des Noëttes (“La ‘nuit’ du moyen âge et son inventaire,” Mercure de France 235 [1932]: 572–99), White contended in the first chapter of the book that:
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Narratives of Technological Revolution in the Middle Ages [t]he stirrup, by giving lateral support in addition to the front and back support offered by pommel and cantle, effectively welded horse and rider into a single fighting unit capable of a violence without precedent. The fighter’s hand no longer delivered the blow: it merely guided it […] Immediately, without preparatory steps, it made possible mounted shock combat, a revolutionary new way of doing battle (2).
Essentially, White argued that the Franks were responsible for a “drastic shift from infantry to the new mode of mounted shock combat” in the 8th century (27), and that this transition was made possible by the invention of the stirrup. According to White, the ‘key’ to feudal institutions was the duty of knight’s service, and the primary duty of the newly created knightly class was to defend the realm through mounted shock combat (31). Apart from the influence of Lefebvre des Noëttes, white’s views about the significance of knight’s service to the ‘feudal revolution’ were also partially shaped by earlier medievalists such as H.A. Cronne (“The Origins of Feudalism,” History 24 [1939]: 251–59). Although the debate about what constitutes this ‘feudal revolution’ and whether such a revolution occurred at all, continues in the scholarly literature to this day (Thomas Bisson, “The ‘Feudal Revolution’,” Past and Present 142 [1994]: 6–42; Dominique Barthélemy, “The ‘Feudal Revolution’: I,” Past and Present 152 [1996]: 197–205; Stephen D. White, “The ‘Feudal Revolution’: II,” Past and Present 152 [1996]: 205–23), few contemporary medievalists would endorse White’s technologically deterministic view of how this revolution first came about. The reactions of some of the more prominent scholars who were critical of White’s views are detailed in the section below. Having laid the foundations, as it were, for his conception of revolutionary technological change in the early Middle Ages, White’s second chapter explores the key technological developments which he identified as constituting an agricultural revolution in early medieval Europe. White opens the chapter with an invocation of the notion of the British Agricultural Revolution as a precursor to the Industrial Revolution before stating that “northern Europe from the sixth to the ninth century witnessed an earlier agricultural revolution which was equally decisive in its historical effects” (40). He goes on to argue that the replacement of the Mediterranean ‘scratch plow’ with what he dubbed the ‘heavy plow’ in Francia during the 7th century led to the development of the three-field crop rotation system as well as open-field, communal agriculture, vastly improving productivity. Northern European farmers were subsequently able to plant oats in summer as well as spring, increasing the supply and reducing the price of horse feed, thus making horse ownership more widespread. The open-field system
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enabled the pooling of oxen and horses for plowing, increasing communal solidarity and the need for collective decision-making. The introduction of horseshoes and the new horse collar and harness, combined with the growing availability of horse feed, rapidly led to the replacement of less efficient oxen by horses in plow teams. The growth in the use of the plow and other farm implements (as well as weaponry) was made possible by the opening up of new iron mines in Carolingian times. These technical and organizational innovations vastly improved agricultural productivity and contributed to a rapid increase in northern Europe’s population, breaking the previous nexus between low agricultural productivity and low living standards. F. Critiques of the Agricultural Revolution of the Early Middle Ages Scholarly reaction to White’s thesis that there had been an agricultural revolution in the early Middle Ages was far swifter and more polarized than it was to the notion of an industrial revolution of the later Middle Ages. The less favorable pole of these reactions is represented by the earliest critique of White’s Medieval Technology and Social Change by the medievalists Peter H. Sawyer and Rodney H. Hilton in “Technical Determinism: The Stirrup and