Medieval Theory Research Articles

Is Oration Literature?

Abstract Is oration literature? More specifically, can we read the multi-functional Arabic oration (khuṭbah) of the 1st/7th and 2nd/8th centuries as part of the classical prose canon? In this article, I argue that if our definition of literature includes beautiful language, admiration expressed by literary theorists, and masterful articulation of themes to evoke audience response, early Arabic oration is most certainly literature. I demonstrate this claim by analyzing the rhythmic and graphic oral aesthetics of early Arabic oration, the views of medieval theorists regarding its distinguished place and literary nature, and its crucial influence on the development of the chancery epistle (risālah), the first written genre of Arabic literary prose. I contend that khuṭbah is the foundational prose genre of Arabic and it has materially influenced the major genres of risālah and maqāmāt that followed. The history of Arabic literature cannot be written without oration.

The return of the king’s two bodies: liberal arguments for the moderating powers of monarchy in post-revolutionary France and Portugal*

ABSTRACT Arguments analogous to those found in the late medieval theory of the king’s two bodies, popularized by Ernst Kantorowicz, were resurrected in early nineteenth-century constitutional theories of the moderating powers of monarchy. Post-revolutionary French liberal thought, echoed by its Portuguese counterpart, rediscovered the virtues of the institution of royalty, notably the immaterial and immortal body of the king. This rediscovery was prompted by the uncertainties of different national political contexts which made many contemporaries believe it desirable to integrate restored monarchies within modern constitutional models for state stability. This first occurred with the Bourbons’ return to post-Napoleonic France and the restoration of the monarchy in 1814, and then with the Braganza royal family’s return to Portugal in 1821 after thirteen years of rule from Brazil. Using arguments similar to those previously made in late medieval European political and legal thought, French and Portuguese liberals developed a theory of the king’s two powers, according to which the monarch at once exercised a moderating power, defined by the abstract institutional nature of the king’s person, and an executive power, embodied within his physical person. This conceptualization of royal duality was intended to make it possible to delegate executive power to ministers, leaving the king only the attributes of a largely symbolic power. Liberals thereby hoped to confine the monarch to his purely institutional body in a de-politicized constitutional role.

The music theory booklet Balliol 173A, fols. 74r–81v: scribal organisation of an early medieval theory miscellany

AbstractUsing evidence of the quality of vellum, fascicle structure, scribal hands and illustrations, this article argues that the first fascicle of the music portion of Oxford, Balliol College, 173A (fols. 74–81) is a self-standing booklet, perhaps created to teach a scribe the basics of music theory and how to arrange text while leaving space for illustrations or examples. A new fascicle structure of the gathering is proposed that accounts for a previously unrecognised missing folio. An analysis of the contents of the gathering demonstrates that the theory booklet is a compilatio, with portions of the Musica disciplina (or it sources) acting as a frame to start and end the booklet, with other works (Pseudo-Jerome, Isidore of Seville and Cassiodorus) inserted in between. The final folios are completed with a number of small tractatuli, including the brief dialogue Diapason quid est? The contents of both the booklet and the entire music codex are closely paralleled in one of the smaller manuscripts collected into Oxford, St John's College 188 and also Cambridge, Trinity College R.15.22. While it will be ever easier to study digital images of manuscripts and to create critical editions of well-defined texts, this article argues for the continuing importance of codicological study of manuscripts in situ to coordinate the placements of texts within the structure of codices.

The union of virtues, wise king and idea of political community in policraticus by John of Salisbury

In the article, based on the analysis of the treatise Policraticus, on the Frivolities of Courtiers and the Footprints of Philosophers (1159), the author explores the social and political ideas of the prominent English intellectual, diplomat and writer John of Salisbury (1115/1120–1180), and above all the arguments about the virtuous sovereign, his power, duties and functions, as well as society (“healthy” and “ill”), considered in the context of the medieval theory of the “body politic”. The author studies the key ideas of the thinker, including the “middle way” that a pious ruler should follow, avoiding extremes in actions and judgements, and also finds out John’s interpretation of law and justice as regulators of life.

