The importance of the commentaries on Aristotle's works in late medieval philosophy cannot be overestimated; they are in many cases the only witnesses to contemporary debates on philosophical topics. They are nonetheless very difficult to use: not only have different versions of the same commentary sometimes been preserved but also different commentaries on the same works, such as the different lecturae of some of Buridan's commentaries. There is also the highly standardized form of the commentaries themselves, where the same questions on a given Aristotelian work are often discussed in the same order. This uniformity is not limited to the titles of the questiones but affects the arguments too, which gives rise to doubts about the originality of the authors. It is easy to think of them as slavishly following an established tradition and so to fail to appreciate the real importance of their commentaries.

There are many still unstudied aspects of the cultural history of early Quattrocento Rome, especially if we consider the years before 1443, the date of the more or less permanent re-entry into the civitas aeterna of Pope Eugenius IV. The nexus between the still ephemeral papacy and the emerging intellectual movement of Italian Renaissance humanism is one of these aspects. It is hoped that this study will shed some light on this problem by presenting a document that has hitherto not been completely edited: the original will of Cardinal Giordano Orsini. As we shall see, this important witness to the fifteenth century provides valuable information on many fronts, even on the structure of the old basilica of Saint Peter. The short introduction is in three parts. The first has a discussion of the cardinal's cultural milieu with a focus on the only contemporary treatise specifically about curial culture, Lapo da Castiglionchio's De curiae commodis. The second part addresses the textual history of the will as well as some misconceptions which have surrounded it. The third part contains a discussion of the will itself, along with some preliminary observations about what can be learned from the critical edition of the text here presented for the first time.

The late Edmund Bishop's suggestion that Merovingian liturgical circles had possibly been influenced by a ‘Gregorian’ type of Service Book seems to have remained unnoticed and unappreciated. Yet it has appeared to me to be important for the early history of the Gregorianum. Scholars have always had a sense of frustration about this Sacramentary since no manuscript earlier than that of Cambrai 164, written about 811 or 812, for Bishop Hildoard of that see, has come down to us. To get behind this text has always been their goal, and it has often been assumed that the ninth-century Sacramentary of the Chapter Library of Padua did in fact contain such a text. Whether this is so or not (and Rev. Klaus Gamber has recently shown there are grounds for rejecting it), the series of documents here examined would seem to point to the years circa 680, as marking the terminus ad quem of the Gregorianum.

Consent to taxation traditionally has been regarded as one of the essential functions of representative assemblies. The distinguished historian of medieval Spanish institutions, Claudio Sánchez Albornoz, has indeed argued that representatives of the towns originally were summoned to the cortes of León-Castile to give their consent to extraordinary taxes. As yet, however, students of the medieval cortes have not carried out detailed investigations of the problem. Evidence to illustrate the taxing role of the cortes during the formative years from 1188 to 1252 is scanty, but it is considerably fuller during the reign of Alfonso X (1252-1284). Inasmuch as he incurred exceptional expenses and frequently summoned the cortes, an inquiry into the role of the cortes in assisting him through taxation should broaden our understanding of the functioning of government in the second half of the thirteenth century. The purpose of this paper then will be to determine when, to what extent, and for what purposes the cortes authorized the king to levy extraordinary taxes.

In the following pages the Repertorium of Hippocratic Writings in the Latin Middle Ages, begun in Traditio 31 (1975) 99–126 and continued in succeeding issues, resumes with a number of tracts which, though for the most part spurious, circulated under Hippocrates' name. Included are the so-called XX. Epistolae (communications regarding various aspects of medicine or medical history dating from before the ninth century to the fifteenth century), and the brief tracts entitled XXI. Epitomum, XXII. De Equis, XXIII. Experimenta, XXIV De Farmaciis, XXV De Febribus, XXVI. De Flatibus, XXVII. Gynaecia, XXVIII. De Herbis, and XXIX. De Humoribus. The number and variety of these texts provide ample evidence for the continued reverence for the noted physician of Cos.

