Several scholars have studied meanings attributed to the lion in the western European Middle Ages, but their accounts have tended to be partial and fragmentary. A balanced, coherent interpretive history of the medieval lion has yet to be written. This article seeks to promote and initiate the process of composing such a history by briefly reviewing previous research, by proposing a thematic and chronological framework on which work on the lion might reliably be based, and by itself discussing numerous textual examples, not least from German, Latin, and French literature. The five categories of lion symbolism covered are, respectively, the threatening lion, the Christian lion, the noble lion, the sinful lion, and the clement lion. These meanings are shown successively to have constituted regnant fashions that at various times profoundly shaped people's understanding of the lion; but it is demonstrated also that they existed alongside, and in a state of creative tension with, a “ground bass” of lion meanings that changed relatively little. Lions nearly always, for example, represented important, imposing things and people (for example, kings); and the New Testament's polarized presentation of the lion as either Christ or the devil proved enormously influential both throughout and beyond the Middle Ages. As such any cultural history of the lion — and indeed of many other natural phenomena — must be continually sensitive to the co-existence and interaction of tradition and innovation, stability and dynamism.

The superior learning of King Aldfrith of Northumbria (685–704) was acknowledged in both Anglo-Saxon and Gaelic contemporary sources by such renowned scholars as Bede of Wearmouth-Jarrow, Aldhelm of Malmesbury, Adomnán of Iona, Stephen of Ripon, and Alcuin of York. Both Aldhelm and Adomnán knew him personally, and texts composed by these two scholars and presented to Aldfrith help delineate the breadth of his educational background. He was educated among the Gaels, and their records described him as sapiens. By examining texts of other seventh-century Gaelic sapientes, and the comments of Aldhelm and Bede about Gaelic intellectual life and educational opportunities, we can expand our purview of the scope of his education. The nature of seventh-century schooling was peripatetic, and Aldfrith's dual heritage requires a broad search for locations. Many scholars accept Iona as the likely source of his learned background, but this essay will argue that, among other likely locations in Britain and Ireland, Bangor in Northern Ireland is best supported by surviving evidence. His benign reign is placed at the end of the first century of the Anglo-Saxon conversion, but his education benefited the kingdom of Northumbria through generations of Gaelic scholarship, as exemplified by peregrini such as Columba and Columbanus, and sapientes like Laidcenn mac Baíth, Cummíne of Clonfert, Ailerán of Clonard, Cenn Fáelad mac Ailello, and Banbán of Kildare. Aldfrith's rule ushered in a period of cultural florescence in Northumbria that saw the first hagiography and earliest illuminated manuscripts produced in Anglo-Saxon England and that culminated in the extensive library authored by Bede (d. 735).

John Keats was one of the last English poets to lyricize a venerable tradition when, in his “The Eve of Saint Agnes,” the narrator describes

Despite its rarity, hermaphroditism is often discussed in medieval texts in theoretical and practical contexts by canonists, theologians, and natural philosophers. For the canonist or theologian, hermaphroditism raised questions concerning baptism, marriage, entry to clerical orders, and legal status. For the natural philosopher, the hermaphrodite seemed to violate the strict dichotomy of male and female. Here I examine Albert the Great's natural-philosophical treatment of hermaphroditism. Albert rejects the view that hermaphrodites constitute a “third sex” and instead invokes Aristotle's authority to show that hermaphrodites are a “monstrous” flaw in nature. He carefully investigates the manner in which nature produces hermaphrodites in the womb and introduces a discussion of the generative capacity of hermaphrodites themselves. He concludes that they are incapable of reproducing in and of themselves (i.e., they are incapable of auto-fecundation) although they seem able to generate in another individual through coition.

Toutes les lettres de Jean Chrysostome qui nous sont parvenues datent de la fin de sa vie; elles s’échelonnent entre l'année 404 où il fut exilé et l'année 407 où il mourut. On en compte deux cent trente-six, parmi lesquelles dix-sept sont adressées à Olympias, diaconesse de Constantinople. C'est sur le texte de ces lettres, exclusivement, que portera notre étude.

In the following pages the Repertorium of Hippocratic Writings in the Latin Middle Ages, begun in Traditio 31 (1975) 99–126 and continued in succeeding issues, resumes with a number of tracts which, though for the most part spurious, circulated under Hippocrates' name. Included are the so-called XX. Epistolae (communications regarding various aspects of medicine or medical history dating from before the ninth century to the fifteenth century), and the brief tracts entitled XXI. Epitomum, XXII. De Equis, XXIII. Experimenta, XXIV De Farmaciis, XXV De Febribus, XXVI. De Flatibus, XXVII. Gynaecia, XXVIII. De Herbis, and XXIX. De Humoribus. The number and variety of these texts provide ample evidence for the continued reverence for the noted physician of Cos.

