Plato in Medieval England
Pagan, Scientist, Alchemist, Theologian
By (author) Sears Jayne Edited by Christopher Moore
Every age has their own Plato. From 55 BCE to 1423 CE, the English knew Plato not as the Socrates-memorializing author of several dozen philosophical dialogues but as a forerunner of Christian theology and proto-scientific alchemy. This book gives an intellectual history of medieval England by tracking his surprising career in handbo
From the time of the Roman Republic, continental Europeans traveling to England brought knowledge of Greek and Roman intellectual culture in the form of books of every genre. But, until 1111 CE, the island contained not a single Platonic dialogue. And for the next two centuries, it had only a partial Latin translation of the Timaeus. A Latin Phaedo eventually appeared, in 1340, and the Meno in 1423. But this hardly limited the number of ideas people had about Plato. He was a proto-Christian, a sage, a scholar of the cosmos, and a healer. And he had an elaborate oeuvre that did exist in England, works of astrology, numerology, medicine, and science, including Cado, Theobrodus, Calf, Circle, Herbal, Question, Alchemy, and Book of Prophecies of a Greek King. This book tells the story of Plato in Medieval England, from a name with too few works to a sage with too many. Based on a complete survey of all extant manuscripts, publications, and library records until the fifteenth century, it traces with extraordinary precision the movement of opinions and information about Plato from Europe to England and then into its various monasteries, schools, and universities. This erudite and illuminating sociology of knowledge provides novel insight into the dubious English career of our best-known philosopher. This is intellectual history and reception studies at its most surprising.
- By (author) Sears Jayne
- Edited by Christopher Moore
Other Titles in this Series
Public Declamations
Essays on Medieval Rhetoric, Education, and Letters in Honour of Martin Camargo
Volume 27
Medieval Art at the Intersection of Visuality and Material Culture
Studies in the 'Semantics of Vision'
Volume 32
Law and Theology in Twelfth-Century England
The Works of Master Vacarius (c. 1115/20 - c. 1200)
Volume 10
Sapientia et eloquentia
Meaning and Function in Liturgical Poetry, Music, Drama, and Biblical Commentary in the Middle Ages
Volume 11
The Classics in the Medieval and Renaissance Classroom
The Role of Ancient Texts in the Arts Curriculum as Revealed by Surviving Manuscripts and Early Printed Books
Volume 20
Medieval Thought Experiments
Poetry, Hypothesis, and Experience in the European Middle Ages
Volume 31
Fictions of the Inner Life
Religious Literature and Formation of the Self in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries
Volume 4
Political Thought and Eleventh-Century Populism
The Meek, the Many, and the Meritorious during the Age of the Gregorian Reform
Volume 38
Mind Matters
Studies of Medieval and Early Modern Intellectual History in Honour of Marcia Colish
Volume 21
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