Renaissance Studies Commons^™

Communication And Social Interactions In The Late Middle Ages: The Fables By The Swiss-German Dominican Ulrich Bonerius, Albrecht Classen

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There are many possible and useful approaches to the study of literature. One very effective way proves to be to study literary texts as platforms to explore the meaning, relevance, and workings of human communication, or the very opposite, miscommunication. Such an approach proves to be rather productive both for medieval and modern texts, from the western and the eastern tradition, whether we are reflecting on entertaining, moral, didactic, religious, or political texts. The literary work consists of words exchanged, and thus here we encounter the perfect example of a theoretical platform to discuss human interactions in many different contexts …

Linguistic Failure And The “Trembling Parole” In Alain Chartier’S Belle Dame Sans Mercy, Alani Hicks-Bartlett

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At first blush, Alain Chartier’s late medieval poem, the Belle Dame sans mercy seems to recount a story that is quite similar to narrations of other frustrated affairs in the courtly love tradition, as it tells of a devoted lover who relentlessly, yet unsuccessfully, begs for the euphemistic “mercy” of his lady. Plying the lady with compliments, assailing her with threats, and attempting to verbally manipulate her, the lover endeavors to force the lady to love him through various unsuccessful linguistic strategies. Although he commits to the lady and presents her with countless arguments about why she should cede to …

Allen D. Breck Award Winner

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The Breck Award recognizes the most distinguished paper given by a junior scholar at the annual conference.

Recipient of the Breck Award 2022

Katharine Davidson Bekker

Elizabethan Technology: Thomas Watson’S Steam Bath For The Relief Of Gout, James Alsop

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Thomas Watson (1513-84), Doctor of Divinity and deprived Marian bishop of Lincoln, developed an expertise in the treatment of gout. In his practice of experiential medicine in East Anglia, he used an innovative steam chest: the patient sat in a cut-open empty wine pipe, surrounded by heated bricks, and covered with a sheet. This device, with its method of enclosed steam heat, contrasts sharply with prevailing renaissance therapeutic philosophy.

How To Teach With Shakespeare: James Baldwin, The Liberal Arts, And The Progymnasmata, Steven Hrdlicka

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This review essay addresses pedagogical principles found in Scott Newstok’s recent book How to Think Like Shakespeare: Lessons from a Renaissance Education (2020). Specifically, the essay discusses the progymnasmata exercises of paraphrase and êthopoeia and provides real-life applications and examples. The essay also suggests how such study aims at “fruitful” effects, as well as providing distinctions between “fruitful” and “useful” study. Other points relevant to the fruitful ends of the study of the liberal arts, such as freedom and empathy, are discussed as they pertain to a student’s ability to think creatively and to express thoughts with clarity and originality. …

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The Case For Hildeburg: Beowulf And Ethical Subjectivity, Wendolyn Weber

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This essay argues for a reading of Beowulf, and the female peaceweaver figures therein, in contemporary philosophical terms of Levinasian ethical subjectivity. Such a reading illuminates the peaceweaver, often caught between action and passivity and viewed as a victim of death-driven masculinist heroic culture, as an exemplar rather of the radical destabilization experienced through ethical subjection and an important key to the complexities of the heroic ethos. It illustrates the enduring value of texts such as Beowulf to inform our understanding of often oversimplified concepts like that of the “warrior ethos” in contemporary culture.

Luigi Pulci’S Fifteenth-Century Verse Parody Of Moses: A Denunciation Of Marsilio Ficino’S Neoplatonic Christianity, Michael J. Maher

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In early 1470s Florence, popular poet Luigi Pulci, author of the celebrated epic poem Morgante, wrote a sonnet of religious parody. In Poi ch’io parti’ da voi, Pulci satirizes biblical miracles, immediately earning himself the label of heretic, still attached to his name to this day. A close examination of Pulci’s sonnet, with specific attention given to his treatment of Moses, reveals Pulci’s motivation and the circumstances surrounding composition. Pulci’s scandalous sonnet was in fact an attempt at underscoring the maltreatment of biblical miracles in a first-century Greek text by the Romano-Jewish historian Jospehus. Renowned philosopher Marsilio Ficino, with …

Those Who Weep: Tears, Eyes, And Blood In The Boussu Hours, Katharine Davidson Bekker

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Simon Marmion and the Master of Antoine Rolin’s Boussu Hours (ca. 1490-95) is resplendent with imagery of suffering in its unusual marginal decorations. Holy effluvia—blood and tears—flow from golden pages covered in wounds and weeping eyes. These decorations, surrounding the Hours of the Passion, pictorially enact a theological notion of tears as wounding agents, and spiritually prompt the reader’s contrition. Notable wear on the “bloody” page indicates a pattern of tactile interaction between book and reader; this physical engagement with the marginals represents a quasi-liturgical manifestation of guilt and efforts made to abate it. The gestural touching of the page …

Collation Model For Ms. Codex 2074: Contra Impedimiam., Dot Porter

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Small 15th-century collection of advice and prescriptions for the plague, likely abridged from other manuscript sources. The recommendations address diet, exertion, avoiding public gatherings, and bloodletting. The text of this manuscript is related to that of Paris, BNF lat. 7138, ff. 109-110 in order, vocabulary (except for the use in this manuscript of the term impedimia for plague, rather than the more common epidimia), and references to 14th-century Montpellier physician Joannes Jacobi (f. 3r, 4v).