the Plough” (Past and Present 24 [1963]: 90–100), while the more favorable pole can be seen in the assessment of Toch cited above, and in John Langdon’s Horses, Oxen and Technological Innovation (1986), although both scholars are far from uncritical in their reassessments of White’s thesis in the light of recent scholarship. Because Sawyer’s and Hilton’s review and Toch’s aforementioned paper provide the most cogent criticisms of White’s theory, the following section summarizes the main elements of those criticisms, using a similar framework of argument to that provided in the section on critiques of an industrial revolution in the Middle Ages. In the aforementioned review of White’s book, Sawyer addressed White’s argument about the impact of the invention of the stirrup on the development of ‘feudalism’ [argument 1 in the previous section], while Hilton addressed White’s claims for an agricultural revolution of the early Middle Ages [arguments 2 to 4 above]. Interestingly, neither scholar appears to have felt qualified to address the case made by White for major advances in medieval mechanical technology made in Chapter Three. With respect to argument [1] above, although continental scholars have drawn attention to the defeat of the Magyars by Otto I in 955 after spending ten years training his army for mounted shock combat (for the most recent scholarly reassessment of this literature, see Charles R. Bowlus, The Battle of Lechfeld and its Aftermath, August 955: The End of the Age of Migrations in the Latin West, 2006), Sawyer’s critique centers on the fact that mounted shock com-
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bat did not become a common Western European military tactic until the 12th century: four centuries later than that proposed by White. Amongst the weaknesses in White’s argument to which Sawyer draws attention is that although White acknowledged that the Anglo-Saxons were using stirrups prior to the Norman invasion and did not use them in battle against the Normans, he failed to account for why their use was so decisive in shaping the new feudal society on the other side of the Channel. Sawyer also points out that the Frankish evidence for the adoption of the stirrup is considerably later than that suggested by White, and that other Germanic peoples may have used the stirrup earlier, but did not develop feudal societies. With respect to argument [2] above, Hilton begins by pointing out that although it had been argued by medievalists such as Georges Duby (L’économie rurale et la vie des campagnes dans l’occident médiéval, 1962; trans. Rural Economy and Country Life in the Medieval West, 1968) that the population growth, urbanization, and commercial expansion of Western Europe between the 11th and 13th centuries was the result of improvements in agricultural productivity per head, Duby’s “chronology differs substantially from Mr White’s and his handling of evidence conforms to scholarly standards” (95). He then goes on to question White’s use of the terminology ‘scratch plow’ and ‘heavy plow’ to differentiate between Mediterranean and Northern European variants, and points out that the Belgic plough (a kind of heavy plow according to White’s definition) was used as early as the 1st century B.C.E., long before its supposedly widespread use in the Frankish heartland in the 7th century. Hilton also notes that open-field, communal agriculture was practiced in 7th-century England, and that White’s claim that open-field agriculture and the heavy plow were introduced to England by the Danes rests on faulty reasoning and misinterpreted evidence. Hilton argues that there was no sharp distinction between the two and three field systems, and that both practices continued simultaneously for some centuries. In support of the earlier point made by Hilton, Toch notes that the process of reshaping European agriculture through the spread of three-field rotation, grain growing, and open fields did not occur until the 11th and 12th centuries, as Duby had suggested (Rural Economy, 90–9, 103–12). This process occurred within the economic framework of the manor, and the power of lords to enforce such changes on their own and tenants’ holdings: a framework which White tended to minimize or misconstrue. Most of the improvements in productivity which occurred in later medieval agriculture can be attributed to more intensive applications of labor than to technological improvements.
