Medieval Scholars Research Articles

Preface

Preface Alan Lupack and Barbara Tepa Lupack Kevin J. Harty has a long and distinguished record of highly respected publications in a number of areas. His books on business writing have long been standard texts in the field; his Strategies for Business and Technical Writing, first published in 1980, is still (many editions later) widely used today. But his expertise is multi-faceted, and it is in literary and film studies that he has made his most significant contributions. His essays on Chaucer and on adaptations of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales after the Middle Ages are of great scholarly interest and importance, as are his essays on the Chester Mystery Cycle. Kevin's 1993 Casebook on that cycle remains a seminal text for those interested in medieval drama. Given his extensive knowledge of the history of drama, it is not surprising that he was the obvious choice to be the literary advisor to Films for the Humanities, a well-known and widely distributed resource, when they created their series on The History of World Drama. But it is his work in another field—Arthurian Studies—that is unparalleled. In 1991, when Kevin edited a collection of essays on films based on the Arthurian legends, he was a true pioneer. It was almost unheard of to consider these films as a group with interconnections and with significant cultural insights to offer, but he recognized what scores of medieval scholars and film historians had failed to see. He coined the phrase 'cinema Arthuriana' for these films and—in his many lectures, articles, and books on the subject—essentially created a new field of scholarly inquiry. All the while, he has been incredibly generous to those who have followed in his footsteps, sharing with them his expertise and resources. A simple recitation of Kevin's publications, however, does not do justice to their impact, especially on an entire generation of academics, scholars, and students. It is difficult to overemphasize just how influential his scholarly vision has been on the development of Arthurian scholarship. Over the past two decades, through his writing, editing, and lecturing, Kevin has continued his pioneering research and expanded the field of Arthurian cinema even further. He never ceases to amaze his colleagues with his ongoing discoveries of little-known or neglected Arthurian films. A testament to his standing among Arthurian scholars is his election to a three-year term as president of the North American Branch of the International Arthurian Society, and his position as Associate Editor and board member of Arthuriana, the leading journal in Arthurian studies. [End Page 3] Kevin has also broadened his interests to include all films with medieval themes. His landmark study The Reel Middle Ages, one of those classic and groundbreaking books that provide the research on which others build, is a comprehensive survey of virtually all films in all languages that deal with the Middle Ages, on such topics as the Crusades, the Black Death, the Vikings, Joan of Arc, Alfred the Great, Charlemagne, Beowulf, Robin Hood, King Arthur, and others. His scholarship brought many of these often overlooked films to the attention of those working in medieval studies and medievalism. Obviously the result of years of diligent and meticulous research in film archives in various countries, The Reel Middle Ages is precisely the kind of creative, far-sighted, interdisciplinary scholarship that inspires generalists, students, and other scholars. Kevin has never rested on his laurels: he continues to build on his vast knowledge of cinema based on medieval themes. Vikings in Film, a book that he recently edited, grew out of his research for The Reel Middle Ages and has in turn opened up new areas for scholarly discourse. He is also currently at work on a volume about Robin Hood and Joan of Arc in film that will certainly have the same long-term impact. Kevin has been—and obviously will continue to be—not just a productive and prolific scholar, but one of the most respected experts in the field. On a more personal note: we have contributed essays to some of his collections, just as he has to ours, and we have seen firsthand what high standards he has...

Prose terminology in the encyclopedia “Mafatih al-ulum” by abu abdallah al-khorezmi (X-century)

The encyclopedia Mafatih al-ulum (Keys of Sciences) by Abu Abdullah al-Khorezmi was devoted to Abu-Hasan Uban-allah al-Utbi-the vizier of the Samanid emir Nuh II (365–387/975-977gg), where a concise explanation was given most common scientific terms for his time. This message is devoted to prosaic terminology, which are included in the eighth section of the fourth chapter, which is called ‘On the word usage of message secretaries’. The outcome of writing letters was based on the knowledge of the epistolary style and mastery of them. The following material is related to poetry in prose, where we include the conclusions of medieval scholars, such as Ibn al-Mu'tazaz, Kudama ibn Jafar, as well as the 12th-century Khorezm scholar Yusuf Al-Sakkaki. In the eighth section, the fourth chapter of the encyclopedia ―Mafatih al-ulum’ al-Khorezmi leads 21 categories. Of these, we consider 10 categories: tasji ’, tarsi’, ishtikak, isti'ara, tabdil, muqabala, al-muqabalat facade, mubalaga, irdaf, tamsil. Thus, the encyclopedia of the 10th century Central Asian Scientist Abu Abdallah al-Khorezmi Mafatih al-ulum is one of the first works in which terms from the humanities and exact sciences of the Middle Ages are collected. Of great literary value is also the eighth section IV of the first chapter of the encyclopedia devoted to prosaic terminology, which was used by the secretaries of the messages, and the study of which has theoretical and practical significance. Comparison of terms with the relevant sections of the compilation of ‘Miftah al-ulum’ by Yusuf al-Sakkaki, made it possible to more deeply reveal the meaning of each poetic term.

