The are several reasons why the problem of early-Georgian, and particularly early-Iberian (East Georgian), chronology has been a vexing one. In the first place, the early-Georgian historical works contain almost no direct chronological indications, i.e., dates, but rather offer quite numerous relative indications, i.e., synchronisms, lengths of reigns and lives, regnal years, the distance between events, etc. Secondly, in these historical works, hard facts of history often lie buried under a superimposition of myth, legend, and epos, or are occasionally fused with the picture of other historical facts, occurring at different epochs, that is projected on them. And, thirdly, the attempts at establishing such a chronology, which have not been wanting, have tended to be somewhat vitiated by misconceptions upon which they were based. Thus, early in this century, the imaginative attempt of S. Gorgadze was ruined by the fact that he preferred the evidence of the king-lists (Royal List, I, II, III), which form a later addition to the seventh-century Conversion of Iberia, to that of the more authoritative and older (eighth-century) History of the Kings of Iberia by Leontius of Ruisi, which contains a still older historical tradition. Gorgadze, accordingly, tended to neglect what chronological indications are found in Leontius. And in our own days, another such attempt was made by P. Ingoroqva, which cannot be described as entirely successful.

Much recent scholarship on the period of the Investiture Struggle and the reform of the Church in the eleventh and twelfth centuries has suggested that the origins of these reforms lay not merely in the desire for moral regeneration, but in the conscious wish to return to the antique, Biblical, patristic, and Roman models of the Christian life represented by the early, pre-feudal Church. What modern historians have sometimes called ‘Germanic Christianity’ or ‘feudal Christianity’ was felt to be a pattern of institutions which had at least partly corrupted the life of the early Church. This explains the great concern of the Hildebrandine Party to rid the Church of those abuses which they felt had grown ‘especially since the time when the government of our church passed to the Germans. … But we, having searched out the Roman Order and the ancient custom of our church, imitating the old Fathers, have ordered things to be restored as we have set out above.’ The reaction against the immediate past in favor of a more perfect antique model manifested itself in the notion, expressed throughout the period, that custom must always be judged by natural law and by truth: ‘the Lord said: “I am the Truth.” He did not say: “I am the custom”; but “I am the Truth.” The reformers became impassioned to restore the ancient discipline, to rediscover the ancient laws of the Church, to bring monasticism back to its original purity, and in all this to use what they believed to be the ancient forms of the Christian life as a model by which to compare and criticize the Christianity of their own times. An extensive and varied literature appeared dealing with the problem of what the ancient ideal of the Christian life had been, a literature which began both to speak frequently of the ecclesia primitiva, and to use this idea as a model by which to reform the Church. Often this literature passed beyond the use of the idea of the ecclesia primitiva as a tool of reform to the use of the idea as a basis for the discussion of the more basic problem of what the perfect form of the Christian life had been or should be. In this regard, ‘reform’ signified not only the restoration and reestablishment of the forms of the Christian life of the past, but also the search for the continuing perfection of both the individual and the Church. The nexus of ideas associated with the Augustinian reformatio in melius was in this respect close to the idea of ‘renewal.’ Men not only returned to the forms of the past, but also explored ways of introducing new structures and forms of life into the Church.

The allegories of Alain de Lille, though their historical importance is generally acknowledged, have been more admired, and at times deprecated, than closely examined, and there has been a remarkable divergence of opinion as to their intrinsic significance and literary quality. The De planctu naturae and Anticlaudianus present a remarkable blend of rhetoric, metaphysics, and dogma which led Barthélemy Hauréau to call Alain ‘le plus fecond et le plus brillant de tous les mystiques de ce temps,’ and Emile Mǎle to call him ‘le plus grand poète latin du moyen ǎge.’ So sensitive a critic as Huizinga, however, while recognizing the richness and subtlety of Alain's language, nonetheless relegated him to the second rank among the poets of his century. His very virtuosity seems finally to have exasperated C. S. Lewis who, despite certain concessions, dismissed Alain the poet as a ‘cold-hearted stylist,’ and it appeared now frivolous, now pedantic to the more sympathetic Raynaud de Lage.

With these succinct lines, the Chanson de Roland conveys the aggressive intolerance which characterized the crusading spirit. From the apostolic period, Christianity had usually been propagated by missionaries who tried to persuade the pagan people to accept the faith voluntarily.

Boniface VIII entered his pontificate with a single great ambition, to which he reverted at every opportunity during the troubled years of his reign. Repeatedly, he called for a new crusade to restore the foothold lost to Christendom in the Holy Land only four years before his accession. To accomplish this revitalization of the ancient ideal of the papacy, he persistently sought to use his authority to make himself arbiter of an overall European peace. The indispensable requirement in this plan was the establishment of some agreement between Edward I of England and Philip IV of France, whose confrontation in Aquitaine was steadily moving toward an open war which would involve their various allies throughout Europe. Accordingly, within two months of his election, Boniface appointed legates to both countries to negotiate a peace.

