English Regular Canons and the Continent in the Twelfth Century

1951 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 71-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. C. Dickinson
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Central Italy ◽  
Early Date ◽  
Common Life ◽  
North Eastern ◽  
The Ideal

The ideal of the regular canons originated in the fumbling, sporadic response of public opinion in the Western Church to that programme of a complete common life for clerical communities to which the Lateran Councils of 1059 and 1063 had given oecumenical recognition. It had at that time taken root only in central Italy and the extreme south of France. Thereafter it spread rapidly in most of southern and north-eastern France, though in Normandy there was no house of regular canons until c. 1119 and none in Brittany till 1130. The order flourished in the Rheims area from an early date, and it is here, in the seventies of the eleventh century, that we find the first traces of the Rule of St. Augustine being adopted by regular canons. Yet it was long before regular canons uniformly served this Rule, and in the second and third decades of the following century writers as far apart as Liége and Ravenna would speak of it very cavalierly.

Quintilian in the Renaissance of the Twelfth Century

2021 ◽  
pp. 337-358
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Kuhl
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Rhetorical Theory ◽  
The Ideal ◽  
Pedagogical Principles

After a brief survey of the diffusion of the Institutio from Isidorus of Seville until the eleventh century, this chapter focuses on its reception in the twelfth century, when it gained a certain popularity, although only portions of the text were available (1.1.6–5.14.12, 8.3.64–8.6.17, 8.6.67–9.3.2, 10.1.107–11.1.71, and 11.2.33–12.10.43). Redactors and commentators tended to be concerned in particular with the general pedagogical principles explained in the first two books, while Cicero’s De inventione and the Rhetorica ad Herennium were more commonly used as sourcebooks for rhetorical theory. Quintilian is named as an authority on eloquence by several authors of the late eleventh and twelfth centuries (John of Alta Silvia, William of Auvergne, and Alain of Lille), but their references are maybe to the Declamationes; Wibald of Stavelot and Corvey referred specifically to the Institutio. In discussions of education (John of Salisbury’s Metalogicon, Guibert of Nogent’s autobiography, and a letter of Peter of Blois), the Institutio is cited or referred to for general pedagogical principles; Quintilian’s principles for training the ideal orator are translated into the Christian context. Several authors made abbreviations of the Institutio or included excerpts of it in florilegia for different purposes (most importantly Stephen of Rouen’s abbreviation, but also excerpts in the Codex Zwifaltensis and in Uldaric of Bamberg’s Ars dictandi). These are sources which prove that parts of the Institutio were used in twelfth-century education. The Institutio was also used extensively in commentaries on Cicero’s De inventione and the Ad Herennium.

Signs of Salvation: The Evolution of Stigmatic Spirituality Before Francis of Assisi

2013 ◽  
Vol 82 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-68
Author(s):  
Carolyn Muessig
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
Medieval Europe ◽  
The Face ◽  
Biblical Commentaries ◽  
The Ideal

Francis of Assisi's reported reception of the stigmata on Mount La Verna in 1224 is widely held to be the first documented account of an individual miraculously and physically receiving the wounds of Christ. The appearance of this miracle, however, in the first quarter of the thirteenth century, is not as unexpected as it first seems. Interpretations of Galatians 6:17—“I bear the marks of the Lord Jesus Christ in my body”—had been circulating in biblical commentaries since the early Middle Ages. These works posited that clerics bore metaphorical and sometimes physical wounds(stigmata)as marks of persecution, while spreading the teaching of Christ in the face of resistance. By the seventh century, the meaning of Galatians 6:17 had been appropriated by bishops and priests as a sign or mark of Christ that they received invisibly at their ordination, and sometimes visibly upon their death. In the eleventh century, Peter Damian articulated a stigmatic spirituality that saw the ideal priest, monk, and nun as bearers of Christ's wounds, a status achieved through the swearing of vows and the practice of severe penance. By the early twelfth century, crusaders were said to bear the marks of the Passion in death and even sometimes as they entered into battle. By the early thirteenth century, “bearing the stigmata” was a pious superlative appropriated by a few devout members of the laity who interpreted Galatian 6:17 in a most literal manner. Thus, this article considers how the conception of “bearing the stigmata” developed in medieval Europe from its treatment in early Latin patristic commentaries to its visceral portrayal by the laity in the thirteenth century.

