An Andalusian tradition of zījes seems to have been predominant in the Maghrib due to the popularity of the zīj of Ibn Is[hdotu]āq al-Tūnisī and derived texts compiled in the fourteenth century. This tradition computed sidereal planetary longitudes and allowed the calculation of tropical longitudes by using trepidation tables based on models designed in al-Andalus by Abū Is[hdotu]āq ibn al-Zarqālluh. This tradition also used Ibn al-Zarqālluh's model to calculate the obliquity of the ecliptic, which implied that this angle (...) had a cyclical period of oscillation between a maximum of 23;53° and a minimum of 23;33°: after reaching this minimum value the obliquity of the ecliptic was bound to increase. This paper argues that some new Maghribi sources give information on observations made in the Maghrib in the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth centuries that imply that precession had increased beyond the limits allowed by the Zarqāllian trepidation theory, while the obliquity of the ecliptic had diminished below the level accepted by astronomers who followed Ibn al-Zarqālluh. This explains the introduction in the Maghrib of Eastern zījes, which computed directly tropical longitudes and did not accept the cyclical variation of the obliquity. Information about observations of dawn and twilight made both in Egypt and in the Maghrib in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is also presented. (shrink)

Francis Ingledew's impressive recent article in this journal argues the following: that the Trojan historiography produced by secular clerics for Norman lords and English kings is characterized by the defining features of the Virgilian philosophy of history . Even if the “Book of Troy” is “irreducible … to any single work,” Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia regum Britanniae may be taken to be exemplary of it, since Geoffrey's “book is the effective mastertext of the new rendering of the historical field.” In (...) this article I set aside my agreement with the broad thrust of Ingledew's argument; instead I want to qualify it in two ways. In the first place, I question whether the template of the Aeneid can be used quite so straightforwardly for Galfridian material. More importantly, I question the notion of one “Troy Book.” There is another version of the “Troy Book,” that of Guido delle Colonne's Historia destructionis Troiae, translations of which constitute a significant body of English vernacular writing in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. This tradition is resolutely anti-imperialistic in every way. Even if works in this tradition were written for aristocratic readers, they were pitched from a clerical position that stood opposed to imperial enterprise. I make each of these points by looking back to English narratives in the Guido tradition from the vantage point of Gavin Douglas's early-sixteenth-century translation of the Aeneid, his Eneados. (shrink)

The main outlines of the story of the textual transmission of Quintilian's Institutio have long been clear and well known. A series of French manuscripts, dating from the ninth century on, present a mutilated text in which perhaps a third of the whole work is missing. One such manuscript, the Bambergensis , was taken from France in the tenth century and supplemented from a separate unmutilated stream that is also available to us in a ninth-century Ambrosian manuscript (...) , now itself unfortunately damaged. The Bamberg manuscript generated in the following centuries further complete texts, but all these, as well as their earlier relations A and Bg, escaped scholarly detection in the fourteenth century: Petrarch and his contemporaries had to make do with mutili of the French type. (shrink)

The main outlines of the story of the textual transmission of Quintilian's Institutio have long been clear and well known. A series of French manuscripts, dating from the ninth century on, present a mutilated text in which perhaps a third of the whole work is missing. One such manuscript, the Bambergensis, was taken from France in the tenth century and supplemented from a separate unmutilated stream that is also available to us in a ninth-century Ambrosian manuscript, now (...) itself unfortunately damaged. The Bamberg manuscript generated in the following centuries further complete texts, but all these, as well as their earlier relations A and Bg, escaped scholarly detection in the fourteenth century: Petrarch and his contemporaries had to make do with mutili of the French type. (shrink)

