This original and provocative engagement with Erasmus’ work argues that the Dutch humanist discovered in classical Stoicism several principles which he developed into a paradigm-shifting application of Stoicism to Christianity. Ross Dealy offers novel readings of some lesser and well-known Erasmian texts and presents a detailed discussion of the reception of Stoicism in the Renaissance. In a considered interpretation of Erasmus’ De taedio Iesu, Dealy clearly shows the two-dimensional Stoic elements in Erasmus’ thought from an early time onward. Erasmus’ genuinely philosophical disposition is evidenced in an analysis of his edition of Cicero’s De officiis. Building on stoicism Erasmus shows that Christ’s suffering in Gethsemane was not about the triumph of spirit over flesh but about the simultaneous workings of two opposite but equally essential types of value: on the one side spirit and on the other involuntary and intractable natural instincts.

Annual collection of essays on diverse aspects of the fifteenth century, this year emphasizing topics in medieval literature. The fifteenth century defies consensus on fundamental issues; most scholars agree, however, that the period outgrew the Middle Ages, that it was a time of transition and a passage to modern times. Fifteenth-Century Studiesoffers essays on diverse aspects of the period, including liberal and fine arts, historiography, medicine, and religion. Volume 38 addresses a broad spectrum of topics: monastic reformation of domestic space in Richard Whitford's Werke for Housholders; Margery Kempe and spectatorship in medieval drama; The Book of Margery Kempe and the trial of Joan of Arc; a new edition and interpretations of The Book of the Duke and Emperor in the context of MS Manchester, Chetham's Library 8009 (Mun. A.6.31); two cultural perspectives on the Battle of Lippa, Transylvania (1551); translation and manipulation of audience expectations in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; the dry tree legend in medieval literature; and Wessel Gansfort, John Mombaer, and medieval technologies of the self. Book reviews conclude the volume. Contributors: Brandon Alakas, Maria Dobozy, Andrew Eichel, Rosanne Gasse, Kate McLean, Jesse Njus, Sarah Ritchey, P. R. Robins. Barbara I. Gusick is Professor Emerita of English at Troy University, Dothan, Alabama. Review editor Rosanne Gasse is Associate Professor of English at Brandon University.

This is a valuable book for anyone interested in the cultural meaning of preindustrial migration. Arguing that early modern European migrants could fundamentally influence their fate and their adopted communities, it explores the world of Scots migrants to the Dutch port of Rotterdam, c. 1600-1700. The heart of the study is a reconstruction of the social networks that Scots used to establish and sustain themselves in Rotterdam, drawn from unusually rich narrative sources. Through their social ties, Scots also told stories and kept memories as they created complex identities encompassing Rotterdam, Scotland, and places further afield. By shaping their relationships to Rotterdam, Scots had a broad impact on their adopted home. Their actions helped change Rotterdam’s political, religious, and legal fabric and even tied Rotterdam to the wider Atlantic world.

This volume offers a fresh perspective on the patriarchal ideology of reform in early modern Germany by revealing its roots in a pan-European catechetical program that had endured a cyclical process of growth and decline since the twelfth century, with each new phase sparked by crises in Church and society. Based on sermons, reform ordinances, devotional treatises and especially catechisms, the book explores the programs developed by reformers and codified in works of religious indoctrination designed to fashion godly fathers (real and metaphorical) in home, church, and body politic. The chief product of this program, argues the author, was an ethos of social discipline that permeated the institutions of each major confession, with government gradually empowered to reach more deeply than ever before into the lives of its subjects.

This volume is the first comprehensive study of the work of the Society of Jesus in the British Isles during the sixteenth century. Beginning with an account of brief papal missions to Ireland (1541) and Scotland (1562), it goes on to cover the foundation of a permanent mission to England (1580) and the frustration of Catholic hopes with the failure of the Spanish Armada (1588). Throughout the book, the activities of the Jesuits - preaching, propaganda, prayer and politics - are set within a wider European context, and within the framework of the Society's Constitutions. In particular, the sections on religious life and involvement in diplomacy show how flexibly the Jesuits adapted their "way of proceeding" to the religious and political circumstances of the British Isles, and to the demands of the Counter-Reformation.

This volume examines the image-based methods of interpretation that pictorial and literary landscapists employed between 1500 and 1700.