Medieval Foundations of the Western Intellectual Tradition

Colish, Marcia L.

ISBN 10: 0300078528 / ISBN 13: 9780300078527

Published by Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 1999

About this Item

388 pp. Tightly bound. Spine not compromised Text is free of markings. No ownership markings. Note: There is a light bump to the lower edge of the front cover. This copy is smyth sewn. Smyth sewing is a method of bookbinding where groups of folded pages (referred to as signatures) are stitched together using binder thread. Each folded signature is sewn together individually with multiple stitches and then joined with other signatures to create the complete book block. This is the traditional and best method of bookbinding.

Seller Inventory # 031178

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Medieval Foundations of the Western Intellectual Tradition
• Publisher: Yale University Press, New Haven, CT
• Publication Date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0300078528
• ISBN 13: 9780300078527
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

This magisterial book is an analysis of the course of Western intellectual history between A.D. 400 and 1400. The book is arranged in two parts: the first surveys the comparative modes of thought and varying success of Byzantine, Latin-Christian, and Muslim cultures, and the second takes the reader from the eleventh-century revival of learning to the high Middle Ages and beyond, the period in which the vibrancy of Western intellectual culture enabled it to stamp its imprint well beyond the frontiers of Christendom.

Marcia Colish argues that the foundations of the Western intellectual tradition were laid in the Middle Ages and not, as is commonly held, in the Judeo-Christian or classical periods. She contends that Western medieval thinkers produced a set of tolerances, tastes, concerns, and sensibilities that made the Middle Ages unlike other chapters of the Western intellectual experience. She provides astute descriptions of the vernacular and oral culture of each country of Europe; explores the nature of medieval culture and its transmission; profiles seminal thinkers (Augustine, Anselm, Gregory the Great, Aquinas, Ockham); studies heresy from Manichaeism to Huss and Wycliffe; and investigates the influence of Arab and Jewish writing on scholasticism and the resurrection of Greek studies. Colish concludes with an assessment of the modes of medieval thought that ended with the period and those that remained as bases for later ages of European intellectual history.

About the Author

Marcia L. Colish is Frederick B. Artz Professor of History at Oberlin College, Ohio.