The San Zeno Wheel of Verona is an exceptional, virtually unstudied fifteenth-century horological device, the only one of its type to have survived. Yet certain features of the Wheel correspond to contemporary manuscript volvelles and to the liturgical calendars of larger horological devices. The interpretation of the object presented here has two main objectives: first, to elucidate the Wheel itself; and second, to consider its role in relation to the ecclesiastical routines of the San Zeno complex. By investigating (...) the relationship of the Wheel to fourteenth- and fifteenth-century time-reckoning instruments, notably astronomical clocks, the article shows that it is the oldest liturgical calendar disk to survive and, therefore, an invaluable testament to the original appearance of the earliest astronomical clocks. This is followed by a reconstruction of the way in which the Wheel was used in its original setting. An interpretation of its content in relation to the other horologia at San Zeno suggests that it was made to complement another time-reckoning device in the basilica. San Zeno therefore provides a unique case study regarding the ways in which multiple time systems were synchronised in the reckoning of the liturgy following the invention of the mechanical clock. The analysis of the Wheel has potentially far-reaching implications for our understanding of the ways in which the dispensation of mechanical horologia in monastic settings affected the perception of time. Such an analysis is, therefore, significant not only for the study of historical horology, but of medieval temporality more generally. (shrink)

This paper looks into the contents of the Tractatus suppositionum terminorum by Master Franquera, in the context of the teaching of logic in Salamanca in the fifteenth century. Franquera’s work is characterised by its explicit realist bias and its rejection of Ockhamist theses, i.e., by its recognition of the existence of a natura communis or a universale in re, which is evident in all discussions related to suppositio simplex and the theory of significatio. But, apart from this, Franquera’s (...) discussion of the theory of suppositio stands out as a strange mixture of different doctrines: some of them are derived from thirteenth-century analyses, others from fourteenth-century developments; realist goals are reached by means of instruments that, while not being nominalist, are definitely inspired by terminism. While upholding the theses of realist schools, Franquera adopts the definitions and rules of nominalist authors. (shrink)

In the history of scholastic philosophy, the fifteenth century is traditionally regarded as a period of decay, a downturn between the heights of fourteenth-century nominalism and the Spanish revival of scholasticism in the sixteenth century. This paper sets out to challenge this received view. First, however, the received view is confirmed on the basis of sixteenth-century lists of ecclesiastical writers containing very few notable scholastic philosopher-theologians for the fifteenth century. On the other (...) hand, the same lists show a significant increase in notable scholastics in the fields of practical ethics and jurisprudence. The overall picture signals a shift of philosophical and theological activity from theoretical towards practical concerns. If practical philosophy is not considered to be of lesser rank than theoretical philosophy, there was thus no downturn of scholastic philosophy in the fifteenth century. (shrink)

An important devotional genre in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, meditations invited their readers to place themselves at the scene of various moments in Christ’s life and encouraged them to have particular emotional responses—joy, sorrow, compassion, and the like—to those imaginative experiences. In its emphasis on feeling, meditation was seen as an activity particularly suited for women and their closer ties with the body. Meditation was also seen as an activity distinct from contemplation, which was portrayed as a “higher,” (...) more intellective pursuit. Yet meditation was intended to increase love to Christ, and love was widely considered to increase knowledge—knowledge of the same sort that contemplation also claimed to yield. Over time, then the widespread popularity of this spiritual exercise opens up space for women’s claims to knowledge to be heard because of (rather than despite) their association with the body. (shrink)

In medieval universities, preaching formed an essential part of the curriculum of theology. Though we know next to nothing about how the subject was formally taught and studied, we are well informed about its requirement and exercise. As early as the end of the twelfth century Peter the Chanter stated that the graduate in theology had to show proficiency in three areas: in lecturing, disputation, and preaching . How and when in a student's career such preaching was to be (...) done is set out in the statutes of major universities, such as Paris, Oxford, Cambridge, and others. In 1253, for instance, the statutes of Oxford University declared that “no one shall incept in theology in this university unless he has first been regent in the arts …, and unless he has lectured on some book from the biblical canon or a book of the Sentences or Histories, and preached in public before the university.” The three-fold requirement was still in place in the fourteenth century and later: “Those who are about to incept in theology, before they are admitted to inception, must throughout all theology schools oppose in public, preach in public, and read in public some book from the biblical canon or the Sentences.” The times and places of such required public preaching, as well as the order in which theologians would give their public sermons, were all regulated in similar statutes and have been discussed in Hastings Rashdall's history of medieval universities and, with particular focus on Oxford, by A. G. Little and F. Pelster. (shrink)

