Education Archive
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Mnemotechnics and the Reception of the Aeneid in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages
Posted on November 24, 2013 | No CommentsIf Simonides was the inventor of the art of memory, and 'Tulliua' its teacher, Thomas Aquinas became something like its patron saint. -
How much did medieval teachers beat their students?
Posted on November 20, 2013 | No CommentsMedieval writing suggests classroom punishments such as beating, flogging and whipping were carefully regimented – and were only meant to be used to aid learning. -
The Earliest Little Red Riding Hood Tale
Posted on November 10, 2013 | No CommentsLooking at an early 11th century version of tale of Little Red Riding Hood -
Late Medieval Franciscan Statutes on Convent Libraries and Education
Posted on September 16, 2013 | No CommentsAlthough the higher education of the Franciscans has frequently been the object of research, their role in offering elementary instruction has often been ignored. -
Bernard of Clairvaux’s Writings on Violence and the Sacred
Posted on August 26, 2013 | No CommentsA man sworn to earthly nonviolence, poverty and obedience, he was the product of a knightly family; he envisioned himself and his monastic brethren as spiritual soldiers on the front lines of a cosmic war. Bernard explored themes of spiritual and earthly violence throughout his many compositions... -
The Place of Germany in the Twelfth-Century Renaissance: Books, Scriptoria and Libraries
Posted on August 15, 2013 | No CommentsScholars in Germany and elsewhere have studied individual instances of this growth in the output of scriptoria and expansion of collections, but no-one, as far as I know, has drawn attention to the impressive scale and character of the phenomenon as a whole. -
The case for a West Saxon minuscule
Posted on July 19, 2013 | No CommentsJulian Brown's famous analysis of what he termed the Insular system of scripts marked out a number of routes, now well trodden, through the debris of undated and unlocalized manuscript material from the pre-Viking-Age British Isles. -
Looking to the future of medieval archaeology
Posted on July 18, 2013 | No CommentsA symposium entitled ‘Looking to the Future’ was held as part of the Society for Medieval Archaeology’s 50th anniversary to reflect upon current and forthcoming issues facing the discipline. The discussion was wide-ranging, and is summarized here under the topics of the research potential of development-led fieldwork, the accessibility of grey literature, research frameworks for medieval archaeology, the intellectual health of the discipline, and relevance and outreach. -
Lay Religion and Pastoral Care in Thirteenth Century England: the Evidence of a Group of Short Confession Manuals
Posted on July 18, 2013 | No CommentsThis poses a question: where did these engaged laypeople come from, and when? There is some evidence that suggests they should be pushed back to the thirteenth century. -
Love in the Time of Demons: Thirteenth-Century Approaches to the Capacity for Love in Fallen Angels
Posted on July 2, 2013 | No CommentsThis paper examines the capacity for love and friendship attributed to demons in the thirteenth century. It shows how love could be seen as the motivating emotion in their original fall from Heaven, and explores the role love is subsequently thought to have played in both their relationships with each other and their amatory and sexual relationships with humans. -
The Calamitous Fourteenth Century in England: All Doom and Gloom?
