A recipe of quintessence: Distilling wine and bread in late medieval alchemy

This article argues that the expansion of marine fishing in south‐western England from the late fourteenth century to the early sixteenth was part of the maritime sector's critical, but unappreciated, contribution to the rising prosperity of the region. Revenues from fishing represented a substantial supplement to the income of the fisher‐farmers who dominated the industry; promoted employment in ancillary industries such as fish curing; improved the seasonal distribution of maritime work; and stimulated capital investment in ships, nets, and other equipment because of the share system that characterized the division of profits within fishing enterprises. In offering what was probably the chief source of employment within the maritime sector, fishing also provided the ‘nursery of seamen’ so prized by the Tudor navy, and built the navigational experience that underpinned later voyages of exploration.

Reviewed by: The Jews and the Reformation by Kenneth Austin Thomas Kaufmann The Jews and the Reformation. By Kenneth Austin. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2020. 288 pages. $45.00 (cloth). This book is characterized by a remarkable achievement: it synthesizes solid research on the history of European Jewry from the late Middle Ages (fourteenth century) to the early modern period (late seventeenth century) into a concise, striking and easy-to-read overall presentation. In this respect, it is less a genuine research achievement than a compact and, in terms of the information available, impressive overview of the situation of Jews in the pre-modern era. The term "Reformation," chosen by the author, is problematic however because it is used to describe all of the conceivable religious changes and movements between the late Middle Ages and the advanced early modern period, as is common in Anglo-American research. With this approach, however, the term "Reformation" loses its traditional historiographical concision. The title of this important book is also problematic in that it suggests that it is about the Jewish people as such, when in fact, Kenneth Austin, Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of Bristol, describes how different European societies dealt with the Jews, rather than tracing a history of interactions or the Jews' [End Page 175] view of their surrounding societies. None of this changes the fact that this is a comprehensive and convincing book in its own right, particularly with regard to the question of how individual Christian denominations have acted with reference to the toleration of Jews. The book clearly moves beyond previous stereotypes. A detailed presentation of the book's content is appropriate. The very helpful timeline begins with the pogroms against the Jews in connection with the First Crusade in 1095 and ends with the Glorious Revolution of 1688. In his introduction, Austin emphasizes the National Socialist embrace of Martin Luther to justify the anti-Jewish policy of the Third Reich and points out that this horizon must be kept in mind. Luther's position is to be understood in the context of his time. In contrast to a very one-sided focus on the "Jewish Question" in Luther's writings, the author establishes a broader perspective. The typical narrative of the Reformation as a factor in modernization and the development of tolerance, which was particularly popular in the nineteenth century, does not apply to attitudes toward Jews. The book presents a diversity of opinions in each Christian denomination. Austin goes back to the beginnings of the process of detachment and alienation between Christians and Jews in the first century CE. Paul, John Chrysostom, Augustine, and the IV Lateran Council prove to be particularly prominent individuals and factors in the increasing conflict between the two groups. The differentiated picture of a partial Jewish inculturation was set in motion in the late Middle Ages by various "popular attitudes": the accusation of ritual murder, first encountered in England in 1144; the charge of host desecration, first encountered in Paris in 1290; the supposition since the second half of the thirteenth century that Jews, especially Jewish doctors, inflicted physical suffering on Christians or poisoned them, which led to the charge of their responsibility for the plague epidemic of 1348. The crucial developments for the predicament of the Jews in the late Middle Ages were as follows. A process of economic demonization of the Jews had already begun in the twelfth century. Images like the confrontation between (blind) Synagogue and (triumphant) Church, the Judensau, and even the first Passion Plays, [End Page 176] date from this period. Nevertheless, conflicts with deadly results for Jews were the exception during the late Middle Ages. The intensified efforts to promote the Hebrew language under the sign of humanism, which partly included Kabbalah, increased interest in Judaism, but did not per se promote greater tolerance toward Jews. Respect for Hebrew was much less pronounced than for Greek and Latin, as Austin demonstrates through a number of authors, especially Erasmus. In the second half of the fifteenth century, the expulsion of Jews from various European countries increased. Austin estimates that the total number of Jews in Europe around 1500 was 500...