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With respect to argument [3] above, Hilton points out that the Carolingian evidence indicates no significant improvement in crop yields, or that the large scale sowing of oats was intended to provide fodder for horses. He also contends that the reduction of the fallow in 13th-century England as a result of population pressure reduced feed for beasts and therefore their availability for work and manuring pastures. For example, he cites evidence from Bedfordshire that the use of oxen as draught animals remained the preference of lords, while peasants used horses. In his aforementioned paper, Toch has presented more substantial evidence, partially based on Langdon’s research, that the replacement of the ox by the plow-horse in Europe took considerably longer than three centuries and up to seven centuries in Germany. As noted previously by Hilton and demonstrated most clearly by Langdon, different regions and social groups continued to use both animals in different contexts and for different functions, depending on local environmental and economic conditions. In England, the increased use of horse power for plowing was not really evident until the 12th and 13th centuries, although the transition was somewhat quicker with respect to vehicle hauling. With respect to argument [4] above, Hilton questions White’s evidence for the opening of ‘great new iron mines’ during Carolingian times, pointing out that “there is no quantitative evidence cited from archaeological research” (96), and that the references which White did cite do not indicate what he claimed. Hilton concludes that the iron used by the Franks more likely came from the Swedes. Toch adds that there is no evidence that iron farm implements and weaponry became far more widespread during Carolingian times, and that the diffusion of improved agricultural implements did not occur until the later Middle Ages, along with a more abundant supply of iron. The current scholarly consensus on these issues is well summarized in a collection of essays edited by Grenville Astill and John Langdon titled Medieval Farming and Technology: The Impact of Agricultural Change in Northwest Europe (1997). G. Conclusion From a historiographical perspective, it now seems clear that both the agricultural revolution and the industrial revolution of the Middle Ages narratives were squarely aimed at recuperating the technical contributions of medieval Europe to the modern period. While their proponents accepted the traditional view that technological stagnation in the ancient world was due to the institution of slavery and unfavorable attitudes toward technical
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knowledge amongst ancient elites, they argued that technological development in the medieval West was enabled by the decline of slavery under Christianity and the marriage of contemporary practical and classical theoretical knowledge in the monasteries. In the case of the agricultural revolution of the Middle Ages thesis, the new feudal system which made improvements in agricultural production possible was founded on a number of improvements in military and agricultural technology. In the case of the industrial revolution of the Middle Ages thesis, the harnessing of ‘new sources of power’ (i. e., water, wind, and the tides) during the Middle Ages was analogous to the harnessing of coal and steam during the Industrial Revolution. White’s dual theses that an agricultural revolution in the early Middle Ages had made possible an industrial revolution in the later Middle Ages provided a complementary explanation to those revolutionary accounts of discontinuous scientific change popularized by Thomas Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). White’s account is complementary in the sense that it provides an explanation for some aspects of the ‘pre-paradigm phase’ of the scientific disciplines of mechanics and statics, when certain crucial technical attitudes and developments were laid down which provided some of the foundations for the later Scientific and Industrial Revolutions. The second thesis in particular provides some evidence for the relative ubiquity of semi-automated machinery in late medieval Europe and for the beginnings of factory production. According to standard accounts of the Scientific Revolution, the social and economic changes that occurred during the Renaissance (including the rise of Protestantism, a renewal of interest in classical learning, and the invention of the printing press) weakened the authority of the Church and absolute monarchs and enabled the intellectual freedom and social mobility which led to the Scientific Revolution. A narrative accounting for the discontinuity between the medieval industrial revolution and the Scientific Revolution was available via the argument that medieval Europe failed to capitalize on its technical advances owing to the Church’s intolerance of intellectual debate and dissent, and the irrationalist tendencies of natural philosophical discourse under scholasticism. The curtailment of ecclesiastical power and authority during the early modern period provided a neat explanation for why the marriage of theory and practice that had begun under the scholastics did not bear more fruit until the 16th and 17th centuries. Such arguments can be seen as having provided a space within which it was possible for proponents of the industrial revolution of the Middle Ages thesis to avoid close scholarly scrutiny by their peers for a number of years.
