Before the Middle Ages

2021 ◽  
pp. 22-57
Author(s):  
Rita Copeland
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Separate Study ◽  
Philosophical Approach ◽  
Rhetorical Practice ◽  
The Middle Ages

Chapter 1 traces the millennial length of a theoretical discourse about affectio that begins with Cicero’s De inventione before turning to a tradition of stylistic teaching that arose in parallel with that speculative rhetorical thought and that was to have much more profound consequences for medieval rhetorical practice. Cicero’s De inventione was the main Latin rhetorical treatise, along with Rhetorica ad Herennium, that the Middle Ages inherited from antiquity. Cicero treats emotion (affectio) as a topic of invention, and understands it in philosophical terms as a perturbation of the soul. That philosophical approach was elaborated in medieval commentaries. The chapter then turns to late antique handbooks of style. Style came to constitute a separate study; through these influences, style also became the main conduit for teaching emotion and rhetorical persuasion.

The Making of the Medieval Middle East

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack Tannous
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Religious History ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Conversion To Islam ◽  
History Of ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
Muslim Communities ◽  
The Middle Ages

In the second half of the first millennium CE, the Christian Middle East fractured irreparably into competing churches and Arabs conquered the region, setting in motion a process that would lead to its eventual conversion to Islam. This book argues that key to understanding these dramatic religious transformations are ordinary religious believers, often called “the simple” in late antique and medieval sources. Largely agrarian and illiterate, these Christians outnumbered Muslims well into the era of the Crusades, and yet they have typically been invisible in our understanding of the Middle East's history. What did it mean for Christian communities to break apart over theological disagreements that most people could not understand? How does our view of the rise of Islam change if we take seriously the fact that Muslims remained a demographic minority for much of the Middle Ages? In addressing these and other questions, the book provides a sweeping reinterpretation of the religious history of the medieval Middle East. The book draws on a wealth of Greek, Syriac, and Arabic sources to recast these conquered lands as largely Christian ones whose growing Muslim populations are properly understood as converting away from and in competition with the non-Muslim communities around them.

scholarly journals Tòpics retòrics dels textos hagiogràfics bizantins i catalans

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 135
Author(s):  
Ángel Narro
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Literary Genre ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
The West ◽  
Lives Of Saints ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Catalan Literature ◽  
The Middle Ages

Resum: El present treball analitza comparativament els principals tòpics retòrics presents als pròlegs de textos hagiogràfics bizantins i catalans. El punt de partença és la consolidació del gènere hagiogràfic com a tal en la literatura grega tardo-antiga i d’època bizantina i la seua influència sobre el desenvolupament de l’hagiografia en Occident, primer en llatí i després en les llengües romàniques a partir de l’Edat Mitjana. En aquest sentit, podrem observar l’ús d’un mateix repertori de caràcter retòric per presentar i embellir el text i analitzarem l’explicació d’aquest fenomen i les perspectives d’estudi a explorar.    Paraules clau: hagiografia, literatura bizantina, literatura catalana, vides de sants.   Abstract: This article is aimed to compare the main rhetorical topoi of the prologues of both Byzantine and Catalan Hagiographical texts. The starting point is the consolidation of Hagiography as a literary genre in Late Antique Greek and Byzantine literature and its influence on the development of Hagiography in the West, first on Latin and then on Romance texts from the Middle Ages. In this way, we will observe the use of similar rhetorical resources to introduce and embellish the texts and analyze the explanation of this issue and the different approaches to explore.   Keywords: hagiography, byzantine literature, catalan literature, lives of saints.  

THE POETICS OF LATER GREEK ECPHRASIS: CHRISTODORUS COPTUS, THE PALATINE ANTHOLOGY AND THE PERIOCHAE OF NONNUS’ DIONYSIACA

Ramus ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 216-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fran Middleton
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Latin Poetry ◽  
Latin Literature ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Greek Poetry ◽  
To Receive ◽  
The Middle Ages

There is increasing interest in what might be thought ‘special’ about late antique poetry. Two volumes of recent years have focused on Latin poetry of this time, Classics Renewed: Reception and Innovation in the Latin Poetry of Late Antiquity edited by Scott McGill and Joseph Pucci (2016) as well as The Poetics of Late Latin Literature edited by Jaś Elsner and Jesús Hernández Lobato (2017), while it has become increasingly acceptable to remark on late antiquity as a cultural period in its own right, rather than a point of transition between high antiquity and the middle ages. Greek poetry of late antiquity has yet to receive the level of attention offered to Latin literature of this time, and so it is to help answer the question of what may be thought special about late antique Greek poetry that I here discuss the poetics of later Greek ecphrasis.

