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.

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.

The reform movement of the later tenth and early eleventh centuries distinguishes itself from other such episodes in monastic history not so much by its impact on the existence of ecclesiastical communities throughout western Europe as by its diversity. Whereas Cluny, Gorze, and the movements initiated or inspired by William of Volpiano, Romuald of Camaldoli, Johannes of Vallombrosa, and Peter Damian have rightly attracted the most interest from scholars, there existed a number of regional movements led by individuals with a reformist agenda, carried out with as much determination, and with results as significant as their international counterparts. One such example is that of the so-called Lotharingian reforms initiated by Richard, abbot of Saint-Vanne (d. 1046), which, over the course of the first half of the eleventh century, spread across large parts of the archbishoprics of Reims, Metz, and Cologne. The exact nature of the movement has long been a subject of debate, with Kassius Hallinger proposing controversially to designate it as a Mischobservanz, or mixed observance, based primarily on the customs observed at Cluny and Gorze. The current consensus, however, seems to be that the “Richardian” understanding of monastic life was indeed original and that, like other movements of its time, it originated in a genuine reflection on ways to return to a more authentic experience of the vita regularis. To achieve this goal, Richard and his principal collaborator Poppo, abbot of Stavelot (d. 1048), introduced groups of monks and former canons to their interpretation of the Rule of Saint Benedict, fostered the creation of collective identities around the figure of patron saints, intervened in the production of scriptoria and the creation of libraries, rationalized the monastic economy, and generally attempted to create a more favorable legal and political situation for the communities coming under their care.

Few taxes have been as enduring and as evocative of identity as the Christian ecclesiastical tithe, arguably “the most important tax in the economic development of western Europe.” The secular enforcement in 779 of the tithe's collection by the church clearly marked a decisive moment in its evolution, but its earlier origins as religious law have been much more elusive. Scholarship over the past five decades has made clear that mandatory tithing to the church was not a custom of early Christianity but rather something that developed in late antiquity, with our first unambiguous evidence of a developed theory of the tithe coming from sixth-century Gaul. The key figure providing that evidence was Caesarius of Arles (ca. 469–542).

The late Edmund Bishop's suggestion that Merovingian liturgical circles had possibly been influenced by a ‘Gregorian’ type of Service Book seems to have remained unnoticed and unappreciated. Yet it has appeared to me to be important for the early history of the Gregorianum. Scholars have always had a sense of frustration about this Sacramentary since no manuscript earlier than that of Cambrai 164, written about 811 or 812, for Bishop Hildoard of that see, has come down to us. To get behind this text has always been their goal, and it has often been assumed that the ninth-century Sacramentary of the Chapter Library of Padua did in fact contain such a text. Whether this is so or not (and Rev. Klaus Gamber has recently shown there are grounds for rejecting it), the series of documents here examined would seem to point to the years circa 680, as marking the terminus ad quem of the Gregorianum.

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.

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.

The Summa Prima primi and the Summa Quamvis leges seculares were described by Kuttner and Rathbone in 1951 as two intimately related works of the Anglo-Norman school which were deserving of closer examination in future studies. These summae were significant, it was pointed out, as introducing a new stage in the literary output of the English schools, a stage marked by the reception of Bernard of Pavia's Breviarium and by a close dependence on Huguccio as the principal guide for the interpretation of the Decretum. The texts of the two summae have now been transcribed and collated in preparation for an eventual edition. This work makes it possible to explain their relationship to one another and to Huguccio. It also opens up a fresh set of problems concerning the connection between the Summa Prima primi and a little-known Summa Duacensis in MS Douai 649, fol. 96ra-140vb (D).

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.

