Middle Ages

Like medieval bestiaries, dream-books constitute compelling tools to investigate the collective imagination of the Middle Ages. These manuals, such as the widely circulated Somniale Danielis, were usually structured so that key terms in the text corresponded to the subject of the dream, while the key-words were arranged alphabetically with a concise interpretation of its symbol. The system established both quick and easy access to terms, symbols, and their meanings, and functioned as a convenient guide to the interpretation of dreams. It serves, too, as an important tool for understanding medieval literary as well as other dreams, and for identifying and describing traditional dream topoi.
Our session analyses the origin and circulation of dream symbology as transmitted in dream- manuals, in both manuscript and early printed sources. It also concentrates on how dream symbols developed and changed, in their transfer across religious texts and imagery, literature, and the visual arts, into settings and contexts (including genres other than the literary and media other than the book) where they reveal new layers of meaning. In such ways, dream-books and their study may function as portals to the medieval past.


Organizer: Valerio Cappozzo (Department of Modern Languages, University of Mississippi)
Presider: Claire Fanger (Department of Religion, Rice University)
Presenters:
Boyda Johnstone (Department of English, Fordham University, New York)
“Possessed by Dreams: Dream Interpretation Manuals in Late Medieval England”
László Sándor Chardonnens (Department of English Language and Culture, Radboud University Nijmegen) “Seeing is Believing: Dream Symbols and Their Perception in Medieval Alphabetical Dream Books”
Valerio Cappozzo (Department of Modern Languages, University of Mississippi, )
“A Dictionary for Dream Interpretation: The Somniale Danielis in Its Manuscript Sources”
https://www.academia.edu/10114433/A_Dictionary_for_Dream_Interpretation_The_Somniale_Danielis_in_Its_Manuscript_Sources

Partecipazione al corso seminariale di durata annuale di Storia dell'Arte Medievale, incentrato sul rapporto tra l'oreficeria e la produzione libraria limosina dell'XI-XII secolo. Il corso prevedeva una visita di 3 giorni a Parigi (Musée de Cluny, Louvre, Bibliothèque Mazarine). Nella relazione di seminario, indagine su alcuni repertori ornamentali dell'Ottocento (Lenoir, Racinet, Humprheys, Jones) per verificare la ricezione e la rielaborazione dei motivi limosini nello spirito del revival medievale.

The article is an attempt to consider some aspects of the early medieval pottery of the Slavic-Baltic frontier area. Vessel fragments are the largest category of archaeological sources which are found during excavation (in many cases the only). Although, still pottery is underestimated and studied without due attention. Discussion focusing on the research of the settlement processes, emergence of settlement structures, making of the frontier zones require the study on the ceramics, which is the basic and key source for the study of those phenomena. In the article author discussed some results of the study on the pottery presented in the PhD thesis Wczesnośredniowieczna ceramika naczyniowa a kształtowanie się pogranicza słowiańsko-bałtyjskiego prepared in the Institute of Archaeology, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. In the analytical part of study 25 ceramic assemblages diversified in terms of quantity and quality dated back to the period from 8th to 12/13th c. The materials were analysed within macro-, meso-, and microregions or settlement complexes (see Fig. 1). The sites of both Slavic and Prussian ethnocultural affiliation, as well as those of uncertain affiliation were included.
The author focused on several research problems. The issue of the spread of the early medieval pottery within the borderland was the main topic of discussion. The different pottery categories that are parallels of respective stages of the pottery craft development. The issue was discussed in the broad context, with consideration of the chronological and spatial relations. The issue of the so called empty leg cups was another important topic that was raised. These vessels are regarded as elements that derived genetically from Baltic pottery tradition. The presence of the other elements connected with the Prussian pottery workshop in the area of the Slavic-Baltic frontier was the last topic, that was discussed.

Ce compte rendu du Séminaire international tenu au Max-Planck-Institut de Berlin en novembre 2014 souligne en particulier les nouveaux questionnements sur la problématique et l'historiographie des traductions médiévales interculturelles en matière de science, dans l'espace méditerranéen et au-delà. Les questions soulevées dans les discussions sont également résumées.

Cet article examine le type formel d'argumentation "naturaliste" dans le Liber de natura rerum et l'usage de questions naturelles dans cette encyclopédie, par comparaison avec d'autres sommes didactiques de la même époque. Il met en évidence certaines sources du "Liber de natura rerum" non repérées jusque là, comme le Dragmaticon de Guillaume de Conches.

Titre complet :
La virtus universalis : un concept d’origine hermétique ? Les sources d’une notion de philosophie naturelle apparentée à la forme spécifique, in P. LUCENTINI – I. PARRI – V. PERRONE COMPAGNI, éd., Hermetism from late antiquity to humanism. La tradizione ermetica dal mondo tardo antico all’Umanesimo, Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi (Napoli, 20-24 novembre 2001), Turnhout, 2003 (Instrumenta patristica et mediaevalia, 40), p. 157-188.
Cet article examine la première mention de la vertu spécifique (virtus specifica) selon la définition d'Avicenne, chez un auteur latin médiéval : Arnold de Saxe, c. 1230, ainsi que les sources, hermétiques, de la notion de "virtus universalis" qu'A. de Saxe choisit pour regrouper les chapitres de son encyclopédie traitant des propriétés spécifiques des corps mixtes.

Archaeological excavations were conducted at the Medieval hamlet of Vantaa Gubbacka in southern Finland. In addition to various other features, a U-shaped ca. 3 x 3 meter oven and adjacent pit were excavated. Soil samples were gathered from these and studied with archaeobotanical and charcoal analytical methods. Results show cultivation of (hulled) barley, rye, bread-/club wheat and possibly oat on manured soils. Rye and barley grains and burned boen from the oven were AMS-dated to the first half of the 15th century. Charcoal from the same context was dated to the 13th-14th century. Pine, birch, juniper and alder were used for firewood, and proposedly collected from the surroundings of the village.

Since the thriving of European cities in the 11th century, there was an increasing demand for faster and more reliable exchange services comparable with those in the Roman Empire: After the decline of the well-developed and regularly maintained Roman road network, circulation of people, goods and services had become less effective, particularly given that carriage traffic was virtually impossible on deteriorated roads. Consequently, equestrian traffic gained more importance in the medieval period, particularly in long-distance travels. In order to facilitate mobility and communication between cities, institutionally controlled mounted courier services were promoted and courier horses provided as well as travel horses for hire – both specially trained for their purpose. Moreover, decrees were adopted which regulated animal waste disposal and corpse removal to guarantee a hygienic living environment for both humans and animals. At the same time, specialized systems and structures for horse husbandry in the urban settings arose.
The paper displays the characteristics, capacities and limitations of urban equestrian traffic and horse husbandry in the Late Middle Ages and presents the impact of the human-horse relationship in the urban environment. Pragmatic documents such as (travel) account books and legal texts were used as source base; they were analyzed using a comparative and quantitative methodology. In addition, the reflection of the urban horse in material culture was considered to emphasize a more dynamic dimension of the phenomenon. To conclude, the value of the urban horse in medieval townscapes, either as a daily companion or as a mere commodity, is discussed.