The Intellectual Dynamism of the High Middle Ages

The essays in The Intellectual Dynamism of the High Middle Ages pay tribute to the work and impact of Constant J. Mews, in spirit and in content, revealing a nuanced and integrated vision of the intellectual history of the medieval West. Mews's groundbreaking work has revealed the wide world of medieval letters: looking beyond the cathedral and the cloister for his investigations, and taking a broad view of intellectual practice in the Middle Ages, Mews has demanded that we expand our horizons as we explore the history of ideas. Alongside his cutting-edge work on Abelard, he has been a leader in the study of medieval women writers, paying heed to Hildegard and Heloise in particular. In Mews' Middle Ages, the world of ideas always belongs to a larger world: one that is cultural, gendered, and politicized.

Clare Monagle is Professor of History in the Department of History and Archaeology at Macquarie University. Her books include Orthodoxy and Controversy in Twelfth-Century Religious Discourse for Brepols in 2013, and Scholastic Affect in 2020, for Cambridge University Press Elements series.

Introduction: Communities of Learning (Clare Monagle), Section 1: Twelfth-century Learning, Chapter 1: Carnal Compassion: Peter Abelard's conflicted approach to empathy (Juanita Feros Ruys), Chapter 2:From Wisdom to Science: A witness of the theological studies in Paris in the 1240s (Riccardo Saccenti), Chapter 3: Authority and Innovation in Bernard of Clairvaux's De gratia et liberio arbitrario (Marcia Colish), Chapter 4: Words of Seduction - a Letter from Hugh Metel to Bernard of Clairvaux (Rina Lahav), Chapter 5: The Emotional Landscape of Abelard's Planctus David super Saul et Ionatha (Carol Williams), Section 2: Sanctity and Material Culture, Chapter 6: Dirty Laundry: Thomas Becket's hair-shirt and the making of a Saint (Karen Bollermann and Cary Nederman), Chapter 7: Relics in Thomas Aquinas and Jean de Meun (Earl Jeffrey Richards), Chapter 8: The Cult of Thomas Aquinas's Relics at the Dawn of the Dominican Reform and the Great Western Schism (Marika Räsänen),S ection 3: Theological Transmissions: Intellectual Culture after 1200, Chapter 9: Food for the Journey: The thirteenth-century French version of Guiard of Laon's sermon on the twelve fruits of the Eucharist (Janice Pinder), Chapter 10: A Sense of Proportion: Jacobus extending Boethius around 1300 (John Crossley), Chapter 11: Utrum sapienti competat prolem habere? An Italian debate (Sylvain Piron), Chapter 12: Attuning to the Cosmos: The ethical man's mission from Plato to Petrarch (Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides), Section 4: Gender, Power and Virtue in Early Modernity, Chapter 13: The Miroir des dames, the Chapelet des vertus, and Christine de Pizan's Sources (Karen Green), Chapter 14: In Praise of Women: Giovanni Sabadino degli Arienti's Gynevera de le clare donne (Carolyn James), Chapter 15: The Invention of the French Royal Mistress (Tracy Adams), Epilogue (Peter Howard), Index.