{"title":"\"Lo Sen e·l Saber e la Conoissensa\": Reevaluating the Razos for Bertran de Born","authors":"Christopher Davis","doi":"10.1353/MDI.2019.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/MDI.2019.0002","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This essay reexamines the uniquely extensive corpus of prose commentaries (razos) for the twelfth-century troubadour Bertran de Born that accompany his poems in several extant Italian manuscripts from the thirteenth century. It argues that commentaries testify to a debate among Italian readers about how to interpret this poet's distinctive political and moral messages. The essay shows Bertran's razos to have been key texts in the reception of troubadour literary culture in Italy at a crucial moment in its development, and sheds light on the role of Occitan lyric in the politics of patronage at Italian courts.","PeriodicalId":36685,"journal":{"name":"Scripta Mediaevalia","volume":"53 1","pages":"59 - 79"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74702941","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"When Pictures Tell the Story: Imagination and Cognition in an Illustrated Prayer Book","authors":"A. Clark","doi":"10.1353/MDI.2019.0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/MDI.2019.0001","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München Clm 935 (the so-called Prayer Book of Hildegard of Bingen, produced in the 1170s in the Rhineland) offered an innovative program for women's prayer. Coupling full-page paintings of sequential biblical scenes with prayers linking the biblical episode to the personal life of the reader, the manuscript offered its user not only an abridged visual Bible, but a new type of support for a complex devotional practice. With complementary but by no means homogeneous possibilities of meaning suggested by the words and images, the reader/viewer was enabled to craft a way of prayer not explicitly guided by rubrics or directions. Focusing on scenes from the Creation series and the Passion narrative, this essay uses some recent insights of neuroscience and cognitive theory to provide a reading of the kind of mental experience likely to be engaged by the reader/viewer of this prayer book.","PeriodicalId":36685,"journal":{"name":"Scripta Mediaevalia","volume":"50 1","pages":"27 - 58"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87237828","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Jurisprudence Fresco in the Stanza della Segnatura: Correcting a Prevalent Error","authors":"D. Lackey","doi":"10.1353/MDI.2019.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/MDI.2019.0008","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Information cards in the Vatican Museum and many guidebooks and scholarly works identify the small putti in Raphael's Jurisprudence fresco as the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity. The identification is demonstrably incorrect, and the error can be traced to a short article by Edgar Wind published in the 1930s. Wind's arguments are considered and rejected. The putti are decorative, not allegorical.","PeriodicalId":36685,"journal":{"name":"Scripta Mediaevalia","volume":"24 1","pages":"219 - 234"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73576089","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Fact and Fish Tales in Ælfric's Colloquy","authors":"Todd Preston","doi":"10.1353/MDI.2019.0000","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/MDI.2019.0000","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Ælfric's Colloquy has often been read as a window into the life of the working class in the Anglo-Saxon period. A close reading of Ælfric's portrayal of the fisherman further shows the Colloquy to be a text that provides an equally revealing picture of its ecological context. Reading the fisherman's section of Ælfric's Colloquy in light of archaeological, historical, and ecological evidence illuminates where the author accurately represents the Anglo-Saxon fishery and where he wanders into uncertain waters. Specifically, by comparing the Colloquy's lists of fish species to the evidence for what archaeologists call the \"fish event horizon\" of the late tenth and early eleventh centuries, the Colloquy provides a surprisingly accurate depiction of the ecological context of the Anglo-Saxon fishery as it begins to shift from an inland, freshwater fishery to a marine one.","PeriodicalId":36685,"journal":{"name":"Scripta Mediaevalia","volume":"40 1","pages":"1 - 25"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80541264","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"An Interdisciplinary Journal of Medieval Studies Worldwide","authors":"Olivia Holmes","doi":"10.1353/mdi.2019.0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/mdi.2019.0009","url":null,"abstract":"One of the first multi-disciplinary journals in North America, Mediaevalia (ISSN: 0361-946X) was founded in 1975 and continues to provide a forum for innovative scholarship across a variety of fields in the Middle Ages and early Renaissance. Published once annually, the journal remains committed to rigorous standards of peer review, and welcomes submissions from both established and junior scholars