This book provides a wide-ranging collection of original source material that covers the history of medieval religion from the fall of the Roman Empire to the Renaissance.

Easy-to-read and accessible to students, with introductions to each section explaining the main themes and issues raised, it provides coverage of the key elements of the history of the Western Church in the period, including:

• the Papacy
• saints
• monastic orders
• popular piety and devotion
• sections on the Eastern Church, Judaism, Islam and Mysticism

The texts selected are arranged clearly in chronological order and each one is introduced by a brief editorial note to provide context. Medieval Religion also includes a comprehensive further reading section.

Students of medieval religion will find this a valuable companion in their studies.

Melania the Younger: From Rome to Jerusalem explores the richly detailed story of Melania, an early fifth-century Roman Christian aristocrat who renounced her staggering wealth to lead a life of ascetic renunciation. Hers is a tale of "riches to rags." Born to high Roman aristocracy in the late fourth century, Melania encountered numerous difficulties posed by family members, Roman officials, and historical circumstances in disposing of her wealth, property (spread across at least eight Roman provinces), and thousands of slaves. Leaving Rome with her entourage a few years before Alaric the Goth's sack of Rome in 410, she journeyed to Sicily, then to North Africa, finally settling in Jerusalem-all while founding monasteries along the way. Towards the end of her life, she traveled to Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) in an attempt to convert to Christianity her still-pagan uncle, who was on a state mission to the eastern Roman court. Throughout her life, she was accustomed to meet and be assisted by emperors and empresses, bishops, and other high dignitaries. Embracing a fairly extreme asceticism, Melania died in Jerusalem in 439. A new English translation of her Life, composed by a long-time assistant who succeeded her in the direction of the male and female monasteries in Jerusalem, accompanies this biographical study.

In this formidable study, Jastrow compares several aspects of the religious life of the Israelites and ancient Babylonias by comparison of their written texts. Among the topics examined are the creation and flood accounts, the concept of the Sabbath, and the ethics of both cultures.

The Greek myths are among the world's most important cultural building blocks and they have been retold many times, but rarely do they focus on the remarkable women at the heart of these ancient stories.

Stories of gods and monsters are the mainstay of epic poetry and Greek tragedy, from Homer to Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, from the Trojan War to Jason and the Argonauts. And still, today, a wealth of novels, plays and films draw their inspiration from stories first told almost three thousand years ago. But modern tellers of Greek myth have usually been men, and have routinely shown little interest in telling women’s stories. And when they do, those women are often painted as monstrous, vengeful or just plain evil. But Pandora – the first woman, who according to legend unloosed chaos upon the world – was not a villain, and even Medea and Phaedra have more nuanced stories than generations of retellings might indicate.

Now, in Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths, Natalie Haynes – broadcaster, writer and passionate classicist – redresses this imbalance. Taking Pandora and her jar (the box came later) as the starting point, she puts the women of the Greek myths on equal footing with the menfolk. After millennia of stories telling of gods and men, be they Zeus or Agamemnon, Paris or Odysseus, Oedipus or Jason, the voices that sing from these pages are those of Hera, Athena and Artemis, and of Clytemnestra, Jocasta, Eurydice and Penelope.

Medea, the sorceress of Greek myth and Euripides' vengeful heroine, is famed for the murder of her children after she is banished from her own family and displaced by a new wife. Her reputation as a wronged 'Everywoman' of Greek tragedy has helped engender her lasting appeal to the modern age. However, this firmly rooted status has also caused many of the intricacies of her timeless tale to be overlooked.
Emma Griffiths brings into focus previously unexplored themes of the Medea myth, along with providing an incisive introduction to the story and its history. Viewed within its context, the tale reveals fascinating insights into ancient Greece and its ideology, the importance of children, the role of women, and the position of the outsider and barbarian.
The critically sophisticated analysis, expressed in clear and accessible terms, proceeds to examine the persistence of the Medea myth through ancient Rome to the modern day. Placing the myth within a modern context and into analytical frameworks such as psychoanalysis, Griffiths highlights Medea's position in current classical study, as well as her lasting appeal. A vivid portrait of a woman empowered by her exclusion from society, alive with passion and the suffering of wounded love, this book is an indispensable guide to a fascinating mythical figure.

