Scholastic Humanism Research Articles

Eckhartian Mysticism as Scholastic Humanism

ABSTRACTThis essay seeks to propose a new way of looking at the so-called mysticism of Meister Eckhart as a ‘scholastic humanism’ Eckhart's thought is “humanist” in the sense that it argues that all truth is such only insofar as it is appropriated by and transforms intellectually and existentially the individually existing human being; but Eckhart's humanism is scholastic insofar as it sees the truths of scholastic philosophy and theology as being firmly rooted in this lived and inner appropriation of truth. To this end, this essay explores the ways in which Eckhart “translates” the often static and abstract categories of Aristotelian-Scholastic theology into what he argues is their lived, inner origin in the soul's journey to union with God. And what makes this appropriation of truth by the individual human being possible is that the inner “ground” of the human existence is also the inner “ground” of God, the principle of all existence, an identity revealed and actualized in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. Thus, Eckhart's “scholastic humanism” is also a thoroughly Christian humanism.

Scholastic humanism and the unification of Europe, II: The heroic age. By R. W. Southern, with notes and additions by Lesley Smith and Benedicta Ward. Pp. xi+228. Oxford–Cambridge, Mass: Blackwell, 2001. £50 (cloth), £19.99 (paper). 0 631 19112 7; 0 631 22079 8

<i>Scholastic humanism and the unification of Europe</i>, II: <i>The heroic age</i>. By R. W. Southern, with notes and additions by Lesley Smith and Benedicta Ward. Pp. xi+228. Oxford–Cambridge, Mass: Blackwell, 2001. £50 (cloth), £19.99 (paper). 0 631 19112 7; 0 631 22079 8

Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe. Vol. II: The Heroic Age

Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe. Vol. II: The Heroic Age

Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe, Volume 2: The Heroic Age, by R. W. Southern

<i>Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe, Volume 2: The Heroic Age</i>, by R. W. Southern

Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe. Vol. 2, The Heroic Age. Richard W. Southern

<i>Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe. Vol. 2, The Heroic Age</i>. Richard W. Southern

Reason and Feeling as Evidence: The Question of 'Proof' in Tyndale's Thought

Not only did the first decades of the sixteenth century witness a profound change in the consciousness of religious experience, but they also offer a key, if we use the contrasting instances of William Tyndale and Thomas More, to understanding the communication of that experience by two masterful stylists who disagree radically about the analysis of religious experience, and consequently about its transmission to readers. More characteristically invokes logic and reason in support of his theological expositions while Tyndale typically resorts to the evidence of spirit and feeling. This polarity at the outset of the Reformation is a seminal one in that it is refracted, magnified, and mirrored in the religious polemic of the next two centuries as the various voices of dissent or conformity undertake to analyze and communicate religious experience. In the history of polemic, the complicated, academic method of scholastic humanism is parodied out of existence. The proofs offered by the heart, feelings, and the zealous intervention of the Holy Ghost appealed far more to radical reformers who wished to testify to their own prophetic powers and authority in the condemnation of established church practices. Evangelical witnessing, urged on by zeal, enabled every worshipper to become, in effect, a self-certified vehicle of the Holy Ghost.

Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe, 1: Foundations.R. W. Southern

<i>Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe, 1: Foundations.</i>R. W. Southern

Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe. Volume 1, Foundations.

Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe. Volume 1, Foundations.

Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe, Vol. I: Foundations by R. W. Southern