on all aspects of the textual and visual cultures of the pre-modern world to 1500. We particularly seek essays that are interdisciplinary in methodology and/or intercultural in scope. Manuscripts to be considered for publication should be double-spaced throughout, and should be submitted in English. All submissions are now online; see our webpage at: https://www.binghamton.edu/cemers/mediaevalia/submissions.html. In order to maintain anonymity in the review process, please ensure that your name does not appear in the document. Figures and images should not exceed the number of 5, should be formatted as tiff or jpeg files, and should be 300 dpi or greater with a width of at least 4.5 inches. All images should be accompanied with reproduction permissions. If you also wish to submit a hard copy, it should be sent to Olivia Holmes, Editor-inChief, CEMERS, Binghamton University, Binghamton, NY 13902-6000. For matters of style, please consult our style sheet, which can be found at https:// www.binghamton.edu/cemers/mediaevalia/stylesheet.html. In general, a manuscript should have a minimum of 15 pages and a maximum of 40. The annual subscription rates for Mediaevalia are $45.00 for individuals and $90.00 for institutions (shipping and handling not included) effective January 1, 2019. Present and future subscribers are invited either to subscribe via the SUNY Press website, www.sunypress.edu, or to make a check payable to SUNY Press and send payment to SUNY Press, P.O. Box 465, Hanover, PA 17331. Orders can also be placed by phone: (717) 632-3535; fax: (717) 632-8920; or e-mail: pubsvc.tsp@sheridan.com. We may be reached by phone: (607) 777-2730; fax: (607) 777-2644; or e-mail: mediaevalia@binghamton.edu.","PeriodicalId":36685,"journal":{"name":"Scripta Mediaevalia","volume":"35 1","pages":"235 - 235"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85098068","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Simon Magus and his Miseri Seguaci: Dante's Simonists and Chaucer's Summoner's Tale","authors":"Ethan K. Smilie","doi":"10.1353/MDI.2019.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/MDI.2019.0005","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:In Canto 19 of the Inferno and in the Summoner's Tale, Dante and Chaucer show a remarkable congruity of thought in regard to simony. The two poets portray the nature and effects of the sin by means of a number of specific correspondent depictions: that of the simonists' ostensible desire to build up the Church, which is in both cases portrayed physically and in reference to the past work of Peter and the Apostles (as well as to the contemporary thought of the Spiritual Franciscans); that of simony in terms of sexual perversion; that of the \"goods\" acquired by the simonists as destructive; and, finally, the parodic depiction of sacramental confession alongside the laity's usurpation of its administration. Ultimately, both authors utilize parodic allusions to demonstrate how the authority of the Church is weakened by simoniacal clergy. Within these congruities, however, there is one significant divergence, which is the poets' portrayals of friars. Although for both poets the depictions of friars serve largely the same end, the manner in which they are employed differs vastly, a divergence that may be accounted for by the poets' disparate political and ecclesiastical environments.","PeriodicalId":36685,"journal":{"name":"Scripta Mediaevalia","volume":"21 1","pages":"139 - 167"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82001669","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"\"By communynge is the beste assay\": Gossip and the Speech of Reason in Hoccleve's Series","authors":"Daniel Bradley","doi":"10.1353/MDI.2019.0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/MDI.2019.0007","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Thomas Hoccleve—if one believes his autobiographical poetry—was a bureaucrat who met trouble at every turn. At the heart of his frustrations was language, namely his own supposedly mad ramblings and the cruel gossip of former colleagues who refused to believe he had recovered from a previous period of mental illness. This paper argues that Hoccleve undoes malicious gossip by countering it with good gossip about himself, which he encourages readers to spread by using a rhetorical strategy that deploys both reported and direct speech. By highlighting Hoccleve's victimization, the autobiographical poems effect a poetic authorization that ensures his name is on everyone's tongue. Hoccleve reclaims his own trustworthiness in \"Dialogue with a Friend,\" not by convincing the friend of his reasoning, as many critics argue, but instead by undermining the rationality of this friend, who—alongside all other malicious gossips—is shown to be illogical. Such judges do not offer Hoccleve a fair \"assay,\" but instead judge based on assumption and faulty logic. Through the theme of madness, Hoccleve comments on the fragility of reputation and of a poet-administrator's solvency in a late-medieval world in which administrators, as professional communicators, are stronger as a group united, not divided, by talk.","PeriodicalId":36685,"journal":{"name":"Scripta Mediaevalia","volume":"45 