"In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, new ways of storytelling and inventing fictions appeared in the French-speaking areas of Europe. This new art still influences our global culture of fiction. Virginie Greene explores the relationship between fiction and the development o…
"The Buddha's nirvana marks the end of the life of a great spiritual figure and the beginning of Buddhism as a world religion. [book title] is the first book in the English language to examine how this historic moment was represented and received in the visual culture of China. …
"Over the last two decades there has been an increasing interest in the influence of medieval Jewish thought upon Spinoza's philosophy. The essays in this volume, by Spinoza specialists and leading scholars in the field of medieval Jewish philosophy, consider the various dimensi…
"Prompted by the abundant historical allusions in Athenian political and diplomatic discourse, Bernd Steinbock analyzes the uses and meanings of the past in fourth-century Athens, using Thebes' role in Athenian memory as a case study. This examination is based upon the premise t…
The Greek Historia Monachorum was one of the most widely read and disseminated Greek hagiographic texts during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. To this day it remains, alongside Athanasius' Life of Antony, one of the core primary sources for fourth-century Egyptian monasticis…
"In the past seven centuries Dante has become world renowned, with his works translated into multiple languages and read by people of all ages and cultural backgrounds. This volume brings together interdisciplinary essays by leading, international scholars to provide a comprehen…
While ancient states are often characterized in terms of the powers that they claimed to possess, this book argues that they were in fact fundamentally weak, both in the exercise of force outside of war and in the infrastructural and regulatory powers that such force would, in t…
The Qur'ān, emphasizing ritual purity and the role of Jesus as giver of God's positive law, preserves aspects of an earlier Jesus movement that most Christian groups diluted or rejected. The Didascalia Apostolorum, a late ancient church order, records a significant number of the…
The Mongol Empire (c. 1200-1350) can be seen as marking the beginning of the modern age, and of globalization as well. While communications between the extremes of Eurasia existed prior to the Mongols, they were infrequent and often through intermediaries. As this book shows, th…
"A State of Mixture seeks to resolve the paradox of how East Syrian Christian communities flourished in a Zoroastrian political system, the Iranian Empire. If previous studies have regarded Christians as marginal, insular, and often persecuted, the present book demonstrates thei…
"Linked by the politics of global trade networks, Viking Age Europe was a well-connected world. Within this fertile social environment, Iceland ironically has been casted as a marginal society too remote to participate in global affairs, and destined to live in the shadow of its…
"Arthurian romance in Renaissance France has long been treated by modern critics as marginal - although manuscripts and printed volumes, adaptations and rewritings, show just how much writers, and especially publishers, saw its potential attractions for readers. This book is the…
In the thirteenth century, Paris was the largest city in Western Europe, the royal capital of France, and the seat of one of Europe's most important universities. In this vibrant and cosmopolitan city, the beguines, women who wished to devote their lives to Christian ideals with…
