Magic, Technology and New Categories of Knowledge in the Central Middle Ages
This article proposes to discuss the extent to which medieval sources differentiate between an idea of applied technological knowledge, which could be close to our modern notion of science, and actual magic.
Military Technology in the writings of John of Salisbury
John was one of the best-educated men of his day and worked as a clerk to the archbishops of Canterbury; later in life, he became the treasurer of Exeter Cathedral and also the bishop of Chartres. John was a prolific author who wrote three major books, two saints’ lives, two moralistic poems, and 325 personal letters.
Double sex, double pleasure? Hermaphrodites and the medieval laws
I think the question of how the medieval laws dealt with ambivalent bodies deserves some attention in own right. The more general question is: how did medieval societies deal with experiences that challenged accepted views of what was normal?
Bernard of Morlaix: the literature of complaint, the Latin tradition and the twelfth-century “Renaissance”
Bernard of Morlaix was a monk of the order of Cluny who flourished around 1140. Excerpts from one of his poems appear in some anthologies of medieval Latin verse1 and he is briefly noticed in some works on the twelfth-century renaissance, but he has received little critical attention and only one of his poems has been translated from the Latin.
Melchizedek as Exemplar for Kingship in Twelfth-Century Political Thought
The figure of Melchizedek, ‘king of Salem’ and ‘priest of God Most High’,was less prominently featured in political writings than Saul, David, Solo-mon, and other biblical rulers.