Brian Jeffrey Maxson is an Assistant Professor of History at East Tennessee State University. His research focuses on the cultural and political history of late medieval and Renaissance Europe. His articles have appeared in Renaissance Studies and I Tatti Studies, among other journals. He has held fellowships from the Fulbright and Dolores Zohrab Liebmann Foundations, and has given invited lectures at the University of Oxford and the Ludwig Maximilians Universität, Munich.

'A compelling and challenging synthesis of intellectual, social and quantitative history.' History Today

• Introduction. A social conception of the humanist movement; 1. Learned connections and the humanist movement; 2. Literary and social humanists; 3. The social origins of the Florentine humanists; 4. The humanist demands of ritual; 5. Civic failure of the literary humanists or literary failure of the civic humanists?; 6. The rise of the social humanists, 1400–55; 7. Humanism as a means to social status, 1456–85.

Brian Jeffrey Maxson is an Assistant Professor of History at East Tennessee State University. His research focuses on the cultural and political history of late medieval and Renaissance Europe. His articles have appeared in Renaissance Studies and I Tatti Studies, among other journals. He has held fellowships from the Fulbright and Dolores Zohrab Liebmann Foundations, and has given invited lectures at the University of Oxford and the Ludwig Maximilians Universität, Munich.

'A compelling and challenging synthesis of intellectual, social and quantitative history.' History Today

• Introduction. A social conception of the humanist movement; 1. Learned connections and the humanist movement; 2. Literary and social humanists; 3. The social origins of the Florentine humanists; 4. The humanist demands of ritual; 5. Civic failure of the literary humanists or literary failure of the civic humanists?; 6. The rise of the social humanists, 1400–55; 7. Humanism as a means to social status, 1456–85.

Brian Jeffrey Maxson is an Assistant Professor of History at East Tennessee State University. His research focuses on the cultural and political history of late medieval and Renaissance Europe. His articles have appeared in Renaissance Studies and I Tatti Studies, among other journals. He has held fellowships from the Fulbright and Dolores Zohrab Liebmann Foundations, and has given invited lectures at the University of Oxford and the Ludwig Maximilians Universität, Munich.

'A compelling and challenging synthesis of intellectual, social and quantitative history.' History Today

• Introduction. A social conception of the humanist movement; 1. Learned connections and the humanist movement; 2. Literary and social humanists; 3. The social origins of the Florentine humanists; 4. The humanist demands of ritual; 5. Civic failure of the literary humanists or literary failure of the civic humanists?; 6. The rise of the social humanists, 1400–55; 7. Humanism as a means to social status, 1456–85.