Thomas Williams' revision of Arthur Hyman and James J. Walsh's classic compendium of writings in the Christian, Islamic, and Jewish medieval philosophical traditions expands the breadth of coverage that helped make its predecessor the best known and most widely used collection of its kind. The third edition builds on the strengths of the second by preserving its essential shape while adding several important new texts--including works by Augustine, Boethius, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Anselm, al-Farabi, al-Ghazali, Ibn Rushd, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, and John Duns Scotus--and featuring new translations of many others. The volume has also been redesigned and its bibliographies updated with the needs of a new generation of students in mind.

All the great issues, forces, and institutions of the thirteenth century are reviewed at generous length-the rise and character, the curricula, and the influences of the early universities; the steps taken towards popular education, both literary and technical; the development of letters; the great books and the great writers of the period; the Latin hymns of the church; Thomas Aquinas, Dante, the Golden Legend, the Romance of the Rose, Jocelyn de Brakelond, Matthew Paris, and Vincent of Beauvais; hospitals; famous women; Marco Polo and the story of geographical exploration; the systematization of law; and the beginnings of modern commerce.