The Portable Medieval Reader

Table Of Contents

The Portable Medieval Reader – Edited by James Bruce Ross and Mary Martin McLaughlin Introduction
Chronological Table
Suggestions for Further Reading
Part One: The Body SocialThe Body Social – John of Salisbury
The Orders of Men

THE CLERGY: THE PRAYERS AND THINKERS
The Monastic Ideal – Peter Damiani
The Cistercian Order – William of Malmesbury
How the Friars Came to Germany – Jordan of Giano
A Preacher and His Miracles – Salimbene
Monastic Reform in the Fifteenth Century – John Busch
Archibishop Baldwin of Canterbury – Giraldus Cambrensis
A Model Parish Priest: St. Gilbert of Sempringham – John Capgrave
An Attempt to Enforce Clerical Celibacy – Ordericus Vitalis
The Habits of Priests in Normandy – Odo of Rigaud
Statutes for a College – Robert de Sorbonne
How the Student Should Behave – John of Garland

THE NOBILITY: THE FIGHTERS
The Function of Knighthood – John of Salisbury
The Chivalric Ideal – Díaz de Gámez
The Murder of a Feudal Lord – Galbert of Bruges
The Battle of Poitiers – Geoffrey le Baker
A Knight-Errant of the Fifteenth Century – Jörg von Ehingen
The Rules of Courtly Love – Andreas Capellanus
A Noble Household – Jean Froissart
Offices in a Noble Household – John Russell
Private Lives of the English Gentry – Stonor Letters

THE PEASANTS AND BURGHERS: THE WORKERS
The Feet of the Commonwealth – John of Salisbury
The Duties of Manorial Officers – Seneschaucie
The Peasant’s Life – William Langland
The Making of a Merchant: St. Godric of Finchale – Reginald of Durham
Advice to a Norweigian Merchant – The King’s Mirror
The Successful Surgeon – John Arderne
The Good Wife – The Goodman of Paris
Life in London – Memorials of London
Fashions in Italy – Sacchetti

