Academic literature on the topic 'Medieval cosmology'

This characteristically thoughtful essay by Frans Theuws illustrates how far our analysis of central places in the early Middle Ages has advanced. Like his study of Maastricht (2001), it reveals a close reading of the archaeological and historical sources. Indeed, as Michael McCormick's encyclopaedic volume (2001) on the origins of the medieval economy shows with stunning authority, as archaeologists we have taken huge strides since Philip Grierson quipped, ‘It has been said that the spade cannot lie, but it owes this merit in part to the fact that it cannot speak’ (1959, 129). Hence it comes as no surprise that Theuws is exploring the ‘relationship between forms of exchange and the imaginary world from which “value” is derived’ (p. 121).

AbstractIn this paper I shall examine the philosophical cosmology of medieval Jewish thinkers as developed against the backdrop of their views on time and creation. I shall concentrate upon the Neoplatonic and Aristotelian traditions, with a particular eye to the interweaving of astronomy, cosmology and temporality. This interweaving occurs in part because of the influence of Greek cosmological and astronomical texts upon Jewish philosophers. The tension between astronomy and cosmology is best seen in Maimonides' discussion of creation. Gersonides, on the other hand, is more willing to incorporate astronomical material into his cosmological thinking. By examining these motifs, we shall arrive at a greater understanding of the dimension of temporality within Jewish philosophy.

The crisis in modern theoretical physics and cosmology has its root in its use, along with theology as a ruling-class tool, since medieval Europe. The Copernican revolution overthrowing the geocentric cosmology of theology led to unprecedented social and scientific developments in history. But Isaac Newton’s mathematical idealism-based and on-sided theory of universal gravitational attraction, in essence, restored the idealist geocentric cosmology; undermining the Copernican revolution. Albert Einstein’s theories of relativity proposed since the turn of the 20th century reinforced Newtonian mathematical idealism in modern theoretical physics and cosmology, exacerbating the crisis and hampering further progress. Moreover, the recognition of the quantum world - a fundamentally unintuitive new realm of objective reality, which is in conflict with the prevailing causality-based epistemology, requires a rethink of the philosophical foundation of theoretical physics and cosmology in particular and of natural science in general.

Scholars have investigated the Japanese tradition of male-male love that arose in the context of the secular and commercial culture of the early modern era. Less often noted is the role of male-male sexuality within a religious framework. This article sheds light on the unexplored religious dimension of medieval Japanese male-male sexuality through an analysis of Ijiri Matakurō Tadasuke’s Nyakudō no kanjinchō (1482) and its Muromachi variant. Both works glorify male-male sexual acts and endorse their proper practice. I suggest that Kanjinchō attempts to perpetuate power relations that maintain the superiority of adult monks over young acolytes. Kanjinchō achieves this through constructing its own cosmology, built on a Buddhist cosmogony, soteriology, a pantheon of divinities and ethical norms, which, in effect, endows homoeroticism with sacrality. My analysis of Kanjinchō provides a nuanced understanding of male-male sexuality in Japanese Buddhism and the ideological context in which the text is embedded.

This article considers the place of scientific inquiry in ancient Judaism with a focus on astronomy and cosmology. It explores how ancient Jews used biblical interpretation to situate "scientific" knowledge in relation to "religious" concerns. In the Second Temple period (538 B.C.E.-70 C.E.) biblical interpretation is often used to integrate insights from Mesopotamian and Greek scientific traditions. In classical rabbinic Judaism (70-600 C.E.) astronomy became marked as an esoteric discipline, and cosmology is understood in terms of Ma'aseh Bereshit, a category that blurs the boundaries between "science" and "religion." Whereas modern thinkers often see Judaism and "science" as incompatible, medieval Jewish thinkers built on these ancient traditions; some even viewed themselves as heirs to a Jewish intellectual tradition that included astronomy, cosmology, medicine and mathematics.

