Garland Library of Medieval Literature – serie

The medieval bestiary was a contribution to didactic religious literature, addressing concerns central to all walks of Christian and secular life. These essays analyze the bestiary from both literary and art historical perspectives, exploring issues including kinship, romance, sex, death, and the afterlife.

This collection presents-through the medium of translated sources-a comprehensive guide to the development of hagiography and the cult of the saints in western Christendom during the middle ages. It provides an unparalleled resource for the study of the ideals of sanctity and the practice of religion in the medieval west. Intended for the classroom, for the medieval scholar who wishes to explore sources in unfamiliar languages, and for the general reader fascinated by the saints, this collection provides the reader a chance to explore in depth a full range of writings about the saints (the term hagiography is derived from Greek roots: hagios=holy and graphe=writing). The thirty-six chapters contain sources either in their entirety or in selections of substantial length. The great majority of the texts have never previously appeared in English translation. Those which have appeared in earlier translation, are here presented in versions based on significant new textual and historical scholarship which makes them significant improvements on the earlier versions. All the translations are accompanied by introductions, notes, and suggestions for further reading in order to help guide the reader. The first selections date to the fourth century, when the ideals of Christian sanctity were evolving to meet the demands of a world in which Christianity was an accepted religion and when the public veneration of relics was growing greatly in scope. The last selections date to the period immediately prior to the Reformation, a period in which the traditional concept of sanctity and acceptability of de cult of relics was being questioned. In addition to numerous works from the clerical languages of Latin and Greek, the selections include translations from Romance, Celtic, Germanic, and Slavic vernacular languages, s well as Hebrew texts concerning the martyrdom of Jews at the hands of Christians. Originating in lands from Iceland to Hungary and from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, they are taken from a full range of the many genres which constituted hagiography: lives of the saints, collections of miracle stories, accounts of the discovery or movement of relics, liturgical books, visions, canonization inquests, and even heresy trials.

First published in 1997. Considered one of the first prose works in Italian and a precursor of the Decameron,this is the first complete translation of the Novellino into English, based on the 1525 editio princeps. While manuscripts vary as to wording and the number of tales, the 1525 first edition follows seven of the eight known manuscripts closely. The text includes a transcription of the 1525 edition, taken from the copy in the Parma Biblioteca Palatina. This transcription has been altered as little as possible, diacriticals are added and capitalization is systematized, but no attempt has been made to modernize the language. Vocabulary notes are provided, as are ample notes to explain the historical and cultural significance of figures and events in the tales. There is one bibliography for the Novellino and another for the explanatory notes.

First published in 1993. This volume is th author's observations of his reading of Fabliaux in order to observe their materials, methods and to evaluate theeffect of those methods. He looks at 150 texts in order to uncover the indivdual fabliau, rather than treat them as a whole genre.

This is the first edition in more than a century and the first modern English translation of the crowning masterwork of Machaut's literary career. Based on his extensive discussion with returning crusaders, the poet recounts King Peter I of Cyprus's successful attack and capture of the Egyptian city of Alexandria in 1365. This volume features a full discussion of Machaut's life and career, historical commentary, extensive annotation and a select bibliography.

First published in 1998. Medieval Scholarship: Biographical Studies on the Formation of a Discipline: Volume 2: Literature and Philology is the second volume of three that present Biographies of scholars whose work influenced the study of the Middle Ages and transformed it into the discipline known as Medieval Studies. Volume 2 provides thirty~two accounts of men and women from the sixteenth century to the twentieth who developed medieval philology and literature into a profession. Their subject deals with the languages and literatures of greater Europe from about the seventh century through the fifteenth and includes Celtic, Scandinavian, Germanic, and Romance nations.

The medieval bestiary was a contribution to didactic religious literature, addressing concerns central to all walks of Christian and secular life. These essays analyze the bestiary from both literary and art historical perspectives, exploring issues including kinship, romance, sex, death, and the afterlife.

Intended as "the other bookend" to Jessie Weston's work some eighty years earlier, this essay collection provides a careful overview of recent scholarship on possible overlap between Arthurian literature and Christianity. From Ritual to romance and Notes, taken together, bracket contemporary inquiry into the relationship (if any) between Jesus and Arthur. T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" is here regarded as one strand joining this matter to many a recent literary riddle (such as the meaning of the term "postmodernism"). Without reprinting work readily available elsewhere and no longer subject to revision through dialogue with fellow contributors, Notes attempts to do justice to all sides in twentieth century exploration of christianity's contribution to an art form which is also grounded in early European polytheism ("paganism").G. Ronald Murphy, S.J., Kathryn M. Talarico, Deborah Rose-Lefmann and Anne Huntley-Speare contribute essays prepared especially for this book, which also includes revised reprints of work by Tom Artin and Henry Kratz. Selections from Jacques Ribard, I for William and Joachim Bumke are available here for the first time in English.Jew, Christian and secularist will find their own world view respected throughout, though rarely rubberstamped. Similarly, "christianists" (those who, whatever their own religion, regard medieval Christianity as relevant or central to medieval Arthurian literature) agreed more readily than "nonchristianists" to contribute to the volume. By a process of self-selection, then, the nonchristianist position is somewhat underrepresented in Notes, perhaps because that stance was dominant throughout the decade in which this survey was assembled.

