Download or read book Rhinoceros Bound written by Barbara H. Rosenwein and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2016-11-11 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The rhinoceros, that is, any powerful man, is bound with a thong so that he may crush the clods of the valleys, that is, the oppressors of the humble."—Odo of Cluny, Vita Geraldi i.8 To the second abbot of the great monastery at Cluny, Saint Odo, tenth-century Europe was a world filled with violent men oppressing at whim the poor and the powerless. As royal authority waned, local magnates, unrestrained by any authority, divine or human, seized the opportunity to enhance their positions. Odo, along with Cluny's other founding spiritual and ideological leaders, created within the protective walls of the monastery a model of restraint, instituting in place of the instability of everyday life an interpretation of the Benedictine Rule that stressed ritual, order, and lawfulness. Such were the beginnings of the monastery that Pope Urban II in the eleventh century would call "the light of the world," the fountainhead of what would become one of the most far-reaching religious reform movements in European history. Barbara Rosenwein in Rhinoceros Bound focuses on Cluny's founding and early growth within the context of a society shaped by the needs of those set adrift in the social upheaval of the tenth century. Examining in the first chapter traditional approaches to Cluniac studies, the author reveals that historians have generally considered Cluny's eleventh-century role in church reform without analyzing the peculiar combination of forces and founders that created the Cluniac ideal and gave it its original momentum. This fundamental problem is the topic of the second chapter. She then examines how the early Cluniacs perceived the world outside the monastery and how they viewed their own world inside of it. Rosenwein concludes with a chapter on Cluny in the tenth century that combines traditional historical techniques with contemporary sociological insights. She provides in this study a significant reassessment of a period crucial to the political development of Europe, as well as a case study of institutional response to acute and political change.

Download or read book Morals on the Book of Job written by Pope Gregory I and published by . This book was released on 1850 with total page 612 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Negotiating Space written by Barbara H. Rosenwein and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-18 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why did early medieval kings declare certain properties to be immune from the judicial and fiscal encroachments of their own agents? Did weakness compel them to prohibit their agents from entering these properties, as historians have traditionally believed? In a richly detailed book that will be greeted as a landmark addition to the literature on the Middle Ages, Barbara H. Rosenwein argues that immunities were markers of power. By placing restraints on themselves and their agents, kings demonstrated their authority, affirmed their status, and manipulated the boundaries of sacred space.Rosenwein transforms our understanding of an institution central to the political and social dynamics of medieval Europe. She reveals how immunities were used by kings and other leaders to forge alliances with the noble families and monastic centers that were central to their power. Generally viewed as unchanging juridical instruments, immunities as they appear here are as fluid and diverse as the disparate social and political conflicts that they at once embody and seek to defuse. Their legacy reverberates in the modern world, where liberal institutions, with their emphasis on state restraint, clash with others that encourage governmental intrusion. The protections against unreasonable searches and seizures provided by English common law and the U.S. Constitution developed in part out of the medieval experience of immunities and the institutions that were elaborated to breach them.

Download or read book The Rhinoceros of South Asia written by Kees Rookmaaker and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2024-06-12 with total page 891 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The rhinoceros is an iconic animal. Three species once inhabited South Asia, two of which disappeared over a century ago. This survey aims to reconstruct the historical distribution of these large mammals resulting in new maps showing the extent of their occurrences. Thousands of sources varied in time and nature are used to study the interactions between man and rhinoceros. The text is supported by over 700 illustrations and 38 maps showing the importance of the rhinoceros in the scientific and cultural fabric of Asia and beyond.

Download or read book Delphi Collected Works of Gregory I Illustrated written by Gregory I and published by Delphi Classics. This book was released on 2019-08-16 with total page 7100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Saint Gregory the Great was Pope from 590 to 604, launching the famous Gregorian Mission, the first recorded large-scale mission from Rome, to convert the pagan Anglo-Saxons of England to Christianity. The epithet “the Great” reflects Gregory’s status as a celebrated writer as well as a ruler. The fourth and final of the traditional Latin Fathers of the Church, Gregory is now regarded as the first exponent of a truly medieval, sacramental spirituality. His Commentary on Job and his handbook for rulers, Pastoral Rule, were extremely popular treatises throughout the middle ages, while the Dialogues feature a compelling life of Saint Benedict and his many miracles. Gregory’s works provided practical wisdom and enlightenment for the people of the Dark Ages. Delphi’s Ancient Classics series provides eReaders with the wisdom of the Classical world, with both English translations and the original Latin texts. This comprehensive eBook presents Gregory the Great’s collected works, with illustrations, informative introductions and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1) * Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Gregory’s life and works * Features the major works of Gregory I, in both English translation and the original Latin * Concise introductions to the major texts * Excellent formatting of the texts * Includes rare sermons by Gregory, first time in digital print * Features three bonus biographies, including the Venerable Bede’s account of Gregory’s life — immerse yourself in the Saint’s ancient world * Scholarly ordering of texts into chronological order and literary genres Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to explore our range of Ancient Classics titles or buy the entire series as a Super Set CONTENTS: The Translations Commentary on Job (Translated by J. Bliss, 1847) Book of Pastoral Rule (Translated by James Barmby, 1879) Register of Epistles (Translated by James Barmby, 1879) The Dialogues of Saint Gregory the Great, Pope of Rome (Translated by P. W., 1911) Selected Sermons (Translated by D. G. Hubert, 1901) The Latin Texts Moralia Dialogi Regulae Pastoralis Liber Homiliarum in Ezechielem Prophetam Expositio in Canticum Canticorum The Biographies Extracts from ‘The Ecclesiastical History of the English People’ by Bede Pope St. Gregory I by Gilbert Roger Hudleston Saint Gregory by Frederick Homes Dudden Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of exciting titles