This essay takes a critical view of conventionally subdividing the span between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries into periods. It queries terms like ‘Middle Ages’, ‘late Middle Ages’, ‘Renaissance’, ‘Reformation’, ‘pre-modern’, ‘early modern’, and ‘modern period.’ These macro-historical constructs are misleading, it argues, for they create the illusion of European history as a succession of relatively uniform eras separated by clear breaks, revealing a purposeful, linear ‘development’ connecting medieval premodernity with Enlightenment modernity. It is sensible to contrast the Reformation with the previous Church, theology, and piety. However, it is illadvised to interpret this religious ‘system break’ as a change of eras beyond question. The Reformation sustained a pre-existing momentum of change, but also left much culture unaltered. Accordingly, it was neither medieval nor early modern, nor an independent period sandwiched between medieval and modern periods. Instead, it was a far-reaching reconfiguration of parts of the Western Church between 1520 and 1560 that was both deeply rooted in the past and pointing to the future.

This article explores the diversity of the European idea of peace in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. In the late Middle Ages, a literary genre of “peace writings” emerged. Despite the ubiquitous academic interest in peace, however, late medieval scholastic conceptions of peace have hitherto escaped serious scholarly investigation. Drawing on Johan Galtung's classic typology of the idea of peace, this essay offers an examination of the discussions of Thomas Aquinas, Remigio de’ Girolami, and Dante on peace, which not only illustrates the diversity of late medieval visions of peace but also argues that late medieval thinkers shared the recognition that temporal peace was possible: a significant departure from the Christian skepticism of this-worldly peace.

First, this chapter explores political violence in the late Middle Ages and the early modern era. Even though the term terrorism did not exist before the French Revolution, political phenomena that closely resembled various forms of modern-day terrorism have been known and feared since the fourteenth century. The late Middle Ages and the early modern period witnessed the assassinations of numerous princes. The authorities as well as the populace feared organized gangs of criminals in the pay of rival political or religious leaders. These gangs were said to attack the civilian population using arson and mass poisoning in order to destabilize whole states. The fear of the terrorist “state destroyer” was part and parcel of state building from its very beginning. Secondly, the chapter discusses nineteenth-century historiography about early modern political violence. Nineteenth-century historians refused to interpret early modern political crime as terrorism: they either denounced it as lacking any political concept or vindicated it as justifiable resistance.

IN CONNECTION WITH the recent interest in the early modern cult image within the discipline of art history there have been considerable debates and confusion on how to treat the image, which was, o...

This paper examines the discussions of ‘magical’ cures found in thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century English pastoral manuals (texts designed to teach the clergy how to preach and hear confessions). It discusses these writers' attitudes to spoken and written charms and non-verbal amulets, and compares them with a selection of charms and amulets found in contemporary medical texts. The paper discusses the reasons why authors of pastoral manuals condemned certain kinds of cure as ‘magical’, and argues that they were more concerned about cures that involved words than about non-verbal amulets. It also argues that a significant number, although not all, of the charms described in thirteenth-century medical texts would have been acceptable to many authors of pastoral manuals.

Sweden, Inc.: Temporal Sovereignty of the Realm and People from the Middle Ages to Modernity