Hrotsvit of Gandersheim and Philosophy

Hrotsvit of Gandersheim sees music and arithmetic as parts of philosophy. Presenting the motives for engaging in literary creativity and describing her writing process, she says that by glorifying God with her work, she incorporated threads and pieces of the ancient mantle of philosophy into it. The paper aims to provide insight into Hrotsvit’s knowledge of philosophy and the specificities and significance of her approach to the contents of the disciplines of arithmetic and music (in particular to musica humana and the harmony of a world) in her plays Paphnutius and Sapientia, to analyze different elements of her authorial self-perception and to emphasize the similarities between her and Augustine’s understanding of music, and the role of certain types of writing. The paper concludes that Hrotsvit incorporated her knowledge and understanding of ancient and medieval theories of music and numbers into her plays uniquely, showing originality in their interpretation and merging them with everyday moral life and education. In this way, the rarely treated philosophical elements of her oeuvre are presented and evaluated.

Comparing Carefully

Abstract A contribution to the Common Knowledge symposium “Caroline Walker Bynum across the Disciplines,” this essay explores the side of Bynum's scholarly personality that may be regarded as comparativist. She is interested in comparison with regard to periods of time, with regard to ritual and gender-based religious practices in the Christian West, and with respect to similarities that might be claimed between elements of Christian and non-Christian cultures. Her thoughts about morphology, materiality, and gender extend beyond medieval Europe to the world at large. Her coedited volume Gender and Religion (1986), the first of its kind, has figured importantly in the development of the field many call comparative religion. Here Bynum's impact on selected scholars of Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh religion — as well as of non-Western Christianity — is assessed. This essay concludes with the text of a response delivered by the author, who is a scholar of Hinduism, to Bynum's Lionel Trilling Lecture at Columbia University, “Am I My Body? Medieval Theories of Bodily Resurrection and Some Modern Implications” (1991).

Charles S. Peirce and the Origins of Vagueness

Abstract: My aim in this essay is to shed light on the origins of Peircean vagueness. The intention is therefore primarily historical-philological, exploring the logical-semiotic roots of vagueness. First, I distinguish the two senses in which Peirce treats the notion of vagueness: one referring to the subject, the other to the predicate within a proposition, specifying that I am only concerned here with the first sense of vagueness. Second, I argue that Brock and Chauviré, while attempting to unravel the origins of Peircean vagueness through the notion of the individuum vagum , fail to fully resolve the problem. Third, I expound the medieval theory of suppositio , which concerns the denotation and quantification of the propositional subject. This medieval logical theory aimed to clarify the meaning of indefinite and indeterminate propositions. Fourth, I present textual evidence in which Peirce demonstrates his thorough knowledge of the medieval theory of suppositio , Peter of Spain's theory in particular. In the same section, I highlight a neglected detail within R 530, in which Peirce directly refers to the origins of the notion of vagueness. Finally, I argue that once the quantifiers (existential and universal) were discovered and formalized, Peirce gradually lost interest in the theory of suppositio as a useful tool for clarifying vague (indefinite) and general (indeterminate) propositions, since he had a better logical tool at his disposal.

ALCHEMICAL SYMBOLISM OF THE NOVELLA “THE GOLDEN POT: A MODERN FAIRY TALE” BY E. T. A. HOFFMANN

The aim of this study is to analyse the symbolism of E.T.A. Hoffman’s novella “The Golden Pot” within the framework of the alchemical discourse. The researchers employed historical-genetic, structural-semantic methods and the method of motivic analysis to explore the elements of medieval alchemical symbolism in the novella, namely: the motif of the hero’s initiation and his subsequent spiritual transformation, the symbols of snake, elemental spirits (salamander and dragon), manuscripts, blood, apples, garden, four elements, palm and cypress, as well as the symbolism of colour – red, black, white, gold and bronze. Results of the research suggest that the medieval theory of alchemy corresponded to the image of achieving creative harmony and spiritual transformation in German Romanticism.

The Musical Devil Revisited

Abstract This article argues that modern examples of the Devil as a player of plucked and bowed stringed instruments extend early medieval representations of the Devil’s music as a powerfully persuasive force that can be used to draw souls toward Satan and, conversely, to defend against his musical machinations. By examining Homily X of the Vercelli Book (c. tenth century) in relation to early medieval music theory, the legend of St. Dunstan, and modern examples of the fiddle-playing Devil, this article demonstrates that the musical Devil and his opponents show every sign of sustaining the motif’s power into the future.

