Friendship in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age

Editor Classen (U. of Arizona) organized two sessions at the 2009 International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan U., and from these sessions he and co-editor Marilyn Sandidge (Westfield State U., Massachusetts) assembled this collection of 20 contributions. Classen provides an extensive introduction (183 pages) exploring the subject of friendship from antiquity to the early modern time, including theological approaches (Thomas Aquinas), the homosocial vs. the homoerotic, the courts, people and animals, and religious friendship, to name just a few of the aspects he addresses. A sampling of the paper topics: Anglo-Saxon women's epistolary friendships, monastic friendship in theory and in action in the 12th century, spiritual friendship in the works of Alfonso X of Castile, female homosocial bonding in Chaucer's "Squire's Tale," and the spiritual friendship of Henry Suso and Elsbeth Stagel. Annotation c2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Albrecht Classen,University of Arizona, Tuscon, USA; Marilyn Sandidge,Westfield State University, USA.