Medieval Latin Literature

This is intended for an intermediate Latin class.  It contains the excerpt from Saxo Grammaticus' Gesta Danorum which tells the story of Amlethus, the basis for the more famous Hamlet.  This document is a work in progress and was recently minted.  Please send along any suggestions for changes or alteration and I will update the original.

十六世紀半ばから十七世初頭にかけ、日本イエズス会により、日本語の教理書が出版されたということは周知の通りだ。世俗のヨーロッパ文学である『イソップ物語』の和訳、そして天草版『平家物語』、『太平記抜書』の存在もよく知られている。しかし、日本語で書かれたオリジナルのキリスト教説話が現存するということは案外知られていない。近年、このテキスト群を「異文化接触」というレベルで取り上げた研究が現れているが、漢訳仏典や漢籍の影響を受けた『日本霊異記』『今昔物語集』などとは対照的に、室町末期にラテン語文脈から国語に翻案されたキリスト教文学は、残念ながらこれまで国文学として扱われてこなかった。その理由をここで詳しくは追究できないが、日本精神というものが（漢文脈との関連性ではある程度まで認められている一方で）キリスト教との関係性については根本的に異質で相容れないものと一般的には理解されていることが、その背景にあると考えられる。しかし、キリスト教説話を聞いた織豊期の日本人がこのように日本精神とキリスト教を両極的なものとして捉えていたということは、資料からは読み取れない。本稿では、キリスト教も日本精神も信仰していない筆者が日本中世キリスト教の代表的な説話集をバレト写本という資料の中から取り上げ、その原典が何であったかを明らかにし、さらに、同時代の日本文学との関係性を探る。その結果、この説話集は当時の武士階級によって評価された軍記・語り物文学、取り分け幸若舞と最も関連性が深いということを示す。

Þingeyrar Abbey was founded in 1133 and dissolved in the wake of the Lutheran Reformation (1550), to virtually disappear with time from the face of the earth. Although highly promising archeological excavations are under way, our material points of access to this important monastic foundation are still only a handful of medieval artifacts. However, throughout its medieval existence Þingeyrar Abbey was an inordinately large producer of Latin and Icelandic literature. We have the names of monastic authors, poets, translators, compilators, and scribes, who engaged creatively with such diverse subjects as Christian hagiography, contemporary history, and Norse mythology, skillfully amalgamating all of this into a coherent, imaginative whole. Thus, Þingeyrar Abbey has a prominent place in the creation and preservation of the Icelandic Eddas and Sagas that have shaped the Northern European cultural memory. Despite the dissolution of monastic libraries and wholesale destruction of Icelandic-Latin manuscripts through a mixture of Protestant zealotry and parchment reuse, philologists have been able to trace a number of surviving codices and fragments back to Þingeyrar Abbey. Ultimately, however, our primary points of access to the fascinating world of this remote Benedictine community remain immaterial, a vast corpus of medieval texts edited on the basis of manuscript copies at unknown degrees of separation from the lost originals.

Losbücher, in denen der Leser durch Würfeln oder über ein Losrad zu einem bestimmten Losspruch geleitet wird, wurden in der germanistischen Forschung bislang vor allem als mantische Wahrsagetexte wahrgenommen. Die wesentliche Leistung dieser handschriftenzentrierten kulturhistorischen Studie ist es, dieses Verständnis als Fortschreiben des christlich-theologischen Magiediskurses des Mittelalters zu dekonstruieren. Der Blick in die Handschriften zeigt vielmehr, dass Losbücher nur selten als magisch-mantische Texte ausgegrenzt wurden, sondern als astrologische oder unterhaltende Texte gelesen werden konnten, in die christliche Glaubenspraxis integriert wurden und sogar im Sinn einer Mahnung vor der Wechselhaftigkeit des irdischen Glücks zu einer christlichen, jenseitsorientierten Lebensführung anleiten sollten. Das Buch bietet neben einer Textsortenanalyse die Edition des Würfellosbuchs ‚der morgen stern‘ und einen Katalog der 53 Losbuchtexte des Manuskriptzeitalters sowie der 50 bekannten deutschsprachigen Losbuchhandschriften.