Aldhelm of Malmesbury (ca. 640–709/710) conceived and practiced an idiosyncratic style of Latin prose called “hermeneutic,” which was characterized mainly by lexical peculiarities: neologisms, graecisms, archaisms, poeticisms, distributive numerals, and other varieties of contrived or recherché diction. The principal model of the hermeneutic prose style was, of course, Aldhelm's treatise on virginity, the Prosa de virginitate (hereafter Pdv). Aldhelm probably wrote the work in the 670s. Partly — if not mainly — because of this influential treatise, hermeneutic Latin became a vogue in seventh- and eighth-century England, and practitioners of it flourished on the continent, too. Alas, ninth-century Viking incursions put an end not only to hermeneutic latinity but also to native literature. Not until the 920s would interest in hermeneutic Latin be renewed, and after a few more decades Aldhelm's prose work became one of the most intensively studied books in Anglo-Saxon England. In fact, the complexity of Aldhelm's prose led to copious glossing.

Heymericus de Campo (Heymeric van de Velde) (ca. 1395–1460), Professor der Theologie in Köln und in Löwen, Vertreter der Kölner Universität auf dem Konzil von Basel, gehört zu den bedeutenderen Philosophen und Theologen des 15. Jahrhunderts. Sein besonders von Albert dem Großen und Raimundus Lullus geprägtes neuplatonisches Denken beeinflußte nachhaltig Nikolaus von Kues. Leider sind von Heymerics zahlreichen Schriften bisher nur wenige ediert. Zwei wichtige Handschriften mit meist unedierten Werken Heymerics befinden sich in der Bibliothek des Cusanus-Hospitals in Kues; es sind die Codices 105 und 106. Der letztere, der Codex Cusanus 106, hat bei den Cusanus-Forschern viel Aufmerksamkeit erregt; enthält er doch Schriften Heymerics aus der Kölner und Basler Zeit, die Nikolaus von Kues mit zahlreichen Bemerkungen versehen hat. Weniger Beachtung hat bisher der Codex 105 gefunden, der keine Spuren einer Benutzung durch Cusanus aufweist; er enthält einen Summarius dominice passionis epilogus sowie eine Stellungnahme Heymerics aus dem Jahre 1458 zu dem interessanten Phänomen der Kinderwallfahrten zum Mont St. Michel.

The medieval military orders were religious institutions whose members had professed a life of combat and prayer that integrated them into a religious landscape sharply defined by diversity. And yet still very little is known about the military orders’ religious functions in the dioceses in which they held ecclesiastical possessions. By focusing on one military order in particular, the Order of the Temple, this study aims to achieve two goals: first, to provide a critical overview of recent scholarship in the emerging field of military order (and especially Templar) religion, and second, to examine aspects of Templar religious involvement in medieval society in general and the reactions of senior clergymen to the Templars’ religious engagement on the parish level in particular. It argues that the Templars proved very keen to expand their network of parish churches and that in so doing they proved willing to engage with the lay public on a much larger scale than has hitherto been believed.

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.

In his magnum opus on the history of magic, Lynn Thorndike devoted a few pioneering pages to the Liber vaccae or Book of the Cow. He identified and described several of the manuscripts of this singular Arabic compilation of magical experiments, pointed out the many different titles under which it was known in the medieval West, and discussed its false attribution to Plato, Galen, and Hunayn ibn Ishâq. By contrast, given his habit of paraphrasing the texts he examined at great length, Thorndike's account of the content of the work is uncharacteristically patchy. He hastily referred to “elaborate experiments in unseemly generation and obstetrics,” the aim of which was “to make a rational animal from a cow or ape or other beast, or to make bees.” In his opinion, the experiments of the Liber vaccae were, in fact, “unmentionable,” and “hardly such as can be described in detail in English translation.”

“One can only grant the theological faculty the arrogant claim that the philosophical faculty is its maidservant (leaving aside the question of whether the latter bears the torch before, or carries the train after her mistress) on the condition that she is not banished or gagged.” Thus wrote Immanuel Kant, paraphrasing Peter Damian, in his Der Streit der Fakultäten of 1798, shortly after being freed from a ban on writing about religion. Kant argued that the role of the philosophy faculty in universities was to lay down the truth for the use of the more practically orientated higher faculties, including that of theology. It could only perform this function if it was totally free.

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.

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.