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In a recent contribution to the Encyclopaedia of the Scientific Revolution, the historian of early modern science, John Schuster, suggested that evidentially challenged modernist narratives about the Scientific Revolution continue to maintain some credibility in the history of science because their postmodern competitors have been reluctant to entertain, let alone articulate, alternative ‘grand theories’ or metanarratives. To briefly summarize Schuster’s assessment of what such an alternative might look like, it would start from the assumption that “knowledge is made in evolving traditions of practice or subcultures that have their own synchronic density and diachronic dynamics” (“Internalist/Externalist Historiography,” Encyclopaedia of the Scientific Revolution, ed. Wilbur Applebaum, 2000, 334–36). In the absence of any vigorous scholarly contestation over what might constitute more historically accurate grand narratives about the unfolding of that period called the Scientific Revolution, the discipline and the wider public have lacked the conceptual tools to adequately interrogate the plausibility of these established modernist narratives. A similar case could certainly be made for the narratives of technological revolution that have been the topic of this essay. The most commonly circulated and recognized representations of premodern technology continue to be those provided by a relatively small group of post-War historians of ancient and medieval technology, despite the emergence of more sophisticated scholarship in recent years. Lewis Mumford, Robert Forbes, Moses Finley, Lynn White, Jr, Bertrand Gille, and Jean Gimpel have largely shaped the contours of scholarly awareness about premodern technology in the history of science and technology, and also to some extent in archaeology and social and economic history: an observation that can be verified by examining the work of a number of different scholars working across these disciplines during the 1980s and 1990s. The publications in which these historians’ narratives appear have, in the words of the archaeologist, Kevin Greene, had “an extraordinary influence beyond their immediate subject areas, irrespective of their changing status within academic history and archaeology,” primarily because they contained ideas that captured the public imagination and could be promoted in books for a popular or more general readership (“V. Gordon Childe and the Vocabulary of Revolutionary Change,” Antiquity 73 [1999]: 97–109). During a period in which radical political positions and revolutionary rhetoric were both intellectually de rigeur and part of everyday discourse, it is perhaps not surprising that a number of socially progressive historians should have embraced and promoted revolutionary narratives in their work. Considering the intellectual milieu of the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s, it should also
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not be too surprising that certain affinities of style, methods of reasoning, and explanatory schema should characterize this scholarship, and that these features should parallel developments in the history of science. At the same time, it seems clear from the previous discussion that the modernist historians of technology who articulated these narratives of medieval technological revolution were guilty of a sin that is typical of the humanities and social science disciplines: they insulated themselves from other disciplines with similar or overlapping concerns and developed their own positions on those concerns. It was left to later generations of scholars with less investment in disciplinary boundary maintenance and entrenched theoretical positions to reassess the relevant arguments and evidence. On a more general level, while the use of revolutionary terminology to describe technological change in premodern as well as modern societies has diminished in contemporary scholarship, the question of what characterizes genuinely ‘revolutionary’ change in the technological development of a given society or region, and how it should be characterized, remains as unresolved in the history of technology as it is in the history of science. As Schuster (The Scientific Revolution: An Introduction to the History and Philosophy of Science, 1995, chapter 25) has noted, scholars will bring with them their linguistic and theoretical baggage when using the terminology of revolution to describe developments in the history of science: while political revolutions may be relatively easy to define and to identify, cultural revolutions are in the eye of the beholder. It nevertheless remains clear that there are instances in the history of human cultures when radical transformations in their ways of being and doing occur over comparatively brief spans of time, and that our theoretical constructs and language are hard pressed to the task of adequately describing, let alone explaining them. The problems for scholars attempting to grapple with these issues revolve around such epistemological concerns as the nature and availability of evidence, standards of proof, and the explanatory adequacy of theories and narratives that seek to illuminate our understanding of rapid cultural change. Although none of the key elements of the narratives of medieval technological revolution which have been examined in this essay have withstood the test of time, recent scholarship has revealed that technological development in some regions of medieval Europe during certain key periods was significant, impressive, and perhaps in some instances might even warrant the appellation, ‘revolutionary’, if suitably qualified.
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Select Bibliography Medieval Farming and Technology: The Impact of Agricultural Change in Northwest Europe, ed. Astill Grenville and John Langdon (Leiden: Brill, 1997); Technology and Resource Use in Medieval Europe: Cathedrals, Mills and Mines, ed. Elizabeth Bradford Smith and Michael Wolfe (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998); Adam Lucas, Wind, Water, Work: Ancient and Medieval Milling Technologies (Leiden: Brill, 2006); Oxford Handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World, ed. John Peter Oleson (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008).
