The Consolation of Philosophy may have owed its popularity to its theme of the search for the summum bonum, the eternal verity beyond the vicissitudes of everyday life, a theme particularly appealing in a period of upheaval and danger such as the tenth and eleventh centuries. But it was much more than a work of conventional piety or Christian philosophy. It was essentially a classical work and its collection of verses in different metres, its mythological allusions and Neoplatonic cosmology, as well as its more Christian discussions of fate and free will, made it a key work in the intellectual ferment of the time. But it was a difficult work, requiring a critical apparatus of elucidation and explanation before its riches could be fully appreciated. This apparatus, in the form of glosses and scholia, necessarily had to draw upon a variety of sources.

Writers and thinkers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were widely engaged in the reception and transmission of a variety of earlier works, and recent scholarship has perhaps concentrated too much on the special case of the reception and transmission of the Greek and Latin classics. A study of the publishing history of the Aristotle commentaries of Thomas Aquinas may throw light on a different phase of the same general process, the Renaissance fortuna of a medieval rather than of an ancient author.

Wie in zwei früheren, kurzen Abhandlungen bereits angedeutet wurde, verdient das Centheologicon betitelte Werk des Heymericus de Campo (van de Velde) in mehrfacher Hinsicht Beachtung. Die folgenden Mitteilungen, in denen vor allem einige Materialien vorgelegt werden, möchten dazu beitragen, dieses Werk angemessener zu würdigen. Sie beanspruchen keine Vollständigkeit und verzichten auf eine umfassende philosophische Deutung der Schrift. Nach einigen allgemeinen Bemerkungen wird im zweiten Teil der Arbeit nur ein besonderer Aspekt dieses Werkes hervorgehoben, nämlich seine Beziehung zur Wirkungsgeschichte des Nikolaus von Kues, zu deren vollständigeren Kenntnis die hier erstmals veröffentlichten Textpassagen einen bescheidenen Beitrag leisten möchten.

Originality and influence are obverse and reverse of one coin. When extensive influence is claimed for any thinker the question at once arises: Were there no other sources from which these putative disciples might have drawn their inspiration? Since no thinker springs entirely unheralded out of the head of Zeus, he must have drawn on an already existing cluster of ideas and therefore, in turn, his possible influence may merge into a wider intellectual ambience. The problem of influence thus becomes one of establishing marks of originality which can be applied as a kind of ‘litmus test’ to distinguish direct dependence from general affinity. The ideas of the Abbot Joachim have lately attracted wide-ranging claims in respect of their influence in later generations. To cite only one example: Professor Roger Garaudy is quoted as saying that the ‘first great revolutionary movements in Europe’ were ‘all more or less imbued with the ideas of Joachim of Fiore.’ In the last decade or so many medievalists, including myself, have spun the Joachimist coin in order to turn up ‘tails,’ and we have perhaps found Joachimist ‘tails’ in too many quarters. By the law of probabilities it was more than time to turn up heads, and Robert Lerner in an article of 1976 slapped down a challenging ‘head study’ for which I personally am grateful since it set me off spinning the same old coin again. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to examine the background of ideas out of which Joachim's theology of history was generated, to pinpoint the original aspects of his thought, if any, and thence to define and apply criteria for claiming later individuals, groups, or writings as ‘Joachite’ or ‘Joachimist.’

The outstanding sixteenth-century Scripture scholar Juan Maldonado, in an instruction for members of the Society of Jesus on the manner of teaching theology, thus describes the ideal professor:

Thomas Campion in his Observations in the Art of English Poesy remarks: ‘Poesy in all kind of speaking is the chief beginner and maintainer of eloquence, not only helping the ear with the acquaintance of sweet numbers, but also raising the mind to a more high and lofty conceit.’ This comment finds many parallels in treatises on literary criticism and the art of poetry in the English Renaissance, and is singled out for quotation here only because it calls attention to both of the major contributions of poetry to rhetoric, namely assistance in the development of artistic prose (especially when it includes the element of rhythm) and inspiration in the province of Invention.