This book began with my edition of the anonymous treatise. A translation and notes seemed essential if the material of the treatise was to be understood. It then seemed that Chapter 5 of Heytesbury's Rules for Solving Sophismata, on which the treatise was based, should also be included. My translation of the Heytesbury treatise is based on a fifteenth-century edition, supplemented by readings from a few of the better manuscripts. (A critical edition from all the manuscripts, of which (...) Chapter 5 will be mine, is now in progress under the supervision of Paul Spade, but only a few insignificant changes in the translation should be necessitated by the completed edition. ) An examination of related materials seemed reasonable, and these included Heytesbury's commentator Gaetano, as well as a chapter from a treatise by Johannes Venator (in an edition in progress provided by Francesco del Punta). It seemed unnecessary to publish Gaetano's and Venator's related works in this volume, but all their departures from Heytesbury and the anonymous treatise are noted here. I have not examined other works in the tradition in any detail. I owe a great deal to my teacher, Norman Kretzmann, not only as regards the edition and translations, but also as regards the notes, study and introduction. The referees of the typescript (to me unknown) made unusually thorough criticisms and suggestions to which I have paid close attention. The book is far better for my having done so. (shrink)

In this paper, a survey of 180 inscriptions in Tamil between 1346 CE and 1400 CE is analysed for its notions and visualization of astral themes present in the epigraphical inscriptions as well as for the calendrical practices implicit in those inscriptions. I demonstrate the rich diversity of calendrical practices employed in this period. Although there are clear local usages, the applied methods of identification show that in several cases methods from other Indian calendrical traditions have also been used. This (...) applies both to the year and the month. In contrast, the use of the weekday is not widely seen in the inscriptions of this region following the local system. The study also clarifies that the inscriptions are a useful documentary source for other astronomical observations such as eclipses and solstices undertaken in southern Indian locations in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. (shrink)

In this paper, a survey of 180 inscriptions in Tamil between 1346 CE and 1400 CE is analysed for its notions and visualization of astral themes present in the epigraphical inscriptions as well as for the calendrical practices implicit in those inscriptions. I demonstrate the rich diversity of calendrical practices employed in this period. Although there are clear local usages, the applied methods of identification show that in several cases methods from other Indian calendrical traditions have also been used. This (...) applies both to the year and the month. In contrast, the use of the weekday is not widely seen in the inscriptions of this region following the local system. The study also clarifies that the inscriptions are a useful documentary source for other astronomical observations such as eclipses and solstices undertaken in southern Indian locations in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. (shrink)

Both Pierre Duhem and his successors emphasized that medieval scholastics created a science of mechanics by bringing both observation and mathematical techniques to bear on natural effects. Recent research into medieval and early modern science has suggested that Aristotle's subalternate sciences also were used in this program, although the degree to which the theory of subalternation had been modified is still not entirely clear. This paper focuses on the English tradition of subalternation between 1310 and 1350, and concludes with a (...) discussion of the theory advanced by Thomas Claxton early in the fifteenth century. (shrink)

This article edits and examines a little-known epistolary treatise datable to 1322, which survives in a fifteenth-century manuscript in the Herzog-August-Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel. The author of this work was engaged in a heated argument with the Parisian philosopher Jean de Jandun over the status and rationality of astrology. Jean’s pro-astrological stance is documented in a letter dated 28 October 1321, which survives for having been appended to the main treatise. In responding to Jean de Jandun’s letter, the author delivered (...) a trenchant critique of astrology grounded almost entirely in philosophical, as opposed to theological, ideas, addressing issues such as empirical evidence, causality, and contingency. The author’s way of pointing out ruptures between astrology and Aristotelian natural philosophy marks him out as an intellectual precursor to the much better-known anti-astrological polemics written later in the same century by Parisian thinkers such as Nicole Oresme and Heinrich von Langenstein. (shrink)