Abstract This article analyzes how the astronomy of Islamic societies in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries can be understood as cosmological. By studying the Arabic translations of the relevant Greek terms and then the definitions of the medieval Arabic dictionaries, the article finds that Arabic terms did not communicate order in the way implied by the Greek ho kósmos (ὁ κόσμος; the cosmos). Yet, astronomers of the period sometimes discussed cosmic order in addition to describing the cosmos. This article finds, too, that a new technical term, nafs al-amr (the fact of the matter) became part of later discussions of cosmic order.

Arts & Humanities Research Council Studentship under the Collaborative Doctoral Award scheme with Norwich Castle Museum as the partner organisation.
The full text will be available at the end of the embargo, 18th July 2021

In the past historians have used the works of Honorius Augustodunensis to answer the question of who he was. In doing this the intellectual importance of his work has often been overlooked. Honorius was one of the most popular writers of the early twelfth century, and his most popular work was the Imago Mundi. The purpose of this study is to examine the work and its historical context and to furnish an English translation of the complete text. The present work looks at each book of the Imago Mundi and its sources to develop a concept of Honorius' writing style and his methods. It also examines twelfth-century manuscripts of the Imago Mundi and their houses of origin to construct a reason for the work's popularity, both in Honorius' own time and for centuries after.

The gradual blending of classical science and epistemology with indigenous/traditional practices and modes of understanding (particularly magic and religion) in the early western Middle Ages tends to be misunderstood. The purpose of this study is to address the reason(s) why the early medieval West has been labeled an irrational, unscientific â Dark Ageâ in order to point out that this conceptionâ s existence has more to do with limited historical perspectives than with reality. The anachronistic superimposition of modern presuppositions and methodological expectations is a very old phenomenon. Ironically, however, it has crept into the history of science and extended to ostensibly objective â scientificâ historiography to such a degree that dismissiveness regarding the other ways of knowing that have informed our scientific and epistemological development frequently tends to obscure historical continuity. My goal in this undertaking is to firmly establish how we may understand that the intellectual revolution beginning in twelfth-century Europe was founded on a rich and multifarious tradition of knowledge and understanding; the preceding seven or eight centuries of the early Middle Ages was not one of intellectual â darknessâ and should not be discarded as such. The approach I have taken is intended to demonstrate, rather than simply state, this goal by roughly imitating of the process of intellectual transmission in the early Middle Ages. Therefore, primary sources are supplemented by numerous secondary interpretations from various academic disciplines in the hope that collecting and reforming ideas in this fashion will draw out the inherent connectivity of ideological thought structures and approaches to the natural world.
Master of Arts

This thesis explores the nature of the late medieval European worldview in the context of the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century European journeys to Asia. It aims to determine the precise influence of these journeys on the wider European Weltbild. In lending equal weight to the accounts of the eastward travellers and the sources authored by their counterparts in Europe, who did not travel to Asia, the present study draws together two related strands in medieval historiography: the study of medieval European cosmology and worldview, and the study of medieval travel and travel literature. This thesis treats the journeys as medieval Europe’s interaction with Asia, outlining how travellers formed their perceptions of ‘the East’ through their encounters with Asian people and places. It also explores the transmission of information and ideas from travellers to their European contemporaries, suggesting that the peculiar textual culture of the Middle Ages complicated this process greatly and so minimised the transfer of ‘intact’ perceptions as the travellers originally formed them. The study contends instead that the eastward journeys shaped the late medieval European world picture in a different way, without overturning the concepts that underpinned it. Rather, this thesis argues, thirteenth- and fourteenth-century eastward voyages subtly altered how Europeans were inclined to understand these underpinning concepts. It suggests that the journeys intensified and made the concepts more immediate in Europeans’ minds and that they ‘normalised’ travel itself to the point where it became an essential part of the way Europeans could most readily make sense of the vast and kaleidoscopic world around them.