Augustine’s accounts of his so-called mystical experiences in conf.
7.10.16, 17.23, and 9.10.24 are puzzling. The primary problem is that,
although in all three accounts he claims to have seen “that which is,”
we have no satisfactory account of what “that which is” is supposed to
be. I shall be arguing that, contrary to a common interpretation, Augustine’s intellectual “seeing” of “being” in Books 7 and 9 was not a vision
of the Christian God as a whole, nor of one of the divine persons, each of
whom is equally God, according to Augustine. This becomes clear when
we attend to the fact that Augustine is appropriating a specific meaning
of “that which is” or “being” used by Plotinus in his account of the
lover of Beauty. This resolution, however, leads to a second question. Is
there anything distinctively Christian about any, or all, of Augustine’s
ascents? On the one hand, it would be odd if there were not, given that
the Confessions are addressed to the Christian God. On the other hand,
upon close inspection we find that the allegedly specific “Christian”
characteristics that modern commentators have identified in the
ascents of conf. 7 and 9 also occur in the Neoplatonists. I will argue
that there is in fact one important difference between Augustine and the
Neoplatonists here that has not been pointed out in these prior
interpretations.

The period known as the Italian Renaissance witnessed a rebirth of Greek learning and, along with it, a renewed impetus to translate the two epic poems, the Iliad and Odyssey, attributed to Homer in antiquity. During the course of one century (1362-1460s) there were more than a dozen attempts to translate Homer from Greek into Latin. These Latin versions were the first to be printed in the fifteenth century and in turn offered a template for the first vernacular translations well into the seventeenth century. In addition to translation practice, humanists also began to develop increasingly more sophisticated ways of thinking about the task of the translator and thus did much to advance the field of translation theory. Despite this decisive contribution to the history of Homer's reception and interpretation, critical commentary on the period as a whole has been largely negative. The argument of this dissertation is that much of the scholarship on Homer's reception in the Renaissance is still beholden to aesthetic assumptions inherited from the period in question. Chief among them is the assumption that translation can only take place between two texts (source and target) and that one of the most important features of a good translation is its fidelity to the source text, whether that be in word or sense. Additionally, scholars often expect a translation to stand alone as a piece of literature in its own right. Many humanists of the day and scholars thereafter held Homeric translations up to these standards and judged them a "failure." By applying a historical-contextualist methodology, I put pressure on the "failure thesis" by arguing that there was never any consensus about the standards to which translators ought to hold themselves; these standards changed over time; and in many cases they were simply impossible to fulfill. These translations can be divided into three phases: Literal ("The Feather") (1362-1440s), Oratorical ("The Wing") (1438-1460s), and Verse translation ("The Flight") (1440s-1500).

The author analyzes how Medieval culture and civilization in Europe was able to manage cultural, social and religious plurality and diversity without posing a threat to solidarity, openness, dynamism and the actual functioning of society using selected phenomena. The monograph explores questions connected with Medieval anthropology and the  concept of the relationship between the Church and society. Additional  chapters are dedicated to the Medieval Inquisition and the influence of Christianity on the social and economic arrangement of society and all of this from a transcultural perspective.

Picking up from where John F. Benton left off in his 1985 study announcing the discovery of the *Practica* of Trota of Salerno, the present investigation brings together all known evidence for the writings and precepts of this early 12th-century Salernitan healer, for whom we have no other contemporary evidence beyond these writings themselves.  Using the evidence of the *Practica secundum Trotam* (“Practical Medicine According to Trota”) as well as the compendium *De egritudinum curatione* (a collection of excerpts from the works of seven Salernitan “masters,” including Trota) and the *De curis mulierum* (“On Treatments for Women”) and even an Anglo-Norman text which purports to record the teachings of Trota, I argue that collation of this evidence shows that Trota's oeuvre was probably much larger than previously suspected. Trota’s historicity was already established by Benton, and she can now be clearly distinguished from the textual fiction “Trotula,” which is in reality just the title of an ensemble of the *De curis mulierum* and two other, unrelated texts of likely male authorship. The present study offers further circumstantial evidence about the historic Trota, suggesting that it is possible to place her in the early 12th century. She was to some extent aware of and in dialogue with fellow male practitioners in Salerno, but she remained peripheral to the general trends toward theory and sophisticated pharmacopeia that characterized the work of her male contemporaries. The study includes editions and translations of excerpts of Trota’s authentic works and other *testimonia*.

