scholarly journals Manuel I Komnenos and Michael Glycas: A Twelfth-Century Defence and Refutation of Astrology

2002 ◽  
Vol 06 (01) ◽  
pp. 23-43
Author(s):  
Demetra George
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
First Person ◽  
Substantial Evidence ◽  
The West ◽  
Dual Identity ◽  
Cast Doubt ◽  
Literary Integrity

Michael Glykas is generally known as a learned conservative theologian who wrote a refutation of Byzantine Emperor Manuel Komnenos' defence of astrology in the latter half of the twelfth century. However there exists substantial evidence that Michael Glykas had a dual identity as the shadowy Michael Sikidites who in his youth was known for his occult interests, suspected of political sedition against Manuel, and imprisoned and blinded as punishment for sorcery. With skill and critical astuteness, Glykas directs his refutation not so much against Manuel's philosophical arguments as against the claims of his evidence, and thus seeks to cast doubt upon the moral and literary integrity of his Emperor in an attempt to redeem his own reputation. Within half a century of the reintroduction of astrology to the West, Glykas was the first person in many centuries to stir up all the old Christian objections against the fatalism of the stars.

scholarly journals Reyes y universidades en la Península Ibérica (siglo XIII) = Kings and Universities in the Iberian Peninsula (13th century)

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 15
Author(s):  
Adeline Rucquoi
Keyword(s):  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
The West ◽  
Teachers And Students ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Península Ibérica

Resumen: La creación de un studium generale en Palencia hacia 1180 por el rey Alfonso VIII de Castilla se enmarca en el gran movimiento de protección del saber, de los maestros y estudiantes que caracteriza el Occidente de la segunda mitad del siglo XII. En España, los reyes son los “defensores” de la fe y deben, por lo tanto, combatir los errores y promover el conocimiento. Crearon así en el reino de Castilla, después del estudio general de Palencia, los de Salamanca (1254) y de Valladolid (vers 1260), así como estudios en Sevilla y Murcia. Los reyes de Aragón, que podían contar con las escuelas de Montpellier, fundaron un estudio general en Lérida en 1300. Poco antes, los reyes de Portugal habían hecho lo mismo en Lisboa. En el siglo XIII, tan sólo las escuelas de Salamanca y la de Montpellier gozaron del título de “universidad de maestros y estudiantes” y de la licencia ubique docendi concedida por los papas.Palabras clave: Universidades, studium, Península Ibérica; Reyes, Salamanca.Abstract: The creation of a studium generale in Palencia around 1180 by King Alfonso VIII of Castile is part of the great movement to protect knowledge, teachers and students that characterizes the West in the second half of the twelfth century. In Spain, kings are the “defenders of faith” and must therefore fight against errors and promote knowledge. In the kingdom of Castile, after Palencia’s schools –studium generale–, they created those of Salamanca (1254) and Valladolid (c. 1260), as well as studia in Seville and Murcia. The kings of Aragon, who could count on the schools of Montpellier, founded a general studium in Lérida in 1300. Shortly before, the kings of Portugal had done the same in Lisbon. In the 13th century, only the schools of Salamanca enjoyed the title of “university of teachers and students” and, with Montpellier, the ubique docendi license granted by the popes.Keywords: Universities, studium, Iberian Peninsula, Kings, Salamanca.

Two pre-Conquest manuscripts from Glastonbury Abbey

1987 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 197-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
James P. Carley
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Early History ◽  
Reform Movement ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
The West ◽  
History Of ◽  
Fine Collection ◽  
Irish School ◽  
William Of Malmesbury

The earliest identified surviving manuscripts from Glastonbury Abbey date from the ninth and tenth centuries, but there are reliable post-Conquest traditions claiming that valuable books were found at the monastery as early as the reign of Ine, king of the West Saxons (688–726). By the tenth century at the latest there are reports of an ‘Irish school’ at Glastonbury, famous for its learning and books, and St Dunstan's earliest biographer, the anonymous. B., relates that Dunstan himself studied with the Irish at Glastonbury. During Dunstan's abbacy (940–56) – that is, at the period when most historians would place the beginnings of the English tenth-century reform movement – there was a general revival at Glastonbury which included a concerted policy of book acquisition and the establishment of a productive scriptorium. Not surprisingly, Dunstan's abbacy was viewed by the community ever afterwards as one of the most glorious periods in the early history of the monastery, especially since the later Anglo-Saxon abbots showed a marked falling off in devotion and loyalty to the intellectual inheritance of their monastery. Æthelweard and Æthelnoth, the last two Anglo-Saxon abbots, were especially reprehensible, and confiscated lands and ornaments for the benefit of their own kin. Nor did the situation improve immediately after the Conquest: the first Norman abbot, Thurstan, actually had to call in soldiers to quell his unruly monks. In spite of these disruptions, a fine collection of pre-Conquest books seems to have survived more or less intact into the twelfth century; when the seasoned traveller and connoisseur of books, William of Malmesbury, saw the collection in the late 1120s he was greatly impressed: ‘tanta librorum pulchritudo et antiquitas exuberat’.