This thesis studies ritual interactions between saints and the landscape, animals and elements during a three-hundred year period from 410 AD. Such interactions include negotiations about and with birds and other animals, exorcism of the sea, lakes and rivers, and immersion in these natural bodies of water for devotional purposes. Although writers of the period lacked a term such as 'nature' to describe this sphere of activity, it is demonstrated that the natural world was regarded as a dimension of creation distinctively responsive to Christian ritual. Systematic study of the context in which these rituals were performed finds close connection with missionary negotiations aimed at lay people. It further reveals that three British writers borrowed from Sulpicius Severus' accounts of eastern hermits, reworking older narratives to suggest that non-human aspects of creation were not only attracted to saints but were changed by and participated in Christian ritual and worship. Natural bodies of water attracted particularly intense interaction in the form of exorcism and bathing, sufficiently widely documented to indicate a number of discrete families of ritual were developed. In northern Britain, acute anxieties can be detected about the cultural and spiritual associations of open water, requiring missionary intervention to challenge pre-Christian narratives through biblical and liturgical resources, most notably baptism. Such a cosmological stretch appears to have informed a 'Celtic' deviation in baptismal practice that emphasised exorcism and bodily sacrifice. Nature rituals were a systematic response to the challenges of the British intellectual and physical landscapes, revealing the shape of an underlying missionary strategy based on mainstream patristic theology about the marred relationship between humans and the rest of creation. St Ambrose emerges as the most influential theologian at the time when the early church was shaping its British inculturation, most notably led by St Germanus' mission in 429.

L’objectiu principal de la present Tesi doctoral és mostrar les línies de continuïtat i les ruptures que articulen les representacions de l’univers d’Hildegarda de Bingen per mitjà de l’anàlisi descriptiva, interpretativa i comparativa dels plantejaments cosmològics que apareixen en el seu extens corpus. Dues premisses i tres hipòtesis guien la recerca. La primera premissa és el fet que Hildegarda concep l’univers material i temporal com una realitat creada per Déu on transcorre la història de la salvació. La segona premissa consisteix en què el discurs de l’autora no és específicament filosòfic (ni ho pretén ser), sinó que tot articulant diversos sabers modela un relat al·legòric i visionari on reflexiona sobre qüestions filosòfiques des d’un prisma singular. Des d’aquest punt de partida es desenvolupen les hipòtesis de la recerca. La primera sosté que la teologia de la creació d’Hildegarda es basa en una filosofia de la natura subjacent. És a dir, existeix un substrat de filosofia natural implícit que fonamenta les descripcions al·legòriques de l’univers d’Hildegarda, i aquest substrat té un sentit complet en ell mateix –encara que l’autora estableix un vincle ferm entre la cosmologia, la teologia i l’antropologia. Aquest discurs sobre la natura és explícit a la Physica i va ser desenvolupat posteriorment en el tractat Beate Hildegardis Cause et cure (s. XIII). Si bé cal subratllar, sobretot, que aquest tipus de discurs és latent en tots els escrits on l’autora parla de l’univers. La segona hipòtesi precisa quin és el recorregut dels plantejaments cosmològics d’Hildegarda tot al llarg del seu corpus, i es fonamenta en una anàlisi comparativa del rerefons filosòfic de les «visions» còsmiques, amb especial atenció al Sciuias i al Liber diuinorum operum. L’anàlisi detallada de les modificacions que efectua en els seus plantejaments permet de mesurar conceptualment la transfiguració de l’univers que descriu. Per tant, la present no és només una anàlisi sistemàtica de les teories cosmològiques exposades en els dos llibres (ja que d’ella se’n deriva una única concepció de l’univers que és fictícia), sinó que es complementa amb un vessant històrico-biogràfic. Finalment, la tercera hipòtesi indaga, en concret, la influència de la literatura timaica en el Liber diuinorum operum, i el paper decisiu que la filosofia de la natura platònica, sumada a l’estoica, hauria tingut en la reelaboració de la seva imago mundi. El resultat més rellevant de la Tesi doctoral és contribuir a situar la concepció de la natura d’Hildegarda de Bingen al panorama de renovació filosòfico-científica que es va començar a configurar a partir de la primera meitat del segle XII.
The main objective of this PhD Thesis is to trace the continuities and breaks shaping Hildegard of Bingen’s representations of the universe, by means of a descriptive, interpretative and comparative analysis of the cosmological scheme in her extensive corpus. The study is guided by two premises and three hypotheses. The first premise is the fact that Hildegard sees the material and temporal universe as a reality created by God, in which the history of salvation unfolds. The second premise is that her discourse is not specifically philosophical (and does not claim to be so), but articulates various fields of knowledge in giving form to an allegorical and visionary narrative in which she reflects on philosophical issues from her own unique perspective. It is from this starting point that the research hypotheses are developed. The first of these affirms that Hildegard’s creation theology is based on an underlying philosophy of nature, i.e. that it is underpinned by an implicit foundation of natural philosophy which moulds the allegorical descriptions of Hildegard’s universe; and that this substratum has a complete meaning in itself (although she establishes strong links between cosmology, theology and anthropology). This discourse on nature is explicit in the Physica and would later be developed further in the treatise Beate Hildegardis Cause et cure (s. XIII). It is of particular note that this type of discourse is latent in all of Hildegard’s writings on the universe. The second hypothesis clarifies how her cosmological ideas evolve throughout her work, and is grounded in a comparative analysis of the philosophical background to her cosmic “visions,” paying special attention to the Sciuias and the Liber diuinorum operum. This detailed analysis of the modifications she makes to her design enables us conceptually to measure the transfiguration of the universe she describes. This study, then, is not only a systematic analysis of the cosmological theories contained in the two books mentioned above (since this would yield only one –fictional– view of the universe), but is also complemented by a historical-biographical dimension. Finally, the third hypothesis investigates, more specifically, the influence of Timaeic literature on the Liber diuinorum operum, and the decisive role played by both Platonic and Stoic natural philosophy in the reshaping of Hildegard’s imago mundi. The most important result of the Thesis is to contribute to locating Hildegard of Bingen’s views on nature within the spectrum of philosophical-scientific renovation beginning to emerge during the first half of the 12th century.