Attribuer un nom de saint ou de sainte au baptisé.e revient-il à affirmer un lien particulier du ou des parents avec ce saint, ou à instituer une relation de patronage entre ce dernier et l’enfant baptisé? S’agit-il de proposer à celui-ci un modèle moral et religieux, auquel cas les pratiques italiennes de féminisation des noms de saints masculins paraissent peu cohérentes avec cette aspiration? Ou les donneurs du nom prétendent-ils d’abord honorer le saint et en recevoir eux-mêmes en retour « (...) honneur et profit », consolidant ainsi le lien avec le saint grâce au nom qu’ils ont reporté sur leur enfant? Et en quoi le patronage recherché à travers le nom diffère-t-il selon le sexe de l’enfant? À partir des registres de baptême et des livres de famille florentins entre les xive et xve siècles, l’article contribue au débat portant sur les différences dans la nomination entre le sud méditerranéen et les contrées d’Europe plus au nord. (shrink)

Karl Morrison discusses historical writing at a turning point in European culture: the so-called Renaissance of the twelfth century. Why do texts considered at that time to be masterpieces seem now to be fragmentary and full of contradictions? Morrison maintains that the answer comes from ideas about art. Viewing histories as artifacts made according to the same aesthetic principles as paintings and theater, he shows that twelfth-century authors and audiences found unity not in what the reason read in (...) a text but in what the imagination read into it: they prized visual over verbal imagination and employed a circular, or nuclear, spectator-centered perspective cast aside in the Renaissance of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Twelfth-century writers assimilated and transformed a tradition of the conceptual unity of all the arts and attributed that unity to the fact that art both conceals and discloses. Recovering that tradition, especially the methods and motives of concealment, provides extraordinary insights into twelfth-century ideas about the kingdom of God, the status of women, and the nature of time itself. It also identifies a strain in European thought that had striking affinities to methods of perception familiar in Oriental religions and that proved to be antithetic to later humanist traditions in the West. Originally published in 1990. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Giulio Castellani (1528-1586): A Sixteenth-Century Opponent of Scepticism CHARLES B. SCH1VHTT THE PROBLEMOF THE ORIGINS of scepticism in early modern philosophy has been a much debated issue. Sanches, Montaigne, Charron, and Bayle all contributed to the milieu which made it possible for the sceptical direction of thought to develop into such a potent force by the time of David Hume. The actual origins of modern scepticism, which seem (...) to go back to a slightly earlier date, lie in the confluence of several different intellectual movements during the early years of the sixteenth century: Christian anti-intellectualism, the reintroduction of the literary remains of the ancient sceptical tradition, the epistemological developments of scholastic nominalism, and certain inherent tendencies of Renaissance humanism. It is in the early decades of the sixteenth century that the seeds which later blossomed forth at the time of Hume originally took root. Hume himself merely reaped the harvest of several hundred years of sceptical preparation? Aside from certain manifestations of doubt which developed out of the epistemological theories of fourteenth-century nominalism, the origins of modern scepticism are generally held to date from the first publication of Sextus Empiricus' ancient summaries of Pyrrhonism during the decade of the 1560's. While it has previously been recognized that at least hints of scepticism were current in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, the implications to be derived from this fact do not seem to have been adequately exploredT I shall not here go into these early manifestations of scepticism in a detailed way. Rather, I shall briefly touch upon a few little-known examples of the influence of ancient scepticism during the Reniassance and, then, I shall focus upon an early and practically neglected attack upon scepticism published before the first printings of Sextus Empiricus' writings. I shall discuss the circumstances of the composition of Giulio Castellani's anti-sceptical work, Adversus Marci TuIlii Ciceronis academicas questiones disi For a recent survey of early modem scepticism see Richard H. Popkin, The History o] Scepticism /tom Erasmus to Descartes (Assen: 1960). Of the large literature which connects scepticism with religious doubt during this period see especially Henri Busson, Les sources et le dgveloppement du rati~nalizme dar~ la litt~rature ]ran~aise de la Renaissance (Paris: 1957) and Don Cameron Allen, Doubt's Boundless Sea (Baltimore: 1964). The di.~cussionof this period seems to be the weakest part of Popkin's excellent book, particularly with regard to the treatment which he gives to Italian thought. See, also, his other articles, especially,"Skepticismand the Counter-Reformation in France," Archiv/fir Re/armationsgeschichte, LI (1960),58-86and "The High Road to Pyrrhonism," American Philosophical Quarterly, II (1965),18--32.In my forthcoming study, Gian]rancesco Pico (1469-1533) and His Critique o/Aristotle, I give a detailed analysis of the major representative of early sixteenthcentury scepticism. [151 16 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY putatio (1558), which antedates the first printing of Sextus Empiricus by four years, indicating that scepticism was already widespread enough to provoke an attack from the camp of the dogmatists. Furthermore, I shall analyze Castellani 's arguments in the context of the philosophical views of the mid-sixteenth century. Scepticism in the Early Renaissance Direct knowledge of the major ancient source of scepticism, the already mentioned writings of Sextus Empiricus, was rare throughout the Middle Ages. There are but two known extant Latin manuscripts which date before 1400. s From the fifteenth century we know of two more manuscripts, neither complete in itself, but together containing a significant portion of the extant writings of Sextus. 4 This evidence indicates that Sextus' works were not well known in translation before the first Latin editions of The Oulines o] Pyrrhonism (1562) and of Against the Mathematicians (1569). With the advent of an increased interest in and knowledge of Greek in Western Europe in the fifteenth century, we find a corresponding increase in the number of Greek manuscripts of Sextus Empiricus. Consequently, by the time of the first printings, an appreciable number of copies of his writings were available. Some were brought from the East, but a large number also are attributable to European scribes. 5 We also know that in... (shrink)