Walter Burley's De Motu Animalium has never appeared in print. Our edition of this work was prepared from six manuscript copies: Erfurt SB Amploniana Q. 312 (XIV century) fols. 78r–81r; London Lambeth Palace 70 (XIV) fols. 144r–147v; Lambeth Palace 74 (A.D. 1390) fols. 30r–32v; Oxford Magdalen College 80 (XIV) fols. 177v–180v; Oriel College 12 (XV) fols. 115–119; Vaticana Vat. lat. 2151 (XIV) fols. 239r–244r. The Magdalen (afterwards M.) manuscript is the most complete and is followed closely by Amploniana (A.), though A. is almost impossible to read by itself owing to the crabbed and scratchy manner in which it was written. Oriel (0.) makes the most omissions; it is incomplete and anonymous. The two Lambeth Palace MSS follow each other closely. L. 70 is anonymous and L. 74 is incomplete. Vatican was the original manuscript upon which our edition was based. It is an excellently preserved text but not quite sufficient by itself to constitute a safe reading of Burley's work. Our edition can claim to be critical to the extent that six manuscripts were consulted.

On August 31, 1369, a breve was sent from Rome to Lucca recommending ser Coluccio Salutati di Stignano as a man notable for his knowledge and morals and suggesting that the commune of Lucca find some honorable office for him. This letter was the culmination of Salutati's efforts to find employment outside the papal Curia. Salutati had left his home in the Valdinievole in late August 1367 to accept a six-month appointment as Chancellor of the commune of Todi in Umbria and, when this appointment was completed, rather than return to Buggiano he decided to move on to Rome and to the papal court recently returned from Avignon. He had a powerful friend there in the person of the Florentine, Francesco Bruni, one of the papal secretaries. Bruni, although he did not encourage Salutati in his project to come to Rome, seems to have done what he could for his Tuscan friend once Salutati was actually there. At least for almost two years Salutati held some sort of minor notarial appointment in the papal chancery, very probably in that section directed by Bruni. During this time Salutati spent some of his energy unsuccessfully trying to get himself promoted to a more satisfactory post. His efforts probably grew more desperate when it became known that the papacy was seriously thinking of returning to Avignon.

The application of patristic biblical exegesis to medieval literature has produced some illuminating criticism in recent years. Unfortunately, the “allegorists” often fail to make use of one of the most important sources of traditional Christian thought and symbolism, the liturgy. Yet, medieval writers greatly enriched their work by drawing upon the liturgy as a source and inspiration, a fact demonstrated by a passage such as the Good Samaritan episode in Passus XVII of Piers Plowman.

Although we still lack a critical edition of Caxton's Golden Legend or any modern edition of the Gilte Legende, several scholars have contributed notable studies on the English versions of the Legenda Aurea. As far as Caxton is concerned, these studies have been confined to assessing his personal contributions, to deciding which French and English versions he used, and to discussing how he may have adapted the French, English and Latin texts of the Golden Legend which he had in front of him. It has of course also been recognised that a large section of Caxton's printed edition (corresponding to pp. 105–244 of Ellis's edition) was taken from a non-Legenda source and that much of this section is based ultimately on the Bible. But nothing has been done to examine this section in detail to determine where Caxton got his material and how he arranged it. This paper is devoted to an investigation of some of the problems involved in this part of the Golden Legend in order to provide a basis for further study and also to contribute to our understanding of Caxton's method as editor.

Any discussion of the intellectual life in fourteenth-century Italy is inevitably directed by the personality and achievement of Petrarch. Although we no longer believe that a whole new age begins with him, although we recognize considerable medieval elements in his work, we still regard him as the father of the strongest movement in the Renaissance–humanism. After his long years of succesful work, that was at once well publicized and well remunerated, there could be no inversion of the hour-glass. From him there proceeded the splendid parade of Boccaccio, Salutati, Guarino, and Bruni. There can be no quarrel with the general truth of this Petrarchan primacy, but, as in all historical abstractions, there are some unfortunate results. These are particularly prevalent in the decades before Petrarch. His shadow is over the whole period. We have difficulty in appreciating his predecessors as anything but precursors. If we resist the temptation to dismiss them all as unimportant, we are nonetheless constrained to deal with them as relative to a later Petrarch, as the very term prehumanism implies. The period is obscure enough without adding this element of ambiguity to it. Unable to jettison the term, we can still underline its inadequacy and establish the substantial nature of the movement, even without reference to Petrarch.