En este trabajo se estudia el caso de la cosmología del filósofo y científico Robert Grosseteste como un ejemplo de la notable influencia del neoplatonismo en la ciencia medieval. Uno de los propósitos de la cosmología de Grosseteste consistió en explicar la secuencia efectiva de la creación del cosmos. Sostengo que la explicación que ofrece Grosseteste acerca de la creación es una expresión renovada de algunas ideas de Plotino a propósito de cómo el Uno engendra lo múltiple. Me interesa resaltar tres aspectos de la estrecha relación entre el sistema cosmológico de Grosseteste y el sistema metafísico de Plotino: (1) Unidad de principio, (2) Mecanismos de generación y (3) Unidad del sistema.

1. Iconographie à Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne.Le portail de Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne est une œuvre majeure du xiie siècle. Pourtant, jusqu’à présent, les registres inférieurs du tympan étaient décrits de manière insatisfaisante comme une masse de créatures. La première partie de cette thèse est une lecture iconographique du tympan puis de l’ensemble de l’édifice par méthode comparative sérielle.L'Apocalypse est la référence principale du tympan. Les trois créatures du linteau représentent la Bête de la Terre, la Bête de la Mer et le Dragon, tirées de l'Apocalypse 13. Leur manifestation comme anti-trinité est une incarnation du mal. Mais les quatre créatures au niveau intermédiaire sont des locustes, c'est-à-dire un fléau envoyé par Dieu. S’y ajoutent plusieurs micro-motifs, tels que les roses végétales ou les têtes crachant des rubans. Mes interprétations iconographiques fondent une compréhension renouvelée de la composition. Le tympan de Beaulieu offre une perspective sur les événements apocalyptiques centrée sur la notion d’épreuve : les épreuves eschatologiques et les épreuves de la vie, les efforts et tentations y compris celles du Christ, construisent un réseau de motifs analogiques à travers le portail. J’ai nommé ce thème : « adversité apocalyptique ».2. Adversité apocalyptique.À partir du ve siècle, il est admis que l'Apocalypse symbolise le présent. Or le tympan de Beaulieu associe seconde Parousie et bêtes apocalyptiques. C’est que certains passages dans les commentaires apocalyptiques montrent que les théologiens jusqu’au xiie siècle interprètent le texte à la fois comme une clef métaphorique au présent et comme une annonce au futur. Une fois identifiés et déchiffrés, ces motifs d'épreuves apocalyptiques sont repérables en contexte eschatologique dans de nombreux monuments romans et du premier gothique. Certains étaient encore non identifiés, comme la locuste de Schloss Tirol. Quelques compositions monumentales incluant des épreuves apocalyptiques ont été décrites par leurs contemporains mais plus tard détruites, comme à Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire.Au milieu du xiiie siècle, des images apocalyptiques sont réutilisées par des penseurs hétérodoxes, puis par des mouvements subversifs comme celui des Flagellants à partir de 1256, suivis d'un certain nombre de mouvements millénaristes. Dès ce moment, une partie de l’iconographie apocalyptique devient suspecte et disparaît des représentations monumentales pour quelques siècles.3. Analyse anthropologique.La série des images apocalyptiques documente le passage d'une ontologie analogiste à l’ontologie naturaliste contemporaine. Suivant la théorie de l'anthropologue Philippe Descola, la première, issue d'un cadre de discontinuités tant dans les matériaux physiques qu’entre les êtres spirituels, se caractérise par un usage constant de l'analogie afin de réconcilier les réalités fragmentées du cosmos. L'ontologie naturaliste, quant à elle, oppose réalité matérielle continue régie par des lois scientifiques naturelles, et discontinuité dans les mondes culturels et psychologiques des êtres humains et non-humains. Les traits de la figuration analogiste sont pertinents pour comprendre des images romanes dont la valeur est plutôt cosmologique qu’exégétique. Il en va ainsi des séries de figures animales situées autour du portail de Moissac, ou en façade de Notre-Dame La Grande, à Poitiers. Notre corpus peut aussi éclairer la mutation ontologique. Les critères en sont multiples : la structure des images, leur référence thématique, l’usage de motifs comme l’hybridation, la place donnée aux créatures non-humaines, etc. Dès le xiiiᵉ siècle, les formes les plus complexes de la figuration analogiste reculent et un certain nombre d’éléments disparaissent, tels que la prolixité dans l’hybridation. Ces jalons très précoces permettent de mieux saisir la complexité de la trajectoire qui aboutit au naturalisme, à partir du xvᵉ siècle dans les images et de manière systématique dans les textes au xviiᵉ siècle