Reviewed by: Wirtschaftsgeschichte der mittelalterlichen Juden: Fragen und Einschätzungen Dean Phillip Bell Wirtschaftsgeschichte der mittelalterlichen Juden: Fragen und Einschätzungen, edited by Michael Toch. Schriften des Historischen Kollegs, Kolloquien 71. Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 2008. 218 + ix pp. €49.80. This volume seeks to reevaluate the economic history of medieval Jews by integrating general economic history and Jewish history, with particular attention to the Hebrew sources often ignored in this context. Noting that the economic history of the Jews has served in polemical and apologetic capacities in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Michael Toch argues that the economic history of the Jews also has a broader historical relevance. The current volume consists of papers given at a 2005 academic conference on the theme related to the editor's research fellowship at the Historisches Kolleg. The volume includes eleven essays—eight in English and three in German—by accomplished European, Israeli, and American scholars. Although the essays vary in length and scope, they are all of good quality, often provocative, and in some cases paradigm shifting. Several essays provide important re-evaluations of issues related to Jews and moneylending. Giacomo Todeschini reassesses the medieval understanding of usury, and Hans-Georg von Mutius reconsiders rabbinic statements from the Talmudic period and Late Antiquity in order to understand medieval Jewish discussions regarding the treatment of non-Jews, particularly in regard to the taking of interest. Joseph Shatzmiller examines the legal discussions regarding the pawning of Christian religious articles to Jews. Annegret Holtman assesses two intriguing private account books from Vesoul, in the County of Burgundy, comparing Jewish and Christian sources on medieval bookkeeping and detailing the focus and scope of Jewish moneylending. [End Page 169] The economic involvement of Jews in certain regions also receives attention in this volume. David Jacoby, for example, examines the activities of Jews in the late Byzantine economy, giving attention to the production, marketing, and consumption of specific commodities among the Jews, which depended upon specific local and religious customs and regulations. He identifies overlapping economic networks that were both internal to Jewish communities and that required close cooperation with non-Jews. David Abulafia explores Jewish economic activity in Sicily and Southern Italy in the early and late Middle Ages, utilizing geniza fragments as well as notarial documents. Reinhold C. Mueller examines the status and economic role of the Jews in the Venetian territories at the end of the Middle Ages, with particular attention to the legal and political relationships between Venice and these Jews. Other areas of Jewish economic activity are also presented. Markus J. Wenninger reviews Jewish involvement in such official capacities as collection of customs duties and minting. He notes the increasing participation of Jews in some areas, and provides examples of several important Jewish figures and families in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. Some essays also examine various social implications of medieval Jewish economic involvement. Rainer Barzen, for example, examines Jewish poor relief in Germany in the high and later Middle Ages, utilizing a rich range of rabbinic and communal sources. Like other contributors, Barzen discusses the general scope of such poor relief, frequently and productively in a comparative vein with Christian developments. He also analyzes more institutionalized communal activity in the later Middle Ages, such as the Jewish hospital. Martha Keil evaluates the important, but little discussed issue of the social and economic mobility of Jewish women in the Middle Ages, revealing significant economic involvement of women, which she illustrates with several fascinating examples of individual Jewish women from throughout the fifteenth century. Her contribution, like many other essays, raises important questions about Jewish and Christian relations. The central essay of the volume is the lengthy and important contribution of Michael Toch. His "Economic Activities of German Jews in the Middle Ages" is a carefully crafted and engaging article that provides extensive material and meticulous attention to the historical sources and the historiography itself, often offering important corrective readings and interpretations and drawing from a remarkable range of primary and secondary sources. Toch begins by reviewing Jewish trade in the tenth and eleventh centuries, clarifying the nature and focus of this trade. He finds Jewish involvement in trade to be...

