The Traditional Background of Partonopeus de Blois

PMLA ◽  
1946 ◽  
Vol 61 (4-Part1) ◽  
pp. 916-946
Author(s):  
Helaine Newstead

The romance of Partonopeus de Blois, though widely read and much admired in the Middle Ages, has not aroused a comparable interest among modern scholars. No edition of the French text has been published since 1834, and no exhaustive investigation of its literary sources has yet appeared. The story is usually explained as a medievalized version of the legend of Cupid and Psyche, with the roles of hero and heroine reversed under the influence of Breton lais of the fairy mistress type. Since critical discussions have tended to emphasize—perhaps overemphasize—the indebtedness of Partonopeus to the classical legend and its folk tale analogues, the connections with the Breton lais and the matière de Bretagne have been explored only in a general and rather tentative way. A more specific study of these connections based on the available French edition may help us to reach a clearer understanding of the materials which compose this charming romance, although a comprehensive analysis must await a critical edition of the text.

Traditio ◽  
1984 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
pp. 297-300
Author(s):  
Theodore John Rivers

The term carruca (or carruga), like many other terms in medieval Latin, acquired a new and different meaning in the Middle Ages in place of its original classical meaning. There is no confusion over the meaning of carruca in Roman historical and literary sources: it clearly means a four-wheeled wagon or carriage. However, its original meaning was modified during the medieval period so that by the early ninth century carruca denoted a wheeled plow. Although the medieval plow is often called a carruca (whereas the Roman plow is called an aratrum), one should not infer that all references to carruca in medieval sources signify a plow, particularly if these sources are datable to that transitional period during which the classical meaning of the word was beginning to be transformed into its medieval one. Characteristic of the sources which fall within this period are the Germanic tribal laws (leges barbarorum), and of these, three individual laws in particular are of interest: the Pactus legis Salicae 38.1, Lex Ribuaria 47.2, and Lex Alamannorum 93.2.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Olga Shcheglova

In this review, the author analyses the Tarnovo Edition of the Stishnoy Prologue. Texts: Lexical Index (published by Bulgarian researchers Georgi Petkov and Maria Spasova) and focuses on the structure of the publication, providing a detailed description of the parts of each volume: prologue texts, prologue poems, the lexical index, and the index of saints’ names. The review evaluates the work from the point of view of its academic contribution. The reviewer largely agrees with the authors’ point of view on the history and the study of the Stishnoy Prologue set forth in the preface to the publication. While objecting to some points, the reviewer evaluates the work highly, considering it an important stage in the process of studying the history of the Stishnoy Prologue, one of the most widespread hagiographic calendar collections of the Middle Ages. The publication of the texts of the Stishnoy Prologue, even those in just the Tarnovo edition, can be a powerful catalyst for further textual criticism and linguistic studies of the numerous Russian, Serbian, and Bulgarian copies that have survived to the present day. Ultimately, the reviewed publication can become the basis for a full-scale critical edition of the Stishnoy Prologue. The review emphasises the timeless significance of this publication for Slavic studies, its innovative character, its structural integrity, its theoretical sophistication, and the enormous practical importance of the work for Bulgarian philologists.


2022 ◽  
pp. 44-80
Author(s):  
Penélope Marcela Fernández Izaguirre

RESUMEN: Entre los materiales que los Libros de Emblemas utilizaron para llevar a cabo el propósito de instruir a sus receptores, están los discursos sobre animales fabulosos que los autores recopilaron y adaptaron de diversas fuentes literarias pertenecientes a la Antigüedad clásica y a la Edad Media. Por esta razón la emblemática también es el producto de la asimilación del conocimiento anterior que se tiene sobre animales reales o no. En este tenor, el objetivo de este artículo es comprobar, a través de ejemplos que provienen de la animalia fabulosa, que las representaciones emblemáticas de estos libros asimilan la información proveniente de los antiguos doctos para otorgarles renovada continuidad en cuanto a la función y simbología de las descripciones zoológicas. Para lo anterior, recurriré al análisis del ave fénix, el basilisco y el dragón en el contexto antes mencionado. ABSTRACT: Among the materials that the Emblem Books used to carry out the purpose of instructing their recipients are the discourses on fabulous animals that the authors compiled and adapted from various literary sources belonging to classical antiquity and the Middle Ages. For this reason, emblematic is also the product of the assimilation of previous knowledge about real or not real animals. In this sense, the aim of this article is to prove that the emblematic representations of these books assimilate the information coming from the ancient scholars to give them renewed continuity in terms of the function and symbolism of zoological descriptions. For the above, I will resort to the analysis of the phoenix, the basilisk and the dragon in the aforementioned context.


Author(s):  
John Reeves ◽  
Annette Yoshiko Reed

This book provides scholars with a comprehensive collection of core references extracted from Jewish, Christian, and Muslim literature to a plethora of ancient writings associated with the name of the biblical character Enoch (Gen 5:214). It assembles citations of and references to writings attributed to Enoch in non-canonical Jewish, Christian, and Muslim literary sources (ranging in age from roughly the third century BCE up through the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries CE) into one convenient thematically arranged repository, and it classifies, compares, and briefly analyzes these references and citations to develop a clearer picture of the scope and range of what one might term “the Enochic library,” or the entire corpus of works attributed to Enoch and his subsequent cross-cultural avatars. The book consists of two parts. The present volume, Volume 1, is devoted to textual traditions about the narratological career of the character Enoch. It collects materials about the distinctive epithets frequently paired with his name, outlines his cultural achievements, articulates his societal roles, describes his interactions with the celestial world, assembles the varied traditions about his eventual fate, and surveys the various identities he is assigned outside the purely biblical world of discourse within other discursive networks and intellectual circles. It also assembles a range of testimonies which express how writings associated with Enoch were evaluated by Jewish, Christian, and Muslim writers during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Volume 2, currently in preparation, will concentrate upon textual sources which arguably display a knowledge of the peculiar contents, motifs, and themes of extant Enochic literature, including but not limited to 1 Enoch (the Ethiopic Book of Enoch) and 2 Enoch (the Slavonic Book of Enoch).


2019 ◽  
Vol 87 (2) ◽  
pp. 75-79
Author(s):  
Daniele Castellani ◽  
Michele Pucci ◽  
Cristian Cicconetti ◽  
Maria Pia Pavia ◽  
Marco Dellabella

Background/Objective: This paper will present a brief description of medicine in the Middle Ages, and more comprehensive analysis of the medical management of urolithiasis in Thesaurus Pauperum, the main text of Pedro Hispano. Method: An in-depth reading of the Italian translation of Thesaurus Pauperum, and a review of the literature of the life of Pedro Rebuli Guiliani, known as Pedro Hispano, was performed. Result: Pedro Hispano was born in Portugal around 1205. He studied philosophy, theology and medicine in Paris. He was named professor of medicine at the University of Siena in 1247 and was elected Pope, as John XXI, in 1276. His primary medical book was Thesaurus Pauperum (‘Treasure of the Poor’), a prescription handbook for common diseases, directed not only to physicians but also to ordinary people. We focused on the description of medical management of urolithiasis in Thesaurus Pauperum. Conclusion: This text is interesting not so much on account of the pharmacopoeia used, but instead, because it is, probably, one of the first medical text reporting therapeutics close to the modern evidence-based medicine.


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