Since the turn of the century, historians have shown considerable interest in the origins of a capitalistic outlook in Europe. The Werner Sombart - Max Weber debate indicated that Europe had experienced the ‘emergence of a unique mental attitude towards economic activity’ sometime between the later Middle Ages and the beginning of the modern era. The importance of Max Weber's Protestant Ethic (1904) to the literature on the spirit of capitalism needs little commentary, since a clutter of expository works on his thesis already exists. Weber's Ethic gave rise to three schools of opinion concerning the period during which capitalistic attitudes began to flourish. One group of historians, still dominant, has claimed that new economic values first appeared in the course of the sixteenth century, especially in Calvinist portions of Europe. Another set of students has disagreed, finding that spokesmen truly began to assert these ideals later, in seventeenth-century forms of Puritanism or in eighteenth-century expressions of individualism. The third interpretation declares that an altered scheme of economic values appeared during the Renaissance and later Middle Ages. The mass of material produced by the first two schools has all but obliterated the small but significant literature of the third. Sufficient evidence is now available, however, to warrant a fresh evaluation of the formative stages of this change. The purpose of this essay, then, is three-fold: it intends to outline the present state of scholarly opinion about the earliest appearance of new economic attitudes, to offer a new survey of the evidence from a different perspective, and, finally, to suggest causes for the change.

One of the principal motivations for the Emperor Justinian's reconquest of Africa from the Vandal king Gelimer (Gelimer reigned from 15 June 530 to 15 September 533), was religious: the desire to liberate the African Catholic majority of the population from their Arian Vandal persecutors. No critical study exists, however, which assesses the extent to which the Byzantine expeditionary force of 533 actually treated its invasion of Africa as a Catholic war against Arianism. Such a study would also provide some information on the obscure problem of the relative significance of Arianism in North Africa after the Byzantine reconquest. Clarification of this question has become desirable, for in a recent article C. J. Speel argued that the disappearance of Christianity in the wake of the Islamic conquest is explained by the affinity of Islam and Arianism, which he claims was the religion of the majority of North Africans after the Byzantine reconquest. His thesis deserves to be tested by the Byzantine sources: according to the sources, how successfully did Arianism in Africa survive the collapse of the Vandal authority which had established it?

Among the comparatively rare ὲκΦράσ∊ις τόπου included by Vergil in his epic, is the description (Aen. 1.159–169) of the Libyan estuary which gives harbor to the remnants of the Trojan fleet. The Homeric pattern (Od. 13.96–112) to which Vergil is indebted, is a portrayal of the haven of Phorcys, consisting in largest part of a picture of the cave sacred to the Naiades (105–112). As has been pointed out, the cave is an idyllic abode brimming with life. All objects mentioned as furnishing the interior are described as being of stone: mixing vessels and jars in which bees store up honey, and very tall looms “whereon the nymphs weave raiment of sea-purple.” It should be observed also that all the articles are, in the normal order of things, hand-fashioned and adventitious—human imports.

In an article concerning the seven deadly sins, Siegfried Wenzel distinguishes one model for the traditional topic of vices and virtues which he calls ‘ cosmological’ or ‘ symbolic.’ This model develops the idea that ‘ man is a septenary,’ a composite of three powers of the soul and four elements of the body. The association of the three theological virtues with the three powers of the soul and the four cardinal virtues with the four elements of the body was current in the twelfth century. In the first half of the thirteenth century, Robert Grosseteste developed the analogy in the context of a metaphysics of light, somewhat unexpectedly in a treatise on confession. The ‘connection between virtues and vices on one hand and physiology on the other,’ Wenzel remarks, ‘is an area that needs much further study.’ Perhaps the fullest development of the cosmological or symbolic model of the virtues was made in the last half of the thirteenth century by Bonaventure. Indeed, for him the cardinal virtues (the concern of this study) are the four poles of the created universe.