Collation Model For Ms. Codex 1154: [Benedictiones Episcopales], Dot Porter

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Collection of instructions for bishops. Work 1 is possibly an older variation of the episcopal benedictions found in Fasc. IV of the Roman Pontifical as published by Leo XIII. Includes De patenae et calicis consecratione; De benedictione mapparum, seu linteaminum sacris altaris; De benedictione corporalium; and De benedictione sacrorum vasorum, et aliorum ornamentorum in genere. Work 2 is a portion of the Ordo Romanus, likely copied from a printed edition. Original work was compiled around 730 in France, as an instruction book for clergymen on the performance of various religious ceremonies. Work 3 is a collection of prayers for certain …

Collation Model For Ms. Codex 1048: Comptes Adrien De Le Borve, Dot Porter

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Accounts received from the provinces of Viane and Morbecque in Flanders. Written in Flanders, 1484-1485 (f. 2r).

Collation Model For Ms. Codex 6: Persii Opera, Dot Porter

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Two humanist manuscripts of similar format and date bound together. Collection of the Satires of Persius (A. Persius Flaccus) on parchment, together with an unidentified commentary written in the margins around the text as well as interlinear glosses (f. 1r-14v). Also includes the Ibis of Ovid (P. Ovidius Naso) on paper, with several interlinear and marginal glosses (f. 15r-27r). Folio 32v and the inside lower cover have a number of Latin aphorisms written in a second, slightly later hand. Folios 27v-32r are blank. Written in Italy[?] in the second half of the 15th century.

Collation Model For Oversize Ms. Codex 1531: [Hybrid Book Of Hours : Use Of Rome]., Dot Porter

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Book of hours, use of Rome, printed ca. 1507 in Paris by Guillaume Anabat for Gilles and Germain Hardouyn, followed by a few manuscript pages containing an alternate set of lessons, responsories, and versicles for Matins in the Hours of the Virgin; a prayer to Jesus (also known as the Fifteen Oes) often attributed to Saint Bernard; prayers to Saint Nicholas, Saint Eustace, and Saint Roman; and the Seven Verses of Saint Bernard. The printed book of hours, titled Heures a lusaige de Romme tout au long sans riens requerir, avec les figures de la vie de lhomme, et la …

Collation Model For Ms. Codex 85: [Bullarium Augustinianum], Dot Porter

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Collection of papal letters and instruments dealing with the order of the Eremite Friars of St. Augustine (the Augustinians). Written in two parts (f. 1r-69v, 71r-125v) "ad usum fratris Joannis Angeli de Crema," commissioned by the Augustinian theologian and abbot Antonio Meli. The collection begins with a bull of Pope Sixtus IV. Other popes whose bulls are quoted or referred to include Alexander IV, Boniface VIII, Clement VI, John XXII, Urban VI, Martin V, Eugene IV, Nicholas V, Pius II, Paul II, Innocent IV, Alexander VI, and Julius II. The documents quoted or cited are not necessarily arranged in the …

Collation Model For Ms. Codex 68: [Confessionale], Dot Porter

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Manual for confessors and penitents with the incipit of the shorter recension (Kaeppeli) and minor variations from printed editions (reader note in pencil, flyleaf 2 recto).

Collation Model For Ms. Codex 1256: [Legal Records], Dot Porter

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A series of legal records of the Bagnano family, dated from 1493 to 1604. There is a table of contents on the inside of the upper and lower covers, listing the years, page numbers, and brief descriptions of the records in Italian. A collection of legal records, mostly consisting of wills, contracts, deeds, and inheritances. Some of the records include disagreements over inheritance, and others deal with claims of various monasteries in Florence. The family is sometimes referred to as Albagnano. Many of the records are notarized and contain notarial signets. Contains some marginal notes in a near-contemporary hand.

Collation Model For Ms. Codex 1237: [Notarial Documents], Dot Porter

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A collection of 16 notarial documents dealing with property and political matters, including real estate, wills, and elections, for the city of Piacenza, Italy. The documents, originally separate, are several different sizes.Written in Piacenza, Italy, 1457-1546.

Collation Model For Ms. Codex 246: [Records Of Agreements Between Members Of The Bragadin Family], Dot Porter

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Contains information on finances, divisions of estates (divisio bonorum), and other related matters. Includes a list and valuation of real estate properties. Geographical references in the manuscript are to Venice, Verona, and Padua in the Veneto, and to Mantua and Bergamo in Lombardy. Many documents conclude with notarial signets (f. 8v, 9v, 12v, 24r, 27r and 28v). A later table of contents is written on the front endleaf. Written in northern Italy, from 27 January 1540 (f. 1r) to 5 October 1565 (f. 38r), with some additions and emendations that appear to be slightly later in date.