scholarly journals First Crusade Letters and Medieval Monastic Scribal Cultures

2019 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
pp. 484-501
Author(s):  
THOMAS W. SMITH
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
The West ◽  
First Crusade ◽  
New Approaches ◽  
Monastic Communities ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
New Research

The letters of the First Crusade have traditionally been read as authentic and trustworthy eyewitness accounts of the expedition and they contribute greatly to scholarly understanding of the campaign. But new research on them demonstrates that many of the documents are in fact twelfth-century confections produced in the monastic communities of the West as a means of supporting, participating in and engaging with the crusading movement. This article develops new approaches to the letters and new research questions which account for and accept the problematic authenticity of the corpus, pivoting away from traditional methodologies to explore the monastic scribal cultures that produced and consumed First Crusade letters.

Religious Colonialism & Ethnic Awakening

Worldview ◽  
1982 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 17-19
Author(s):  
Thomas A. Idinopulos
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
West Bank ◽  
Eastern Orthodox ◽  
The West ◽  
The Church

In the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, traditional site of Jesus’ tomb, Greek Archbishop Diodoros was installed in March, 1981, as the new Eastern Orthodox patriarch of Jerusalem. Jerusalem, one of the five ancient Orthodox patriarchates, is headquarters for a church whose domain is Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian West Bank and whose flock consists almost entirely of Arabs—some 120,000 in Jordan and 40,000 in Israel and the West Bank.Many of Jerusalem's Christian, Jewish, and Arab leaders attended the installation ceremony at the twelfth-century Romanesque-Gothic church, as did representatives of the more than fifty local Orthodox. Catholic, Uniate, Monophysite and Protestant communities.

scholarly journals The Venetians and the Venetian Quarter in Constantinople to the close of the Twelfth Century

1920 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Horatio F. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Special Reference ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Free State ◽  
The West ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Eastern Empire

The foundation and development of the Venetian Quarter in Constantinople, and the history of the early trading relations between Venice and the Roman Empire are intimately connected with and illustrate the movement by which the Republic gradually passed from actual, through merely nominal, vassalage to actual and formal independence. That movement constitutes an essential part of early Venetian history, the growth of the Republic as a free State between the Empire of the East and the Empire of the West, both weak at sea and in need of a fleet which Venice alone was able to supply, and shows us the Republic skilfully steering her course between Saracens, Normans, Greeks and Germans towards her goal, naval supremacy in the Adriatic and the Levant.It is not the object of this paper to dwell on the larger movement, but rather to examine the relations between Venice and the Eastern Empire with special reference to the Venetian Quarter in Constantinople. Those relations were governed by the Chrysobulls, or Golden Bulls, whereby the Emperors made gradually extending concessions to the seamen and merchants of their vassal State.

scholarly journals XI.—On an Ebony Pax bearing the Legend of St. Veronica

Archaeologia ◽  
1881 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-268
Author(s):  
George Stephens
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Early Church ◽  
The West ◽  
The Middle Ages ◽  
Public Worship

In the early Church the kiss of peace, the simplest of all symbolisms, was a holy ceremony in public worship reverently kept up. Its use lingered on to the Middle Ages. In the twelfth century, when the separation of the sexes began to fall away, the custom came in of the priest kissing a carved ornament instead of his brother-minister, and this in its turn was saluted by the whole congregation. This substitute of any material, costly or simple, even of wood or glass, and generally small in size, after use was returned to the altar. In the West it bore many names—the Pax, Osculatorium, Deosculatorium Pacis, Osculare, Tabula Pacis, Asser ad Pacem, Paxillum, Paxilla, Porte-Paix, Porte-pax, Pax-brede, Pakys-bred, Pax-bord, and so on.

Eriugena, Johannes Scottus (c.800–c.877)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dermot Moran
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
First Principle ◽  
The West ◽  
Latin West ◽  
Pseudo Dionysius

Johannes Scottus Eriugena is the most important philosopher writing in Latin between Boethius and Anselm. A Christian Neoplatonist, he developed a unique synthesis between the Neoplatonic traditions of Pseudo-Dionysius and Augustine. Eriugena knew Greek, which was highly unusual in the West at that time, and his translations of Dionysius and other Greek authors provided access to a theological tradition hitherto unknown in the Latin West. From these sources, Eriugena produced an original cosmology with Nature as the first principle. Nature, the totality of all things that are and are not, includes both God and creation, and has four divisions: nature which creates and is not created, nature which creates and is created, nature which is created and does not create, and nature which is neither created nor creates. These divisions participate in the cosmic procession of creatures from God and in their return to God. As everything takes place within Nature, God is present in all four divisions. Eriugena influenced twelfth-century Neoplatonists but was condemned in the thirteenth century for teaching the identity of God and creation.

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