scholarly journals Inscriptions on Painted Crosses and the Spaces of Personal and Communal Meditation

1970 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 161-184
Author(s):  
Herbert L. Kessler
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Central Italy ◽  
The Other ◽  
Real Presence ◽  
Private Spaces ◽  
Devotional Practices ◽  
Passion Of Christ ◽  
The Individual

Against the background of a general discussion of medieval devotional practices connected to the crucifix, this paper contributes to the study of the oversized, painted crucifixes prominent in central Italy from the eleventh century and onwards. The paper examines and discusses two recently cleaned Italian crosses from the twelfth century, one in Convent of Rosano near Florence and the other in the cathedral of Sarzana. Both include scenes from the Passion of Christ elucidated by inscriptions. The words accompanying the individual narratives support the overall anagogical strategy and were clearly intended for personal meditation on Christ’s life that focuses the viewer’s mind and elevates his or her contemplation. The crucifixes were conceived of as manifestations of divine real presence. Thus the narrative scenes and accompanying inscriptions actively engaged the problem of Christ’s two natures de facto and, in so doing, they mapped itineraries of meditation onto the pictured Crucifixion. The paper considers possible liturgical and devotional uses of the crucifixes, concluding that the inscriptions not only articulate the meaning of the imagery but also bear on their use(s) in liturgical and private spaces.

Equal Rights and Unequal People

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard D. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Equal Opportunity ◽  
Equal Treatment ◽  
Equal Rights ◽  
Criminal Trials ◽  
The Law ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Ideal

Though Americans have favored the idea of equal rights and equal opportunity, they recognize that differences in wealth and social advantage, like differences in ability and appearance, influence the realization, or not, of equal rights, including equality before the law. In the generations after 1776 the rights of creditors, for example, often overrode the rights of debtors. And criminal trials demonstrate that in courtrooms equal treatment was most often achieved when defendant and victim came from the same social class. Otherwise if they came from different classes social realities, including ethnicity, color, and gender could shape court officials and public opinion. And when a woman’s sexual virtue was compromised, her credibility was almost always discounted. In principle officials paid homage to the ideal of equality before the law, but in practice unequal rights often prevailed.

Koans and Being There

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Cole
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
English Word ◽  
Technical Term ◽  
Legal Precedent ◽  
Being There ◽  
The One

This chapter focuses on koans. The English word “koan” comes from the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese gong'an, which means “public case” in the sense of a legal precedent. The term gong'an begins to appear in Chan texts in the first half of the twelfth century as a technical term for a particular literary gesture that had already been in vogue in the eleventh century, one in which an author first selected a particular vignette or dialogue from some older strata of Chan literature and then offered commentary on it, or a poem about it, or often both. Thus, it took at least two Chan masters to make a koan—the one who supposedly first said or did something that was recorded in a Chan text, and a later one who took interest in just that account and developed it with his own commentary and/or poems.

The Social and Cultural Background of Rashi’s Work

Rashi ◽  
2012 ◽  
pp. 3-11
Author(s):  
Avraham Grossman
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Community ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Cultural Background ◽  
First Century ◽  
Intellectual Life ◽  
Political Status ◽  
The Social ◽  
Religious Polemics

This chapter discusses the social and cultural background of Rashi's work. According to evidence preserved in the literary accounts and archaeological findings, Jews began to settle in what is now France during Roman times, in the first century CE. That settlement continued uninterrupted until Rashi's time. In general, Jews continued to do well in France. Nevertheless, the weakness of the central government and the ascendancy of local fiefdoms meant that their social and political status differed in each of the feudal states that made up eleventh-century France, depending upon the good will of the local rulers. Two developments during the eleventh and twelfth centuries influenced Jewish economic and intellectual life and the internal organization of the Jewish community: the growth of cities and the European intellectual renaissance. The chapter then looks at the Jewish community in Troyes and the Jewish centre in Champagne; the twelfth-century renaissance; and the Jewish–Christian religious polemics.