Join Egyptologist Garry J. Shaw on a tour up the Nile, through a beautiful and fascinating landscape populated with a rich mythology: the stories of Horus, Isis, Osiris, and their enemies and allies, tales of vengeance, tragedy, and fantastic metamorphoses. The myths of ancient Egypt have survived in fragments of ancient hymns and paintings on the walls of tombs and temples, spells inked across coffins and stories scrawled upon scrolls. Shaw not only retells these stories with his characteristic wit, but also reconnects them to the temples and monuments that still stand today, offering a fresh look at the most visited sites in Egypt. Shaw's evocative descriptions of the ancient ruins will transport you to another landscape - including the magnificent sites of Dendera, Tell el-Amarna, Edfu, and Thebes. At each site, discover which gods or goddesses were worshipped there, as well as the myths and stories that formed the backdrop to the rituals and customs of everyday life. Each chapter ends with a potted history of the site, as well as tips for visiting the ruins today. Illustrations throughout bring to life the creation of the world and the nebulous netherworld, the complicated relationships between fickle gods, powerful magicians and pharaohs, and eternal battles on a cosmic scale. This is the perfect companion to the myths of Egypt and the gods and goddesses that shaped its ancient landscape. With 58 illustrations

Despite the attention that has already been paid to the theme of creation in the book of Sirach, scholarship has yet to provide a comprehensive analysis of Ben Sira's instruction regarding the cosmic order and its role in the divine bestowal of wisdom upon human beings. This book, which consists of two parts, fills a lacuna in scholarship by offering such an analysis. The first part of this study examines Ben Sira's three main treatments of the created world, thus providing a comprehensive description and synthesis of Ben Sira's doctrine concerning the created order of the cosmos. The second part of this work analyzes the place of human beings in general, and the Jewish people in particular, within the cosmic order. This second part includes an analysis of the role of the created order in Ben Sira's wisdom instruction in 1:1-10 and 24:1-34 as well as an elucidation of the way in which his treatments of various kinds of people-civic leaders, wives, doctors, manual laborers, scribes, and cultic personnel-are integral to Ben Sira's doctrine of creation. This study demonstrates that the created order is a fundamental category that Ben Sira relies upon in articulating his instructions about wisdom and wise behavior.

This is an exploration of how the legend of Thor has been adopted, adapted and transformed through history. The myths of the Norse god Thor were preserved in the "Icelandic Eddas", set down in the early Middle Ages. The bane of giants and trolls, Thor was worshipped as the last line of defence against all that threatened early Nordic society. Thor's significance persisted long after the Christian conversion and, in the mid-eighteenth century, Thor resumed a symbolic prominence among northern countries. Admired and adopted in Scandinavia and Germany, he became central to the rhetoric of national romanticism and to more belligerent assertions of nationalism. Resurrected in the latter part of the twentieth century in "Marvel Magazine", Thor was further transformed into an articulation both of an anxious male sexuality and of a parallel nervousness regarding American foreign policy. Martin Arnold explores the extraordinary regard in which Thor has been held since medieval times and considers why and how his myth has been adopted, adapted and transformed.

Gathering together under a single cover material from a wide range of African societies, this volume allows similarities and differences to be easily perceived and suggests social correlates of these in terms of age, sex, marital status, social grading and wealth. It includes material on both traditional and modern cults.

Introducing the reader to the gods and their worshippers and to the ways in which they were related, this book focuses on the ever-present link between the human and the divine in Ancient Egypt. The book also examines the impact of Egyptian religion upon the Judaeo-Christian world. First published in 1973.

The Egyptian Nonnus of Panopolis (5th century AD), author of both the 'pagan' Dionysiaca, the longest known poem from Antiquity (21,286 lines in 48 books, the same number of books as the Iliad and Odyssey combined), and a 'Christian' hexameter Paraphrase of St John's Gospel (3,660 lines in 21 books), is no doubt the most representative poet of Greek Late Antiquity. Brill's Companion to Nonnus of Panopolis provides a collection of 32 essays by a large international group of scholars, experts in the field of archaic, Hellenistic, Imperial, and Christian poetry, as well as scholars of late antique Egypt, Greek mythology and religion, who explore the various aspects of Nonnus' baroque poetry and its historical, religious and cultural background.

Beyond its housing estates and identikit high streets there is another Britain. This is the Britain of mist-drenched forests and unpredictable sea-frets: of wraith-like fog banks, druidic mistletoe and peculiar creatures that lurk, half-unseen, in the undergrowth, tantalising and teasing just at the periphery of human vision. How have the remarkably persistent folkloric traditions of the British Isles formed and been formed by the identities and psyches of those who inhabit them? In her sparkling new history, Carolyne Larrington explores the diverse ways in which a myriad of imaginary and fantastical beings has moulded the cultural history of the nation. Fairies, elves and goblins here tread purposefully, sometimes malignly, over an eerie, preternatural landscape that also conceals brownies, selkies, trows, knockers, boggarts, land-wights, Jack o'Lanterns, Barguests, the sinister Nuckleavee, or water-horse, and even Black Shuck: terrifying hell-hound of the Norfolk coast with eyes of burning coal. Focusing on liminal points where the boundaries between this world and that of the supernatural grow thin those marginal tide-banks, saltmarshes, floodplains, moors and rock-pools wherein mystery lies the author shows how mythologies of Mermen, Green men and Wild-men have helped and continue to help human beings deal with such ubiquitous concerns as love and lust, loss and death and continuity and change. Evoking the Wild Hunt, the ghostly bells of Lyonesse and the dread fenlands haunted by Grendel, and ranging the while from Shetland to Jersey and from Ireland to East Anglia, this is a book that will captivate all those who long for the wild places: the mountains and chasms where Gog, Magog and their fellow giants lie in wait."