Of the documents that concern the relationship between Byzantium and Western Europe in the early Middle Ages, none is more famous or more frequently read than Relatio de Legatione Constantinopolitana, Liudprand of Cremona's description of his mission to Constantinople in 968 for Otto I. Much has been learned from his vivid if acid narrative about the Byzantine court of Nicephorus II Phocas and about East-West relations in the tenth century. Over the last forty years research has reached beneath the vivid prose in search of the true significance of that mission. But since Liudprand's is the only first-hand, detailed record of an embassy to Constantinople of that era, some scholars have given it more contemporary importance than it actually had, and, by extension, they have turned Liudprand's thoughts into subtle expressions of official Western policy. The danger in these inquiries has been to divorce the mind and moods of the creator from his creation and bestow on Relatio undeserved exaltation. The problem is to keep the document in its perspective while draining every sentence of its implications.

Besides the version of Paul the Deacon's Homiliary which Aelfric probably used for most of the patristic material in the Catholic Homilies, he also made use of a compilation of brief excerpts from the works of the Fathers by Smaragdus, and the homiliary of Haymo of Halberstadt. A re-examination of the sources of the Catholic Homilies has led to the conviction that Aelfric's debt to Haymo is considerably greater than has been recognized. Besides the two homilies where Aelfric specifically mentions Haymo as his source, we can point out some twenty-five more homilies where Aelfric's text is beholden to Haymo's work.

Other than the labors of the clergy, the basic resource for public charity and social work was pious giving by layfolk. During the long period from the later eleventh century until around 1250, both the forms of giving changed and the sums involved grew considerably. About the year 1100, the principal ways of financing charity and social work were the founding of charitable institutions by living people and the giving of gifts during a donor's lifetime to already existing institutions. During the twelfth century, however, as the practice of drawing testaments became more widespread, testamentary bequests became increasingly significant as a means of supporting the work of charity. Later on, during the thirteenth century, a further source of wealth was more extensively tapped than had hitherto been the case. Designed specifically for social or charitable ends, confraternities, whose members were obligated to give regularly or annually, began to play an ever more important role.

In the prologue to his De commixtionibus elementorum, the Salernitan master Urso contrasts the ‘volumina numerosa’ of practical medicine with the ‘pau-cula … in idiomate latino volumina’ on theory. Urso explains the contrast by comparing the ease of compiling a practical manual with the arduous task of discovering and disclosing the secrets of nature. This comparison leads him to standard topics for a preface — the author's own inabilities and need for divine grace, the various demands on diligence in the reader. Indeed, the central contrast of the prologue seems more a topos than a strict judgment of the state of medical theory among the Salernitans.

With the fall of Constantinople to Crusaders from the West the Cistercian Order found a new area for development. Cistercians had taken an active part in the Fourth Crusade and they were ready to share in the process of settlement which followed hard on the conquest of the Empire and Greece. The fortunes of the Cistercians in the East waxed and waned with great rapidity, paralleling the course of the Latin Empire itself: between 1204 and 1276 the Order acquired at least twelve houses and lost at least nine of these. The interesting but unspectacular history of the Cistercian Order in the Latin Empire and Greece has received little attention, either from historians of the Order itself or from those scholars who have treated the history of the Latin conquest and occupation. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the foundation, development and final abandonment of the Cistercian houses in the Empire and Greece, to explore the activities of Cistercian abbots and priors in the affairs of the Empire, and to examine the contacts between Cistercians of East and West. But since the interest of the Cistercians in Constantinople and Greece began with their participation in the Fourth Crusade, consideration will first be given to their activity as Crusaders.

The history of the First Crusade is, in large part, the history of mass movements of men. The deeds of any individual in the Crusade, even those of the major leaders, cannot be traced in their entirety. The part played by any individual in the Crusade can only be sketched in outline and even then, puzzling gaps in the record can be expected to show up as a matter of course. Since this is true of the tangible, external actions of the Crusading leaders, it is no great surprise to find the same thing true of their thoughts, attitudes, and plans. It is true enough, again, in this context that something can be done to characterize the attitudes of the masses of the Crusaders, as these attitudes are reflected by chroniclers, poets, and popular writers of various kinds. But to try to recover the personal thoughts and attitudes of one or another of the major leaders of the Crusade is a far more difficult problem. On a few topics, where attitudes may easily and unequivocally be reflected by external acts, it is possible to make a fairly sure estimate of the thoughts and beliefs of one or another of the Crusading princes. When one speculates on such subjects, the only conclusion which can be reached is that these questions are unanswerable or that answers to them can be deduced only with great hesitation and circumspection from data which do not bear directly upon the central question at all.

