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16 - Reception in the Middle Ages

from Part III - Reception and Reading Strategies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 February 2020

By
Eric Leland Saak
Edited by
Tarmo Toom
Tarmo Toom
Affiliation:
Georgetown University, Washington DC
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Summary

This chapter analyzes the various avenues of the reception of the “Confessions” in the Middle Ages, based on extant manuscripts, medieval florilegia, and handbooks such as Peter Lombard’s Sentences. While the “Confessions” was one of Augustine’s best-known works, surprisingly there is very little evidence of direct reception, and Petrarch, who was an avid reader of the “Confessions,” rejected its basic premise of conversion in and devoting oneself completely to God, although the work did serve as a major source for medieval biographies of Augustine. The reception of the “Confessions” in the Middle Ages mirrored that of Augustine himself, whereby what we find upon close analysis is an ambiguous reception that is far less than the influence Augustine had in general.

Keywords

manuscriptsbiographies (vitae)Petrarch
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Augustine's 'Confessions' , pp. 263 - 276
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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References

Further Reading

Courcelle, P. Les Confessions de Saint Augustin dans la Tradition Littéraire. Antécédents et Postérité. Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1963.Google Scholar
Luciani, É. Les Confessions de Saint Augustin dans les Lettres de Pétrarque, Collection des études augustiniennes. Série Antiquité. Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1982.Google Scholar
Pollmann, K. and Otten, W. (eds.), The Oxford Guide to the Historical Reception of Augustine, three vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.Google Scholar
Saak, E. L. High Way to Heaven. The Augustinian Platform between Reform and Reformation, 1292–1524, SMRT 89. Leiden: Brill, 2002.Google Scholar
Saak, E. L. Creating Augustine. The Interpretation of Augustine and Augustinianism in the Later Middle Ages. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Saak, E. L. “In the Wake of Lombard: The Reception of Augustine in the Early Thirteenth Century.” Augustinian Studies 46/1 (2015), 71–104.Google Scholar
Saak, E. L. “Augustine and Augustinianisms in the Fourteenth Century: The Cases of Petrarch and Robert de Bardis.” In Augustine, Augustinians, and Augustinianisms in the Italian Trecento, eds. Bartuschat, J., et al. (Ravenna: Longa, forthcoming).Google Scholar
Schaefer, J. T. (ed.), Saint Augustine and His Influence in the Middle Ages. Sewanee, TN: The Press of the University of the South, 1988.Google Scholar

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