. Iconography in Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne.The Beaulieu portal is a major landmark of the Twelfth Century. However, the lower levels of the tympanum have so far been described unsatisfactorily as an indistinct mass of evil creatures. The first part of this thesis is an iconographic reading of the tympanum, then of the whole building, by serial comparative method.On the tympanum, the Apocalypse is the main reference. The three creatures in the lintel represent the Beast of the Earth, the Beast of the Sea and the Dragon, taken from Revelation 13. Their ironic manifestation as anti-trinity must be understood as the incarnation of Evil. On the other hand, the four creatures at the intermediate level are locusts, that is a plague, but sent by God. Finally, there are a multitude of micro-motifs, such as vegetal roses or ribbons-spitting heads. Iconographic interpretations are the basis for a renewed understanding of the composition. Beaulieu's tympanum is a thematic perspective on the end times and apocalyptic events, centred on the notion of trial: eschatological trials and the trials of terrestrial life. The efforts and temptations, including the temptation of Christ, build a network of analogical motifs through the portal. I have named this theme: "apocalyptic adversity".2. Apocalyptic adversity. It is commonly accepted that from the 5th century, Revelation is interpreted as a symbolic representation of the present. However, Beaulieu's tympanum associates second Parousia and apocalyptic beasts. In fact, some passages in apocalyptic commentaries show that many theologians until the Twelfth Century interpret the text with fluidity both as a metaphorical key to the present and as a possible eschatological announcement. Once identified and deciphered, the apocalyptic motifs are visible in eschatological contexts in many Romanesque and early Gothic monuments. Some of them were previously unidentified, such as the locust in Schloss Tirol. Some monumental compositions including elements of apocalyptic trials had been described by their contemporaries but later destroyed, as in Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire. In the middle of the Thirteenth Century, apocalyptic images were reused by heterodox thinkers, then by subversive movements such as the Flagellants from 1256, followed by movements often referred to as millenarists. From that moment, much of the apocalyptic iconography became suspicious and disappeared from monumental representations for a few centuries. 3. Anthropological analysis of images. The series of apocalyptic images also documents the transition from analogist ontology to contemporary naturalist ontology. According to the theory of anthropologist Philippe Descola, the first, resulting from discontinuities both in physical materials and between spiritual beings, is characterized by a constant use of analogy, in order to reconcile the fragmented realities of the cosmos. Naturalistic ontology, on the other hand, contrasts a continuous material reality governed by natural scientific laws, with a discontinuity in the cultural and psychological worlds of human and non-human beings. The features of analogist figuration are relevant to many Romanesque images, whose value is more cosmological than exegetical. This is the case for the series of animal figures located around the Moissac gate, or on the façade of Notre-Dame La Grande in Poitiers. Our corpus can also shed light onto the ontological mutation. The criteria are manifold. They concern the structure of the images, their thematic reference, the use of certain motifs such as hybridization, the place given to non-human creatures, etc. From the xiiiᵉ century, the most complex forms of analogist figuration recede. Then a certain number of elements gradually appear, such as hybridization. These early milestones make it possible to better understand the complexity of the trajectory leading to naturalism, starting from xvᵉ century in the images, and systematically in the texts in xviiᵉ century

