This book, consisting of three self-contained studies, deals with the Euripidean messenger-speech. The first study concerns the form of the messenger-speech, which is that of a first-person narrative, and the consequences of this form. The second study analyses the messenger's style of presentation. In the third study the place and function of the messenger-speech within the play is discussed.
Although scholars have dealt with the messenger-speech before, there is no single, up-to-date work of reference available. The present study aims at filling this void, while making use of analytical...

During the first six-seven centuries of the Islamic era there was a very lively exchange between Christian and Islamic thinking. It was a period when Christian theologians of various denominations had to find ways of expressing their traditional ideas in Arabic. In the process their thinking developed. The papers in this volume represent the wide range of this field, including detailed studies of such key writers as Abū Rā'itah, Yaḥyā b. 'Adī and Theodore Abū Qūrrah, as well as probably the earliest, anonymous, Christian apology in Arabic. The Islamic...

This is the first of three planned volumes which deal with the techniques and technology of agriculture in Europe in the period from 600 A.D. down to the 17th century. The focus of this first volume is Scandinavia, the British Isles, Northern Germany, the Low Countries and Northern France. The volume discusses methodological approaches and their limitations, the development of medieval agriculture in terms of the transmission of technological ideas, improvements in productivity, regional variations, social responses to agricultural technology, and those common trends that unite the Northwest...

This is the story of Paris from the Reformation to the Religious Wars. Through the works of Francois Le Picart, the most popular preacher from 1530-1556, the book delineates the increasing tensions sparked by Reformation ideas. Targeted by Calvin and Beza, Le Picart was considered the reason Paris remained in the Catholic fold. Exiled by Francis I for his incendiary preaching, he would later serve as a professor and lecturer coming into close contact with the first Jesuits. A fierce opponent of heresy, he helped compile the Articles of Faith, read heretical books, lectured on scripture, and...

The late Bob Scribner was one of the most original and provocative historians of the German Reformation. His truly pioneering spirit comes to light in this collection of his most recent essays.
In the years before his death, Scribner explored the role of the senses in late medieval devotional culture, and wondered how the Reformation changed sensual attitudes. Further essays examine the nature of popular culture and the way the Reformation was institutionalised, considering Anabaptist ideals of the community of goods, literacy and heterodoxy, and the dynamics of power as they unfold in a...

This study examines the emergence and early history of copyright in Venice and Rome, focusing in particular on the privilegio and the use made of it by printers, publishers, engravers, painters, architects, mapmakers, and others in the sixteenth century to protect their commercial interests in various types of printed images. These include separately sold engravings, woodcuts, and etchings, as well as illustrations in books. The first part of the book surveys printmaking and the privilegio in sixteenth-century Venice and Rome together with the related issues of licensing and...

This study examines one of the most unusual figures of the sixteenth century, Guillaume Postel, who believed that a female messiah had arrived on earth who would usher in a new age of political and religious harmony. He grounded this prophecy in the Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical tradition, and relied extensively on its use of gender symbolism. Postel has often been viewed as a marginal figure, whose unconventional views preclude comparison with his contemporaries. However, this study suggests that Postel used his prophecy to participate in two arenas: Reformation controversy and the...

This interdisciplinary study interprets the facade of Wells Cathedral as an integral part of thirteenth-century English Church liturgy and politics. Carolyn Malone posits that architectural motifs, as signs, complemented not only the facade's sculptural program of the Church Triumphant but also its use during liturgical processions. Interpreted as an ideological construct, the facade's design is related to theological change, liturgical innovation and political strategy, as well as to the conjuncture of several major historical and cultural events of the 1220s. As part of the Church's...