This is the third of a three-volume set on medieval scholarship that presents original biographical essays on scholars whose work has shaped medieval studies for the past four hundred years. A companion to Volume 1: History and Volume 2: Literature and Philology, Volume 3: Philosophy and the Arts covers the lives of twenty eminent individuals-from Victor Cousin (1792-1867) to Georges Chehata Anawati (1905-1994) in Philosophy; from H.J.W. Tillyard (1881-1968) to Gustave Reese (1899-1977) in Music; and from Alois Riegl (1858-1905) to Louis Grodecki (1910-1982) in Art History-whose subjects were the art, music, and philosophical thought of Europe between 500-1500. The scholars of medieval philosophy strove to identify the nexus of philosophical truth, whether they were engaged in the clash of the Christian church and secular republicanism as reflected in the tension between theology and philosophy, in addressing the conflicting perceptions of Muslim identity, or in defining Jewish philosophical theology in non-Jewish culture. Medieval musicologists, who are included as the subjects of the essays, pioneered or recontextualized traditional views on the definition of music as subject matter, on the relationship between music and philosophical concepts, on interpretative distinctions between secular and sacred music, monophony and polyphony, and concepts of form and compositional style. The art historians treated in this volume not only overturn the view of medieval art as an aesthetic decline from classical art, but they demonstrate the continual development of form and style inclusive of minor and major arts, in textiles, architecture and architectural sculpture, manuscripts, ivory carvings, and stained glass. The philosophers, musicologists, and art historians who appear in Volume 3 worked in three newly-emerging disciplines largely of nineteenth-century origin. In their distinguished and extraordinary output of energy in scholarly and academic arenas, they contributed significantly to the emergence and formation of medieval studies as the prime discipline of historical inquiry into and hence the key to understanding of the human experience.

Available only in Middle French and German translation until now, this volume constitutes the first full-length , French-English bilingual edition of Rene of Anjou's Livre du cuers d'amours espris, including all sixteen of the celebrated color plates, a critical introduction, notes on the translation, and a comprehensive bibliography.The book tells the tale of desire and adventure as Heart -- part of Rene torn from his body by Love -- travels a complex allegorical landscape in quest of the lady Mercy, who is being held prisoner by a band of miscreants led by Refusal and Shame. Rene begs the reader to help him determine which of three entities is responsible for his torment: Fortune led him to the lady whom he loves; once he arrived, Love, in the guise of his lady's gaze, struck his heart; and Destiny insists that he reflect upon her alone. In addition to being a compelling courtly page-turner, The Book of the Love-Smitten Heart represents the rare instance in which a medieval love story is told simultaneously in three frameworks: autobiographical letter, dream vision, and quest romance. This structure makes clear the multiple logics within which the author's psychology is reflected in the story, and illustrates how the symbol of the heart, as it travels through these shifting frameworks, dramatizes vital relations linking self, desire, and writing.

Intended as "the other bookend" to Jessie Weston's work some eighty years earlier, this essay collection provides a careful overview of recent scholarship on possible overlap between Arthurian literature and Christianity. From Ritual to romance and Notes, taken together, bracket contemporary inquiry into the relationship (if any) between Jesus and Arthur. T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" is here regarded as one strand joining this matter to many a recent literary riddle (such as the meaning of the term "postmodernism"). Without reprinting work readily available elsewhere and no longer subject to revision through dialogue with fellow contributors, Notes attempts to do justice to all sides in twentieth century exploration of christianity's contribution to an art form which is also grounded in early European polytheism ("paganism").

First published in 1993. This volume is th author's observations of his reading of Fabliaux in order to observe their materials, methods and to evaluate the effect of those methods. He looks at 150 texts in order to uncover the indivdual fabliau, rather than treat them as a whole genre.

This collection, comprising nine critical essays from prominent and emerging medievalists, seeks to explore the different ways in which French authors of the Middle Ages transgress normative social and cultural gender codes in their literary works Offering fresh approaches to texts that have long been subjected to polarized critical analyses, the essays challenge traditional interpretations of gender roles in Old French literature, especially in the thematic areas of sexual deviation and transgression. This corpus emerges as possessing multiple shades and subtleties of meaning, long buried or ignored by conventional approaches to these texts. This is a conclusion much more in accord with what we know about the ability of the medieval imagination to grasp multiple meaning from a single word or act. The collection provides many examples of this multi-layering of transgressive meaning. Through the detailed studies of gender transgressions such as incest, cross-dressing, rape and homoeroticism, the reader will come to understand the many facets of the literary expression of sexuality in selected Old French texts, products of a society that was at least as diverse and complex as our own. These studies will be of particular value to those interested in Old French and gender studies by dint of accessible analyses of texts both familiar and arcane. The provocative subject matter makes the studies original and eminently readable.

First published in 1997. Considered one of the first prose works in Italian and a precursor of the Decameron,this is the first complete translation of the Novellino into English, based on the 1525 editio princeps. While manuscripts vary as to wording and the number of tales, the 1525 first edition follows seven of the eight known manuscripts closely. The text includes a transcription of the 1525 edition, taken from the copy in the Parma Biblioteca Palatina. This transcription has been altered as little as possible, diacriticals are added and capitalization is systematized, but no attempt has been made to modernize the language. Vocabulary notes are provided, as are ample notes to explain the historical and cultural significance of figures and events in the tales. There is one bibliography for the Novellino and another for the explanatory notes.