Although recent studies have shown that women played a larger part in European and American armies in early modern times than standard military histories have been prepared to acknowledge, it has never been suggested that they were regarded as combatants. Individual women who wanted to fight in the ranks had to cross-dress and “pass” as men. Cross-dressing was apparently not unknown even in medieval Christian armies, for, according to a Muslim chronicler, some of the crusaders killed in action in the twelfth century were discovered to have been women, but only after their corpses had been stripped on the field of battle. There were certainly no female fighting units, either then or later, in European armies. Therefore, the statement in a Castilian chronicle, written in the thirteenth century, that precisely such a unit served in the ranks of a Muslim army outside Valencia, has been dismissed as legend. The purpose of this article is to show that it must be taken seriously.

The importance of the commentaries on Aristotle's works in late medieval philosophy cannot be overestimated; they are in many cases the only witnesses to contemporary debates on philosophical topics. They are nonetheless very difficult to use: not only have different versions of the same commentary sometimes been preserved but also different commentaries on the same works, such as the different lecturae of some of Buridan's commentaries. There is also the highly standardized form of the commentaries themselves, where the same questions on a given Aristotelian work are often discussed in the same order. This uniformity is not limited to the titles of the questiones but affects the arguments too, which gives rise to doubts about the originality of the authors. It is easy to think of them as slavishly following an established tradition and so to fail to appreciate the real importance of their commentaries.

Le Parisinus gr. 657 est un beau manuscrit de 310 × 240 mm. Il contient 257 ff. écrits sur deux colonnes de trente lignes. Il est daté du xiie siècle. Il se présente actuellement sous une reliure de cuir rouge aux armes de Henri IV et contient uniquement des œuvres de Jean Chrysostome: ff. 1–182 le commentaire sur les psaumes 119 à 150; ff. 183–257 la collection complète des dixsept lettres à Olympias.

L'idée de la nécessité pour un missionnaire de connaître la langue de ceux qu'il évangélise nous apparaît aujourd'hui comme une évidence. En fait, cette idée ne s'est imposée que tardivement. En Occident, l'évangélisation a d'abord suivi les cadres géographiques de la domination romaine et a, par suite, bénéficié de la langue du pouvoir. Seules les tentatives — d'ailleurs fructueuses — des moines irlandais dans le monde germanique constituaient une approche d'un monde totalement nouveau, quoique déjà pénétré d'influences méditerranéennes. L'Empire d'Occident et le triomphe de la Papauté au IXe siècle imposent l'idée d'une ‘Chrétienlé’ souveraine. En Méditerranée orientale, nous voyons les Byzanlins partagés entre le complexe de supériorité des Grecs envers tout ce qui est ‘barbare’ et le désir de convertir les hordes slaves, désir qui aboutira à la formalion de l'alphabet cyrillique et à tout un effort de traduction de textes d'abord, d'adaptation musicale ensuite, etc. Mais, ce faisant, les Byzantins se sont liés à tout un mécanisme politique d'influence et de prédominance entre Églises sœurs mais rivales. L'idée d'ouverture aux non-chrétiens comme tels ne sera reprise qu'au XIVe siècle par des moines russes suivant la colonisation du Nord-Est, notamment avec la formation d'une ériture ziriane par Saint Étienne de Perm.

Consent to taxation traditionally has been regarded as one of the essential functions of representative assemblies. The distinguished historian of medieval Spanish institutions, Claudio Sánchez Albornoz, has indeed argued that representatives of the towns originally were summoned to the cortes of León-Castile to give their consent to extraordinary taxes. As yet, however, students of the medieval cortes have not carried out detailed investigations of the problem. Evidence to illustrate the taxing role of the cortes during the formative years from 1188 to 1252 is scanty, but it is considerably fuller during the reign of Alfonso X (1252-1284). Inasmuch as he incurred exceptional expenses and frequently summoned the cortes, an inquiry into the role of the cortes in assisting him through taxation should broaden our understanding of the functioning of government in the second half of the thirteenth century. The purpose of this paper then will be to determine when, to what extent, and for what purposes the cortes authorized the king to levy extraordinary taxes.