Posted on May 28, 2013 | No CommentsThis was a fantastic paper given at the Crown and Country in Late medieval England session at KZOO. There were only two papers but both were interesting and enjoyable. This paper delved into the history of science in late medieval England and examined why the fourteenth century, a time that is usually synonymous with doom and gloom, plague and uprising, wasn't all that bad upon closer observation. -
Are We Post-Queer? A Roundtable on the Present and Future of Queer Theory in Medieval Studies
Posted on May 14, 2013 | No CommentsThis was part of an excellent panel discussion on the future Queer Theory, pedagogy, gender and the cross over between Queer Studies and politics. -
Student Violence at the University of Oxford
Posted on May 9, 2013 | No CommentsMy first foray of KZOO 2013 couldn't have been off to a better start with, “I just don’t want to die without a few scars”: Medieval Fight Clubs, Masculine Identity, and Public (Dis)order. There were only two papers in this session and both were riveting. I felt like I couldn't type fast enough to get it all in! The first paper was given by Professor Andrew Larsen of Marquette University. Professor Larsen published a book on high and late medieval student violence and the Saint Scholastica's Day Riot at Oxford university. -
‘Fromm thennes faste he gan avyse/This litel spot of erthe’: GIS and the General Prologue
Posted on May 2, 2013 | No CommentsThis paper was given at the Canada Chaucer Seminar on April 27, 2013. -
The Greek Renaissance in Italy
Posted on April 14, 2013 | No CommentsFor various reasons north Italy toward the end of the fourteenth century seemed peculiarly adapted to become the seat of another classical renaissance, though of one some what different in character and results from that which had already run its course. -
Teaching the Creed and Articles of Faith in England: Lateran IV to Ignorantia sacerdotum
Posted on April 14, 2013 | No CommentsThe broad conclusion of this thesis is that the available evidence shows that the basic principles of Christian doctrine were available both to the lower clergy who would preach and teach the Creed and Articles of Faith and also to the laity who would receive this preaching and instruction. -
Notes on a private library in fourth/tenth-century Baghdad
Posted on March 3, 2013 | No CommentsStudies on medieval Arabic bibliophilia have mainly focussed on public and semi-public institutions, for some of which we have detailed information. Less is known about private libraries and their physical arrangement. This paper looks at the library of Abū Bakr al-Ṣūlī (d. 335/947), which is described by the sources in unique terms, contextualising it with al-Ṣūlī’s own words on collecting and organizing books. -
The Making of Men, not Masters: Right Order and Lay Masculinity According to Dhuoda and Nithard
Posted on January 27, 2013 | No CommentsSetting Nithard’s and Dhuoda’s works in dialogue with one another, this study seeks to explore how the conflicts of the early 840s may have triggered reevaluations of contemporary ideals regarding lay masculinty. At the core of both authors’ works is the understanding that the problems the realm was facing at that time were primarily due to no- blemen’s expression of unmanly modes of conduct. -
Differences in the Purpose of Medieval Schools in England
Posted on January 26, 2013 | No CommentsHere four books will be examined that describe schooling in the Medieval and early Renaissance periods in England, with a deeper look at universities. -
The Trebuchet
Posted on January 13, 2013 | No CommentsRecent reconstructions and computer simulations reveal the operating principles of the most powerful weapon of its time -
The Oxford Calculators
Posted on January 7, 2013 | No CommentsOxford’s medieval philosophers deserve greater recognition, says Mark Thakkar -
Edition, Translation, and Exegesis: The Carolingians and the Bible
Posted on December 23, 2012 | No CommentsIn their attention to philological procedures and details, to the work of editing, revising, and translating, ninth-century scholars made a lasting contribution to the ways in which Europeans would think about the Bible. -
Exegesis According to the Rules of Philosophy or the Rule of Faith?: Methodological Conflict in the Ninth-Century Predestination Controversy
Posted on December 16, 2012 | No CommentsThe development of biblical exegesis, as Contreni shows, was rapid, but not homogeneous. On the one hand, one of the main ways to acquire biblical wisdom was to rely on the interpretations and teaching of the Holy Fathers, whose texts were studied, assimilated, simplified, collected, and taught. On the other hand, Alcuin’s revival of the liberal arts6 paved the way for the rise of another method of biblical exegesis. -
Jacopo da Firenze and the beginning of Italian vernacular algebra
Posted on December 15, 2012 | No CommentsWhatever the reason, nobody seems to have taken an interest in the treatise before Warren Van Egmond inspected it in the mid-seventies during the preparation of his global survey of Italian Renaissance manuscripts concerned with practical mathematics. -
The education of noble girls in medieval France: Vincent of Beauvais and De eruditione filiorum nobilium
Posted on November 16, 2012 | No CommentsThe educational treatise by Vincent of Beauvais (1184/1194-1264), De eruditione filiorum nobilium (On the Education of Noble Girls), was the first medieval educational text to both systematically present a comprehensive method of instruction for lay children and to included a section devoted to girls.