Adam Lucas
Narratology and Literary Theory in Medieval Studies A. Definition ‘Narratology’ designates the study of narratives according to their formal structures rather than their themes or values. Modern narratology began with the Russian formalists as a method for analyzing strictly literary texts, but scholars since the peak of French structuralism do not restrict its scope to literary (fictional, aesthetically self-conscious) narratives. Rather, they understand narrative discourse to include any account of contingent events and the actions and attitudes of associated agents. In recent decades, narratology has informed the efforts of medievalists studying forms as disparate as romance, hagiography, chronicle, ballad, and pictorial narratives in books and plastic arts. Medievalists in the fields of literature and history have also enriched narratology by challenging the ahistorical assumptions that underlie its traditional structuralist mode. In a process of mutual enrichment, medievalists have fixed cultural and historical horizons constraining supposedly universal narrative structures, while the analytical approach of narratology illuminates new aspects of medieval texts. B. Origins and Forerunners: From Aristotle to Russian Formalism Tzvetan Todorov coined the term “narratology” (Grammaire du Décaméron, 1969), but the field’s intellectual origins go back to such practical observations in Aristotle’s Poetics as his distinction between “diegesis” (telling, as in epic) and “mimesis” (showing, as in drama). In the modern period, the first major precursor of narratology was Russian Formalism, emerging from the Moscow Linguistic Circle of the 1910s. The Russian Formalists desired (like North America’s New Critics) to isolate ‘literary’ elements from their socio-
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historical, psychological, and philosophical context. Their works contributed several important ideas to the later development of narratology, such as the distinction between story and plot: the story comprises the ‘actual’ events in their natural temporal and causal sequence, while the plot is their artistic ordering and arrangement, including chronological displacements and alterations (Viktor Shklovskii, “On the Connection Between Devices of Siuzhet and General Stylistic Devices,” Russian Formalism: A Collection of Articles and Texts in Translation, ed. Stephen Bann, and John E. Bowlt, 1973, 48–72.) While Shklovskii identified plot as the organizing principle of narrative prose, Boris Eikhenbaum focused instead on the distinct discourse of the narrative voice or skaz (“The Illusion of ‘Skaz,’” Russian Literature Triquarterly 11 [1975]: 211–29). Vladimir Propp extended the formalist approach to narrative beyond strictly literary texts by proposing an elemental taxonomy of thirty-one folktales based on the functions performed by their characters (Theory and History of Folklore, 1931). Propp’s methods influenced the semiotician A.J. Greimas, who was born in Lithuania but moved to France to study medieval language and literature as an undergraduate. Greimas sought to uncover a narrative grammar by which the narrational act transforms the sign systems constituting the “discourse universe” into a temporal scheme. Through this temporal scheme, subjects experience story-events as the conflicts and transformations of desire (Sémantique structurale: Recherche de méthode, 1966). Greimas was one conduit between Russian formalism and French structuralism. Todorov, a Romanian émigré to France, was another. In association with Roland Barthes and Gerard Genette, he first made many Russian formalist works available in the West through translations and editions (Théorie de la litttérature: Textes des Formalistes Russes, ed. Todorov, 1965). Structuralists in France were receptive to Russian Formalism because they shared the goal of elucidating structural laws and patterns absolved from historical contingencies. Like the Russian Formalists, French structuralists adopted the governing premise of Saussurean linguistics – that language is a synchronic system of meaning, a network of sign-pairs distinguished by minimal differences in sensible features (e. g., the vibration of vocal chords distinguishing the letter Z from S). Unlike Russian Formalism, however, French structuralism did not distinguish artistic or literary language from other symbolic activity; if we privilege myth as having special significance, proposed Claude Lévi-Strauss, it is only because myths reveal and attempt to reconcile fundamental oppositions underwriting the symbolic system of culture (“The Structural Study of Myth,” Journal of American Folklore 28 [1955]: 428–44). By assimilating all human activity to symbolic