Although the theological problem of doctrinal development had to await the historical perspectives of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to receive extensive consideration and more precise formulation, it was not entirely neglected up to that time. In the twelfth century Anselm of Havelberg († 1158) undertook a remarkable discussion of the question, and other medievals, such as Abelard and Saint Thomas, indicated a certain awareness of it. Augustin Renaudet has called attention to Erasmus' efforts to come to grips with the idea of evolution or mutation in doctrine and discipline; and a recent book has described in some detail the form which the question took among the scholastics of Salamanca. Both of these studies focus our gaze upon the sixteenth century and suggest that in that period the problem intruded with some insistence upon the consciousness of Christian thinkers, although in a problematic different from that of our day. The purpose of this article is the presentation of a text of the humanist and reformer, Giles of Viterbo (1469–1532), which explicitly engages the topic and articulates it in a way which deserves notice.

In the course of a detailed investigation of the sources of the extensive Old English Martyrology (saec. ix), Latin passiones in early manuscripts have had to be consulted, since there are still comparatively few modern collated editions apart from those in the very latest volumes of Acta Sanctorum, in the Monumenta Germaniae Historica series, and in individual works in books and periodicals. For the discussion of the martyrology, not only are variant texts of known versions of passiones to be distinguished and considered, but, on some occasions, distinctive versions are to be identified.

MS Chapel Hill 522, fols. 159r-202r, contains a hitherto unidentified manuscript of the Latin Kalendarium of Nicholas of Lynn, a medieval astronomical almanac known to and used by Chaucer. Sigmund Eisner has already identified fifteen MSS of the Kalendarium, none of them complete, and has published an edition for the New Chaucer Society. Although Chapel Hill's manuscript is also incomplete, it does contain important materials missing from Eisner's base text, MS Oxford, Bodleian Laud. Misc. 662 — namely, all the lunar eclipse figures and the tables of ascensions and equations of houses for Aries and Taurus. In this paper I provide a brief introduction to Nicholas of Lynn and medieval kalendaria, followed by a summary description of CH 522, fols. 159r–202r, which contains a list of the other astronomical and mathematical texts bound with Nicholas of Lynn's Kalendarium in the book. Then I present my reasons for believing that CH 522 was an early MS, perhaps one intended for use as an exemplar. Finally, I add two plates from the MS and a full list of textual variants for CH 522, collated against Eisner's edition.

The Libre de Evast e Blanquerna of Ramon Lull (1232/34–1316) is a Utopian novel, pleading for the reform of various social and religious classes. The work was written between about 1274 and 1289. It is made up of five books in the last of which one can distinguish three mutually independent parts: (1) the De vida ermitana, in which Blanquerna renounces the papacy and withdraws as a hermit to a mountain not far from Rome, (2) the Libre de amic e amat, a collection of mystical utterances, and (3) the Art de contemplació, an introduction to the art of mystical contemplation.

Who schulde now knowe emperours, wonder of philosofres, other folwe the apostles, but hir noble dedes and hir wonder werkes were i-write in stories and so i-kept in mynde? … For storie is wytnesse of tyme, mynde of lyf messager of eldnesse — John Trevisa's translation of Polychronicon.

If a diary of a prominent late-medieval religious figure were to be discovered that revealed his thoughts about the present and the future, such a discovery would seem to be too good to be true. But if labeled differently, such a document does exist: not a diary, but a prophetic commentary. The commentary by the fourteenth-century Augustinian friar Gentile of Foligno on the prophecy “Ve mundo in centum annis,” has never been the subject of sustained attention. Consequently the following presentation aims to examine it carefully within the context of the author's career and to show how it reveals some intriguing working habits as well as Gentile's firm hopes for the advent of angelic popes and ecclesiastical renewal.

The monumental volume with which we are dealing is the legacy left to his science by a man who will always be counted among the most distinguished and most influential scholars of Roman law and ancient legal history in the first half of the twentieth century. As early as 1902, when he first began to teach Roman law at the University of Graz, Leopold Wenger had conceived a plan of writing a history of the whole legal order of the Romans that would comprise the total of public, procedural, and private institutions in one great unit. He proposed to see his unit in the light of its general political and cultural setting and to interpret it as bringing to its climax and final achievement, under Justinian, the evolution of law and legal thought of all antiquity; antiquity itself he understood as one single historical process interrelating the multitude of peoples and civilizations of the Mediterranean area that grew and declined, succeeded and influenced each other, until they were absorbed into the Roman Empire and were thus enabled to transmit their common heritage to later centuries. Understandably enough, this gigantic project involved more than one scholar could accomplish in one lifetime. Wenger was not able to carry it out. He did, however, succeed in completing, in this detailed description and discussion of the sources, the first instalment, and happily lived to see its publication shortly before his death on September 21, 1953, at the age of seventy-nine.