Fibonacci e il metodo di indagine scientifica nell'ambiente dell'imperatore Federico II di Svevia - Fibonacci and the method of scientific investigation in the court of the Emperor Frederick II Abstract The scientific-philosophical inquiry was widely applied in the court of Emperor Frederick II. On the one hand, the scholastic quaestio disputata certainly inspired this method. On the other hand, Southern Italy was the point of convergence of different cultural and ethnic traditions: Latin, Greek, Provençal, Germanic, Jewish, and especially Islamic. Probably the convergence of these different traditions enriched an already particularly fruitful cultural environment, and influenced not only philosophical speculation , but also many divergent cultural applications, such as a mathematical problem, a judicial investigation, or an innovative love poetry. Quando, probabilmente nel 1226, dedicò all'imperatore Federico II di Svevia il Liber Quadratorum, un libro di algebra avanzata, Leonardo Fibo-nacci intendeva rispondere a due quesiti, posti dai filosofi e traduttori di corte Giovanni da Palermo e Teodoro di Antiochia 1. Col primo Giovanni da Palermo chiedeva di trovare un numero quadrato che, aumentato o dimi-nuito di cinque, desse come risultato un numero quadrato. Col secondo Teodoro di Antiochia domandava di determinare tre numeri il cui numero fosse il prodotto di complesse equazioni pitagoriche. È lo stesso autore a spiegare la genesi della sua opera nell'epistola di dedica a Federico II, rammentando anche che fu il maestro Domenico, il destinatario della Pratica geometrie 2 , a condurlo dall'imperatore, di pas-saggio per Pisa 3 : cum magister Dominicus pedibus Celsitudinis Vestre, Princeps Gloriosissime Domine F<rederice>, me Pisis duceret presentandum, occurrens magister Johannes Panormitanus, questionem mihi proposuit infrascriptam non minus ad geometriam

Introduzione, testo latino con traduzione italiana a fronte a cura di Elena Necchi.
Due celebri leggende, quella di Attila ‘flagello di Dio’ e quella delle origini della città di Venezia, si intrecciano in questo romanzo cavalleresco, in una «summa» dei temi narrativi più popolari nella letteratura del basso medioevo, in cui abissi di abiezione si mescolano a vertici di santità: dalla nascita mostruosa del sovrano unno alla conversione dell’imperatore Costantino, dalle stragi della guerra alla potenza dei santi, dalla brutalità del tradimento all’eroismo del guerriero. Non mancano gli accenni al Graal, i riferimenti alla storia mitica delle città venete e romagnole, e – come in qualsiasi buon romanzo – il colpo di scena con lieto finale, in cui i conti si pareggiano e buoni e malvagi si vedono compensare con ciò che è loro dovuto. Il testo, scritto in francese alla fine del Duecento, ma più diffuso nella sua traduzione latina, eseguita qualche decennio più tardi, è reso qui per la prima volta accessibile al pubblico con il corredo di una traduzione italiana.

Paper read at the Colloque International "Penser le Genre: Theorica 4", Lyon, 4-5 noviembre 2015 (http://tinyurl.com/phhybpp). Through the examples of some passages from Francesc Eiximenis' Terç del Crestià and the Llibre de les dones (in which this Franciscan spiritualist quotes and uses the debate on women), the author issues a caution on this subject: one shouldn't take the use of misogynistic or profeminist topics by medieval (male) writers as proof of a sincere engagement, but instead should contemplate its function in a broad context.