Download or read book Popular Opinion in the Middle Ages written by Charles W. Connell and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2016-10-24 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a needed overview of the scholarship on medieval public culture and popular movements such as the Peace of God, heresy, and the crusades and illustrates how a changing sense of the populus, the importance of publics and public opinion and public spheres was influential in the evolution of medieval cultures. Public opinion did play an important role, even in the Middle Ages; it did not wait until the era of modern history to do so. Using modern research on such aspects of culture as textual communities, large and small publics, cults, crowds, rumor, malediction, gossip, dispute resolution and the European popular revolution, the author focuses on the Peace of God movement, the era of Church reform in the tenth and eleventh centuries, the rise and combat of heresy, the crusades, and the works of fourteenth-century political thinkers such as Marsiglio of Padua regarding the role of the populus as the basis for the analysis. The pattern of changes reflected in this study argues that just as in the modern world the simplistic idea of “the public‎” was a phantom. Instead there were publics large and small that were influential in shaping the cultures of the era under review.

Download or read book Medieval Transformations Texts Power and Gifts in Context written by Esther Cohen and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-02-28 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume deals with shifts and changes that took place during the Middle Ages when things, or ideas, or writings, were transferred from time to time, place to place, or one ideological realm to another. The same objects, ideas, or texts changed their meaning, impact, or symbolic value according to different contexts. The twelve papers, written by leading experts, investigate the authority attributed to texts and their canonization in different contexts; the shifting uses and meanings of gifts, from honorable instruments in the settlement of disputes to corruption and bribery; and the transition of violence and power from relationships between equals to a tool for the maintenance of hierarchies. Contributors include: Gadi Algazi, Monique Bernards, Arnoud-Jan Bijsterveld, Esther Cohen, Valentin Groebner, Yitzhak Hen, Mayke de Jong, Rob Meens, Marco Mostert, Thomas F.X. Noble, Timothy Reuter, Hendrik Teunis, and Stephen D. White.

Download or read book Order Exclusion written by Dominique Iogna-Prat and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Order and Exclusion is a rare and magnificent book of medieval history with clear relevance to today's headlines. Through the lens of the polemics of Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny, Dominique Iogna-Prat examines the process by which christianity transformed itself into Christendom, a powerful spiritual, social, and political system with pretensions to universality. Iogna-Prat's close examination of a set of writings central to the history of Catholicism resolves into a deeply troubling study of the origins of attitudes that continue to shape world events. Iogna-Prat writes that "versions of fundamentalism nourished by the soil of an often terrible common history" show that Christianity, Judaism, and Islam have all been capable of intolerance.Peter the Venerable's writings had a far-reaching impact: the powerful network of Clunaic houses expanded from the founding of the original monastery of Cluny to dominate Christendom by the twelfth century. This Christendom, Iogna-Prat demonstrates, defined itself in part through its increasingly bitter struggles against its perceived enemies both within and without. Peter the Venerable's all-pervasive logic pitted the "order" of the monastery and its hierarchical society against all those--heretics, Jews, Muslims, lepers--outside its bounds. In his proclamations against Jews and Muslims, Peter devised a Christian anthropology: in his view, to be non-Christian was to be non-human. The power of the Church came at a great and lasting price.

Download or read book Friendship and Community written by Brian Patrick McGuire and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 650 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1988, this book has been widely debated, inspiring the current interest on medieval friendship. In a new introduction, McGuire surveys the critical reaction to the original edition and new research on friendship.

Download or read book Creating French Culture written by Marie-Hélène Tesnière and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1995-01-01 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From monastic cloisters in the time of Charlemagne to the book-lined studies of twentieth-century authors, this splendid book presents an overview of the literary and artistic world in France. The Bibliothèque nationale de France, today rich in collections of illuminated manuscripts, books, medals, maps, and prints, had its beginnings when Charles V established his library in the falcon tower of the Louvre. During the Middle Ages, culture was the handmaiden of Church and government; during the absolute monarchy, it became an instrument of propaganda; in the eighteenth century, it developed an independent voice. This book explores the changing relationship between power and culture in France as seen in the history of its national library.

