Author Archives: RMBLF

Calculating Ethics in the Fourteenth Century addresses a moment in the history of ethics, when discoveries in natural philosophy blurred the boundary between the possible and the impossible, and made the impossible a preferred territory in discussions on practical reason. … Lire la suite →

As the Roman Empire in the west crumbled over the course of the fifth century, new polities, ruled by ‘barbarian’ elites, arose in Gaul, Hispania, Italy, and Africa. This political order occurred in tandem with growing fissures within Christianity, as … Lire la suite →

Maïmonide a marqué de sa présence emblématique les trois cultures, arabes, juives et chrétiennes, qui ont cohabité en al‑Andalus il y a près d’un millénaire. Tout au long d’une vie d’exil forcé, il a étendu l’influence de son intellect dans … Lire la suite →

Queen of Sorrows takes an original approach to both late-medieval Italian history and the history of Christianity, using quantitative and qualitative analyses of a remarkable archive of 1,904 testaments to determine patterns in giving to the Virgin of Loreto shrine … Lire la suite →

French came into contact with many other languages in the Middle Ages: not just English, Italian and Latin, but also Arabic, Dutch, German, Greek, Hebrew, Irish, Occitan, Sicilian, Spanish and Welsh. Its movement was impelled by trade, pilgrimage, crusade, migration, … Lire la suite →

The essays collected in this volume are dedicated to the pragmatic dimension of the writing of history in 12th-century Italy. All the contributions can be read by following a few guiding questions: why and by whom were chronicles written? In … Lire la suite →

In Bounded Wilderness, Kathryn Jasper focuses on the innovations undertaken at the hermitage of Fonte Avellana in central Italy during the eleventh century by its prior, Peter Damian (d. 1072). The congregation of Fonte Avellana experimented with reforming practices that … Lire la suite →

Medieval Westerners accepted killing for religion and praised the outcome of the First Crusade (1096-1099). At the same time, their attitude to violence was ambivalent. Theologians shunned the practical use of force, while the warrior aristocracy valued the capacity for … Lire la suite →

Through an extensive series of extracts and accompanying interpretative and contextual essays, this volume showcases the expertise in classical learning that flourished in medieval Gaelic Ireland. Providing translations of all excerpts, it situates better known ‘antiquity sagas’ in the Middle … Lire la suite →