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This book examines the Synagoga-Ecclesia motif in the thirteenth century and argues that the figures conveyed a political message of Christian ascendancy and Jewish submission.
The Protevangelium of James is arguably the earliest surviving source that exhibits profound interest in Mary, the mother of Jesus. Although frequently cited for later Christian reflections about Mary, gender, and virginity and its influence on popular Christian art, music, and literature, it is not well known outside academic circles and is rarely studied for its own sake. Lily C. Vuong offers a sustained analysis of the text's narrative and literary features in order to explore the portrayal and characterization of Mary through a focus on the theme of purity. By tracing the various ways purity is described and presented in the text, the author contributes to discussions on early Jewish and Christian ideas about purity, representations of women in the ancient world, the early history of Mariology, and the place of non-canonical writings in the history of biblical interpretation.
This volume analyses the renewal of Western moral thought in the twelfth century. This renewal was marked by a burgeoning of increasingly systematized texts, a lively reception of ancient moral philosophy and a greater emphasis on the psychology of the moral agent. Five contributions are devoted to monastic morality (Anselm of Canterbury, Bernard of Clairvaux, Hugh of Folieto, Hugh of Saint Victor, Peter Abelard); another five to (proto-)scholastic thought (John of Salisbury, Peter Abelard, Stephen Langton, the idea of natural virtue, the justification of lying); three discuss moral issues in a wider social context (liberality vs. avarice, royal justice in England, the cardinal virtues and the French monarchy). The two remaining contributions explore ethical traditions in Islamic and Jewish philosophy. With contributions by István P. Bejczy, Céline Billot-Vilandreau, Marcia L. Colish, Jeroen Laemers, John Kitchen, Cary J. Nederman, Richard G. Newhauser, Willemien Otten, Burcht Pranger, Riccardo Quinto, Ineke van ’t Spijker, Arjo Vanderjagt, Björn Weiler and George Wilkes.
Audionarratology is a new 'postclassical' narratology that explores interfaces of sound, voice, music and narrative in different media and across disciplinary boundaries. Drawing on sound studies and transmedial narratology, audionarratology combines concepts from both while also offering fresh insights. Sound studies investigate sound in its various manifestations from disciplinary angles as varied as anthropology, history, sociology, acoustics, articulatory phonetics, musicology or sound psychology. Still, a specifically narrative focus is often missing. Narratology has broadened its scope to look at narratives from transdisciplinary and transmedial perspectives. However, there is a bias t...
Dark Age Nunneries -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Preface and Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- Introduction -- 1. Setting the Boundaries for Legitimate Experimentation -- 2. Holy Vessels, Brides of Christ: Ambiguous Ninth-Century Realities -- 3. Transitions, Continuities, and the Struggle for Monastic Lordship -- 4. Reforms, Semi-Reforms, and the Silencing of Women Religious in the Tenth Century -- 5. New Beginnings -- 6. Monastic Ambiguities in the New Millennium -- Conclusion -- Appendix A: The Leadership and Members of Female Religious Communities in Lotharingia, 816-1059 -- Appendix B: The Decrees on Women Religious from the Acts of the Synod of Chalon-sur-Saône, 813, and th...
These essays examine the seven deadly sins as cultural constructions in the Middle Ages and beyond, focusing on the way concepts of the sins are used in medieval communities, the institution of the Church, and by secular artists and authors.
"This book disperses the shadows in an obscure but important landscape. Lisa Bitel addresses both the history of women in early Ireland and the history of myth, legend, and superstition which surrounded them. It is a powerful and exact book and an invaluable addition to our expanding sense of Ireland through the eyes of Irish women."--Eavan Boland, author of In a Time of Violence: Poems"It is refreshing to read in a book by a woman on medieval women that not all clerics hated women and that not all men were oversexed villains consciously bent on exploiting women. [Bitel] challenges not only the medieval Irish male construct of female behavior, but she is also courageous enough to question constructs of medieval women invented by modern Irish medieval historians."--Times Higher Education Supplement
Postcolonial theories have transformed literary, historical and cultural studies over the past three decades. Yet the study of medieval art and visualities has, in general, remained Eurocentric in its canon and conservative in its approaches. 'Postcolonising', as the eleven essays in this volume show, entails active intervention into the field of medieval art history and visual studies through a theoretical reframing of research. This approach poses and elicits new research questions, and tests how concepts current in postcolonial studies - such as diaspora and migration, under-represented artistic cultures, accented art making, displacement, intercultural versus transcultural, hybridity, pr...
In Mulieres suadentes - Persuasive Women, Martin Homza scrutinises the genesis of ruler ideology among the most prominent East Central and Eastern European dynasties from the early and later Middle Ages. At the center of attention are the Přemyslids, the Piasts, the Rurikids, and the Árpáds, but also the main dynasties of the Balkans, namely the Trpimirović and the Nemanjić dynasties, as well as the House of Bogdan, and the Moldova dynasty of the Muṣatins. Unlike previous work, which has focused on narrative sources of male ruler hagiography, Homza studies texts concerning female royal figures. More broadly, this book also attempts to bridge the artificial gap between West and East in Europe.