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behavior, Lévi-Strauss furnished a mode of anthropological inquiry furnished out of binary oppositions such as “raw” and “cooked” which he proposed could account for the apparent superfluities of culture (Le cru et le cuit, 1964). The ferment of structuralism in the 1960s prompted Roland Barthes in 1970 to describe the humanities as being “still in awe of the prestige of linguistics” (S/Z, 1970, 7). Barthes’ own “Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative” examined how treating a narrative as a sentence allowed narrative to be analyzed into elementary functions and actions (trans. Lionel Disuit, New Literary History 6 [1975]: 237–272). While Barthes himself came to re-evaluate the limits of structuralism, his work, as well as Todorov’s Grammaire du decameron, inaugurated “narratology” as a distinct venture in literary theory. C. Structuralist Narratology Many of the major works most closely associated with the term ‘narratology’ were written in the milieu of structuralism in the France of the 1960s and 1970s. Narratologists like Gerard Genette (Narrative Discourse, trans. Jane Lewin, 1973), Gerald Prince (A Dictionary of Narratology, rev. ed. 2003), and Bieke Mal (Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative, 2nd ed. 1997) produced descriptive taxonomies of narrative which focused on textual structures and the relations of textual elements. These and associated works, sometimes characterized as ‘classical narratology,’ deliberately bracket contingent elements such as authors, readers, and contexts of production and reception in order to illuminates features of narrative previously overlooked or ignored; they aspire to produce an analytic taxonomy of universal applicability. This universality, however, has limits – the taxonomical schemes of classical narratology were usually developed with reference to the Realist novels of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Genette’s Narrative Discourse, for example, introduced a number of analytical terms of lasting currency (such as ‘focalization,’ a narrational perspective strictly distinct from the ‘person’ of the narrator) through a tour-de-force reading of Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu, intended, in part, to demonstrate that narratological analysis could be useful for more complex texts than myths and folktales. Gerald Prince proposed the functional category of the “narratee,” the intended listener of the narrative – real or notional, present or absent – through his reading of Guy de Maupassant (“Introduction to the Study of the Narratee,” Reader-Response Criticism: From Formalism to Post-Structuralism, ed. Jane P. Tompkins, 1980). A notable exception to this emphasis on Realist and Modernist prose fiction among the major works of structuralist narratology is Todorov’s Grammaire du Decameron (1969), which distills from Boccaccio’s
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story collection an “arch-nouvelle,” a set of rules for generating the stories of the Decameron. D. Historicism and Philology Despite the fact that classical narratology typically focused on Realist and Modernist novels, its ahistorical formalism was attractive to interpreters of texts for which the circumstances of production and reception are obscure, such as the Anglo-Saxon poetic corpus. T.A. Shippey assessed the value of Propp’s morphology of folktales in accounting for the narrative structure of Beowulf; others followed suit (T.A. Shippey, “The Fairy Tale Structure of Beowulf,” Notes and Queries 16 [1969]: 2–11; Daniel R. Barnes, “Folktale Morphology and the Structure of Beowulf,” Speculum 45 [1970]: 416–34; Bruce A. Rosenberg, “Folklore Methodology and Medieval Literature,” Journal of the Folklore Institute 13 [1976]: 311–25). In her 1988 dissertation at the University of Arkansas, “Time in Beowulf: An Application of Narratology,” Eril Hughes challenges traditional thematic readings of Beowulf that sideline its plot as loose or incoherent. Hughes argues that Genette’s taxonomy of narrative structures allows a full and non-reductive account of “the complexity of time” in Beowulf (33). Classical narratology also informs