THE JEWS
Papal Protection of the Jews – Pope Gregory X
The Cremation of the Strasbourg Jewry – Jacob von Königshofen
Conflict, Protest, and Catastrophe
A Revolt of the Commons in London – Roger of Wendover
The Peasants’ Revolt in England – Anonimalle Chronicle
My Brother Man – Walther von der Vogelweide
Piers Plowman’s Protest – William Langland
The Waldensian Heretics – Bernard Gui
The Impact of the Black Death – Henry Knighton
Paris during the Hundred Years’ War – Journal d’un bourgeois
Part Two: The Christian CommonwealthThe Spiritual Authority
The Superiority of the Spiritual Authority – Pope Bonfiace VIII
The Election and Coronation of a Pope – Adam of Usk
The Creation of Cardinals – Pope Pius II
The Fourth Lateran Council – Roger of Wendover
A French Provincial Synod – Odo of Rigaud
Letter to King Henry II – Thomas Becket
The Temporal Authorities
The Nature of a True Prince – John of Salisbury
The Independence of the Temporal Authority – Frederick Barbarossa
The Election and Coronation of an Emperor – Otto of Freising
A German Poet’s Attack on the Papacy – Walther von der Vogelweide
The Seven Electors – Adam of Usk
A Picture of a Good Feudal King: Louis VI of France – Suger
The Coronation of Richard Lion Heart – Roger of Wendover
The Deposition and Death of Richard II – Adam of Usk
An Imperialist View of the Lombard Communes – Otto of Freising
City Politics in Siena – Pope Pius II
A Petty Italian Tyrant – Anonymous
A Picture of a Tyrant – Pope Pius II
Renewal and Reform
The Recovery of the Holy Land: A Plan of Action and a Scheme for Reform – Pierre du Bois
On the Supremacy of General Councils in Church and Empire – Nicholas of Cusa
A Plea for the Reform of Germany – Die Reformation Kaiser Sigmunds
A Call for Common Action Against the Turks – Pope Pius II
Part Three: The House of FameBohemond the Crusader – Anna Comnena
ON the Fame of Abelard – Heloise
Heloise and Abelard: The Later Years – Peter the Venerable
Arnold of Brescia, a Twelfth-Century Revolutionary – John of Salisbury
Arnold of Brescia – Anonymous
His Own Deeds – Giraldus Cambrensis
Henry II, King of England – Giraldus Cambrensis
The Emperor Frederick II – Salimbene
A Saintly King – Jean de Joinville
Pope Boniface VIII – Giovanni Villani
Dante Alighieri – Giovanni Villani
Inscription for a Portrait of Dante – Giovanni Boccaccio
Giotto – Lorenzo Ghiberti
Letter to Posterity – Francesco Petrarca
Charles the Bold and the Fall of the House of Burgundy – Philippe de Commines
Part Four: The World PictureThe Frontiers of Europe: Conquest and Assimilation of Peoples
Anglo-Saxons and Normans – William of Malmesbury
The Character and Customs of the Irish – Giraldus Cambrensis
The Conversion and Subjugation of the Slavs – Helmold
The German Push to the East – Ordensritter und Kirchenfürsten
The Near East: Pilgrimage and Crusade
The Great German Pilgrimage – Lambert of Hersfeld
The First Contact of Crusaders and Turks – Histoire anonyme de la première croisade
A Greek View of the Crusaders – Anna Comnena
An Arab Opinion of the Crusaders – Usamah
A Crusader’s Criticism of the Greeks – Odo of Deuil
Why the Crusaders Failed – William of Tyre
The Expedition of the Grand Company to Constantinople – Ramón Muntaner
The Far East: Missionaries and Merchants
The Tartar Menace to Europe – Matthew Paris
A Mission to the Great Khan – William of Rubrud
The Labours of a Friar in Cathay – John of Monte Corvino
A Last Mission to Cathay – John of Marignolli
Advice to Merchants Bound for Cathay – Francesco Pegolotti
Henry the Navigator’s Search for New Lands – Gomes de Azurara
Part Five: The Noble CastleThe Makers
POETS AND STORY-TELLERS
The Vision of Viands – Aniar MacConglinne
Hymn for Good Friday – Peter Abelard
David’s Lament for Jonathan – Peter Abelard
Let’s Away with Study – Anonymous
When Diana Lighteth – Anonymous
To Bel Vezer on Her Dismissal of the Poet – Bernart de Ventadorn
Dawn Song – Anonymous
The Pretty Fruits of Love – Anonymous
This Song Wants Drink – Anonymous
The Love of Tristan and Iseult – Gottfried von Strassburg
Of the Churl Who Won Paradise – Anonymous
Gather Ye Rosebuds – Romance of the Rose
The Canticle of the Sun – Saint Francis of Assisi
Of the Gentle Heart – Guido Guinicelli
My Lady Looks So Gentle – Dante Alighieri
Beauty in Women – Guido Cavalcanti
Of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and of the Sinner – Jacopone da Todi
Merciless Beauty: A Triple Roundel – Geoffrey Chaucer
Roundel – Christine de Pisan
Miracles of the Virgin – Johannes Herolt

PAINTERS AND BUILDERS
Of Pictures and Images – William Durandus
How to Represent the Arts and Sciences – Quellenbuch zur Kunstgeschichte
The Identity of Individual Artists – Recueil de textes relatifs à l’histoire de l’architecture
Abbots as Builders – Gesta abbatum sancti Albani
A Painter on His Craft – Cennino Cennini
Nature as the Supreme Authority – Leonardo da Vinci

MUSICIANS
Celtic Music and Music in General – Giraldus Cambrensis
Two Musical Friars – Salimbene
An Orchestra of the Fourteenth Century – Guillaume de Machaut
The Mirror of History
A Philosophy of History – Otto of Freising
The Problems and Motives of the Historian – William of Tyre
The Seven Liberal Arts
On Study and Teaching – Hugh of St. Victor
The Battle of the Arts – Henri d’Andeli
Rules of the University of Paris – Chartulary of the University of Paris
Fernando of Cordova, the Boy Wonder – Launoy
The Problems of a Christian Humanist – John of Salisbury
The Ancients and the Moderns – Walter Map
A Plea for the Study of Languages – Roger Bacon
Statute of the Council of Vienne on Languages – Chartulary of the University of Paris
An English Humanist – Richard de Bury
In Defence of Liberal Studies – Coluccio Salutati
In Praise of Greek – Leonardo Bruni
The Mirror of Nature
Questions on Nature – Adelard of Bath
Experimental Science – Roger Bacon
The Case of a Woman Doctor in Paris – Chartulary of the University of Paris
The History of Surgery – Gui de Chauliac
The Mirror of Wisdom
The Place of Logic in Philosophy – Peter Abelard
The End of Man – Saint Thomas Aquinas
On Learned Ignorance – Nicholas of Cusa
The Vision of God
The Soul Complains to God – Jacopone da Todi
A Crying Mystic – Margery Kempe
The Vision of God – Nicholas of Cusa

Acknowledgments