1","pages":"187 - 217"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88625769","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Cinquecento Italian Madrigal in Theory and Practice: The Case of Filippo Massini (1559–1618)","authors":"Lorenzo Sacchini, E. Bellini","doi":"10.1353/MDI.2018.0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/MDI.2018.0007","url":null,"abstract":"The second half of the sixteenth century was the period of greatest popularity of the Italian Renaissance poetic madrigal. Poet and jurist Filippo Massini greatly contributed to this development, providing, in addition to an extensive production of madrigals, a theorization of this verse form. His academic lecture Del madrigale (On the Madrigal), composed in the early 1580s, carefully analyzes all the key characteristics of the madrigal and also provides practical suggestions on its composition. Massini’s comprehensive reflection on the madrigal takes into account the interplay between theory, practice, and mainstream aesthetic preferences. Although it is proposed as a summary of Pietro Bembo’s theories, the lecture actually expands them, bringing them into line with the transformed literary scene and widespread compositional practice of the second half of the sixteenth century. This keen interest in the practical side of the verse form is easily explained in light of the vast output of madrigals he produced during his life. He left three collections of this verse form and included more than one hundred madrigals in his main collection of Rime, published in 1609. Unlike some of his contemporaries, Massini did not develop any particular interest in the madrigal as a musical composition. His few notes in the academic lecture on the madrigal’s musicality and harmony (which will be analyzed below) are indebted to Bembo’s theories, and still contemplate the madrigal exclusively as a literary composition. Contemporary composers similarly","PeriodicalId":36685,"journal":{"name":"Scripta Mediaevalia","volume":"9 1","pages":"217 - 249"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82518050","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Italian Artistry, English Innovation: Thomas Watson's Italian Madrigalls Englished (1590)","authors":"K. D. Grapes","doi":"10.1353/MDI.2018.0012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/MDI.2018.0012","url":null,"abstract":"The starr’s, which did at Petrarch’s byrthday raigne Were fixt againe at thy natiuity, Destening thee the Thuscan’s poesie, Who skald the skies in lofty Quatorzain, The Muses gaue to thee thy fatall vaine, The very same, that Petrarch had, whereby Madonna Laures fame is growne so hy, And that whereby his glory he did gaine. Thou hast a Laure, whom well thou doest commend, And to her praise thy passion songs do tend; Yee both such praise deserue, as naught can smother; In briefe with Petrarch and his Laure in grace Thou and thy Dame be equall, saue percase Thou passe the one, and shee excell’s the other. —G. Bucke, commendatory verse to Thomas Watson’s Hekatompathia (1582)","PeriodicalId":36685,"journal":{"name":"Scripta Mediaevalia","volume":"6 1","pages":"345 - 385"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82529852","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Fragmenta's Timeline Models for Reconstructing and Interpreting the Text","authors":"Isabella Magni","doi":"10.1353/MDI.2018.0011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/MDI.2018.0011","url":null,"abstract":"For decades, scholars and editors have attempted to reconstruct the chronologies of Francesco Petrarca’s life and works, simultaneously presenting historical facts and conjectures. The present study discusses a new method for investigating and representing the history of the Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, proposed in the creation of a digital interactive Timeline for the Petrarchive project. While the indistinct coexistence of certainty and assumption has often influenced and ultimately altered the way we interpret Petrarch’s work, the core principle of this new digital approach is transparency in sources and results, aiming at creating clear distinctions between what is clearly dated, what is datable with a fair amount of certainty, and what can only be conjectured. The drastic change of perspective proposed allows for a new and more authentic rethinking of Petrarch’s methods and times of work in the compilation of his songbook Rerum vulgarium fragmenta. It is crucial in creating a timeline of Petrarch’s life and works to start with basic methodological questions: how to build the timeline; what kind of data to include and how to interpret and organize this data; what forms of geographical referencing to reasonably rely upon for placing Petrarch’s activities and production. First of all, to answer these questions, it is necessary to “clear the ground.” Our perception of Petrarch and his work has been heavily influenced by centuries of studies, biographies, and editions presenting","PeriodicalId":36685,"journal":{"name":"Scripta Mediaevalia","volume":"27 1","pages":"319 - 343"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78737500","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}