The Concept of "Early Modern" Mitchell Greenberg (bio) The editors of this journal have posed a series of questions the answers to which would hopefully offer a more comprehensive understanding of what we mean by that catch-all concept, the "early modern." Given the very fact that the questions asked are so varied both temporally and conceptually, hopefully I will be forgiven for couching my own thinking in terms that are both general and personal. Although it would be intellectually more satisfying to be able to pin down so broad a concept as the "early modern," I am afraid that my own inability to do so cogently is directly tied to what I perceive to be the defining mark of the concept, its inherent ambiguity. To my mind, the concept of the "early modern" is elusive in a temporal sense (where do we situate it historically—beginning in the sixteenth century and extending up to the French Revolution of 1789, or is it more limited in time, say from the mid-sixteenth to the late-seventeenth centuries?) And is it not a concept whose temporal limits can shift depending on its geo-political location? (Elizabethan England, Neo-Classical, i.e., mid-seventeenth century, France, or "baroque" Rome, Madrid [Mexico City!], or Vienna?) Are the different socio-cultural productions across Europe part of the same phenomenon? What of the differences in religious expression and persecutions, scientific discoveries, extra-European exploration, exploitation, and colonization? It would appear at first hand that any over-riding conceptual framework is intellectually risky especially when we are faced with the often contradictory academic disagreements between historians, literary scholars, philosophers, sociologists, theologians, anthropologists, and many others whose differences about any single definition of the concept are varied and heated. Unable to find any one definition that would embrace so large a socio-cultural phenomenon, I rely on what appears to me to be a common thread [End Page 75] among all these varied phenomena and that thread is double. Although almost any historical period may be described as inherently traumatic, I find that the period between 1550 and 1700 is marked by both a generalized European fear that chaos is about to descend upon the world and a desire for some force, some leader who would be able to waylay that chaos, establish order and put things that seem askew, aright. We hear echoes of this fear resounding across the European continent from England to Poland, from Paris to Naples in what historians have called the "crisis of the Seventeenth Century" (Trevor-Roper). So, for starters I would start by circumscribing the concept of the "early modern" as a generalized crisis of European civilization and the various responses, political, social, and aesthetic that arose in a limited historical period (1550 to 1700) as an attempt to deal with this crisis, and in so doing ushered in new ways of configuring the place of the human subject in a radically changing symbolic system—a system that eventuates in reformulating those parameters of subjectivity that we now define as our own. It would appear that when we talk about the "early modern" for however extended or narrow our definition of it may be, it is the seventeenth century that figures as the pivotal, transitional moment where those systems of representation that had dominated, that had coalesced into a "master narrative" that had defined the period from the late Middle Ages up to and through the Renaissance, were gradually being transformed into what was to emerge in the eighteenth century as a new configuration of subjectivity that would be the mark of the "modern." In his seminal early study Les Mots et les Choses, Michel Foucault argued for seeing the seventeenth century as a liminal period separating and joining one representation of the configurations of human subjectivity—the analogical—that, he claims, was the principal episteme up to and through the Renaissance, to the "transparency of Classical representation," which established its firm hold on the West in the eighteenth century. The seventeenth century would figure the moment of passage between these two epistemes, participating in both, seeing (but not, of course, in any clearly articulable fashion) the gradual, inexorable disappearance...

362 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE finding good managers among their engineering staffs. Although most indicated that it is useful for managers of technical enterprises to know something about technology (ifonly to be able to communi­ cate with their technical people), none of them thought a technical background alone was good preparation for management. Many in­ terviewees, moreover, believed that engineers often were too con­ cerned with technical excellence, with adding what one manager called “bells and whistles,” to be really effective managers. Peter Meiksins Dr. Meiksins is associate professor and chair of sociology at Cleveland State Uni­ versity. He is the author, with Chris Smith, of Engineering Labour: Technical Workers in ComparativePerspective (London: Verso, 1996). His current research concerns parttime work among technical professionals. Infantry Warfare in the Early Fourteenth Century: Discipline, Tactics, and Technology. By Kelly DeVries. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 1996. Pp. 216; figures, notes, bibliography, index. $63.00 (cloth). The periodization of history is at best a tricky business and often results more in the creation of myth than in bringing understanding to the past. One great and long-enduring myth is that medieval war­ fare was dominated by feudal knights engaged in mounted shock combat. This notion has been particularly resistant to demythologizing because it has the great circular value of helping to sustain the periodization of Western civilization. Thus, it is commonly believed that in military terms the ancient world was dominated by the infan­ try phalanx (best exemplified in the Roman legion), the Middle Ages by the feudal knight on horseback, and the early modern era by mixed arms in which gunpowder was queen. Despite the widely held beliefamong medievalists that warfare was dominated by knights on horseback, a misconception inextricably intertwined with the study of “chivalry,” specialists in medieval mili­ tary history have long known that this was romantic nonsense. In­ deed, even scholars who helped create the knightly myth fully under­ stood that medieval military action was dominated by siege warfare in which the man on horseback, much less mounted shock combat, had a small role at best. Since World War II, however, specialists in medieval military history have done much to put the knight in his proper place, namely, on foot. Kelly DeVries, whose important MedievalMilitary Technology (Peter­ borough, Ont.: Broadview Press, 1992) gave palpable form to a new field, has now with Infantry Warfare delivered a hammer blow to the romantics (the fall of the Soviet Union apparently has taken care of the Marxists) who continue to believe in the military supremacy of TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 363 feudal-knightly cavalry on the battlefields of medieval Europe. In an exhaustive if somewhat repetitive examination of nineteen battles fought throughout Western Europe during the first half of the four­ teenth century, DeVries shows that forces fighting on foot in pre­ pared positions, even when greatly outnumbered, could not be bro­ ken, much less defeated, by the repeated charges of Europe’s best mounted troops. The evidence has been fully compiled and systematically exam­ ined. These nineteen battles represent all the battles concerning which there is sufficient evidence to render an opinion regarding tactics for this period. Scholars can now come to know the material and no longer must second guess on this matter. Surely, some spe­ cialists will quibble with DeVries’s interpretation on minor points such as the effectiveness ofarchery. Putatively major points will likely still be disputed. For example, should the campaign highlighted by the battle of Crecy be considered a war or a raid? From another venue, the self-styled postmodern literary gurus, if they deign to rec­ ognize military history, may find the entire historical enterprise of trying to figure out what happened on the battlefield a mere politi­ cally tainted construction of reality. Elowever, this French disease likely will pass before it does too much further damage to traditional history. I have a list of my own quibbles but space to discuss only one. DeVries seems to take at face value the observation by Geoffrey le Baker, writing about the mid-fourteenth century, that the English horsemen at Halidon Hill (1333) who dismounted to fight beside the foot soldiers were acting “against the ancient...