In Memoriam: Sister Mary Clemente Davlin (1926–2017)

Sister Mary Clemente Davlin, baptized Marguerite and known as Marge to her relatives and friends, was born in Chicago on March 6, 1929. After years of school in the Dominican tradition, Sister Clemente completed her undergraduate degree at Rosary College (now Dominican University). In the fall of 1954, Marge Davlin entered the Sinsinawa Dominicans and was professed as Sister Mary Clemente in 1956. After teaching high school for a few years, she was led to another calling, an academic one, and began her graduate studies at Berkeley with one of the great medieval scholars of our generation, Charles Muscatine. She wrote two scholarly works on Piers Plowman which were critically acclaimed, and her last book, entitled A Journey into Love: Meditating with Piers Plowman, opened the rich spiritual insights of that poem to a wider audience.1 She authored numerous articles and was the recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, as well as the Newberry Library-British Academy fellowship for her scholarly research.In 1970, Sister Clemente joined the faculty of Dominican University as a Professor of English and also joined the Oak Park-River Forest Symphony, a post she held with the second violin section for over forty years. During her years at Dominican University, Sister Clem was renowned as a great teacher as well as a dedicated scholar. She was the recipient of two Excellence in Teaching Awards, and she received Dominican University's highest alumnae honor, the Caritas Veritas Award. To recognize her tireless efforts at building a diverse and inclusive community, Dominican University established the Sister Mary Clemente Davlin Diversity Leadership Award. There is also the Waters, Davlin, Crapo “Sisters” scholarship dedicated to African American students with financial difficulties and supported entirely by donations from those who have been impacted by the sisters.In her retirement Sister Clemente not only continued her research and writing, but she also volunteered as a tutor at Malcolm X College in Chicago. A scholar and a teacher to the last, she was working on a Piers Plowman article at the time of her death and was awaiting the next issue of The Chaucer Review, where her work on the scope of Charles Muscatine's critical influence is published.2Of course, these details demonstrate the milestones of a life rich in merit and academic success, but for those of us who were privileged to know her, it was the generosity of her spirit, the gentleness of her ways, and the truth of her calling that inspired us each and every day. Her truth lives on in the heart of the Dominican community that benefited so greatly from her love and mentorship, but nothing can replace her joyful spirit.She is deeply missed.

The all-Embracing Light of Divine Grace in the Theory and Practice of the Sufi Brotherhood of Chishti

Abstract: the author, on the basis of the Philosophical-Sufi studies of medieval Muslim scholars, the achievements of modern theoretical thought and independent argumentation, reveals the Sufi understanding of The Existence of God and the Way to Him. The source of the material was, first of all, the treatises of Indian Islamic thinkers written in Farsi: the work of Ali ibn Uthman al-Hudjwiri Kashf al-Mahdzhub li Abrar al-Kulub («Disclosure of the hidden behind the veil for those who have knowledge in the Mystery of Hearts») and the lithographic edition of Fava’eed al-Fouad «Useful [knowledge] for the Heart», owned by the Sheikh Nizamuddin Awliya – one of the most significant Sufi saints of the Order of Chishti. It is convincingly proven, how, using the words-labels, for example, Light and Heart and their connotations (Anwar – plural Absolute Light, Nur – Light, and also refracted or reflected Ray), one can come to the understanding that Nur is Light, Ray, Shine and Allah Himself. Thus, the creators of the monuments of medieval writing in the countries of the Muslim East asserted the religious paradigm according to which, thanks to the Unity of the Existence (vahdat al-wujud), the Light of Divine Grace embraces the entire universe: from the simple to the complex, and from it to the heart of the person who has gone through all the ways of perfection.

Medieval English peasant women and their historians: A historiography with a future?

