Doing lines: refrains and copyists in the Cantigas de Santa Maria

In the manuscripts of the Cantigas de Santa Maria, the refrains following each strophe, as well as the rubrics preceding each poem, are copied in red ink, into spaces left after the copying of the body of the text in black ink. This creates two specific constraints: the need to fit text into predetermined spaces, and the repetition inherent in copying the same text many times over. The task was probably delegated to junior copyists, meaning that many pages have more than one hand represented. Close study of the copying of refrains reveals that the copyists used a range of devices to vary and justify the text of refrains, and that copying could proceed across the whole page rather than column by column.

O mundo natural da Idade Média: aproximações conceituais

Este artículo se centra en un comprensivo análisis crítico-interpretativo del complejo concepto de naturaleza cultivado durante el devenir de los siglos medievales. Investiga los diferentes matices de este concepto dentro de sus diversas condicionantes socioculturales. Principalmente en el terreno religioso letrado, el estudio desarrolla un abordaje representativo y comparatista de los principales pensadores de la Antigüedad Clásica que influenciaron directa o indirectamente en la política ideológica de tradición judeocristiana (dominante en el pensamiento cultural de la Edad Media sobre la naturaleza). El artículo hace un fuerte enfoque social en su contemporaneidad temática.

El rigor y la gloria: el Juicio Final y su repercusión en la modernidad

This work presents a historical journey on the doctrine of the Last Judgment, starting from its antecedents in ancient Judaism, its rise in the millennial ideology of the Middle Ages, until reaching certain perspectives of its repercussion in Modernity. The Final Judgment forms a doctrine that combines the image of God as a rigorous judge who executes the Law, applying the punishments or prizes related to the works carried out in life, with the vision of a glorious king who will manifest his messianic kingdom in which the human beings will be saved by grace of divine intervention.

Questioning Nature in Late Middle Ages. A History of Method, Praxis and Innovation

This essay traces the interconnections between method, praxis and innovation with their epistemological consequences at the end of the Middle Ages. In the wake of scholastic natural philosophy, this vibrant process marks a milestone in the history of science. During the Thirteenth and Fourteenth centuries a profound transformation takes place in the way of observing nature through a meticulous data collection, experiments and subsequent analysis. In this cultural framework, the Franciscans analyze the realities of the world with an extremely original pragmatic dynamism. This approach gives priority to a practical sense of thinking through a transformative action which opens the doors to a pioneering scientific method and contributes to a long series of innovations. A positive result is an advanced didactics—especially developed by Buridan, Oresme and their followers —that will have a great impact on a continental level, changing the common ground of European science.

Alfonso X: lenguas, escuelas poéticas, redes políticas y patronazgo regio

Reviewing historical data available on some of the troubadours and poets belonging to Alfonso X᾿ cultural milieu opens a window into the internal and external political designs employed by the king. These documented particulars include the presence of several poetic languages (Galician Portuguese, Occitan, Hebrew), the poets’ provenance, the occasion informing the selection, as well as the manner of recruitment employed in each case.

Entre Ave y Eva: las mujeres de las Cantigas de Santa María. II. Las trabajadoras. III. Las Evas

The Church, heavily present in medieval society, contributed to consolidate the patriarchal allocation of spaces: women in the domestic sphere, men in the public sphere. The works of the wife and of the mother had to be carried out within the household, which extended beyond the intimacy of the house, so that she had to take care of the farm, the animals and the land, without neglecting the education of the children. The Cantigas de Santa María, which gather versions of ancient legends but also make up others contemporary to the compilation of the work, offer a panoramic view of these working women, but also of those who developed a commercial activity in an urban environments as befits a work that portrays the society that has evolved over a century. Thus, we find women working in the most varied trades, thus participating in different productive sectors, mainly commerce, hospitality and the textile sector; but we also find women who, driven by a situation of extreme poverty, are forced to carry out the oldest trade in the world.