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The aim of this book is to introduce the reader to the organization of medieval Prague up to the early 15th century with a focus on the first two essential phases of agglomeration development: early urban and post-charted. Prague was a so-called “multi-part town”, consisting of several municipalities and separate urban complexes. This publication examines these Prague towns, their inhabitants, and the institutions that served them, as well as many events and places not connected directly to this book’s “urban” subject but which nevertheless constitute an inseparable background and significantly influenced the whole community of Prague.
This intellectual history of the dissident Hussite reform movement in early 15th century Bohemia explains the process of Hussite radicalization, which led to their overthrow of secular and religious structures in the so-called "first European revolution". It does this by discovering the political relevance of diverse heterodox leaders and the discourses they adapted into mobilizing calls to conflict. As such, the work represents a reimagining of the Hussite revolution which emphasizes the symbolic worldview of its agents. This includes an appreciation of the Hussite debt to unexpected traditions of thought, and of the movement's participation in innovative visions of theo-political order.
The Hussite Chronicle is the most important single narrative source for the events of the early Hussite movement. The author is Laurence of Březová (c.1370–c.1437), a member of the Czech lower nobility and a supporter of the Hussite creed. The movement arose as an initiative for religious and social reform in fifteenth-century Bohemia and was energized by the burning of the priest Jan Hus in 1415. Church and empire attempted to suppress the movement and raised five crusades against the dissenters. The chronicle offers to history and scholarship a nuanced understanding of what can be regarded as an essential component for a proper understanding of late medieval religion. It is also a considered account of aspects of the later crusades. This is the first English-language translation of the chronicle.
The twenty-first century has demonstrated that radicalism remains a vital analytical concept in the study of modern religion and politics. However, its application to earlier periods has been met with more ambivalence. This volume challenges that trend by examining religio-political subversives near the close of the Middle Ages as radical within their historical and intellectual contexts, spanning several centuries and cultures, with a focus on Central Europe. In doing so, it seeks to bridge entrenched geographical, chronological, and methodological divides, fostering broader discussions on the comparative relevance of radicalism in pre-modernity.
In early fifteenth-century Prague, disagreements about religion came to be shouted in the streets and taught to the laity in the vernacular, giving rise to a new kind of public engagement that would persist into the early modern era and beyond. The reforming followers of Jan Hus brought theological learning to the people through a variety of genres, including songs, poems, tractates, letters, manifestos, and sermons. At the same time, university masters provided the laity with an education that enabled them to discuss contentious issues and arrive at their own conclusions, emphasizing that they held the freedom to make up their own minds about important theological issues. This marketplace o...
A unique, comparative presentation of a region that is often considered "forgotten," this handbook provides a variety of expertly informed perspectives on life and society in medieval Central Europe and its dynamic interactions across the continent.
Moses Maimonides (1138-1204) had many followers among Jews living in the Mediterranean Basin, but his philosophical books were almost totally ignored by Ashkenazi Jews. Yet, the eastern periphery of Ashkenaz was an exception: in the late fourteenth century a circle of veritable philosophers emerged in the Jewish community of Prague and existed until the end of the Hussite wars (ca. 1434). This book analyses the works of the most important members of the circle, Yom Tov Lipmann Mühlhausen, Avigdor Kara, and Menahem Shalem, and examines the impact of philosophy on Jewish society using Max Weber’s sociology and Marc Richir’s phenomenology.
This collection of essays by eight leading scholars is a landmark event in the study of crusading in the late middle ages. It is the outcome of an international network funded by the Leverhulme Trust whose members examined the persistence of crusading activity in the fifteenth century from three viewpoints, goals, agencies and resonances. The crusading fronts considered include the conflict with the Ottoman Turks in the Mediterranean and western Balkans, the Teutonic Order’s activities in the Baltic region, and the Hussite crusades. The authors review criticism of crusading propaganda on behalf of the crusade, the influence on crusading of demands for Church reform, the impact of printing, expanding knowledge of the world beyond the Christian lands, and new sensibilities about the sufferings of non-combatants.
The tale of a collective evil force known as Gog and Magog has occupied the imagination of Jews, Christians, and Muslims for millennia, finding expression in literary and scholarly works and other cultural artifacts. This book gathers the papers from two conferences at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg by scholars ranging from history, to religious studies, to art history, and is the most thorough work on the subject to date.