Download or read book Communities of Saint Martin written by Sharon Farmer and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2019-03-15 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sharon Farmer here investigates the ways in which three medieval communities—the town of Tours, the basilica of Saint-Martin there, and the abbey of Marmoutier nearby—all defined themselves through the cult of Saint Martin. She demonstrates how in the early Middle Ages the bishops of Tours used the cult of Martin, their fourthcentury predecessor, to shape an idealized image of Tours as Martin's town. As the heirs to Martin's see, the bishops projected themselves as the rightful leaders of the community. However, in the late eleventh century, she shows, the canons of Saint-Martin (where the saint's relics resided) and the monks of Marmoutier (which Martin had founded) took control of the cult and produced new legends and rituals to strengthen their corporate interests. Since the basilica and the abbey differed in their spiritualities, structures, and external ties, the canons and monks elaborated and manipulated Martin's cult in quite different ways. Farmer shows how one saint's cult lent itself to these varying uses, and analyzes the strikingly dissimilar Martins that emerged. Her skillful inquiry into the relationship between group identity and cultural expression illuminates the degree to which culture is contested territory. Farmer's rich blend of social history and hagiography will appeal to a wide range of medievalists, cultural anthropologists, religious historians, and urban historians.

Download or read book Gothic Song written by Margot Elsbeth Fassler and published by CUP Archive. This book was released on 1993-08-19 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first study of how a particular genre of liturgical texts and music, the Victorine sequences, were first written in great numbers during the twelfth-century.

Download or read book Superior Women written by Jennifer C. Edwards and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Superior Women examines the claims of abbesses of the abbey of Sainte-Croix in medieval Poitiers to authority from the abbey's foundation to its 1520 reform. These women claimed to hold authority over their own community, over dependent chapters of male canons, and over extensive properties in Poitou; male officials such as the king of France and the pope repeatedly supported these claims. To secure this support, the abbesses relied on two strategies that the abbey's founder, the sixth-century Saint Radegund, established: they documented support from a network of allies made up of powerful secular and ecclesiastical officials, and they used artefacts left from Radegund's life to shape her cult and win new patrons and allies. Abbesses across the 900 years of this study routinely turned to these strategies successfully when faced with conflict from dependents, or more local officials such as the bishop of Poitiers. Sainte-Croix's nuns proved adept at tailoring these strategies to shifting historical contexts, turning from Frankish bishops to the kings of Frankia, then to the Pope and finally to the King of France as former allies became unavailable to them. The book demonstrates respectful cooperation between men and monastic women, and more extensive respect for female monastic authority than scholars typically recognize. Chapters focus on the cult's manuscripts, church decoration, procession, jurisdictions between cult institutions, reform, and rebellion.

Download or read book Boccaccio s Last Fiction written by Robert Hollander and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2016-11-11 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than 1,100 titles from Penn Press's distinguished backlist from 1899-1999 that had fallen out of print. Spanning an entire century, the Anniversary Collection offers peer-reviewed scholarship in a wide range of subject areas.

Download or read book Sword Miter and Cloister written by Constance Brittain Bouchard and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2009-08-06 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bouchard provides a fresh perspective on social and ecclesiastical life in the High Middle Ages, drawing on a vast range of primary sources to reveal the surprisingly close relationship between monasteries and the nobility.

Download or read book Becoming the People of the Talmud written by Talya Fishman and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2012-01-31 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Becoming the People of the Talmud, Talya Fishman examines ways in which circumstances of transmission have shaped the cultural meaning of Jewish traditions. Although the Talmud's preeminence in Jewish study and its determining role in Jewish practice are generally taken for granted, Fishman contends that these roles were not solidified until the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries. The inscription of Talmud—which Sefardi Jews understand to have occurred quite early, and Ashkenazi Jews only later—precipitated these developments. The encounter with Oral Torah as a written corpus was transformative for both subcultures, and it shaped the roles that Talmud came to play in Jewish life. What were the historical circumstances that led to the inscription of Oral Torah in medieval Europe? How did this body of ancient rabbinic traditions, replete with legal controversies and nonlegal material, come to be construed as a reference work and prescriptive guide to Jewish life? Connecting insights from geonica, medieval Jewish and Christian history, and orality-textuality studies, Becoming the People of the Talmud reconstructs the process of cultural transformation that occurred once medieval Jews encountered the Babylonian Talmud as a written text. According to Fishman, the ascription of greater authority to written text was accompanied by changes in reading habits, compositional predilections, classroom practices, approaches to adjudication, assessments of the past, and social hierarchies. She contends that certain medieval Jews were aware of these changes: some noted that books had replaced teachers; others protested the elevation of Talmud-centered erudition and casuistic virtuosity into standards of religious excellence, at the expense of spiritual refinement. The book concludes with a consideration of Rhineland Pietism's emergence in this context and suggests that two contemporaneous phenomena—the prominence of custom in medieval Ashkenazi culture and the novel Christian attack on Talmud—were indirectly linked to the new eminence of this written text in Jewish life.

Download or read book English Caroline Script and Monastic History written by D. N. Dumville and published by Boydell & Brewer Ltd. This book was released on 1993 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An analysis and study of Caroline script from 200 years of ecclesiastical and secular records reveals important historical detail relating to late Anglo-Saxon England.