The discourse of Giles of Viterbo (1469–1532) on the Golden Age is here published for the first time. It is edited from what seems to be the only extant version, found in manuscript in the Biblioteca Pública e Arquivo Distrital of Évora, Portugal. The discourse was delivered by Giles in a somewhat different form in Saint Peter's basilica in Rome on Dec. 21, 1507, at the request of Pope Julius II and in his presence. The king of Portugal, Manuel I (1495–1521), had written to Julius from Abrantes under date of Sept. 25, 1507, to announce to him some great news. The king, recently informed of three important events regarding his interests in the Far East, now wanted to communicate his information to the pope: the Portuguese, under the leadership of Lourenço de Almeida (?-1508) had landed in Ceylon and obtained from the most powerful ruler there an agreement to pay an annual tribute to the Portuguese crown; on March 18, 1506, de Almeida won an important naval victory over the Zamorin of Calicut; and in the same year another Portuguese fleet discovered the island of Madagascar.

La tradition manuscrite des homélies Πɛϱὶ ὰϰατλᾐπτoν est particulièrement riche. C'est une preuve de l'intérět durable qu'elles ont suscité à travers les siècles. Mais cette richesse pose des problèmes difficiles à résoudre. Il faut, de toute nécessité, chercher des principes de classification qui aident à mettre un peu d'ordre parmi ces nombreux témoins.

In an important study which appeared in 1956, Professor E. A. Thompson discussed imperial policy in southern Gaul during the first half of the fifth century. According to Professor Thompson the purpose of the Romans in settling four groups of barbarians in southern Gaul between the years 418 and 442 was to control the Bacaudae who, he contends, threatened to overthrow the existing social and economic order. By focusing all his attention on the Bacaudae Professor Thompson distorts Roman policy by attributing to it a precision which it lacked. A less selective study of the evidence suggests that Rome's policy in southern Gaul (and probably throughout the Empire as well) was directed toward control of all the potentially and actively hostile elements in the Empire rather than, on balance, being preoccupied exclusively with the activities of the Bacaudae.

My intention is to cast some additional light upon the history of Milanese civilization during the mid- and later ninth century and to do so by way of describing and comparing some of that period's Lombard literary and artistic creations.

Historians concerned with the eleventh and twelfth centuries have for long been intrigued by the problem of the ‘Capetian miracle.’ By this is meant the process whereby the Capetian dynasty maintained itself, despite many obstacles and weaknesses, and converted its feeble hold upon the tottering throne of France into the powerful kingship of Philip Augustus and the awe-inspiring monarchy of St. Louis. The early Capetians were not men of outstanding ability. No great warriors or legal innovators appeared in the family for several centuries. A list of the great secular figures of the eleventh and twelfth centuries would not contain any of their names. But against this dreary picture the warning given by Robert Fawtier must be remembered: ‘It is tempting but rash to conclude that they were men of no significance. For they accomplished a difficult task which was yet indispensable for the future of the monarchy. They lasted.’

Early Hungarian history is so poor in sources of contemporary origin that any work written and any writer living in the early Árpádian age is bound to provide information on the period — the beginnings of the Hungarian Christian kingdom of the Middle Ages. The Venetian-born Benedictine monk, Gerard, who from 1030 to his death in 1046 occupied as its first bishop the see of Csanád, is one of these writers. Gerard is not an historian in the true sense of the term. He is no Gregory of Tours, no Venerable Bede. He was a learned, western-educated ecclesiastic who in his theological writings left many a side remark on his age and on the political and social background of his religious activities in Hungary from the mid-1020s through the mid-1040s. His major theological treatise on the Song of Daniel, his Admonitiones to the heir of King Stephen on the Hungarian throne, and his participation in compiling the legal statutes enacted by Stephen and his council make him, beside the king, the most important historical personage of Hungarian history of the time. His works together with the vita minor and the biography of King Stephen by Bishop Hartvic form a valuable source of historical information. His own life is covered by a short though trustworthy vita composed in the early 1080s.

In Act II, scene iv of Shakespeare's Henry VIII, Queen Catherine is confronted by the start of divorce proceedings against her. One of the two cardinals delegated as judges by the pope is Henry's faithful servant, Cardinal Wolsey, a man little likely to be an impartial judge of the legal merits of the famous case. And so the Queen says to him:

I do believe

Induced by potent circumstances, that You are mine enemy, and make my challenge You shall not be my judge.

Shakespeare does not today enjoy a wide reputation as a canonist, but he has here described with some correctness the canonical recusatio. This is the right, under certain circumstances, to challenge and remove a papal judge delegate for interest, prejudice, or unfitness for office.

The Feast of St. Michael and All Angels, or Michaelmas, is held on Sept. 29. The feast is referred to in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight:

Til MeƷelmas mone

Watz cumen wyth wynter wage;

Þen Þenkkez Gawan ful sone

Of his anious uyage.

These lines conclude the stanzas on the passing of the seasons with which part II of the poem begins. They are immediately followed by a statement to the effect that Gawain does not start on his anious uyage till Nov. 1 (Al-hal-day). Apparently something about the Michaelmas moon simply brings to consciousness, to the foreground of Gawain's mind, the grim agreement with the Green Knight.