BOOK REVIEWS307 refusing to renounce their Christianity and embrace Islam.Virtually eveiything that we know about the victims ofthese executions comes from the apologetic treatises andpassiones that were written on behaU of the martyrs by Eulogius and Paul Alvarus, who Uved in Cordoba at the time. Both wrote in response to the lack of enthusiasm that the martyrs' actions eUcited from the more assimilated Christians of Cordoba. Coope's book is by no means the first to treat the subject.The earUest and most complete overview—in the anglophonic scholarly world, anyway—was Edward P. Colbert's pubUshed dissertation, The Martyrs of Cordoba (850859 ):A Study ofthe Sources (CathoUc University ofAmerica Press, 1962). More modern takes on the subject—which have insisted on scrutinizing the motives of Eulogius and Alvarus before assessing the meaning of the movement itseU— began with JamesWaltz's article ("The Significance of theVoluntary Martyrs of Ninth-Century Cordoba," Muslim World, 60 [1970]) and continued with my own book (Christian Martyrs in Muslim Spain [Cambridge, 1988]).Though Coope does not review the historiography of the subject in any detaU, it is clear from her work that she has,for the most part, read and benefited from the work of her predecessors.The end result is a balanced treatment of the avaUable evidence which attempts, first and foremost, to reconstruct the tensions -within Andalusian society that could account not only for the radical actions of the martyrs but the virulence of theU apologists' attacks on both Islam and the Christians who Uved in harmony with it.As such, Coope's weU-written and very readable book provides a useful overview of an important episode in the history of Christian-Muslim interaction. It does not, however, offer any new data nor does it break new ground in terms of its approach. Kenneth Baxter Wolf Pomona College Scholastic Humanism and the Unification ofEurope,\o\. I: Foundations. By R. W Southern. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: BlackweU. 1995. Pp. xxi, 330. $44.95.) This book is the first of a projected three volumes that may weU prove to be the finest achievement ofthe most productive and perceptive ofmedievaUsts in England. Just as St. Anselm:A Portrait in a Landscape revised and completed Southern's work on Anselm and the late eleventh century, so the first of these volumes further documents and synthesizes themes familiar to readers of his earUer books, namely, his revised understanding ofthe emergence of schools of northern France and the place of Chartres and Paris, and his seminal notion of scholastic humanism that links the Platonism of the early twelfth century with the development of scholastic analysis, the recovery and assimUation of Aristotle , and the birth of the University of Paris. There is also much that is new here, not only in detaU but in his persuasive argument that the teaching of law 308BOOK REVIEWS at Bologna (as distinct from the practice oflaw) began only around 1 150, a generation later than the explosive expansion ofthe schools ofphüosophy and theology at Paris. Southern's reinterpretation of Irnerius and Gratian as legal practitioners, commentators, and compUers whose work led to rather than grew out of the teaching of law wiU probably become the most important and controversial new insight in this book. Southern's main thesis is that an educational revolution took place in the first haU of the twelfth century, buUt around a scholastic method of textual analysis and quaestiones, that not only influenced almost every level of European society but helped effect a unity of culture that had not previously existed. If, in the vision of Henri Pirenne, the Carolingian empire marked the First Europe, the unification of that geographical area (thus the second part of Southern's title) was forged only in the twelfth century through schools that were "international " in both students and masters, and by a common scholastic culture in arts, theology, and law. In Southern's view—and here his observations paraUel those of Jacques LeGoff in his work on medieval inteUectuals—scholastic culture was not allied with an elite court culture as was Italian humanism, but penetrated down to almost aU levels of society, and which created one unified culture for Europe from Italy...

Medieval

Laiou, Angeliki E. (ed.), Consent and Coercion to Sex and Marriage in Ancient and Medieval SocietiesSweeney, Del (ed.), Agriculture in the Middle Ages: Technology, Practice, and RepresentationScully, Terence, The Art of Cookery in the Middle AgesDavies, Wendy and Fouracre, Paul (ed.), Property and Power in the Early Middle AgesPelteret, David A. E., Slavery in Early Mediaeval England, from the Reign of Alfred until the Twelfth CenturyBowlus, Charles R., Franks, Moravians, and Magyars: The Struggle for the Middle Danube, 788–907Southern, R. W., Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe, Volume 1: FoundationsRiley‐Smith, Jonathan (ed.), The Oxford Illustrated History of the CrusadesSchultz, James A., The Knowledge of Childhood in the German Middle Ages, 1100–1350Gillingham, John, Richard Coeur de Lion: Kingship, Chivalry and War in the Twelfth CenturyVincent, Nicholas (ed.), English Episcopal Acta XI: Winchester 1205–1238Humphrey‐Smith, Cecil, Hugh Revel, Master of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem 1258–1277Gemmill, Elizabeth and Mayhew, Nicholas, Changing Values in Medieval Scotland: A Study of Prices, Money, and Weights and MeasuresOrmrod, W. M., Political Life in Medieval England, 1300–1450Baker, Denise Nowakowski, Julian of Norwich's Showings: From Vision to BookSeward, Desmond, The Wars of the Roses and the Lives of Five Men and Women in the Fifteenth Century

Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe, vol. 1: Foundations, by R.W. Southern

"Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe, vol. 1: Foundations, by R.W. Southern." Canadian Journal of History, 31(3), pp. 430–431

Book Review: Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe 1: Foundations

Book Review: Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe 1: Foundations

Book Review: Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe:

Book Review: Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe:

Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe. Vol. 1, Foundations

Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe. Vol. 1, Foundations

Scholastic humanism and the unification of Europe: v.1: Foundations

Scholastic humanism and the unification of Europe: v.1: Foundations