Periods Of Exuberance Research Articles

Women's Monasticism and Medieval Society: Nunneries in France and England, 890-1215 by Bruce L. Venarde

530BOOK REVIEWS Medieval Women'sMonasticism andMedieval Society:Nunneries in France andEngland, 890-1215. By Bruce L. Venarde. (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. 1997. Pp. xx, 243. $42.50.) In the eleventh,twelfth, and early thirteenth centuries, the overwhelming majority of charters and literary materials were composed in religious communities of men. Modern scholars of monasticism have been drawn to that wealth of source material and, as a consequence, have often underestimated the number and significance of-women's religious houses. But the large number of monastic foundations for women points to an importance that the paucity of the sources obscures. In recent decades, the study of religious women has made great strides, in spite of the limitations of the sources. This monograph is a solid, focused contribution to the effort to understand the monastic life of women. Sometimes an obvious idea, well executed, can yield important insights. For the period between the fifth century and 1350, Bruce Venarde counted the religious communities for women in fifteen archdioceses, two in England and thirteen in France: he found evidence for more than 850 houses, not all of which existed at the same time. He estimated that in the year 1000 there were seventy nunneries in England and France, a number which grew to more than 400 by 1170, to 525 by 1220, and to 625 by 1300. The effort to count communities of women in a particular region is an original idea and seems to have been carried out with care and good sense. The author created a database in which, for each house, he put the name, location, monastic order or rule, date of foundation, and other evidence, such as the social status of founders. From the database he generated interesting maps, graphs, and tables that tell a great deal about the foundation, diffusion, and affiliation of religious communities of women, particularly in the period from about 890 to about 1215. The author realized that numbers without context were a limited source ofhistorical insight. He embedded his numerical findings in a narrative which summarized much contemporary scholarship about women's monasticism and about contemporaneous demographic, political, and economic developments. Careful counting can offer remarkable insights. The "group portrait" offemale religious houses is convincing, with appropriate regional and temporal nuances . At times, the research confirms prevalent generalizations: it comes as no surprise, but is now more precisely documented, that the years between 1080 and 1 170 were the most exuberant period of foundations for women, as they were for men. At other times, the research produces unexpected conclusions. For instance, in spite of the attention given by medieval writers and modern scholars to the "new" orders of Cistercians, Premonstratensians, and mendicants /Old-style"Benedictine monasticism retained a strong attraction for founders and nuns well into the thirteenth century. The author identified a rhythm of monastic foundations for women which is very plausible, linked as it is to changes in demography, agricultural growth, and assertions of political power. BOOK REVIEWS531 There is much that will never be known about women's monastic life, in large part because the women did not write about themselves. This is a relatively brief, original, and informative approach to the development of religious life, not just of women but by implication of men as well. In spite of the ambitious title,this is not a history ofwomen's monasticism,but it does reveal a great deal about the pace of foundation, the geography of foundation (some dioceses had many nunneries and some dioceses had none at all), and the social station of founders. The book is well written in a clear, economical style. Joseph H. Lynch Ohio State University The Exultet in Southern Italy. By Thomas Forrest Kelly. (NewYork: Oxford University Press. 1996. Pp. xvi, 352; 17 plates. $95.00.) The Exultet is a chant of rejoicing and praise that is sung at the beginning of the Easter vigil service after the lighting of the Paschal candle. As a very long text that is sung by a soloist, and performed only once in the liturgical year, it must be written down. Although in many places during the Middle Ages the Exultet was included in missals, pontificals, processionals...

WIRING UP THE VISUAL SYSTEM

1. In this review we describe some of our recent studies on the developing marsupial visual pathway. The description focuses on retinal ganglion cells, considering the formation of their dendritic trees, the outgrowth of axons and the formation of connections within the brain. 2. Both dendritic trees and outgrowing axons undergo a period of exuberance, followed by one of refinement. The dendritic tree transiently develops a more complex branching pattern than is found in adults. Short side branches, referred to as spines, are a feature of immature dendrites and, to a lesser extent, of axons. These structures are mostly lost as development proceeds. However, they are retained on the dendritic trees of small-field ganglion cells and, for a proportion of axons, on that part within the nerve fibre layer of the retina. Although most axons navigate fairly direct routes towards their targets, a minority follow inappropriate courses, such as doubling back towards the eye or entering the opposite optic nerve at the chiasm. As such errant axons are not seen in the adult, we assume that their parent cell bodies die during development. 3. Throughout development, optic axons are arranged in an approximate retinotopic order along the length of the visual pathway; as a result, axons approach the visual centres aligned to form, at least, a crude retinotopic map. Axons from dorsal and ventral retina exchange locations along the optic nerve and in this way correct for the inversion of the image brought about by the lens.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Hope I die before I get old

I stand before you today, a passing mile post not just as President of the Midwestern Vascular Surgical Society (MVSS), but in another sense; one that has been almost religiously reexamined by the media in recent months and thus has been celebrated often in the public consciousness. I am a survivor o f that bell-bottomed part of the bell curve, the sixties generation. I graduated from Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, in 1969, in a class that also included such luminaries as Ira Magaziner, architect o f what has until recently been referred to as health care reform. We are the baby-boomers who are no longer babies, the hip generation who fornmately are no longer hippies. Undeniably though, we made our mark on the consciousness o f this century, and much of that impact arose as the result o f two basic forces that drove that youthful and exuberant period; political dissent on one hand and rock-and-roll music on the other. It is from these roots and in this spirit that I address you todayl Those of you who have worked with me directly will probably recognize many of the references I have chosen from when they played on the jukebox in the operating room. Others o f you may only recognize quoted lines from hearing them as they are most often heard today, in elevators, dentists' waiting rooms, or in commercials. My first selection is an easy one because we all know and love the Beatles, who my son will tell you, is the group Paul McCartney was in before Wings.

Spanish Comedias as Pot Boilers

The comedias of the Golden Age in Spain present a field of investigation that seems to be inexhaustible. The dramatic productions of that unbelievably exuberant period are so numerous that no one can hope to read them all. Even to try to keep up with the research based upon them is a task of the first magnitude. These plays have been studied from the point of view of sources, dramatic technique, versification, style, dates of the plays, authorship, and much, much else.