Foundations of Learning
The Transfer of Encyclopaedic Knowledge in the Early Middle Ages
edited by R.H. Bremmer and K. Dekker
Paperback (Published)
(October 2007)
ISBN: 9789042919792
Price: $75.00
Out of stock
No period in the intellectual history of North-Western Europe has been so formative as the early Middle Ages, when missionaries transferred the learning accumulated for centuries in the Mediterranean basin to recently founded centres of religious scholarship in the ever expanding Christian world. The aim of this scholarship focused, first and foremost, on a proper understanding of the Bible as God’s Word and Nature as God’s Creation. During this period the foundations of medieval learning were laid in the monasteries and schools by men from distant shores who considered it their calling to entrust this precious knowledge to future generations of indigenous scholars. In this process, Syrians ended up in England, Irishmen in Italy, and Anglo-Saxons in Frisia and Bavaria and thus helped build a common intellectual culture in Europe. Even though the memories of these missionaries were fed with vast amounts of reproducible knowledge far beyond the capacity of modern man, the most important means of storing and conveying knowledge was the written word stored in what was then modern technology: the parchment codex. The composition of these books reflect the extent and diversity of early medieval learning. Sometimes they contain a single work, but often enough they contain compilations of diverse material which at first sight shows little coherence to the modern reader, and rightly so. In a way such miscellanies are mini-libraries. Nevertheless, they are storehouses of wholesome learning in their own right; further study reveals a rationale in such collections that leads us to a monastic learning environment, in some cases even to the classroom. The present volume demonstrates how the study of texts and manuscripts combined opens up windows on the early medieval world of learning as represented by glossaries, proto-encyclopedias, biblical companions, hagiographical guides, didactic verse, or descriptions of the world in word and image. The essays demonstrate that scholars have too often concentrated on the study of single texts, but especially that the compilations of manuscripts and libraries reflect the kind of knowledge that was required of monks, ministers and missionaries for the contemplation, celebration and promulgation of the Christian message.
- Edited by RH Bremmer
- Edited by K Dekker
Other Titles in this Series
Northern Voices
Essays on Old Germanic and Related Topics, Offered to Professor Tette Hofstra. Germania Latina VI
Volume 11
Friars, Scribes, and Corpses
A Marian Confraternal Reading of The Mirror of Human Salvation (Speculum humanae salvationis)
Volume 12
Alexander Magnus Arabicus
A Survey of the Alexander Tradition through Seven Centuries: from Pseudo-Callisthenes to Suri
Volume 13
Rhetoric, Royalty, and Reality
Essays on the Literary Culture of Medieval and Early Modern Scotland
Volume 7
Literature and Religion in Late Medieval and Early Modern Scotland
Essays in Honour of Alasdair A. MacDonald
Volume 18
Similar Books
Innovation and Medieval Communities
The Circulation of Ideas and Practices in and out of the Town (1200-1500)
Volume 63
Medieval Yeghegis, Armenia
History, Archaeology, Society. Local Multiplicities and Global Connections of a Rural Centre on the Silk Road(s)
Power and Women in Southeast and Central Europe in Late Medieval and Early Modern Period (1300-1600)
Volume 10
Women in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages
Studies from Western Europe and North Africa
Volume 44
Los oficios de los diplomas latinos de la Cataluna altomedieval
Estudio de las innovaciones lexicas: XI Premio Internacional de Tesis Doctorales Fundacion Ana Maria Aldama Roy de Estudios Latinos
Volume 106
A Communication Ethic of Dialogic Reformation
Nicholas of Cusa on Care for Communities in Crisis
Volume 106
Ambiguum 10 of Maximus the Confessor in Modern Study
Papers collected on the Occasion of the Budapest Colloquium on Saint Maximus, 3-4 February 2021
Volume 97
Building the Presence of the Prince
The Institutions Responsible for the Construction and Management of the Buildings of European Courts (14th-17th centuries)
Volume 14
Byzantine Historiographical Prefaces (4th-15th Centuries)
A Study on Praxis and Culture of Writing History in Byzantium
Volume 23
Ceramics in Plain Sight: The Bacini of the Churches of Crete. “Reflections” of the Late Medieval and the Early Modern Material Culture of the Island
Volume II: The Regional Unit of Lasithi
Volume 13
Communicating the Passion
The Socio-Religious Function of an Emotional Narrative (1250-1530)
Volume 21