To the inventory of Medieval Latin Aristotle Commentaries published in Traditio 23 (1967) 313-413, 24 (1968) 149-245, 26 (1970) 135-216, 27 (1971) 251-351, 28 (1972) 281-396, and 29 (1973) 93-197, I would like to make the following additions and corrections. They consist of a list of additional authors with biobibliographical note and indication of manuscripts and editions.

The Breton Lays in Middle English is an enigmatic label customarily used to designate eight or nine brief narratives: Sir Orfeo, Sir Degaré, Lay le Freine, “The Franklin's Tale,” Sir Launfal, The Earl of Toulouse, Emaré, and Sir Gowther. The label is awkward because it may seem to suggest that the poems are consistently derived from or inspired by Breton or Old French sources and thus are a sort of stepchildren, little more than translations or, worse, misunderstandings of a multi-media heritage. Most scholars have seen the grouping as traditional and artificial, passed along in uncritical reception, not resting on substantial generic similarities that distinguish the poems from other literary forms. John Finlayson, for instance, concludes, “In fact, considered coldly, shortness and adventure or ordeal would seem to be the only things that can really be isolated as universal characteristics.” Some scholars have accounted for the poems as a set. The distinctions they discuss commonly include the lays' close relation to the conventions of the folk-tale, relationship to provincial audiences, and a growing sophistication of the craft of fiction.

During the past decade there has been a significant shift of emphasis in work on the medieval canonists. The traditional studies on the literary history of canonistic sources and on problems of specifically ecclesiastical jurisprudence continue to flourish, and, indeed, have been stimulated by the plans for a new edition of Gratian's Decretum; but alongside this work, and complementary to it, there has appeared a new trend, a lively interest in the content and influence of canonistic doctrine concerning public law and political theory. This trend, moreover, shows all the international diffusion — and even, perhaps, something of the interplay of national susceptibilities — that its exponents have discerned in the work of the medieval canonists themselves. It is especially interesting that notable contributions have come from England and the United States as well as from the more established centers of canonistic studies.

The traditional view which emphasized the contrast between the Aristotelianism of the Middle Ages and the Platonism of the Renaissance can no longer be maintained in the light of recent studies. Aristotelianism continued to exist throughout the Renaissance and afterwards, and on the other hand, Platonism, in the form of Augustinianism, dominated occidental thought up to the twelfth century and remained a powerful current even during the later Middle Ages. The attempt to ascertain the medieval sources of Renaissance Platonism thus assumes an increased significance. However, it would be quite wrong to conclude that Renaissance Platonism, because it was preceded by some kind of medieval Platonism, was merely a copy or continuation of that earlier phase of Platonism. The history of Platonism, like that of every living tradition, must not be conceived as an endless repetition of identical doctrines, but rather as a continual adaptation and transformation of certain basic ideas. “Platonism” is not a label that establishes a simple equation between various thinkers classified as Platonists, but a kind of general orientation which assumes a new meaning in each particular case, and each representative of Platonism must hence be understood in his own right before his dependence on, or his difference from, other, earlier Platonists can be properly evaluated. Moreover, in the process of its history, Platonism is always exposed to the direct and indirect influence of other, different currents or traditions, and the continual transformation of Platonism is due not only to the original thought of its various representatives, but also to the influence of outside sources. The study of the medieval sources of Renaissance Platonism thus cannot be separated from a genuine understanding of Renaissance Platonism itself, and on the other hand, the medieval background of Renaissance Platonism consists not only of the Platonism or Augustinianism of the earlier Middle Ages, but also of the Aristotelianism of the later Middle Ages.