Ovid's exceptional popularity in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries is past dispute; the exact nature of his influence, however, is somewhat less clear. The medieval student first read Ovid early in his career at cathedral schools such as Orléans and Chartres, where his teacher taught him that the classical poets were wise and learned authorities who could offer a Christian much profitable instruction (in Ovid's case, this interpretation involved a considerable distortion, to which we shall return). The student also learned that imitating the Roman authors was a safe and respectable course to follow. As far as Ovid is concerned, medieval poets learned their lessons well. Whether writing in classical, quantitative meters or in medieval, accentual ones, the poets, when they turn to love, sing in the Ovidian vein.

In his magnum opus on the history of magic, Lynn Thorndike devoted a few pioneering pages to the Liber vaccae or Book of the Cow. He identified and described several of the manuscripts of this singular Arabic compilation of magical experiments, pointed out the many different titles under which it was known in the medieval West, and discussed its false attribution to Plato, Galen, and Hunayn ibn Ishâq. By contrast, given his habit of paraphrasing the texts he examined at great length, Thorndike's account of the content of the work is uncharacteristically patchy. He hastily referred to “elaborate experiments in unseemly generation and obstetrics,” the aim of which was “to make a rational animal from a cow or ape or other beast, or to make bees.” In his opinion, the experiments of the Liber vaccae were, in fact, “unmentionable,” and “hardly such as can be described in detail in English translation.”

When, in the first canto of Purgatorio, Vergil requests permission to ascend through the Mountain's seven kingdoms, Cato issues instructions for the requisite purification. Vergil complies, descending with Dante to the base of the island, where he applies the morning dew to remove dirt and tears from Dante's eyes and cheeks, and girds Dante with a smooth rush. This brief drama, said to restore the color to Dante's face and to prepare for a meeting with the primo ministro (98–99) of paradise, is both the most densely ritualized moment of transition between the first two canticas and the thematic centerpiece of Purgatorio 1.

The medieval military orders were religious institutions whose members had professed a life of combat and prayer that integrated them into a religious landscape sharply defined by diversity. And yet still very little is known about the military orders’ religious functions in the dioceses in which they held ecclesiastical possessions. By focusing on one military order in particular, the Order of the Temple, this study aims to achieve two goals: first, to provide a critical overview of recent scholarship in the emerging field of military order (and especially Templar) religion, and second, to examine aspects of Templar religious involvement in medieval society in general and the reactions of senior clergymen to the Templars’ religious engagement on the parish level in particular. It argues that the Templars proved very keen to expand their network of parish churches and that in so doing they proved willing to engage with the lay public on a much larger scale than has hitherto been believed.

The development of the pre-Carolingian seigneurie has received little attention, although this neglect is due in large part to a scarcity in source material. This lack may be supplemented by relying on other material, such as that supplied in the Lex Baiuvariorum. The latter, the Bavarian code, was promulgated within the first half of the eighth century and slightly before the appearance of the Carolingian estate organization. The development of manorial obligations in eighth-century Bavaria is illustrated by one major law in the Lex Baiuvariorum, and this law is I, 13. However, the study of the seigneurie in Bavaria is complicated by differing interpretations of the evidence. What follows is an attempt to re-evaluate the evidence as supplied in L. Baiu. I, 13 and to show its relationship with the Carolingian estate organization.

For more than sixty years now Heinrich Hagenmeyer's ‘Chronologie de la première croisade’ has been a standard reference. As a compilation and critique of dates recorded by the crusading historians and their contemporaries, the great German scholar's account is as satisfactory today as when it first appeared. It is in the area, however, of the hypothetical dates which Hagenmeyer assigned to the various occurrences on the expeditions of Peter the Hermit and Godfrey of Bouillon to the Orient that the ‘Chronologie’ stands in error and needs revision.