The “Voice of the Clerical Satirist”: Revisiting Pearsall’s Reading of The Merchant’s Tale

ABSTRACT This article revisits and affirms Derek Pearsall’s reading of Chaucer’s Merchant’s Tale, elaborating it with reference to the medieval theory of satire, ecclesiastical literature relating to the sacrament of marriage, analogues of the pear tree escapade from the novella tradition, and David Lawton’s research on “voice.” The idea of a single, all-encompassing narrative voice is challenged. Pearsall’s assertion that we do not need the Merchant to understand the tale, because its voice is “fully established from within,” gives rise to the question of whether there is any need to assign it to a singular voice. The contemptuous references to “secular estate” by a teller who is supposedly a merchant drives the speculation that Chaucer may originally have intended the story for a member of some religious order—a friar or monk perhaps. However, the risk of a cacophony of different voices is averted by the ultimate dominance of mercantile discourse. Whatever the poet’s original intention may have been (the Canterbury Tales being a work in progress), it has convincingly grown into a merchant’s tale, wherein supposedly noble characters speak and act in ways inappropriate to their high estate, and the values of commerce gain priority.

Magic and Metamodernism

Magic and Metamodernism

Optics and Visio Dei: Interpretations of Female Mystic Art

Religious visions are personal experiences in which individuals have a sensory experience that is in some way supernatural or divine. In the context of medieval Christianity, true visionaries were understood to have received revelations directly from God, without mediation from priests. In the tradition of the medieval Church and society, women were relegated to a subordinate role; thus, when the mystic who experienced a vision from God was a woman, the situation required careful interpretation, for in bypassing the intermediary authority of the priest, the woman was potentially subverting a hierarchy which itself was considered to have been established by God. This paper will analyze one of the most important medieval mystics, Hildegard von Bingen (1098–1179), and examine her writings and her images produced in Scivias. It is hypothesized that the medieval ideas of optics and biblical exegesis worked in harmony to structure Hildegard’s experiences and to legitimize those experiences to others at the time. In this paper, key images created by Hildegard were analyzed to interpret the descriptions of her experiences and their rendering in visual form in relation to the medieval theories of vision and theology itself.

Different and Familiar: Les enfances Renier and the Question of Medieval Orientalism

Abstract Some medievalists use “medieval Orientalism” to address critiques of Edward Said's engagement with the Middle Ages in Orientalism. However, the author of this article argues that “medieval Orientalism” entrenches a divide between the Middle Ages and other time periods, which sequesters medieval objects of study from contributing to the ongoing theorization of critical frameworks. The article analyzes a thirteenth-century Old French text, Les enfances Renier, to demonstrate how a medieval text depicts ambivalence in the face of alterity, a hallmark of recent post-Saidian engagement with Orientalism. The author argues that the nuances and complexities of medieval representations of interfaith encounter contribute to theories of Orientalism.

Sirènes at autres ondines : représentations médiévales des figures aquatiques scandinaves

"Mermaids and Other Undines: Medieval Representations of Scandinavian Aquatic Figures. Without claiming to be exhaustive, this article compares the different aquatic figures of Scandinavian imagination, and the representations relating to Scandinavia, taking into account their cosmic aspect. This paper highlights the close connection of these creatures with time, weather and music, and the evolution of the representation of sea creatures that embody geography and climate, real or fantasized. These representations evolve, especially because of the important Christianization process that they undergo. With Christianization, these sea creatures tend towards demonization, and they’re influenced by Occidental representations, especially with those of the sirens of the Nibelungenlied. Scandinavian aquatic figures represent different dangers according to the type of water in which they live: salty, soft or marshy. According to their gender, the marine creatures which embody different risks are put in perspective in a comparative approach that links the Eddas and the stories reported by Xavier Marmier, especially Danish and Swedish. Thanks to the privileged bond these figures, emerging from the Edda, sagas and ballads, maintain with speech and music, their evolutions and their representations survive in the collective imagination related to Scandinavia. Keywords: Middle Age, Scandinavian literature, hybrid representations, mermaid, imaginary of the sea."

