Visions of Community in the Pre-Modern World

Howe, Nicholas (editor)

ISBN 10: 026802863X / ISBN 13: 9780268028633

Published by University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, IN, 2002

About this Item

In print for 18.00.; 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Seller Inventory # 81583ht

Bibliographic Details

Title: Visions of Community in the Pre-Modern World

Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, IN

Publication Date: 2002

Binding: Paperback

Condition: Near Fine

Edition: First Paperback Edition.

About this title

Synopsis:

Visions of Community in the Pre-Modern World contains original essays by five leading scholars in the fields of history, art history, and literature on the ways in which communities were imagined and built between the eleventh and sixteenth centuries. These essays, which function as case studies, range geographically from Europe to Africa, the Near East to regions of Latin America. While acknowledging major factors that affect community―such as religious belief, imperial expansion, and warfare―these studies focus on precise examples and moments in the pre-modern world.

Giles Constable discusses the ways in which monastic vows of service to God served as the basis for communities of monks in Europe in the Middle Ages. Anthony Cutler explores the means by which Byzantine and Islamic communities were created and maintained through the use of visual and textual signs. Annabel Patterson draws on visual images and representations to explore how endangered Catholic communities struggled to survive in Reformation England. Richard Kagan offers a survey of city images and plans in the Hispanic world of Europe and the Americas. Pamela Sheingorn focuses on the attempts of fifteenth-century French theologian Jean Gerson to reinvent forms of religious community at a time of crisis. An introduction by Nicholas Howe places this work in its scholarly context.

The five contributors to this volume reveal the inherent complexity and variety of communities within pre-modern Europe. They offer a powerful argument against sweeping generalizations about the ways in which humans form themselves into groups, and encourage further scholarly research into the ways in which communities are formed and shaped.

About the Author:

Nicholas Howe (1953–2006) was professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author and editor of several books, including Migration and Mythmaking in Anglo-Saxon England (Notre Dame Press, 2001).