Carmina Burana

Volume II

Carmina Burana, the largest surviving collection of secular Medieval Latin verse, features poems on subjects ranging from sex and gambling to crusades and corruption. This new, two-volume presentation of the medieval classic makes the anthology accessible in its entirety to Latin lovers and English readers ...

The life of Saint Neilos of Rossano

(Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library; 47)

The Life of Saint Neilos of Rossano is a masterpiece of historically accurate Italo-Greek monastic literature. Neilos, who died in 1004, vividly exemplifies the preoccupations of Greek monks in southern Italy under the Byzantine Empire. A restless search for a permanent residence, ascetic mortification of ...

Poems

Venantius Fortunatus, a master of the short praise poem and a canonical Christian Latin poet, wrote eleven volumes of hymns, epigrams, elegies, and other religious and epistolary verses addressed to kings, bishops, and abbesses. This volume presents for the first time in English translation all ...

Christian novels

from the Menologion of Symeon Metaphrastes

The Menologion by Symeon Metaphrastes, among the most important Byzantine religious and literary works, is a culmination of a well-established tradition of Greek storytelling. This edition excerpts six Christian novels, each featuring women who defy social expectations, translated for the first time into English.

The rhetorical exercises of Nikephoros Basilakes

Progymnasmata, preliminary exercises in the study of declamation, were the cornerstone of elite education from Hellenistic through Byzantine times. Using material from Greek literary, mythological, and historical traditions, students and writers composed examples ranging from simple fables to complex arguments about fictional laws. In the ...

On Plato's Timaeus

(Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library; 41)

Until the Renaissance, the work of Calcidius offered the medieval West almost the only direct access to Plato s corpus not dispersed in fragments. In the 4th century CE, Calcidius translated into Latin an important section of Plato s "Timaeus," complemented by extensive commentary and ...

Holy Men of Mount Athos

(Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library; 40)

Often simply called the Holy Mountain, Mount Athos was the most famous center of Byzantine monasticism and remains the spiritual heart of the Orthodox Church today. This volume presents the Lives of Euthymios the Younger, Athanasios of Athos, Maximos the Hutburner, Niphon of Athos, and ...

Old English Psalms

(Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library; 42)

The Latin psalms figured prominently in the lives of the Anglo-Saxons, whether sung in the Divine Office by clerics, studied as a textbook for language learning by students, or recited in private devotion by lay people. They were also translated into Old English, first in ...

Allegories of the Iliad

In the early 1140s, the Bavarian princess Bertha von Sulzbach arrived in Constantinople to marry the Byzantine emperor Manuel Komnenos. Wanting to learn more about her new homeland, the future empress Eirene commissioned the grammarian Ioannes Tzetzes to compose a version of the Iliad as ...

Lives and Miracles

Gregory of Tours, acclaimed as "the father" of French history, also wrote extensively about holy men and women, and about wondrous events-miracles. The conversational stories in Lives and Miracles relate what Gregory viewed as the visible results of holy power, direct or mediated, at work ...

Poetic works

Bernardus Silvestris exemplifies the scholastic culture of his time. Having studied with pioneers in philosophy and science, he became a renowned teacher of literary and poetic composition. His versatility as scholar, philosopher, and scientist is apparent in his masterpiece, the "Cosmographia." In alternating verse and ...

On the Liturgy. Volume II: Books 3-4

(Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library; 36)

Amalar of Metz's On the Liturgy>--one of the most widely circulated texts of the Carolingian era--addresses Christian worship from prayers to vestments to bodily gestures of celebrants. This volume adapts the text of Jean-Michel Hanssens's 1948 edition and provides the first complete ...

The histories. Volume I: Books 1-5

(Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library; 33)

Laonikos was one of the Greek historians of the fall of Constantinople in 1453, and the first Greek writer to treat Islam as a legitimate cultural and religious system. He viewed Byzantines as Greeks rather than Romans, and his Histories of the expansion of the ...

On the Liturgy. Volume I: Books 1-2

(Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library; 35)

Amalar of Metz's On the Liturgy--one of the most widely circulated texts of the Carolingian era--addresses Christian worship from prayers to vestments to bodily gestures of celebrants. This volume adapts the text of Jean-Michel Hanssens's 1948 edition and provides the first complete translation ...

The histories. Volume II: Books 6-10

(Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library; 34)

Laonikos was one of the Greek historians of the fall of Constantinople in 1453, and the first Greek writer to treat Islam as a legitimate cultural and religious system. He viewed Byzantines as Greeks rather than Romans, and his Histories> of the expansion of the ...

On difficulties in the Church Fathers: The Ambigua (volume II)

(Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library)

Maximos the Confessor (580-662) occupies a unique position in the history of Byzantine philosophy, theology, and spirituality. His profound spiritual experiences and penetrating theological vision found complex and often astonishing expression in his unparalleled command of Greek philosophy, making him one of the most challenging ...

Saint's live. Volume I: Henry of Avranches

(Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library)

The artistry, wit, and erudition of medieval Latin narrative poetry continued to thrive well into the middle of the thirteenth century. No better evidence of this survives than in the long and brilliantly successful career of Henry of Avranches (d. 1262). Professional versifier to abbots ...

On difficulties in the Church Fathers. The Ambigua (volume I)

(Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library)

Maximos the Confessor (580–662) occupies a unique position in the history of Byzantine philosophy, theology, and spirituality. His profound spiritual experiences and penetrating theological vision found complex and often astonishing expression in his unparalleled command of Greek philosophy, making him one of the most ...

Saint's live. Volume II: Henry of Avranches

(Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library)

The artistry, wit, and erudition of medieval Latin narrative poetry continued to thrive well into the middle of the thirteenth century. No better evidence of this survives than in the long and brilliantly successful career of Henry of Avranches (d. 1262). Professional versifier to abbots ...

Old english shorter poems. Volume II: Wisdom and lyric

(Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library)

The twenty-five poems and eleven metrical charms in this Old English volume offer tantalizing insights into the mental landscape of the Anglo-Saxons. The Wanderer and The Seafarer famously combine philosophical consolation with introspection to achieve a spiritual understanding of life as a journey. The Wife ...