The computer revolution is upon us. The future of books and of reading are debated. Will there be books in the next millennium? Will we still be reading? As uncertain as the answers to these questions might be, as clear is the message about the value of the book expressed by medieval writers. The contributors to the volume The Book and the Magic of Reading in the Middle Ages explore the significance of the written document as the key icon of a whole era. Both philosophers and artists, both poets and clerics wholeheartedly subscribed to the notion that reading and writing represented essential epistemological tools for spiritual, political, religious, and philosophical quests. To gain a deeper understanding of the cultural significance of the medieval book, the contributors to this volume examine pertinent statements by medieval philosophers and French, German, English, Spanish, and Italian poets.

Product Description: Although many researchers have taken a critical stance towards the theses on the history of childhood developed by Philippe Ariès in 1960, this volume is the first comprehensive collection of studies with a psychological and emotional historical orientation to demonstrate convincingly the extent to which the relationship between parents and children was a fundamental element of European society in pre-modern times...read more

Product Description: Frauenstimmen und Frauentexte der mittelalterlichen und frühneuzeitlichen deutschen Literaturgeschichte sind hier zum erstenmal teils in Übersetzung, teils in vorsichtiger Anpassung an das Neuhochdeutsche in einem akademischen Lesebuch vereinigt...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: This study explains how the Volksbuch developed from the medieval courtly romance under the influence of complex sociological, economic, technological, and cultural factors during the 15th century and became an art form in its own right...read more

A follow-up publication to the Handbook of Medieval Studies, this new reference work turns to a different focus: medieval culture. Medieval research has grown tremendously in depth and breadth over the last decades. Particularly our understanding of medieval culture, of the basic living conditions, and the specific value system prevalent at that time has considerably expanded, to a point where we are in danger of no longer seeing the proverbial forest for the trees. The present, innovative handbook offers compact articles on essential topics, ideals, specific knowledge, and concepts defining the medieval world as comprehensively as possible. The topics covered in this new handbook pertain to issues such as love and marriage, belief in God, hell, and the devil, education, lordship and servitude, Christianity versus Judaism and Islam, health, medicine, the rural world, the rise of the urban class, travel, roads and bridges, entertainment, games, and sport activities, numbers, measuring, the education system, the papacy, saints, the senses, death, and money. "

Product Description: Although there were a number of outstanding women writers of the late middle ages, it was not thought that women composed lyric poetry. Albrecht Classen's careful investigation of archival material, however, proves this to be a misconception, and in this volume he presents a selection of secular love songs and religious hymns composed by fifteenth- and sixteenth-century German women poets, here translated for the first time, based on his two-volume edition in the original language...read more

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Product Description: Die neue englischsprachige Reihe zur Mediavistik strebt eine methodisch reflektierte, anspruchsvolle Verbindung von Text- und Kulturwissenschaft an. Sie widmet sich den kulturellen Grundthemen der mittelalterlichen Welt aus der Perspektive der Literatur- und Geschichtswissenschaft...read more