This book deals with the different translations into Old French of Giles of Rome’s De regimine principum, dedicated to Philippe le Bel around 1279, and their readership. First-hand manuscript research has permitted us to understand not only the general context of their production but also the social conditions of their transmission and circulation. This work concentrates on different aspects of the reception of Giles of Rome’s pedagogical ideas by his “translators”, who are by no means passive in this process. This book provides not only a concrete idea of what Giles of Rome’s educational ideas became when mediated for the consumption of a lay public but also how the translators, in their translations, supported the transmission of re-appropriated knowledge.

From the time of its composition (c.1280) for Philip the Fair of France until the early sixteenth century, Giles of Rome's mirror of princes, the De regimine principum, was read by both lay and clerical readers in the original Latin and in several vernacular translations, and served as model or source for several works of princely advice. This study examines the relationship between this didactic political text and its audience by focusing on the textual and material aspects of the surviving manuscript copies, as well as on the evidence of ownership and use found in them and in documentary and literary sources. Briggs argues that lay readers used De regimine for several purposes, including as an educational treatise and military manual, whereas clerics, who often first came into contact with it at university, glossed, constructed apparatus for, and modified the text to suit their needs in their later professional lives.

In A Companion to Giles of Rome, Charles Briggs, Peter Eardley, and seven other leading specialists provide the first synoptic treatment of the thought, works, life, and legacy of Giles of Rome (c. 1243/7–1316), one of medieval Europe’s most important and influential scholastic philosophers and theologians. The Giles that emerges from this volume was a subtle and independent thinker, who more than refining and modifying the positions of his teacher Aquinas, also made strikingly original contributions to theology, physics, metaphysics, psychology, ethics, logic, rhetoric, and political thought. He was also the founding intellectual of the Augustinian friars and a key participant in controversies at the University of Paris, and between Church and State. Contributors are: Charles F. Briggs, Richard Cross, Silvia Donati, Peter S. Eardley, Roberto Lambertini, Costantino Marmo, Martin Pickavé, Giorgio Pini, and Cecilia Trifogli.

The Oxford History of Classical Reception in English Literature (OHCREL) is designed to offer a comprehensive investigation of the numerous and diverse ways in which literary texts of the classical world have stimulated responses and refashioning by English writers. Covering the full range of English literature from the early Middle Ages to the present day, OHCREL both synthesizes existing scholarship and presents cutting-edge new research, employing an international team of expert contributors for each of the five volumes. OHCREL endeavours to interrogate, rather than inertly reiterate, conventional assumptions about literary 'periods', the processes of canon-formation, and the relations between literary and non-literary discourse. It conceives of 'reception' as a complex process of dialogic exchange and, rather than offering large cultural generalizations, it engages in close critical analysis of literary texts. It explores in detail the ways in which English writers' engagement with classical literature casts as much light on the classical originals as it does on the English writers' own cultural context. This first volume, and fourth to appear in the series, covers the years c.800-1558, and surveys the reception and transformation of classical literary culture in England from the Anglo-Saxon period up to the Henrician era. Chapters on the classics in the medieval curriculum, the trivium and quadrivium, medieval libraries, and medieval mythography provide context for medieval reception. The reception of specific classical authors and traditions is represented in chapters on Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, Statius, the matter of Troy, Boethius, moral philosophy, historiography, biblical epics, English learning in the twelfth century, and the role of antiquity in medieval alliterative poetry. The medieval section includes coverage of Chaucer, Gower, and Lydgate, while the part of the volume dedicated to the later period explores early English humanism, humanist education, and libraries in the Henrician era, and includes chapters that focus on the classicism of Skelton, Douglas, Wyatt, and Surrey.

"The present volume [3] is the first to appear of the five that will comprise The Oxford History of Classical Reception in English Literature (henceforth OHCREL). Each volume of OHCREL will have its own editor or team of editors"--Preface.

Why devote a Companion to the "mirrors for princes", whose very existence is debated? These texts offer key insights into political thoughts of the past. Their ambiguous, problematic status further enhances their interest. And although recent research has fundamentally challenged established views of these texts, until now there has been no critical introduction to the genre. This volume therefore fills this important gap, while promoting a global historical perspective of different “mirrors for princes” traditions from antiquity to humanism, via Byzantium, Persia, Islam, and the medieval West. This Companion also proposes new avenues of reflection on the anchoring of these texts in their historical realities. Contributors are Makram Abbès, Denise Aigle, Olivier Biaggini, Hugo Bizzarri, Charles F. Briggs, Sylvène Edouard, Jean-Philippe Genet, John R. Lenz, Louise Marlow, Cary J. Nederman, Corinne Peneau, Stéphane Péquignot, Noëlle-Laetitia Perret, Günter Prinzing, Volker Reinhardt, Hans-Joachim Schmidt, Tom Stevenson, Karl Ubl, and Steven J. Williams.

This collection of essays is based on a conference in honour of David Luscombe held at the University of Sheffield in September 2006 under the title "Knowledge, Discipline and Power in the Middle Ages." The 14 contributions to this Festschrift, by leading scholars in the field, show the strength and variety of recent work on the intellectual history of the middle ages. A group of papers deals with changes in the intellectual landscape during this period. Other papers focus particularly on the theme of jurisdiction, while a third groups deals with knowledge and its uses. The papers fittingly reflect the breadth and inventiveness of David Luscombe's scholarship, and in particular his work on Peter Abelard. Contributors are Christopher Brooke, Charles Burnett, Joseph Canning, Giles Constable, William J. Courtenay, Martin Kintzinger, Robert E. Lerner, Brian Patrick McGuire, John Marenbon, Gert Melville, Constant J. Mews, Jurgen Miethke, Amanda Power, Andreas Speer, and Martial Staub.