The article considers felt clothing, widely used by the Russian population during the Middle Ages and early Modern times. The data of written sources of the XV-XVII centuries are analyzed – scribal descriptions and assembly material, including documents of the patrimony of monasteries and secular landowners. The data of the archeology of an earlier period are involved. In written sources there is information about woolworkers, felters, half–timbers and epaulettes - artisans who specialized in the production of felt products. Among them, the clothing manufacturers were epanechniki. Evidence is given that in the XVI-XVII centuries. The epancha was felt clothing. It was a cape with a rounded neckline, without sleeves. There are archaeological finds of the Old Russian period corresponding to this form of clothing. This form of clothing existed from the early Middle Ages to Modern times. Written sources of the late XV – XVII centuries reflect the spread of the craft of making felt and epanches. There is a development of specialization in the manufacture of felt products in the western part of the Upper Volga and Upper Podvinye during the late Middle Ages and early Modern times - in the cities of Staritsa, Toropets and the village of Knyazh Vladimirovo Gorodishche - the former patrimony center of the Princes Mikulinsky. For the production of felt, local raw materials were used – products of universally developed sheep breeding. At the end of the XV – XVII century in the structure of a large patrimonial economy, the volume of income from wool allowed the production of felt products from raw materials collected in different parts of the patrimony.