scholarly journals The “Apocryphal” Inscription from Mangup, Crimea, and Rituals of “Exposing the Thief”: Magic and Law from Antiquity to the Middle Ages

Slovene ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-93
Author(s):  
Andrey Yu. Vinogradov ◽  
Mikhail S. Zheltov
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Russian Regions ◽  
Judicial Practice ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
The Middle Ages

The discovery of a Byzantine bread stamp inscribed with the text of Ps 29:8 in the ruins of Mangup Basilica in Crimea allows the authors of this article to revise the entire tradition of the Byzantine magical and folk “recipes” for revealing a thief; it is this context in which this verse is used in combination with a special bread. Prototypes of these recipes and procedures are attested in the late antique syncretic (pagan-Judeo-Christian) magical papyri, in which private persons are advised to detect thieves by means of special spells, used either on their own or in combination with bread and cheese, an image of an eye, birds, bowls of water, and laurel leaves. In middle- and late-Byzantine manuscripts, these procedures are still present but in “Christianized” forms, even to the extent that a bread-and-cheese (or just bread) procedure is sometimes described as a regular liturgical rite, performed in a church. In the meantime, there is evidence indicating that the Byzantine hierarchy had been struggling with this and other instances of using magical procedures under the cloak of the Christian liturgy, and, in particular, bishops had been expelling priests who used bread sortilege to determine guilt. However, in Western Europe, especially in Germany and England, where spells against thieves had also been known since antiquity, the bread ordeal (English: Corsnaed, German: Bissprobe) became an accepted judicial practice, and even found its way into the official law codes of 11th-century England. Quite surprisingly, a similar phenomenon is attested in Russia (Novgorod) in the early 15th century. Taking into account the Crimean bread stamp studied in this article, one can conclude that bread ordeals, prohibited in Constantinople, could have been tolerated in the Byzantine periphery, including Crimea, and that it is from these areas that this practice could have come to some Russian regions as well.

scholarly journals Intercultural Dialogue and Humanities from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-22
Author(s):  
Enrico Maria Di Palma
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Intercultural Dialogue ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Peter Abelard ◽  
The Middle Ages

The aim of this articole is to discover traces of humanitas in late antique and mediaval literature. Starting from the classic meaning of this notion, the paper finds three meaningful episodes: the controversy between Ambrosius and Symmachus about the Altar of Victory, the Dialogue of a Philosopher with a Jew and a Christian by Peter Abelard and the spread of the Life of Balaam and Josaphat. Through these examples, the article builds a new idea of humanitas, free from historical restricion, a blend of literary passion, acceptance of diversity and multiculturalism.

scholarly journals Filsafat Kenabian Muhammad Saw. di dalam al-Quran

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-203
Author(s):  
Hakam Al-Ma'mun
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Good News ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Philosophical Approach ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
Religious Doctrine ◽  
The Middle Ages

The discussion of Prophetic philosophy was one of the central themes for Muslim philosophers in the Middle Ages. This is because one of the foundations of the Muslim faith is built on trust in God's messengers as recipients and transmitters of divine messages. Therefore, if someone has claimed to be a believer, the consequence that must be accepted is to believe in the existence of Muhammad's prophecy. However, history records the existence of some groups of Muslims in the Middle Ages that have ruled out the role of a prophet. The assumption that underlies them solely rests on the role of human reason which is considered sufficient to lead him to the truth so that the role of prophethood is no longer needed. This paper highlights how the Qur'an explains the concept of Muhammad's prophecy with all the visions and missions it carries. The Qur'an through sura al-Ahzab verses 45-46 has captured some of the prophetic characteristics of Muhammad. The philosophical approach in this research is a concrete effort to understand and explain religious doctrine more logically and systematically. The results of this study indicate that sura al-Ahzab verses 45-46 contain the prophetic message of Muhammad's prophethood, that is his testimony as a messenger who brings good news as well as a warning to people who are in denial of the existence of God. In addition, Muhammad also played a role as a caller for truth and a guide for lost mankind.

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