In 1964 Professor Sesto Prete published a description of the contents of two fifteenth-century manuscripts, MS 100.42 in the Cathedral Library at Toledo and Cod. Vaticanus Barberinianus latinus 42. He called these T and B respectively, and they will be so referred to here. T contains 169 humanistic items as opposed to 76 in B. The manuscripts have 32 items in common.

The disease of love (amor hereos) proved a topic of longstanding interest at the medical school of Montpellier between the thirteenth and the fifteenth centuries. From Arnald of Villanova and Bernard of Gordon in the late thirteenth century to Valescus of Taranta and Jacques Angeli in the fifteenth, generations of Montpellier masters and students studied, expounded, and debated the lover's malady. Gerard of Solo, who received his master's degree in medicine from Montpellier in 1335, and who remained at the university to become a leading figure of medical scholasticism, compiled a university exercise on lovesickness, the Determinatio de amore hereos. Though best known to students of lovesickness as the author of a commentary on the ninth book of al-Rāzī's Liber ad almansorem, Gerard's Determinatio, which is probably his magisterial version of a disputation on love, treats the subject more systematically than does the commentary on al-Rāzī. The Determinatio, which represents how the topic of lovesickness was taught outside the framework of textual commentary, provides a useful summary of fourteenth-century scholastic medical doctrine on love.

While searching for traces of Virgilian echoes in medieval Latin poetry, I came upon the following unusual Christmas song from Bohemia, recorded between ca. 1410 and 1420 in a manuscript of the Abbey of Hohenfurth:

1. En aetas iam aurea incipit vigere Regnaque saturnea revolvuntur vere,

2. Parvulus dum nascitur ex intemerata Virgine, quae pariens mansit illibata.

3. Sibyllinis versibus hic fuit praedictus, Quod Maro commemorat, nec est sermo fictus.

4. Utrique ergo psallite, Matri, nato canite pie resonantes.

5. Tibi Deus pater grates, Qui in figura per vates filium spopondisti;

6. Atque tibi sacrum flamen, Qui nobis consolamen obumbrando contulisti.

7. R° Narrando poetice, Intelligendo mystice, is est Saloninus, Vera sapientia, filius divinus.

The ingenuity of early Christian artisans in turning a host of pagan symbols and images to the service of a new ideology is one of the most conspicuous features of Christian art during the second and third centuries after Christ. It is responsible for the art of the catacombs in which Orpheus the charmer of wild beasts represents Christ the Good Shepherd, and the eagle, peacock, Dionysiac grapes, sun, stars, and other pagan funerary symbols of long standing express the state of the Christian soul after death. Yet as Christianity grew stronger in the Roman empire, as councils were held and creeds formulated, and as a distinctively Christian view of history evolved in which Old Testament figures replaced pagan heroes, we find a curious lag in the visual arts. The old pagan imagery continues to appear in Christian funerary monuments, often in conjunction with newer, wholly Christian, motifs, but significantly not replaced by them. This phenomenon is not due simply to the conservatism of the artisans, but owes much to the vigor of the old motifs and the persistence of the ideas they represented. It also points up the fundamental difference between a verbal statement, made up of words which may be freely rearranged and whose connotations shift mercurially from year to year, and a visual statement, which is less flexible and able to retain its symbolic appeal for a very long time. The difference, practically a commonplace in the study of the history of ideas, is nonetheless often overlooked in the study of the ideas and motifs of late antiquity, when words and pictures ostensibly representing the same ideas were often straining in opposite directions. Thus, while the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon sought to settle for all time the relation between the human and divine in the person of Jesus, Christian artisans were still depicting Christ the Good Shepherd in the aspect of Orpheus.

It is not without reason that Harnack calls St. Gregory the Great ‘Doctor angelorum et diaboli.’ The misery of Gregory's times, occasioned by the incessant attacks of the Lombards, made him convinced that the end of the world was at hand. Thus it is that his thought has a definitely eschatological stamp. The terrors of death and the fierce onslaughts of the devil were popular themes with St. Gregory the Great.