Seeking Meaning Behind Epistolary Clichés: Intercessory Prayer Clauses in Christian Letters

2012 ◽  
Vol 48 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Renie Choy
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Literary Form ◽  
Intercessory Prayer ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
History Of Christianity ◽  
History Of ◽  
Christian Literature ◽  
Classical Traditions ◽  
Classical Influence

The letter, as the format of twenty-one of the twenty-seven documents in the canonical New Testament, is arguably the literary form which has played the most significant role in the history of Christianity. But scholars have often been troubled by how to treat the conventions framing Christian letters: since little of Christian literature from its earliest time to the medieval period escapes the influence of classical traditions of rhetoric, can constant epistolary formulas be taken as expressions of genuine sentiment? In fact, it is precisely because the lines between classical influence and Christian innovation are so difficult to make out that E. R. Curtius was able to argue that the humility formula of medieval charters, for so long assumed to have originated in Paul, was in fact a pagan Hellenistic prototype like scores of other rhetorical conventions. His study of the formula serves, Curtius writes, to ‘furnish a warning against making the Middle Ages more Christian or more pious than it was’, and to demonstrate that ‘a constant literary formula must not be regarded as the expression of spontaneous sentiment’. So the entrenchment of rhetoric in letter-writing is often set in opposition to genuine Christian feeling, commonplace utterance against living expression, empty verbiage against religious sincerity.

A Study in the History of Clare, Suffolk; with Special Reference to its Development as a Borough (Alexander Prize Essay, 1928)

1928 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 83-115
Author(s):  
Gladys A. Thornton
Keyword(s):  
Special Reference ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Subsequent Development ◽  
Considerable Importance ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
South West ◽  
Full Development ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Town ◽  
Prize Essay

Clare is situated in the south-west corner of Suffolk, in the valley of the Stour River. At the present day it is only a village, for its market is no longer held; yet its history shows that in earlier times it was of considerable importance, especially during the medieval period, when it was a favourite residence of the Clare lords. The town then had a busy market and a flourishing cloth-making industry; and at one time it seemed possible that Clare might attain full development as a borough, possessing as it did some burghal characteristics. In the following pages it is proposed to study in detail the history of Clare as a seignorial borough during the Middle Ages, and its subsequent development.

Slavonic Studies

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. F. Ryan
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
World War ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
World War 2 ◽  
University Departments ◽  
Gradual Process ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Europe ◽  
The University

This chapter examines the history and developments in Slavonic studies in Great Britain. It explains that English awareness of Slav Europe was not great in the middle ages and that the inclusion of the medieval period of the various Slav peoples in the general history of Europe was a gradual process. It suggests that the study of Slavonic languages and literatures was not a discipline in British universities until comparatively recent times. However, a good many of the university departments of Russian or Slavonic studies which formerly existed in Great Britain, especially in the post-World War 2 period, have now been closed.

The Historiographical Legacy of Salo Wittmayer Baron: The Medieval Period

AJS Review ◽  
1993 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-37
Author(s):  
Robert Chazan
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
North America ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Jewish History ◽  
Essential Element ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
Almost All ◽  
The Impact

The impact of Salo Wittmayer Baron on the study of the history of the Jews during the Middle Ages has been enormous. This impact has, in part, been generated by Baron's voluminous writings, in particular his threevolume The Jewish Community and–even more so–his eighteen-volume Social and Religious History of the Jews. Equally decisive has been Baron's influence through his students and his students' students. Almost all researchers here in North America currently engaged in studying aspects of medieval Jewish history can surely trace their intellectual roots back to Salo Wittmayer Baron. In a real sense, many of Baron's views have become widey assumed starting points for the field, ideas which need not be proven or irgued but are simply accepted as givens. Over the next decade or decades, hese views will be carefully identified and reevaluated. At some point, a major study of Baron's legacy, including his influence on the study of medieval Jewish history, will of necessity eventuate. Such a study will have, on the one hand, its inherent intellectual fascination; at the same time, it will constitute an essential element in the next stages of the growth of the field, as it inevitably begins to make its way beyond Baron and his twentieth-century ambience.

The Medieval Spice Trade

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Freedman
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Consumer Preference ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Trade Routes ◽  
Essential Ingredient ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
History Of ◽  
Spice Trade ◽  
Medieval Food ◽  
Historic Change

Europe's insatiable demand for spices in the late Middle Ages (1200-1500 AD) is a remarkable example of dramatic historic change triggered by consumer preference. The spice trade is important to the history of food not only because of the trade routes and speculation about how to expand them, but also because of the reasons for the heavy demand in the first place. Tropical spices are not an essential ingredient of modern European cuisine. This article documents the spice trade during the medieval period. It first considers the ubiquity of spices in medieval gastronomy and medieval pharmacology. It then turns to the health benefits of spices to medieval food, the origins and imagined origins of spices, spice trade routes, and prices of spices.

