The Medieval Python

This book provides an in-depth study of the late medieval chanson, from Gace Brulé through Guillaume Du Fay. It is largely concerned with interpretation of the way accidentals function, not only at the level of local detail but also as part of the overall design. Thomas Brothers thus explores the way inflections are used by the composer as an expressive tool. The background problem to which this study responds is the conceptual difficulty we have in interpreting pitch syntax in this repertory. Support for this approach comes from reference to causa pulchritudinis ('by reason of beauty'), a justification for chromatic writing first encountered at the beginning of the fourteenth century. In advancing an interpretation of the musical side of the chanson, Thomas Brothers aims to bring standards closer to what has been achieved in study of sister disciplines of art and literature.

Emerging in Spain after 1250, Jewish narrative figurative painting became a central feature in a group of illuminated Passover Haggadot in the early decades of the fourteenth century.

Focusing mostly on forenames--Christian or baptismal--but also some family names, Historians from England, the US, and Tasmania explore not particular names but naming patterns within particular socia

The long, shared history of Christianity and Islam began, shortly after Islam emerged in the early seventh century A.D., with a question: Who would inherit the Greco-Roman world of the Mediterranean?

The Transformation of a Religious Landscape paints a detailed picture of the sheer variety of early medieval Christian practice and organization, as well as the diverse modes in which church reform ma

This study examines the evolution of the image of Aleksandr Nevskiy in close connection with the dynamics of the political and cultural history of medieval Russia. It demonstrates that historians ofte

Jaques (West and South Asian religions, Emory U.) examines Tabaqat al-fuqaha al-shafi'iyah (The Generations of the Shafi'i Jurists) by Abu Bakr b. Ahman Inb Qadi Shuhbah (d. 851/1436). It was written

How and where one had access to the divine in medieval and early modern Europe defined both private and private life. In this collection of 15 articles drawn from an April 2003 conference held at the

This book investigates how subjectivity is encoded in the texts of a wide variety of medieval narratives and lyrics--not how they express the subjectivity of individuals, but how subjectivity, escapin

Citing discoveries by archaeological teams over the past three decades in some of the towns of medieval Britain, Schofield, curator of archaeology at the Museum of London, and archaeological consultan

This book is the first devoted to the important innovations in architecture that took place in western Europe between the death of Emperor Justinian in 565 A.D. and the tenth century. During this per

The Medieval and Early Modern World tells the colorful story of a pivotal period in human history, an era that is crucial to understanding our own times. The expansion of trade and city life, the spr

Manuele Gragnolati provides the first sustained analysis of popular, vernacular depictions of the afterlife written in Italy before the Divine Comedy by authors such as Uguccione da Lodi, Giacomino da

Towards the end of the ninth century, Norwegians began settling in Iceland, and until the 13th-century, did not recognize the king of Norway as their ruler. Also in the 13th and 14th centuries, Icelan

Medieval Joke Poetry examines the intersection of jokes, laughter, insults, and poetry in a collection of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century medieval Iberian songs known as the Cantigas d'escarnho e d

In antiquity and the Middle Ages, memory was a craft, and certain actions and tools were thought to be necessary for its creation and recollection. Until now, however, many of the most important visu

This book presents a balanced account not only of the theoretical framework and legal complexities of the law of treason in later medieval France, but also of the extent and political context of that law's enforcement. By shedding some light on a larger issue - the interplay of law and politics, authority and power - the book contributes to our understanding of the French monarchy's efforts in the crucial fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to protect, extend and enforce its authority. The crown needed virtually all its judicial resources to cope with treason. Summary judgement and judgement by notoriety had largely given way by the fifteenth century to institutionalized procedures; special mention is made of trial by commission and the trial of peers. In the last five chapters the prosecution of treason is treated narratively to illuminate the policies of individual kings. Throughout the book comparisons are made with the English law.

The Middle Ages have long been famous for spectacular forgeries. Until recently, however, these has been little detailed consideration of the cultural significance of forged texts. In The Making of Me

In The Song of Songs, the inaugural volume of The Churches Bible, Richard A. Norris, Jr. uses commentaries and sermons from the church's first millennium to illustrate the original Christian understa

This book is a collection of papers on the origins of economic thought discovered in the writings of some prominent Islamic scholars, during the five centuries prior to the Latin Scholastics, who incl

Drawing on the theoretical methods of such writers as Caroline Walker Bynum and others who apply feminist and gender approaches to their analysis of the Middle Ages, Heng provides a thought-provoking

The Middle Ages are often thought of as an era during which cruelty was a major aspect of life, a view that stems from the anti-Catholic polemics of the Reformation. Daniel Baraz makes the striking di

This study is the first critical investigation of the cult of saints among Muslims and Jews in medieval Syria and the Near East. Through case studies of saints and their devotees, discussion of the ar

This book gives an insight into panegyrics, a genre central to understanding medieval Near Eastern Society. Poets in this multi-ethnic society would address the majority of their verse to rulers, gene

Translated into Anglo-Saxon around the year 1000, a collection of medicinal remedies known as the Old English Herbarium enjoyed wide popularity throughout Western Europe from the fifth century well in

Worcester Cathedral Library contains 277 medieval manuscripts, the largest number of any English cathedral except Durham. Most of them belonged to thepre-Reformation Cathedral Priory and date between

Having written about the transmission of high culture of the Medieval Near East, Berkey (history, Davidson College, North Carolina) wanted to treat popular culture similarly. He discovered however tha

Comparative studies of medieval chant traditions in western Europe, Byzantium and the Slavic nations illuminate music, literacy and culture.

What should historians do with the words of the dead? Inquisition and Power reformulates the historiography of heresy and the inquisition by focusing on depositions taken from the Cathars, a religious

This is the first comprehensive study in English of Czech society and politics in the High Middle Ages. It paints a vivid portrait of a flourishing Christian community in the decades between 1050 and

The first portion of the classic volume written by Scott, Tales of a Grandfather, covering the history of Scotland up to Scott's time.

Las Siete Partidas, or Seven Divisions, is the major law code of thirteenth-century Spain, compiled by Alfonso X the Learned of Castile. Seven centuries later, this compendium of legal and customary i

The long-awaited second volume of The Cambridge Translations of Medieval Philosophical Texts offers first-time English translations of major texts in ethics and political thought from one of the most

Ten anthologies assembled roughly between 1100 and 1500 are the ore from which Appelbaum picks 108 nuggets of stories. Unlike many anthologies that do not distinguish between prose, verse, drama, and

Aside from a few famous queens, warriors and religious leaders, little information is available about the many extraordinary women of the medieval and Renaissance world. This resource brings together

Integrates medieval Germany into western social history

This meticulous textual-historical study explains why medieval theologians disputed whether or not the human body assimilated food, and traces the evolution of the question. It illumines the developme

Magnificent woodcuts of 93 cities, plus 100 illustrations of figures and decorative objects, from 1493 history of the world. Comparable to the Gutenberg Bible in terms of craftsmanship. 193 black-and

John Fitchen systematically treats the process of erecting the great edifices of the Gothic era. He explains the building equipment and falsework needed, the actual operations undertaken, and the seq

Examines interrelated topics in Medieval and Renaissance Latin literature: the status of women as writers, the status of women as rhetorical figures, and the status of women in society from the fifth