Until late in the nineteenth century, madder was the most popular natural red dye. Holland was the largest and best-known supplier. As early as the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the province of Zeeland and adjoining parts of the provinces of South Holland and Brabant developed into important producers. In the course of the seventeenth century these areas even succeeded in acquiring a monopoly position. Early in the nineteenth century, however, this position came under attack because (...) France had gone over to industrial production methods from around 1800, whereas Holland continued to produce with craft technologies. After 1820, as a result, a period of stagnation and decay set in. The fate of the Dutch madder industry would have been completely sealed if the production capacity of the French factories had been sufficiently large to satisfy the great increase in demand. Consequently, in Holland, after 1845, a process of revival based upon the French manufacturing methods began slowly and hesitatingly. This process started too late and was not persevered with sufficiently to regain lost markets. The Dutch producers remained strongly attached to their own out-dated, craft methods of production. (shrink)

RésuméCet article traite d’une solution au tristement célèbre paradoxe du menteur, généralement connu dans la littérature arabe sous le nom de Maġlaṭat al-ǧaḏr al-aṣamm. La solution est donnée dans un traité ottoman du XVe siècle attribué, entre autres, à Ḫaṭībzāde Muḥyiddīn Efendī. L’article la compare également à la solution du philosophe persan contemporain, Ǧalāl al-Dīn al-Dawānī. Le court traité consacré au paradoxe est l’un des rares ouvrages des Ottomans sur le sujet et il aborde de manière exhaustive le paradoxe sous (...) ses deux formes. En tant qu’analyse de la solution offerte par le traité au paradoxe, l’article fait connaître à l’érudition contemporaine les discussions ottomanes sur le menteur, et il contribue à combler le vide évident dans la littérature sur le paradoxe dans la pensée islamique. (shrink)

CHAPTER ONE CUSANUS' VISION OF MAN Historical and Historiographical Backgrounds Nicolaus Cusanus has fascinated and puzzled students of late medieval and ...