The Byzantine Background

2021 ◽  
pp. 81-98
Author(s):  
James Morton
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Canon Law ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Southern Italy ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Norman Conquest ◽  
Unleavened Bread

Chapter 4 examines the surviving nomocanonical manuscripts from the period of Byzantine rule in early medieval southern Italy (tenth–eleventh centuries). Very few manuscripts survive from before the twelfth century, so their content must be reconstructed from later codices. Nonetheless, this chapter argues that enough evidence has been preserved to prove that Byzantine canon law was firmly established in southern Italy from the time of the empire’s ecclesiastical and administrative reorganisations of the ninth and tenth centuries. The chapter shows that, as the Byzantines reconquered territories from the Lombards and established new ecclesiastical centres in Reggio, S. Severina, and Otranto, they introduced the Nomocanon in Fourteen Titles, the Nomocanon in Fifty Titles, and the Synopsis of Canons to serve as legal reference works. It then focuses on the Carbone nomocanon (Vat. gr. 1980–1981), the only complete nomocanon to survive from the era of Byzantine rule, arguing that it was probably produced in the eleventh century for use by a Greek bishop in Lucania. The manuscript’s contents and marginalia indicate that its owner was fully aligned with the legal system of Constantinople and show no influences from neighbouring Latin jurisdictions. Finally, the chapter looks at evidence from the period of Norman conquest in the late eleventh century, revealing how the resulting tensions between Latin and Greek Christians in the region left traces of contemporary Byzantine polemic against the azyma (unleavened bread in the Eucharist) in Calabrian nomocanons of the twelfth century.

Books and Their Method

2021 ◽  
pp. 479-542
Author(s):  
Frank Griffel
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Careful Consideration ◽  
Sufficient Reason ◽  
Philosophical Inquiry ◽  
God's Will ◽  
Principle Of Sufficient Reason ◽  
Rational Explanation ◽  
The Ideal

This chapter deals with the method of philosophical books during the sixth/twelfth century. It begins with an analysis of Abu l-Barakat al-Baghdadi’s method of i’tibar (careful consideration) and highlights its departure from al-Farabi’s and Avicenna’s (Ibn Sina’s) demonstrative method as the ideal of philosophical inquiry. The chapter looks at how Fakhr al-Din al-Razi describes his own method in his philosophical books and it analyzes the method of “probing and dividing” (sabr wa-taqsim) used therein. Finally, the chapter zooms in on the methodical differences between Fakhr al-Din’s philosophical books and his books of kalam and focuses on the principle of sufficient reason. This philosophical principle requires that every event must have a rational explanation of its cause(s). The principle is universally valid in al-Razi’s philosophical books, yet in his books on kalam only insofar as God’s will is excluded from this requirement. This difference has far-reaching effects on the teachings put forward in these two genres of books.

The ‘Colores Rhetorici’ in the Investiture Contest

Traditio ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 209-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. S. Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Important Group ◽  
Henry Iv ◽  
Italian Origin ◽  
Letter Collection

The polemics of the investiture contest, both those of German and those of Italian origin, in most cases owe their survival to the copying activity of scribes in the monasteries and cathedral chapters of Germany during the twelfth century. This survival is in itself unexpected: the Libelli de lite continued to be copied at a period when their argumentation and critical apparatus must have appeared unsophisticated by comparison with the canonical and theological textbooks of the mid-twelfth century. The polemics seem to have been preserved not for their erudition but for their literary qualities. Thus the two most famous twelfth-century collections of eleventh-century libelli — that of the Codex Udalrici and that transcribed in the sixteenth-century codex, Hanover, Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek XI. 671 — are found to exploit the polemics for teaching purposes: not for the elucidation of the rights of King Henry IV or of Pope Gregory VII (as their contents might suggest), but as models of epistolary style for the instruction of the twelfth-century pupils of the cathedral school of Bamberg. ‘Codex I’ of the composite Hanover letter collection — which, like the Codex Udalrici, seems to have originated in Bamberg — contains an important group of pro-Henrician and anti-papal materials: the only extant exemplar of the Defensio Heinrici IV regis of Petrus Crassus, the decrees of the imperialist synods of Worms and Brixen, the encyclical of 1089 of the antipope Wibert of Ravenna, and the treatise of Pseudo-Udalric in favour of clerical marriage. However, ‘Codex I’ also includes pro-papal materials: the two letters of Archbishop Gebhard of Salzburg in support of Gregory VII, letters of Gregory VII himself concerning German ecclesiastical politics, a well-known letter of Urban II and the decrees of the reforming council of Piacenza of 1095. The eclectic nature of the compilation of ‘Codex I’ suggests that the polemical works were regarded by the compiler primarily as model performances in the rhetorical art of the trivium.

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