‘What life is there, what pleasure without golden Aphrodite?’ The pragmatics of courtly love

This article focuses on two major works: A. Veselovsky’s From the history of personality: The woman and medieval theories of love [Iz istorii lichnosti: zhenshchina i starinnye teorii lyubvi] and C. S. Lewis’s The Allegory of Love, a study of courtly love. Their comparative analysis offers a compelling vision of the pragmatics of courtly love, sheds light on its origins, and emphasises its immense influence on world literature. By examining the sources and characteristics of courtly love, the article sets out to describe its evolution in later periods — in works by Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarch, and then Shakespeare, whose Troilus and Cressida seems to mark the ultimate demise of the tradition. Questioning the latter suggestion, the author attempts to establish whether the rules of courtly love still hold sway in our daily life. Tracing the vestiges of the tradition, the author hypothesises that the relationship between man and woman as we know it is determined by the same old courtesy.

Deliberation and Rival Accounts of Free Choice in Medieval Philosophy

Abstract Later medieval theories of free choice differ fundamentally as to the importance they assign to deliberation. Some thinkers hold that the will's choices necessarily agree with the intellect's judgment, obtained by deliberation, of what is most worth choosing in a particular circumstance. They thus think that deliberation provides the object of choice. In addition, they take the control that is essential to free choice to be rooted in deliberation. Others object that deliberation cannot ground free choice since it is itself not originally in our control. They think that one can choose differently from what appears most choiceworthy upon deliberation, and so they deny that the object of choice is exclusively given by deliberation. This paper considers theories of the role of deliberation in free choice held by prominent thirteenth and early fourteenth-century thinkers. It will be shown that there are significant theoretical difficulties on both sides.

“No Change for Relatives”: The Strategy of Initial Presence

Abstract In the Physics, Aristotle says that there is no change associated with the category of relatives. In this paper, I examine a widespread but neglected strategy that medieval thinkers use to understand Aristotle’s claim. According to this strategy, which I label initial presence, if there is no change in the category of relatives, it is because the relation-properties are already present in their subject as soon as the properties on which relation-properties are founded exist. Appreciating the importance of this strategy is crucial not only for understanding medieval theories of relation but also for assessing the credibility of arguments used in the secondary literature to interpret medieval texts, in particular a well-known passage from Thomas Aquinas’s commentary on the Physics.

The Bee and Its Honey

This paper discusses the book of Richard Cross, Communicatio idiomatum: Reformation Christological Debates (Oxford University Press 2019). It basically agrees with Cross's view that Martin Luther develops a new variant of the medieval theory of suppositional union in his Christology. The paper argues that the view put forward by Cross has consequences for the soteriological role of human body. While “Christ present in faith” is a corporeal and supernatural gift, it may not be an instance of deification in the sense that human beings could sustain divine properties. Another issue concerns the sense in which Christ can be called a human “person” in Cross's view. As Christ carries a specific instance of human nature which in turn carries a particular instance of corporeality, one could claim that Christ as human being has a particular personalitas. This view resembles the trajectory of “patristic philosophy,” as recently argued by Johannes Zachhuber.

Introducing in China the Aristotelian Category of Quantity: From the Coimbra Commentary on the Dialectics (1606) to the Chinese Mingli tan (1636-­1639)

Second Scholasticism greatly developed the medieval theory of continuous quantity as the Aristotelian notion for thematizing spatial extension, paving the way for the idea of space as extension in early modern natural philosophy. The article analyzes the section related to the category of continuous quantity in the Coimbra commentary on the Dialectics (1606), showing that it is indebted to the novel theory of Francisco Suárez on quantity as bestowing extension to a body in a particular sense, something which had been overlooked by previous research. The scholarly debate on quantity was brought to China, and here the Chinese translation is examined of the section on quantity in the fourth volume of the Mingli Tan, published in China in 1636-­1639.

Berlin: “Medieval Theories of the Intellect”

Berlin: “Medieval Theories of the Intellect”