On 7 March 1277, étienne Tempier, bishop of Paris, issued a decree condemning 219 ”errors“ that were henceforth not to be taught in the university under threat of excommunication. So much has been written about this episode, from the thirteenth century onwards, that it scarcely needs introducing. Indeed, a leading scholar in the field has implied that nothing remains to be said about the events themselves since the standard problems either have been solved or are insoluble owing to the absence of documents. Yet the continuing speculation is a clear sign that the episode is poorly understood. Major studies of the last twenty-five years have offered markedly different interpretations of the intentions of those involved and the effects of their actions. Much effort has gone into condemning or excusing Tempier, but we still have little idea of where, and in what context, the condemned articles originated, rendering such judgments at best premature. The present study will attempt to address this problem by reexamining the text of the condemnation and other related sources to argue that they contain important evidence that has so far been overlooked.

Hrabanus Maurus's Commentary on Matthew provides a lens through which to view the centrality of biblical studies to Carolingian reform initiatives. The commentary sits amid a burst of interest in Matthew's Gospel in the first quarter of the ninth century. It also occupies a central place in Hrabanus's program for clerical education and renewal. Hrabanus imagined the work as a user-friendly reference guide or introductory text and structured the commentary with highly sophisticated and complementary indexing, organizing, and searching features to privilege ease of use. Hrabanus's design allows for quick appreciation and simple interpretation of the Gospel's overall narrative structure, its principal episodes, and its individual verses. Moreover, Hrabanus took painstaking effort to document the numerous patristic sources upon which he drew in building the commentary, as well as to acknowledge when he contributed thoughts of his own. The manuscript record, epistolary remarks, sermon texts, and literary references — including in the vernacular — testify to broad dissemination and use of the commentary by Hrabanus's network of patrons, peers, and students across Frankish Europe. Attention to the structure, content, and influence of the commentary expands scholarly appreciation of Hrabanus's genius beyond his achievements as an abbot and bishop or as a prolific biblical exegete, to include resourcefulness and practicality in teaching. Moreover, the study illumines the close association Carolingian leaders saw between biblical studies and broader cultural renewal along with the networks connecting leaders across the Frankish world as they reflected upon and promoted reform.

In characteristic fashion, the Iter Italicum of Paul Oskar Kristeller reveals the richness of Renaissance thought on seafaring. The literature on seafaring conserved in manuscripts cataloged in the Iter Italicum ranges from commentary on ancient seafaring to eulogies of contemporary heroes to works on mechanics and engineering with unusual proposals for naval weaponry. Those manuscripts likewise highlight the Renaissance conceptualization of seafaring as an art and a creative tension in Renaissance scholarship between looking back to the past and looking forward to the future.

It is right to know, indeed, that everyone should prepare for the certain meeting and the uncertain meeting which is before him — namely, the meeting with death. For its coming is certain; it is uncertain, however, at what hour or what time one will go. Everyone should prepare for the two companies which come to meet every soul, namely, the company of God with beauty and magnificence and brightness, and the company of the devil with its darkness and with its baseness and its evil counsel. (The Two Deaths, 1)

During late antiquity, an interesting doctrinal shift can be observed: Aristotelian logic and its Neoplatonic complements, in particular the teachings of Aristotle's Categories and Porphyry's Isagoge, were progressively accepted as a tool in Christian theology. This acceptance met drawbacks and was never unanimous. Among the authors who used concepts that originated in logic in order to support their theological thinking, we can mention, on very different accounts, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, Cyril of Alexandria, John Philoponus, Leontius of Byzantium, Maximus the Confessor, Theodore of Raithu, and John of Damascus, the author of an important Dialectica. In the Byzantine context, handbooks of logic were written specifically for Christian theologians, showing that logic was perceived to be an important tool for theological thinking.