In Medicine in Ancient Assur Troels Pank Arboll offers a microhistorical study of a single exorcist named Kis ir-Assur who practiced medical and magical healing in the ancient city of Assur (modern northern Iraq) in the 7th century BCE. The book provides the first detailed analysis of a healer's education and practice in ancient Mesopotamia based on at least 73 texts assigned to specific stages of his career. By drawing on a microhistorical framework, the study aims at significantly improving our understanding of the functional aspects of texts in their specialist environment. Furthermore, the work situates Kisir-Assur as one of the earliest healers in world history for whom we have such details pertaining to his career originating from his own time.

From the translator of the bestselling Poetic Edda (Hackett, 2015) comes a gripping new rendering of two of the greatest sagas of Old Norse literature. Together the two sagas recount the story of seven generations of a single legendary heroic family and comprise our best source of traditional lore about its members-including, among others, the dragon-slayer Sigurd, Brynhild the Valkyrie, and the Viking chieftain Ragnar Lothbrok.

Disputation literature is a type of text in which usually two non-human entities (such as trees, animals, drinks, or seasons) try to establish their superiority over each other by means of a series of speeches written in an elaborate, flowery register. As opposed to other dialogue literature, in disputation texts there is no serious matter at stake only the preeminence of one of the litigants over its rival. These light-hearted texts are known in virtually every culture that flourished in the Middle East from Antiquity to the present day, and they constitute one of the most enduring genres in world literature. The present volume collects over twenty contributions on disputation literature by a diverse group of world-renowned scholars. From ancient Sumer to modern-day Bahrain, from Egyptian to Neo-Aramaic, including Latin, French, Middle English, Armenian, Chinese and Japanese, the chapters of this book study the multiple avatars of this venerable text type.

A number of long-standing theories concerning the production of Deuteronomy are currently being revisited. This volume takes a fresh look at the theory that there was an independent legal collection comprising chs 12-26 that subsequently was set within one or two narrative frames to yield the book, with ongoing redactional changes. Each contributor has been asked to focus on how the "core" might have functioned as a stand-alone document or, if exploring a theme or motif, to take note of commonalities and differences within the "core" and "frames" that might shed light on the theory under review. Some of the articles also revisit the theory of a northern origin of the "core" of the book, while others challenge de Wette's equation of Deuteronomy with the scroll found during temple repairs under Josiah. With Deuteronomic studies in a state of flux, this is a timely collection by a group of international scholars who use a range of methods and who, in varying degrees, work with or challenge older theories about the book's origin and growth to approach the central focus from many angles. Readers will find multivalent evidence they can reflect over to decide where they stand on the issue of Deuteronomy as a framed legal "core."

"Egyptian Mummies" is regarded by egyptologists as the classic account of mummification in ancient Egypt. Originally published in 1924, its re-issue in complete form will be welcomed by all those who have sought rare second hand copies in vain. This book provides the most comprehensive account available of the technical processes and materials employed by the ancient Egyptian embalmers together with a historical analysis of their modification throughout the dynastic period. The authors draw on fully illustrated archaeological and pathological evidence together with Egyptian and Greek textual references to provide a thorough survey of the mummification process and attendant funeral ceremonies, and to offer clues to an understanding of the custom's significance and the reasons for its adoption.

Die Colloquia Raurica werden alle zwei Jahre vom CollegiumRauricum veranstaltet. Sie finden auf Castelen, dem Landgut der Roemer-Stiftung Dr. Rene Clavel in Augst (Augusta Raurica) bei Basel, statt. Jedes Colloquium behandelt eine aktuelle geisteswissenschaftliche Frage von allgemeinem Interesse aus der Perspektiveverschiedener Disziplinen. Einen Schwerpunkt bilden dabei Beitrage aus dem Bereich der Altertumswissenschaft. Um moeglichst vielseitig abgestutzte Erkenntnisse zu gewinnen, eroertern die eingeladenen Fachvertreter das Tagungsthema im gemeinsamen Gesprach. Die Ergebnissedes Colloquiumwerden in der Schriftenreihe Colloquia Raurica publiziert.

Valerius Maximus was an indefatigable collector of historical anecdotes illustrating vice and virtue. His Memorable Deeds and Sayings are unparalleled as a source for the opinions of Romans in the early empire on a vast range of subjects.
Mueller focuses on what Valerius can tell us about contemporary Roman attitudes to religion, attacking several orthodoxies along the way. He argues that Roman religion could be deeply emotional. That it was possible to believe passionately in the divinity of the emperor - even when, like Tiberius, he was still alive - and that Rome's gods and religious rituals had an important role in fostering conventional morality.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203463269