The collection of essays in Translation Theory and Practice in the Middle Ages arose from a translation symposium at the twenty-eighth International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo, Michigan. The authors treat a wide range of topics: translation between Latin and romance languages, the rise of vernacular canonicity, the interplay of Latin and French in the court of France, the theory of translation evident in Alfred the Great's ambitious program of translation of religious works from Latin into Old English, questions of the impact of classical admonitions on medieval translation, interpretive translation used to render traditionally masculine heroes as feminine, the interplay of word and image relating to gender issues, and bilingualism, concluding with translation of medieval texts in the modern era. The scholarship on offer here presents a spectacular collection of modern questions of medieval translation, certainly an essential text for all scholars of related issues.

The interest of the writers of these essays in the intricacies and implications of translation in the Middle Ages, or of the translation of medieval texts in te modern period, has resulted in a diverse and intellectually stimulating volume. The papers in this volume, written in either English, French, or Spanish, approach translation from a wide variety of perspectives and offer a range of interpretations of the concept of translation. The volume contains essays ranging in time from the Anglo Saxon period to the present, and in topic from medieval recipe books to arguments in favour of women administering the sacrament. Languages studied include non-European languages as well as Latin and numerous European vernaculars as both source and target languages. As any translator or student of translation quickly becomes aware, it is impossible to divorce language from culture. All the contributors to this volume struggle with the complexities of translation as a cultural act, even when the focus would seem to be specifically linguistic. It is these complexities which lend the study of the theory and practice of translation in the Middle Ages its enduring fascinatio

The German philosophical culture of the Middle Ages is inextricable linked to the thought of Albert the Great. This volume brings together 14 papers, which deal with Albert's influence from the points of view of mysticism, philosophy, and the history of universities.

When, back in the 1980s, Roger Ellis first sounded out academic colleagues in British universities and beyond about their possible interest and participation in a conference on medieval translation theory and practice, he perhaps did not envisage that the resulting gathering-intellectually curious, animated, convivial-at Gregynog Hall in Wales (1987) would be the first of a series of international conferences with a strong continental European base, which now provides a regular forum in which one can initiate, and engage with, research questions about this near all-encompassing aspect of medieval culture. Since that first meeting, the Cardiff Conferences on the Theory and Practice of Translation in the Middle Ages have charted and drawn anew the parameters of scholarly debate on the topic, while their Proceedings, hosted since 1996 by Brepols' Medieval Translator series, cumulatively present a body of work valuable to anyone interested in translation in its medieval, broadly European, manifestations. The contributors of this volume's essays, assembled in tribute to Roger Ellis on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, have profited from the intellectual opportunities the Medieval Translator conferences foster, and in particular from Roger's friendship and academic acumen. The essays draw in many cases on Roger's work to inform a collective project that reflects on his specific interests in translation, including late-medieval piety and Birgittine texts, scholarly editions and studies of genre, considering literary and linguistic relations within and across languages, registers, national boundaries, time and space, refining, even re-defining, our understanding of translation. We offer these essays with warm thanks to and appreciation of Roger Ellis for his work in this field, not least for establishing, with this conference series, a means to demonstrate that translation, and translation studies, is above all a question of different voices speaking productively in dialogue.

This book has a twofold purpose. First, it seeks to define the place of vernacular translation within the systems of rhetoric and hermeneutics in the Middle Ages. Secondly, it examines the way that rhetoric and hermeneutics in the Middle Ages define their status in relation to each other as critical practices. --introd.

In this authoritative, lively book, the celebrated Italian novelist and philosopher Umberto Eco presents a learned summary of medieval aesthetic ideas. Juxtaposing theology and science, poetry and mysticism, Eco explores the relationship that existed between the aesthetic theories and the artistic experience and practice of medieval culture. "[A] delightful study. . . . [Eco's] remarkably lucid and readable essay is full of contemporary relevance and informed by the energies of a man in love with his subject." --Robert Taylor, Boston Globe "The book lays out so many exciting ideas and interesting facts that readers will find it gripping." --Washington Post Book World "A lively introduction to the subject." --Michael Camille, The Burlington Magazine "If you want to become acquainted with medieval aesthetics, you will not find a more scrupulously researched, better written (or better translated), intelligent and illuminating introduction than Eco's short volume." --D. C. Barrett, Art Monthly

In this study of the rare twelfth-century treatise On Diverse Arts, Heidi C. Gearhart explores the unique system of values that guided artists of the High Middle Ages as they created their works. Written in northern Germany by a monk known only by the pseudonym Theophilus, On Diverse Arts is the only known complete tract on art to survive from the period. It contains three books, each with a richly religious prologue, describing the arts of painting, glass, and metalwork. Gearhart places this one-of-a-kind treatise in context alongside works by other monastic and literary thinkers of the time and presents a new reading of the text itself. Examining the earliest manuscripts, she reveals a carefully ordered, sophisticated work that aligns the making of art with the virtues of a spiritual life. On Diverse Arts, Gearhart shows, articulated a distinctly medieval theory of art that accounted for the entire process of production—from thought and preparation to the acquisition of material, the execution of work, the creation of form, and the practice of seeing. An important new perspective on one of the most significant texts in art history and the first study of its kind available in English, Theophilus and the Theory and Practice of Medieval Art provides fresh insight into the principles and values of medieval art making. Scholars of art history, medieval studies, and Christianity will find Gearhart’s book especially edifying and valuable.