Christian Biblical Tradition in the Jing Chinese Culture

2021 ◽  
pp. 494-510
Author(s):  
Yanrong Chen
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Culture ◽  
History Of Christianity ◽  
Religious Texts ◽  
Sacred Texts ◽  
Christianity In China ◽  
Protestant Churches ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Classical Studies ◽  
History Of ◽  
Christian Literature

Most studies of the Bible in China focus on Protestant churches starting in the nineteenth century, as a Chinese Catholic Bible was absent during the first two-hundred-year history of Christianity in China until an official edition was published in the twentieth century. In fact, despite the absence of a full translation, the Bible was rendered into a wide variety of genres corresponding to the native Chinese culture of sacred texts called jing in Chinese. This essay provides a broadened view of the Bible reception in China by presenting a range of Chinese Christian sacred texts from the late sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. These texts conveyed biblical words and messages to Chinese audiences of the time, and they creatively integrated genres from the European Church’s convention of Christian literature and the Chinese literary courses of classical studies and religious texts. This overview demonstrates major examples and organizes them according to their compositions. The diverse types form a spectrum of Chinese Christian sacred texts, in which most individual Chinese Christian works studied in this volume can find a proper place to fit.

Medieval Jews and the Christian Past

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ram Ben-Shalom
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Historical Consciousness ◽  
Church History ◽  
Negative Stereotypes ◽  
Southern France ◽  
Jewish Thought ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
History Of ◽  
Christian Literature

The focus in this book is on the historical consciousness of the Jews of Spain and southern France in the late Middle Ages, and specifically on their perceptions of Christianity and Christian history and culture. The book shows that in these southern European lands Jews experienced a relatively open society that was sensitive to and knowledgeable about voices from other cultures, and that this had significant consequences for shaping Jewish historical consciousness. Among the topics discussed are what Jews knew of the significance of Rome, of Jesus and the early days of Christianity, of Church history, and of the history of the Iberian monarchies. The book demonstrates that, despite the negative stereotypes of Jewry prevalent in Christian literature, they were more influenced by their interactions with Christian society at the local level. Consequently, there was no single stereotype that dominated Jewish thought, and frequently little awareness of the two societies as representing distinct cultures. The book demonstrates that in Spain and southern France, Jews of the later Middle Ages evinced a genuine interest in history, including the history of non-Jews, and that in some cases they were deeply familiar with Christian and sometimes also classical historiography. The book enriches our understanding of medieval historiography, polemic, Jewish–Christian relations, and the breadth of interests characterizing Provencal and Spanish Jewish communities.

Mathematics, Physics and Religion: A Need for Candor and Rigor

1984 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 457-470
Author(s):  
Frederick W. Norris
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Fruit Trees ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Christian Belief ◽  
Intellectual Culture ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
History Of Christianity ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
History Of

In Western culture, religion and the sciences often have found themselves to be more and more at odds since the period of the Enlightenment. The change which that era brought to the Christian community could be illustrated as follows. The analogy is perhaps a bit overdrawn, but it does indicate how important the historical shifts were. During the earliest phase of Christian belief, Christianity had to compete with other religions as one fruit-bearing tree within a varied orchard. When the Christian religion became established and dominant in the Middle Ages it tended to cause other trees to wither and die because of its enormous and on occasion darkening size. During the Reformation a radical pruning took place which gave life not only to the Protestant branch but also a new vitality to the Roman Catholic branch. What the Enlightenment represented was the first pervasive suggestion that most fruit trees — perhaps even the orchard — were unnecessary. One could find individual precursors of such attempts as well as a number of people during the Enlightenment who found various religions satisfying. But at no time in the history of Christianity had a large segment of the intellectual culture been so fascinated with the idea that religion in most all of its forms might be useless.

Countering the divisions

2006 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 354-355
Author(s):  
Donald J. Dietrich
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Holy See ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Social Teachings ◽  
The Middle Ages

Araujo and Lucal have written a lucid and scholarly history of papal diplomacy from the medieval period to the end of the League of Nations as the first volume in their projected two-part study. Both Jesuits have served on the Permanent Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations and so have developed the ability to read the documents with a critical eye as they parse the meaning of what is sometimes fairly vague diplomatic language that, in reality, is framing an agenda. In the nine chapters of this book, the reader will be immersed into the ongoing attempts of the Holy See to fulfill the church's commitment to maximize the dignity of each person through the diplomacy that it has conducted since the Middle Ages. In the course of their analysis, the authors probe how the diplomats of the Holy See have developed the appropriate conditions that have made possible meaningful negotiations, how they have tried to insert the social teachings of the Catholic Church into each diplomatic agenda, and how they have tried to safeguard the exercise of each person's religious conscience.

The Otherness of Non-Christians in the Early Middle Ages

2015 ◽  
Vol 51 ◽  
pp. 33-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
James T. Palmer
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Sense Of Belonging ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Early Middle Ages ◽  
History Of Christianity ◽  
Shared Practice ◽  
History Of ◽  
Religious Others ◽  
False Prophets ◽  
Definition Of

Non-Christian ‘others’ were crucial to the definition of early medieval Christendom. Many groups certainly found it important to generate a sense of belonging through shared practice, history and ideals. But the history of Christianity was a story of conflict, which from the very beginning saw a community of believers struggling against Jews and ‘pagan’ Romans. At the end, too, Christ warned there would be ‘false prophets’ and tribulations, and John of Patmos saw the ravages of Gog and Magog against the faithful. When many early medieval Christians looked at ‘religious others’, they saw not so much ‘members of religions’, as they did people defined by typologies and narratives designed to express the nature and trajectory of Christendom itself. This has been a recurring theme in scholarship which has sought to understand Christian views of pagans, Muslims and Jews in the period, but the effect and purpose of such rhetoric is not always fully appreciated.

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