AbstractScholarship concerning medieval peasant women grew out of economic, Marxist, legal, and social history and, since the late 1970s, has been taken up mainly by medieval scholars using feminist methodologies. This research has been conducted by a handful of scholars most actively working before 2000. A large portion of this research has been focused on recovering information about peasant women's daily lives, their occupations, and their remuneration for work. From this body of research, scholars have attempted to understand and demonstrate the social and cultural conditions which affected peasant women's status and their agency. While most agree that peasant women's lives were profoundly affected by gendered ideas, there has been debate about the degree to which patriarchal institutions and beliefs have limited women's lives. This article focuses on scholarship concerning peasant women situated in their own social milieu, rather than their representation in art and literature. It argues that there remain many opportunities for further research, especially in the form of team‐based research, which is becoming more common in digital humanities.

A critique of western representations of ISIS: deconstructing contemporary Orientalism

ABSTRACTThe meteoric rise of the group calling itself the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Shams (ISIS) has been accompanied by an equally stunning effort to explain from where the organisation emerged, what it is, and why people have been attracted to it. What this article identities, is that despite what appears to be a veneer of intellectual heterogeneity, a deep Orientalism permeates knowledge production about ISIS. Adopting a hybrid-postcolonial lens, the analysis in this article demonstrates that due to a particular Eurocentric-Orientalist schema and disposition, ISIS and its horrendous crimes have been dehistoricised, depoliticised and decontextualised. Additionally, in the process ISIS has been reduced to the Muslim’s fundamentalist dispositions; its innate tendency to incorporate Islamic theological methods, medieval Islamic scholarship, Islamic culture into all forms of politics. Instead, we argue in conclusion, for ISIS to be understood there needs to be a re-reading of the emergence of Islamist violence and terror through a historicised, materialised and politicised methodological framework.

Dalāʾil al-Nubuwwa Literature as Part of the Medieval Scholarly Discourse on Prophecy

Abstract: Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣfahānī (d. 430/1038) and Abū Bakr Aḥmad al-Bayhaqī (d. 458/1066) are mostly considered early representatives of Dalāʾil al-Nubuwwa literature. As a consequence the genre itself has often been viewed as a subgenre of sīra literature, which bears stylistic, structural and methodological implications, and affects its reputation as popular hagiographic rather than scholarly literature. These implications may be partially valid for Dalāʾil al-Nubuwwa works in the time period of Abū Nuʿaym and al-Bayhaqī but not for earlier works that have not been systematically studied so far. In this article, I examine early authorship in Dalāʾil al-Nubūwa literature by identifying numerous works that significantly predate Abū Nuʿaym and al-Bayhaqī. I argue that this literature constituted a continuous tradition from the mid-2nd/8th century onward and that it originated in circles of well-respected ḥadīth scholars who upheld their field’s methodological processes of authentication. Around the second half of the 4th/10th century, authorship shifted toward less acclaimed scholars of ḥadīth or other intellectual fields. Along with this shift came stylistic, structural and methodological changes that have led to the common classification of these works as a subgenre of sīra literature.

Quantification of virtue in late Medieval Europe.

Fourteenth century Europe saw a growing interest in quantification. This interest has been well studied by historians of physical sciences, but medieval scholars were also interested in the quantification of psychological qualities. In general, the quantification issues addressed by medieval scholars were theoretical, even (by our standards) mathematical, rather than those of practical measurement. There was recognition that the seriousness of a sin and the penance laid down for it should be proportionate. A number of late medieval scholars were interested in the quantification of caritas, a Latin word that is translatable as charity or loving benevolence. The scholastic interest linked to the practical issue of how caritas might become habitual through the repeated performance of virtuous acts. Gregory of Rimini's treatment of caritas in his commentary on Peter Lombard's Sentences illustrates how one medieval scholar related the quantification of virtue to the quantification of physical qualities such as temperature and luminescence. (PsycINFO Database Record

Elite power in the landscapes of early medieval Europe

The early medieval period in Europe is commonly viewed as a time of emerging nations, as the institutions, lineages and territories that we recognise as integral to medieval and later states were established. The preoccupation with nationhood is the primary reason that earlier generations of early medieval scholars often limited the geographic focus of their studies, with their findings feeding back into broader narratives of national culture, identity and ethnicity. Such research traditions have taken some time to evolve, but thankfully the last decade or so has seen a marked increase in the publication of archaeologically orientated studies with a broader remit. The ability to compare and contrast the evidence from other regions has resulted in a much- improved research environment, transforming our understanding of the period. Two of the publications reviewed here, Fortified settlements in early medieval Europe and Making Christian landscapes in Atlantic Europe, represent the latest additions to this positive trend, comprising edited volumes with impressive coverage across the Continent. While the third volume, Social complexity in early medieval rural communities, is concentrated solely on Iberia, it is an equally welcome addition, as its publication in English is likely to broaden readership and open up the archaeology of the area to new audiences. Each contribution explores distinct material, although the articulation of elite power, and the means by which archaeologists can detect that power, is the prominent theme throughout.

