Essays on the writing and textual culture of Europe in the middle ages.

The Horatian formula prodesse et delectare was extremely influential in the production of texts across various languages and genres. While indeed didactic elements can be attested to in almost any medieval text, and while medieval literature displays a range of possibilities to teach and instruct, the scope of the present volume is more closely focused on explicitly didactic literature. This volume combines contributions that analyse didactic literature in high medieval Europe from different vantage points. They open new perspectives on education as a working principle or legitimizing strategy in the heterogeneous forms of writing intended to convey knowledge. This broad thematic, linguistic and geographical scope enables us to view didactic literature as the universal phenomenon it was and prompts us to understand its influence on many aspects of society in high medieval Europe and beyond. While the contributions explore case studies predominantly from this period of transition and the expansion of the categories of knowledge, they also trace some of these developments into the later Middle Ages to spotlight the lasting influence of high medieval teaching and learning in literature. The way medieval writers combine ‘the pleasant’ with ‘the useful’ is this book’s main question.

Gerald of Wales (c.1146–c.1223), widely recognized for his innovative ethnographic studies of Ireland and Wales, was in fact the author of some twenty-three works which touch upon many aspects of twelfth-century life. Despite their valuable insights, these works have been vastly understudied. This collection of essays reassesses Gerald’s importance as a medieval Latin writer and rhetorician by focusing on his lesser-known works and providing a fuller context for his more popular writings. This broader view of his corpus brings to light new evidence for his rhetorical strategies, political positioning and usage of source material, and attests to the breadth and depth of his collected works.

The celebrated text on the history of the book, completely revised, updated and expanded The revised and updated edition of The Companion to the History of the Book offers a global survey of the book’s history, through print and electronic text. Already well established as a standard survey of the historiography of the book, this new, expanded edition draws on a decade of advanced scholarship to present current research on paper, printing, binding, scientific publishing, the history of maps, music and print, the profession of authorship and lexicography. The text explores the many approaches to the book from the early clay tablets of Sumer, Assyria and Babylonia to today’s burgeoning electronic devices. The expert contributions delve into such fascinating topics as archives and paperwork, and present new chapters on Arabic script, the Slavic, Canadian, African and Australasian book, new textual technologies, and much more. Containing a wealth of illustrative examples and case studies to dramatize the exciting history of the book, the text is designed for academics, students and anyone interested in the subject.

This volume presents the work of the international, interdisciplinary research project Changes in Sacred Texts and Traditions (CSTT), whose members focused on cultural, ideological, and material changes in the period when the sacred traditions of the Hebrew Bible were created, transmitted, and transformed. Specialists in the textual study of the Hebrew and Greek Bibles, archaeology, Assyriology, and history, working across their fields of expertise, trace how changes occurred in biblical and ancient Near Eastern texts and traditions. Contributors Tero Alstola, Anneli Aejmelaeus , Rick Bonnie, Francis Borchardt, George J. Brooke, Cynthia Edenburg, Sebastian Fink, Izaak J. deHulster , Patrik Jansson, Jutta Jokiranta, Tuukka Kauhanen, Gina Konstantopoulos, Lauri Laine, Michael C. Legaspi, Christoph Levin, Ville Mäkipelto, Reinhard Müller, Martti Nissinen, Jessi Orpana, Juha Pakkala, Dalit Rom-Shiloni, Christian Seppänen, Jason M. Silverman, Saana Svärd, Timo Tekoniemi, Hanna Tervanotko, Joanna Töyräänvuori, and Miika Tucker demonstrate that rigorous yet respectful debate results in a nuanced and complex understanding of how ancient texts developed.

Captured here for the first time is the richness of the Charlemagne tradition in medieval Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Wales and Ireland and its coherence as a series of adaptations of Old French chansons de geste

Chaucerian scholarship has long been intrigued by the nature and consequences of Chaucer’s exposure to Italian culture during his professional visits to Italy in the 1370s. In this volume, leading scholars take a new and more holistic view of Chaucer’s engagement with Italian cultural practice, moving beyond the traditional ‘sources and analogues’ approach to reveal the varied strands of Italian literature, art, politics and intellectual life that permeate Chaucer’s work. Each chapter examines from different angles links between Chaucerian texts and Italian intellectual models, including poetics, chorography, visual art, classicism, diplomacy and prophecy. Echoes of Petrarch, Dante and Boccaccio reverberate throughout the book, across a rich and diverse landscape of Italian cultural legacies. Together, the chapters cover a wide range of theory and reference, while sharing a united understanding of the rich impact of Italian culture on Chaucer’s narrative art.