Minette Grunmann-Gaudet’s article account of a similarly legendary material in “The Representation of time in the Chanson de Roland,” (The Nature of Medieval Narrative, ed. M. Grunmann-Gaudet, and R. F. Jones, 1980, 77–98). This collection of work on Old French literature, including studies by Paul Zumthor, Eugene Vance, and John Grigsby, offers a focused survey of some of the earliest literary criticism to bring the methods and perspectives of structuralist and early post-structuralist literary theory to bear on medieval texts. The reception of narratology in Medieval Literary Studies, however, was inflected by methods already prevalent among medievalists for the structural analysis of narrative, including especially historicist approaches that read medieval texts through medieval categories of linguistic and aesthetic analysis derived from, among other things, grammar, rhetoric, and logic (Adeline C. Bartlett, The Larger Rhetorical Patterns of Anglo-Saxon Poetry, 1939). Disciples of oral-formulaic theory found implicit formal categories in oral and semi-oral literature beyond those prescribed by ancient and medieval scholars (Constance B. Hieatt, “Envelope Patterns and the Structure of Beowulf,” English Studies in Canada 1 [1975]: 249–65). In the English-speaking world, few such advocates of this ‘old’ historicism enjoyed more influence than D.W. Robertson, who brought the vast apparatus of patristic exegesis to bear on vernacular medieval texts; Alastair Minnis, exchanging patristic for scholastic authorities, followed along these lines (D. W. Robertson,
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A Preface to Chaucer: Studies in Medieval Perspectives, 1964; Alastair Minnis, Medieval Theory of Authorship: Scholastic Literary Attitudes in the Later Middle Ages, 1984). More recently, Salwa Shafik-Ghaly brought this approach into dialogue with narratology, analyzing narratological concerns with time relations (order, duration, frequency) in terms of medieval dispositio, or rhetorical arrangement (“Towards a Medieval Narratology: Discourse and Narration in Chretien’s Yvain and Chaucer’s Troilus,” Ph. D. diss., University of Alberta, 1988). Another main stream of medieval literary criticism during the mid-20thcentury came out of the tradition of German philology. The philologists Erich Auerbach and Leo Spitzer, although heirs to the diachronic linguistics of the neo-grammarians from which Ferdinand de Saussure so decisively split, nevertheless anticipated narratology’s attention to narrative’s discursive matrix. In a manner distinct from Robertson’s exegetical historicism but comparable in scale and sensitivity, Auerbach’s stylistic analysis elaborated the synthetic codes that shaped the production and reception of narrative in the Middle Ages, anticipating Barthes’ displacement of the author (Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, trans. Willard R. Trask, 1953; id., Literary Language and Its Public in Late Latin Antiquity and in the Middle Ages, trans. Ralph Manheim, 1993). Leo Spitzer’s distinction between the ‘textual I’ and ‘empirical I’ anticipates Genette’s and Prince’s treatment of the narrator as a function of the text (“Notes on the Empirical and Poetic ‘I’ in Medieval Authors,” Traditio 4 [1946]: 414–22). E. Reception Theory and Post-Structuralism Reception theorists like Wolfgang Iser offered an approach to narrative that accounts for a text’s historically situated production and use; Iser, Hans Robert Jauss, and other “reception theorists” privileged the reader’s experience as a category of analysis, while still allowing for the degree of generality necessary to criticism by positing an “implied reader […] a counterpart to Wayne Booth’s concept of the implied author as elaborated in The Rhetoric of Fiction” (Holub, 84) (Wolfgang Iser, The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett, 1974; Hans Robert Jauss, Toward an Aesthetic of Reception, trans. Timothy Bahti, 1982; Wayne Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction, 1961; Robert C. Holub, Reception Theory: A Critical Introduction, 1984). Structuralism fully reached the attention of medievalists (with exceptions like Zumthor) when its methods and tenets were already being challenged and revised. Critiques of narratology come as part of the more general
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critique of structuralism: it is reductionistic and overly divorced from historical context – one cann
