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...

Based primarily on Inquisition trial records from all parts of the Italian peninsula, this study vividly illustrates the broad diffusion of Erasmus's ideas in Italy. Silvana Seidel Menchi's protagonists are not the sophisticated intellectuals previously linked to the "prince of humanists," but rather the shoemakers and druggists, goldsmiths and carpenters, weavers and soldiers, notaries and schoolmasters, priests and friars, physicians and students whose reading of Erasmus's works and acceptance of his message both enriched and complicated their lives. Italian Erasmians, like all Italian...

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...

Clement Marot (1496-1544), a poet of distinction, is a unique witness to the effect of the Bible on French-speaking courts. He was admired by Francis I, protected by Margaret of Navarre, and by Renee, the French Duchess of Ferrara. His translations of the psalms came to dominate Huguenot worship, inspiring many imitators, not least in English. His commitment to Lutheran theology shines through his personal poetry--once his Scriptural allusions are recognised and interpreted. Clement Marot: A Renaissance Poet Discovers the Gospel is a fundamental expansion and recasting for an...

The third volume of Bucer's Correspondance covers the years from 1527 to 1529. In this period the reformer played an increasing part in Strasbourg, while his renown started growing abroad. In Strasbourg he was put in charge of the St. Thomas parish, located closer to the city center. Along with his colleagues he appealed relentlessly to the City Council for a stricter moral discipline, for struggle against anabaptism and celebration of the mass, which was suspended on February 20, 1529. Moreover he engaged in great activity in publishing five important biblical commentaries. Outside...

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 study examines expectations of imminent judgment that energized reform movements in Late Medieval and Reformation Europe. It probes the apocalyptic vision of the Lollards, followers of the Oxford professor John Wycliff (1384). The Lollards repudiated the medieval church and established conventicles despite officially sanctioned prosecution.
While exploring the full spectrum of late medieval apocalypticism, this work focuses on the diverse range of Wycliffite literature, political and religious treatises, sermons, biblical commentaries, including trial records, to reveal a dynamic...

This volume reveals the political, religious, theological, institutional, and mythical ideals that formed the self-identity of the Augustinian Order from Giles of Rome to the emergence of Martin Luther. Based on detailed philological analysis, this interdisciplinary study not only transforms the understanding of Augustine's heritage in the later Middle Ages, but also that of Luther's relationship to his Order. The work offers a new interpretative model of late medieval religious culture that sheds new light on the relationship between late medieval Passion devotion, the increasing...

This monograph demonstrates why humanism began in Italy in the mid-thirteenth century. It considers Petrarch a third generation humanist, who christianized a secular movement. The analysis traces the beginning of humanism in poetry and its gradual penetration of other Latin literary genres, and, through stylistic analyses of texts, the extent to which imitation of the ancients produced changes in cognition and visual perception. The volume traces the link between vernacular translations and the emergence of Florence as the leader of Latin humanism by 1400 and why, limited to an elite in the...

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...