First discovered in a Hungarian library in 1838, the Rohonc Codex keeps privileged company with some of the most famous unsolved writing systems in the world, notably the Voynich manuscript, the Phaistos Disk, and Linear A. Written entirely in cipher, this 400-year-old, 450-page-long, richly illustrated manuscript initially gained considerable ......
Explores the western European idea of the witches' sabbath, based on translations of five texts dating from the 1430s, and examines how these texts went on to influence conceptions of diabolical witchcraft for centuries to come.
Medieval Women, Art, and Knowledge in the Regime du corps
Early modern central Africa comes to life in an extraordinary atlas of vivid watercolors and drawings that Italian Capuchin Franciscans, veterans of Kongo and Angola missions, composed between 1650 and 1750 for the training of future missionaries. These "practical guides" present the intricacies of the natural, social, and religious environment of ......
Examines the social roles, cultural meanings, and active agency of precious stones in jeweled crowns, illustrated lapidaries, and illustrated travel accounts in the European Middle Ages.
A collection of writings by papal advisor and historian Francesco Guicciardini (1483-1540), including letters, treatises, reports, and orations spanning his long career in service to the Medici.
Explores how the Fifth Crusade was remembered and commemorated during its triumphs and immediately after its disastrous conclusion. Provides a study of medieval war memory, showing that in the early decades of the thirteenth century, remembering war was an important means of creating and expressing collective and individual belonging.
Consorts of the Caliphs is a seventh/thirteenth-century compilation of anecdotes about thirty-eight women who were, as the title suggests, consorts to those in power, most of them concubines of the early Abbasid caliphs and wives of latter-day caliphs and sultans. This slim but illuminating volume is one of the few surviving texts by Ibn al-Sa'i ......
Jewish and Christian Women's Work in Medieval Catalan Cities
In the thriving urban economies of late thirteenth-century Catalonia, Jewish and Christian women labored to support their families and their communities. The Fruit of Her Hands examines how gender, socioeconomic status, and religious identity shaped how these women lived and worked. Sarah Ifft Decker draws on thousands of notarial contracts as ......