Philology Matters! Essays on the Art of Reading Slowly, ed. Harry Lönnroth. Medieval and Renaisscance Authors and Texts, 89. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2017, xxxv, 223 pp., 15 color ill., 5 tables.

The chosen title for this book, a collection of articles by Scandinavian medievalists, could not be more appropriate for our field, philology truly matters. This implies, as the subtitle indicates, that we read our texts carefully, meticulously, thoroughly, and slowly in order to gain the best possible insights (Nietzsche; here 15). As we all know, while every text represents a large range of challenges, older texts are even much more difficult to handle, whether we think of palaeographical issues, material difficulties, and linguistic and grammatical problems. Medieval Studies has always gone hand in hand with manuscript studies, so there is no question whether philology matters. It is a conditio sine qua non, but it might be relevant, after all, to re-examine the topic at hand once again and to investigate carefully what philology actually means and how it applies to everything we do in our medieval scholarship. It would be a very different question whether philology matters for the present generation, for non-medievalists, or for the modern academy, but this is not the prime purpose of this volume, although many contributors draw significantly from theoretical thinkers such as Friedrich Nietzsche (“Wir Philologen,” 1874/1875), Erich Auerbach (Mimesis, 1946), Ernst-Robert Curtius (Europäische Literatur und lateinisches Mittelalter, 1948), Paul de Man (Resistance to Theory, 1986), Hans-Georg Gadamer (Wahrheit und Methode: Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik, 1973), and Edward Said (Humanism and Democratic Criticism, 2004).

Voice in Later Medieval English Literature: Public Interiorities by David Lawton

Reviewed by: Voice in Later Medieval English Literature: Public Interiorities by David Lawton James B. Harr III Voice in Later Medieval English Literature: Public Interiorities By David Lawton. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. <https://global.oup.com/academic/product/voice-in-later-medieval-english-literature-9780198792406?cc=us&lang=en&> Characterization and the use of framework narrative in the traditional sense have long dictated academic approaches to late-medieval literature, and while there have certainly been deviations, particularly as emerging critical theories are embraced by medieval scholarship, focus often returns to standard hermeneutical approaches to literature of the Middle Ages. In his recent book, Voice in Later Medieval English Literature, David Lawton takes a fresh look at late-fourteenth to fifteenth-century literature and examines the medieval voice specifically articulated in (but certainly not limited to) the works of Chaucer and Langland through the analysis of public interiorities and modern criticism. "Public interiorities," as Lawton defines them, "are pieces of language—as speech or text—which already exist before they are revoiced by a new user" (8). He uses this term to uncover a layer of text neglected by previous studies as a means to reveal an interlinear voice, while concurrently repositioning medieval scholarship away from its preoccupation with "authority." In doing so, the intertextuality between classical, biblical, and medieval examples is exposed and a prevalent—and overlooked—element in medieval literary studies emerges. The book commences with a clear presentation of authorial objectives while briefly anticipating possible counterarguments. For example, Lawton mentions that he deliberately omits John Gower from the discussion as the breadth of his work and his place in Chaucerian discourse require a separate and devoted project. After briefly providing instances of public interiorities as a means to introduce the reader to the term, Lawton moves to the use of voice in literature. He carefully foreshadows his integration of modern examples to parallel and further elucidate the voice in medieval texts. In doing so, he simultaneously projects a relationship between the literary past and present, emulating "the practice of medieval authors" (11). Arguably, a significant challenge for Lawton [End Page 124] is in acknowledging a conceptualization of the voice while temporarily obscuring any delineation between the spoken word and the written word. As he readily admits, "Voice will not be easy to define, for it is not a determinate order of signs like figures or tropes but a volatile series of suggestions or cues that move between theme and address, between text and reader" (2). However, it is apparent by the end of the book that he has surmounted this difficulty. Divided into two parts, the book first focuses on voice and public interiorities. The second half of the book takes the concepts explicated in Chapters 1–4 and applies them to Piers Plowman, The Canterbury Tales, and fifteenth-century poetry. In Chapter 1, Lawton uses an example that would have been both recognized and embraced by the late-medieval writer: Saint Paul. In the context of Chaucerian texts, he uses Paul's voice to initially set up a conversation that has Chaucer, "the opposite pole to Paul on voice" (19), conversing with the apostle through his characters. For example, Paul's tenets are reflected in the sermon given by the Pardoner and (indirectly) rejected by the Wife of Bath. It is in this chapter that Lawton connects the voice to the soul, referencing several examples including those found in medieval art, making the concept of voice abstract. Chapter 2 moves to articulating the relationship between voice and public interiorities, thus imbricating the two distinct terms while using the modern (Proust) to juxtapose the medieval (Chaucer and Machaut). Lawton sums up this chapter by writing, "The voice…is complicated, bitter, full both of other texts and of more personalized grievance. It is a strange mixture of anger and urbanity, but no less public a voice for that" (60). Chapter 3 looks to modern critical theory and invokes Habermas's Offentlichkeit (public sphere) to define "public interiorities." Lawton is careful not to suggest that the two are the same but clearly asserts, "Public interiorities are not public spheres, however, though they arise precisely from the convergences and divergences...