L'Autore analizza i temi cosmogonici, cosmologici, fisici e metafisici correlati con il racconto della rovina angelica, sottolineando come sia possibile proporre soluzioni ermeneutiche che consentano di superare le supposte incongruenze dottrinali tra i diversi testi danteschi e riconoscere così in Dante lo sforzo di una comunicazione coerente dei contenuti veritativi della scienza filosofica e teologica.

This study engages a network of music, myth, and metaphysics within late-ancient and twelfth-century music theory and cosmology. It traces the development, expansion, and demise of a (natural-)philosophical harmonic speculation that stems largely from an a priori commitment to a harmonic cosmology with its deepest roots in Plato’s Timaeus. It argues that music theory not only allowed twelfth-century thinkers to conceptualize the fabric of the universe, but it also provided a hermeneutic tool for interpreting the ancient and late-ancient texts that offered detailed theories of the world’s construction. The twin goals of this study are thus philosophical and musicological: firstly and philosophically, to analyze and re-assert the importance of musical speculation in the writings of the self-styled physici, who probed the physical world and its metaphysical foundations during the ‘Twelfth-Century Renaissance’; secondly and musicologically, to document the sources and scope of this musical speculation and to situate it within the larger tradition of ‘speculative music theory.’ The first part of the thesis (chapters one and two) disentangles the knotty question of sources for and connections between the late-ancient texts (by Calcidius, Macrobius, and Boethius) that form the background of twelfth-century thought, and it sketches the proper domain of musical thought by tracing the expansion of music’s role in quadrivial and natural-philosophical contexts from late-ancient encyclopedism though various twelfth-century divisiones scientiae. The second part of the thesis (chapters three through five) assembles and analyzes the direct evidence for twelfth-century harmonic theory. These chapters, heuristically organized around the Boethian tripartition of music, present an anagogic ascent per aspera ad astra. Chapter three (musica instrumentalis) highlights the occasional and perhaps surprising employ of practical, technical music theory in cosmological contexts, and focuses on the epistemological foundations of hearing and the ontological status granted to the sonorous ‘objects’ of hearing. Chapter four (musica humana) targets the anthropological, psychological, and ethical implications of musical relations in and between body and soul. Finally, chapter five (musica mundana) outlines the cosmological framework, the anima mundi in particular, that underpins the concordant machinations of the machina mundi in all its manifestations.