Books of Knowledge in Late Medieval Europe. Circulation and Reception of Popular Texts

Hardback, xiv + 376 pages, Size:156 x 234 mm, Illustrations:22 b/w, 1 tables b/w., Language: English. ISBN 9782503594637. Summary This book provides a series of studies concerning unique medieval texts that can be defined as 'books of knowledge', such as medieval chronicles, bestiaries, or catechetic handbooks. Thus far, scholarship of intellectual history has focused on concepts of knowledge to describe a specific community, or to delimit intellectuals in society. However, the specific textual tool for the transmission of knowledge has been missing. Besides oral tradition, books and other written texts were the only sources of knowledge, and they were thus invaluable in efforts to receive or transfer knowledge. That is one reason why texts that proclaim to introduce a specific field of expertise or promise to present a summary of wisdom were so popular. These texts discussed cosmology, theology, philosophy, the natural sciences, history, and other fields. They often did so in an accessible way to maintain the potential to also attract a non-specialised public. The basic form was usually a narrative, chronologically or thematically structured, and clearly ordered to appeal to readers. Books of this kind could be disseminated in dozens or even hundreds of copies, and were often available (by translation or adaptation) in various languages, including the vernacular. In exploring these widely-disseminated and highly popular texts that offered a precise segment of knowledge that could be accessed by readers outside the intellectual and social elite, this volume intends to introduce books of knowledge as a new category within the study of medieval literacy. TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface vii Abbreviations ix Books of Knowledge - Late Medieval Central Europe and Beyond PAVL NA CERMANOV and V CLAV Z REK 1 The Pseudo-Aristotelian Secret of Secrets: Encyclopedia or Book of Knowledge? STEVEN J. WILLIAMS 11 A Handbook for Everyone? Thomas of Cantimpr 's Book of Bees and Its Circulation in Late Medieval Europe JULIA BURKHARDT 35 Chess, Moral Principles, and Ancient Stories: The Success of Jacobus de Cessolis's Liber de moribus and Other Classicising Works in Medieval Bohemia V CLAV ZUREK 59 The Pseudo-Bernhardine Epistola de cura rei familiaris and its Reception in Medieval Bohemia and Moravia PAVEL BLAZEK and BARBORA REZN CKOV 85 From Manual to Best-Seller: The History of Honorius Augustodunensis's Elucidarium GLEB SCHMIDT 137 From Theology to Universal Knowledge: The Story of the Elucidarium and its Vernacular Adaptations in the Czech lands (Fourteenth-Fifteenth Centuries) JAROSLAV SV TEK 165 A 'Book of Knowledge'? The De tribus punctis christianae religionis (1316) by Thomas Hibernicus and its Heyday in Late Medieval Bohemia LUCIE DOLEZALOV 183 Patterns of Knowledge in Late Medieval Historiography: The Chronologia Magna of Paolino Veneto NADINE HOLZMEIER 203 Reading the Early Church: A Witness from Kutn Hora of the Chronicon pontificum et imperatorum by Martin of Opava VOJTECH BAZANT 229 The Physiologus Theobaldi: A Most Successful Bestiary in Medieval Schools and Monasteries BAUDOUIN VAN DEN ABEELE 247 Christian of Prachatice's Latin Herbarium and its adaptations in Old Czech literature DANA STEHL KOV 275 The Aims of Perspectiva in 1360s Paris: Investigating Texts Written in the Hand of Reimbotus de Castro LUK S LICKA 299 Sharing Academic Knowledge: Commentaries on the Secretum secretorum PAVL NA CERMANOV 331 Indices of Manuscripts, Placenames, and Personal Names 361 0 g.…