New Books across the Disciplines

REVIEWS that women lack rhetorical ability. Further, she like Puttenham defines covertness and dissemblance as politic strengths as well as feminine spheres of operation. Private, coterie circulation thus came to be privileged as ‘‘not the opposite of public circulation, but rather a strategy that anticipated and even promoted such circulation’’ (p. 188). Yet Elizabeth ’s writing lost favor in later centuries, aligning her with other women writers whose perpetual fading away and recovery marks the boundaries of tradition and enhances the luster of its central figures. Lost Property is an admirable project in several respects. It moves across the unfortunate gaps that specializations have constructed between the medieval and early modern periods, between history and literature , and between intellectual and material culture. Its chronological and disciplinary capaciousness are impressive. The arguments are clearly in view throughout, and specific texts by women writers receive valuable close readings. Specialists may object to an occasional claim—for example , that English literature before Chaucer was ‘‘prenational’’ (p. 6)— but the book as a whole demonstrates for specialists in all the fields it touches that undertaking an inclusive account of women’s writing over three centuries can yield substantial rewards. Susan Crane Rutgers University D. A. Trotter, ed. Multilingualism in Later Medieval Britain. Cambridge : D. S. Brewer, 2000. Pp. x, 237. $63.00. Though its main audience will be historical linguists and sociolinguists specializing in medieval English, this excellent collection of essays is essential reading for Chaucerians and for anyone else who wishes to understand the diverse linguistic and literary culture of later medieval England. The volume consists of thirteen papers out of the twenty that were given at an international colloquium at the University of WalesAberystwyth in September 1997. The picture of a multilingual society that emerges is new and exciting. Not entirely new, of course, for students of medieval English literature have long been familiar with ample evidence testifying to the interpenetration of English, French, and Latin in later medieval English literary texts. Macaronic literary texts are dis435 ................. 9680$$ CH16 11-01-10 12:37:33 PS STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER cussed in some detail in only one of the essays in the volume (that of Herbert Schendl), but the collection as a whole contains much that is relevant for students of medieval English literature, macaronic and otherwise . The essays are without exception up-to-date and in some cases also highly innovative in their approach to the major languages of late medieval Britain. Taken together, they demonstrate in illuminating detail how Latin, French, English, and Welsh were used for various liturgical , governmental, legal, literary, and everyday purposes. The volume contains the following essays: Llino Beverly Smith, ‘‘The Welsh and English Languages in Late-Medieval Wales’’; Begoña Crespo, ‘‘Historical Background of Multilingualism and Its Impact on English’’; Andres M. Kristol, ‘‘L’Intellectuel ‘anglo-normand’ face à la pluralité des langues: le témoignage implicite du MS Oxford, Magdalen Lat. 188’’; Michael Richter, ‘‘Collecting Miracles Along the AngloWelsh Border in the Early Fourteenth Century’’; Paul Brand, ‘‘The Languages of the Law in Later Medieval England’’; Herbert Schendl, ‘‘Linguistic Aspects of Code-Switching in Medieval English Texts’’; Luis Iglesias-Rábade, ‘‘French Phrasal Power in Late Middle English: Some Evidence Concerning the Verb nime(n)/take(n)’’; Tony Hunt, ‘‘Code-Switching in Medical Texts’’; Laura Wright, ‘‘Bills, Accounts, Inventories: Everyday Trilingual Activities in the Business World of Later Medieval England’’; Frankwalt Möhren, ‘‘Onefold Lexicography for a Manifold Problem?’’; Edmund Weiner, ‘‘Medieval Multiculturalism and the Revision of the OED’’; Lisa Jefferson, ‘‘The Language and Vocabulary of the Fourteenth- and Early Fifteenth-Century Records of the Goldsmiths’ Company’’; and William Rothwell, ‘‘Aspects of Lexical and Morphosyntactical Mixing in the Languages of Medieval England .’’ A brief account of four representative essays in the volume follows. Herbert Schendl’s ‘‘Linguistic Aspects of Code-Switching in Medieval English Texts’’ is one of the two articles in the collection that deals with literary texts (see also Rothwell, below). Schendl’s discussion of macaronic poetry (lyrics, Piers Plowman, and drama) and macaronic sermons addresses questions such as the difference between ‘‘code switching ’’ (CS) and borrowing. He analyzes evidence for possible constraints on switches, and he presents a chart...

At the centre of the debate on pre‐industrial economic growth is the study of market integration, a topic that has increasingly been the focus of intense scientific interest in recent decades. However, this has remained limited to the early modern and modern periods, mainly due to the availability of relevant data. New grain price series have been constructed for several Flemish cities dating back to the early fourteenth century. As one of the most populated regions in the late Middle Ages, the case of Flanders shows that the extraordinary sequence of price shocks in the mid‐fourteenth century had a positive impact on the degree of price integration in the grain market. The Flemish grain market functioned better in times of crisis, but caused prices to rise steadily across the entire integrated system during the prolonged crisis period. Whereas many studies have labelled the late Middle Ages – particularly the fifteenth century – as an age of economic contraction with more isolated trade networks, this study shows that Flanders remained a highly economically integrated region.