The present article attempts to establish as accurately as possible the chronological trajectory of the unique codex of the Cancionero de Baena (PN1 in the Dutton nomenclature). It begins with a detailed examination of the codicological aspects of the manuscript, which serve to date its origin to around 1465. This origin, combined with the…[Read more]

Se suele señalar a 1385 como uno de los momentos de mayor incertidumbre política, social y económica no solo del medievo peninsular, sino prácticamente de toda la historia de España. En aquella precisa fecha, al factor estructural de lo que se ha venido en llamar la crisis del modelo de producción feudal, se le añadió un factor coyuntural bien co…[Read more]

An article on the Armenian manuscripts at the Vatican Library (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana).

Detailed manuscript description of the 15th century German manuscript Hamburg, Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. germ. 1.

Arzneibuch – Volmar: ‚Steinbuch‘ – Kochrezepte – Gottfried v. Franken: ‚Pelzbuch‘ – Farb- und Tintenrezepte – ‚Lucidarius‘-‚Elucidarius‘-Kompilation – Johann v. Indersdorf (?): Sentenzen und Gebete – ‚Die sieben wei…[Read more]

A book review of J. Tigelaar, Brabants historie ontvouwd. Die alder excellenste cronyke van Brabant en het Brabantse geschiedbeeld anno 1500

An article that identifies and describes a series of sixteenth-century Dutch nobility chronicles in The Hague, KB 131 G 31.

In this article, I suggest Beowulf should be read as a mirror of princes for elderly kings.

A short article about the Nachleben of the Romans and classical antiquity in Anglo-Saxon England.

This article contextualizes the Brederodekroniek [Brederode Chronicle] by Johannes a Leydis (Jan van Leiden). After a discussion of the surviving manuscripts, I provide a new date of composition for the Middle Dutch and Latin versions of this chronicle and reflect on its original purpose..

This article discusses the development of the spelling for the name of Cnut the Great, Viking king of England from 1016 to 1035, from to . The origin of this disyllabic spelling is uncertain and has been attributed to taboo deflection, the simplification of the consonant cluster /kn/ in English and even a pope’s inability to pronounce the name C…[Read more]

This note calls attention to a precursor of the Latin text of Durham Proverb 7 in the ninth-century Collectanea Pseudo-Bedae and, in doing so, sheds some light on the unresolved relationship between the Old English and Latin versions of the Durham Proverbs in general and Durham Proverb 7 in particular.

The present article analyses and makes available one of the earliest known texts on book preservation. The text in manuscript The Hague, KB 133 F 2 dates back to 1527 and contains eight guidelines on how to preserve books. These guidelines give us a unique insight into the way people in the later Middle Ages thought about handling books and the…[Read more]

This note established that an Old English confessional prayer in BL Vespasian D.xx is a close analogue to the Latin text in the Book of Cerne (Cambridge University Library MS L1.1.10). These two text and two other Old English prayers in BL MS Tiberius C.i and the Old English Handbook for the Use of a Confessor may have sprung from a common, Latin…[Read more]

In this chapter, I discuss the use of Anglo-Saxon literature and culture in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit.

About four decades ago, the two modern editions of the Cancionero de obras de burlas (19OB),2 of Domínguez (1978) and Jauralde Pou-Bellón
Cazabán (1974), finnally condemned to its deserved obscurity Usoz y Río’s 1841 edition. Even though both his edition and his library on spiritual
topics have an evident archaeological interest (Vilar), the q…[Read more]

Although there were many handwritten, often informal catalogues of Sir Robert Cotton’s manuscripts and books during his lifetime and in the years afterwards, the desire for an official printed catalogue which could be circulated in the public realm did not really bear fruit until the late 1600s. And when two versions finally did appear — the…[Read more]

This essay comprises four parts, each by one of the co-bloggers at In the Middle (http://www.inthemedievalmiddle.com). Karl Steel argues that the benefits of academic blogging outweigh its potential humiliations, and that academic conferences should post their papers publicly and allow for comments so that conferences, in a sense, never end.…[Read more]

An overview of the “state of the field” of critical posthumanist studies that also argues for the important intervention of premodern studies into contemporary critical posthumanism studies, and which serves as the Introduction (with chapter summaries) to “Fragments for a History of a Vanishing Humanism,” eds. Myra Seaman and Eileen A. Joy (Ohio…[Read more]

What can be said about the “style” of academic discourse at the present time, especially in relation to historical method, theory, and reading literary and historical texts? Is style merely supplemental to scholarly substance? As scholars, are we “subjects” of style? And what is the relationship between style and theory? Is style an object,…[Read more]

This Prelude to L.O. Aranye Fradenburg’s book STAYING ALIVE makes the case for Fradenburg’s career as comprising a critically important dossier relative to the relationship(s) between desire, enjoyment, groupification, signification, and disciplinarity, especially with regard to techniques of living, the care of the self (and others), and the…[Read more]