Glossa biblijna jako problem badawczy

Biblical glossary as a research problem The Biblical glossary is one of the most important phenomena in the history of medieval scholarship, it combines the text of the Scriptures with a commentary in a special graphic layout. It played an important part in the popularisation of the Biblical studies. The glossary appeared around the turn of the twelve century in northern France in the milieu of cathedral school at Laon, with the key figure of Master Anselm. Already before the mid-twelve century glosses to individual books of the Bible gained huge popularity, and had hundreds of copies. At a certain time – it is thought today that it was the early thirteenth century – the text of the Glossary got stabilised. And although in the thirteenth century its popularity began to fade, it was copied to the end of the medieval period, and then many times published in print. Modern research into the glossary, although initiated in the nineteenth century, has in fact been developed in the 1980s. But ambitious source research and comparative analyses have shown that the Biblical glossary is a very difficult discipline. It was comparatively easy for researchers to have got through hagiographical legends that grew up around the glossary (for example the alleged authorship of Walafrid Strabon), but despite all the efforts only one book (Song of Songs) and some other fragments were published in a critical edition. In the course of ongoing studies more and more apparently “sure” points in our knowledge about the glossary are discredited, such as, for instance, the conviction that the glossary text had stabilised at one point of time. What hampers the research is mainly an enormous number of manuscript copies containing glosses, amounting to thousands of them. What is more, the production of those manuscripts was strictly standardised, making it difficult to establish not only their actual chronology, but also their place of origin. The research into the Biblical glossary is still a growing field of study.

The Afterlives of Rape in Medieval English Literature. Suzanne M. Edwards. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Pp. xv+193.

<i>The Afterlives of Rape in Medieval English Literature</i>. Suzanne M. Edwards. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Pp. xv+193.

Exegesis and Appropriation: Reading Rashi in Late Medieval Spain

Scholarship in the humanities has seen a recent burgeoning interest in the processes of “appropriation,” a conceptual category that moves us away from the idea of one-way transmission or “influence” and allows us to explore the complex ways in which intellectual, literary, and material expressions or artifacts come to represent something “different from their original purposes.” Though the term has not acquired much currency in studies of medieval Jewish biblical scholarship, its fruitful deployment is amply attested in broader explorations of premodern exegetical literature. This investigation takes “exegesis and appropriation” as a revelatory integrating perspective on a neglected body of Hebrew scriptural scholarship: commentaries on the most important and influential work of Jewish biblical interpretation ever written, theCommentary on the Torahof Rashi (Solomon Yitzhaki; 1040–1105). The focus falls on “Rashi supercommentaries” (as glosses on Rashi'sCommentaryare usually called) from medieval Spain and on some striking religio-intellectual dynamics evident in their pages. The study thereby addresses Moshe Idel's call for scholarship to engage more with questions about “the meaning of the arrival of a corpus of writings in a new cultural environment.”

Women Write the Past: Medieval Scholarship, Old English and New Literature

This article explores the contributions of women scholars, writers and artists to our understanding of the medieval past. Beginning with a contemporary artists book by Liz Mathews that draws on one of Boethius‘s Latin lyrics from the Consolation of Philosophy as translated by Helen Waddell, it traces a network of medieval women scholars of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries associated with Manchester and the John Rylands Library, such as Alice Margaret Cooke and Mary Bateson. It concludes by examining the translation of the Old English poem, The Wife‘s Lament, by contemporary poet, Eavan Boland. The art of Liz Mathews and poetry of Eavan Boland and the scholarship of women like Alice Cooke, Mary Bateson, Helen Waddell and Eileen Power show that women‘s writing of the past – creative, public, scholarly – forms a strand of an archive of women‘s history that is still being put together.

Custodians of the Divine Unity: A History of the Jewish Interpretation of נרדה and ונבלה in Genesis 11:7

The present paper examines the classic Jewish exposition of the plural verbs in Genesis 11:7 which relate to the divine name in Genesis 11:6. The Jewish interpretation of these plural forms recorded in the Targumim, the Babylonian Talmud, the midrashim, and in the writings of ancient and mediaeval Jewish scholars is situated against the Christian reading prevalent in antiquity and in the Middle Ages. Furthermore, theological presuppositions underlying the Jewish and Christian exegeses are identified and studied.

Ścieżka kariery naukowej Aleksandra Tartagnusa na tle życia uniwersyteckiego jego czasów

Alexander Tartagnus, considered to be one of the last great representatives of the school of commentators, was also a defender of writing in Latin, which was the language of medieval scholarship. His life is an example of a harmonious combination of academic activities and legal practice, which was most fully manifested in the form of legal advice. His knowledge was used both by judges to assist them in resolving contentious issues and by parties who wanted to better understand their legal position. During his life he wrote seven books of consilia, which established his place among the authors contributing to the development of ius commune. The objective of this article is to present the biography of Alexander Tartagnus, which enlightens the reader not only about this single Bologna master, but also enriches their knowledge of the environment in which he had lived and worked.

Reimagining revolt: 1381, feminine authority, and the Wife of Bath

Although both are popular topics in medieval scholarship, the Wife of Bath and the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 have yet to be clearly linked. Connections are evident, however. Expanding on the work of Tom Shippey (1999), I examine bibliophobia within the Wife of Bath’s Prologue and its connection to the violence of 1381, which I read as bleeding into the tale, leading not only to mob violence but also to the usurpation of male authority. In both prologue and tale, I find evidence that Chaucer links feminine authority to violence in general, and to the Peasant’s Revolt of 1381 in particular. I argue that Alisoun’s prologue and tale mobilize rising to ask provocative questions about gender and power in late fourteenth-century England.

Corals, Blood and Precious Pearls: The Materiality of a Late Medieval Textile

SummaryThis article undertakes an object-focused study of an embroidery of great visual and material complexity: The Bremnes Orphrey. Medieval embroideries were known for their rich and expressive materiality with costly silks, shimmering metal threads, precious stones and pearls. This was especially true for ecclesiastical textiles adorning the altar and clothing the clergy. Thus, ecclesiastical embroideries are particularly suited for material analysis inspired by the ‘material turn’ in medieval scholarship over the last few decades. More specifically, I intend to highlight the interplay between iconography and materiality in late medieval art.

De nuevo sobre Maslama Ibn Qāsim al-Qurṭubī, los Ijwān al-Ṣafā’ e Ibn Jaldūn: Nuevos datos de dos manuscritos de la &lt;em&gt;Rutbat al-ḥakīm&lt;/em&gt;

Como continuación a estudios anteriores sobre la recepción de las Rasā’il Ijwān al-Ṣafā’ en al-Andalus, en este artículo se sostiene que entre los estudiosos andalusíes de la Edad Media era una creencia generalizada considerar al astrónomo Maslama al-Maŷrīṭī (m. 395/1004 o poco después) como el autor no solo de la Rutbat al-ḥakīm y la Gāyat al-ḥakīm – hoy ambas correctamente atribuidas a Maslama Ibn Qasīm al-Qurṭubī (m. 353/964) – sino también de todo el corpus enciclopédico de las Rasā’il. La primera parte del artículo trata de explicar a través de qué serie de sucesivas confusiones estas tres obras llegaron a ser identificadas como los tres escalones de una escalera filosófica y cómo esta trilogía acabó siendo después asignada al científico Maslama al-Maŷrīṭī. La otra parte se centra en dos anotaciones de carácter biográfico que aparecen en las portadas de dos manuscritos de la Rutbat al-ḥakīm, aún inédita. Además de proporcionarnos evidencias adicionales sobre la difusión de esta concepción entre los eruditos medievales, esos documentos también nos ofrecen información interesante y a veces sin igual sobre los dos Maslamas, sus respectivos escritos y seguidores, así como sobre la amplia circulación de las Rasā’il por toda la Península. La edición, traducción y comentario de estas dos anotaciones biográficas son ofrecidas aquí por primera vez.