Ce livre parle des étapes principales de la formation du Corpus du droit de l'Église Occidentale à l'époque du Haut Moyen Age. L'auteur a mis la Collection Quesnelliana dans le centre de ses recherches en s'appuyant sur l'analyse de la tradition manuscrite du document. Comme l'a dit l'auteur, la Collection Quesnelliana n'était que la rédaction francique du codex de l'Église de Rome de l'époque du Pape Gélase (circa 496) dans sa forme finale. Ce livre a provoqué une grande discussion dans la société académique de Russie en 2011-2012, pendant laquelle l'auteur a défendu la thèse pour obtenir le titre du Docteur d'État (le 24 novembre 2011) et il a pu réfuter les accusations d'Alexandre Busygin et de Dmitry Afinogenov devant la Commission supérieure de l'attestation (janvier 2013).

https://bit.ly/3zc3W5b

Bollettino bibliografico della cultura europea da Boezio a Erasmo (secoli VI-XV) della «Società Internazionale per lo Studio del Medioevo Latino» della «Fondazione Ezio Franceschini». Direttori: Agostino Paravicini Bagliani e Lucia Pinelli. «Medioevo latino» è una bibliografia che esce con periodicità annuale (a partire dal 1980) e che dà notizia esaustiva della produzione medievistica dell’anno precedente, relativa ai testi prevalentemente scritti in lingua latina tra l’anno 475 e gli inizi del XVI secolo (arco cronologico che si è progressivamente ampliato nel corso degli anni). Lo spoglio bibliografico completo e diretto di libri, riviste, bollettini inerenti la latinità medievale e, in generale, la cultura e la storia medievale, si avvale del lavoro di ricerca di circa 150 collaboratori, riuniti in diverse redazioni italiane (Bologna, Firenze, Foggia,Genova, Lecce, Macerata, Milano, Napoli, Perugia, Roma, Salerno, Sassari, Siena,Torino, Udine, Verona) e straniere (Bern, Bonn, Cambridge, Göttingen, Köln, Paris, Columbus, Santiago de Compostela, Seattle, Valladolid, Zürich) facenti capo a quella centrale di Firenze. La caratteristica che contraddistingue l’informazione bibliografica offerta è la presenza per la maggioranza delle voci di una sintesi orientativa del contenuto dei vari titoli segnalati. Nel corso degli anni si è provveduto a una sempre più articolata struttura interna della pubblicazione, che attualmente comprende sei sezioni generali («Autori e testi» - «Fortleben» - «Argomenti, generi letterari, istituzioni» - «Opere di consultazione» - «Congressi e miscellanee» - «Manoscritti da cataloghi») corredate da quattro indici («Indice dei manoscritti e delle stampe» - «Indice lessicale» - «Indice geografico» - «Indice degli studiosi»), che fanno del bollettino, già apprezzato da tutti gli studiosi in ogni parte del mondo scientifico, uno strumento unico e insostituibile per chiunque si rivolga a questo settore della ricerca. «Medioevo latino» è interamente consultabile on line al sito www.mirabileweb.it. Il Repertorio bibliografico è disponibile anche in CD ROM.

For an expanded, edited English version of the text, see Celli, A. (2022). Exposing Maometto’s Contrapasso: The Arabic Sources from Spain and the Early Commentators on the Commedia. In: Dante and the Mediterranean Comedy. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07402-8_4

Scrutinizes a short Latin poem written in the first quarter of the eleventh century, and refutes Alan Dundes's dismissal of literary evidence and to underscore the pertinence of studying medieval literature in coming to grips with that beautiful and elusive phenomenon to which English-speakers give the name `fairy tale.' Egbert of Liege's `De puella a lupellis seruata'; The medieval background of `Little Red Riding Hood.'

ERATOSTHENES Centro di studi internazionale sulla geografa antica e sulla sua tradizione in età medievale e moderna Antiche vie dell'Oriente: rappresentazioni dell'Asia da Alessandro Magno a Giovanni da Pian del Carpine Palazzo Manzoni, Sala delle adunanze Perugia 6-8 novembre 2019 Mercoledì 6 9.00 Indirizzi di saluto Prof. Maurizio Oliviero, Rettore dell'Università degli Studi Prof. Stefano Brufani, Direttore del Dipartimento di Lettere Prof. Hermann Dorowin, Coordinatore del Dottorato di ricerca in Storia, arti e linguaggi nell'Europa antica e moderna Conferenza inaugurale PIERANGELO BUONGIORNO (Università di Münster, Sofia Kovalevskaja-Preisträger) Amor inlicitus: Claudio, il senato di Roma e l'importazione delle nozze incestuose (49 d.C.) 11.00 presiede Kai Ruffing SEBASTIAN FINK Vom Mittelmeer bis zum Indus: Raum, Geschwindigkeit und die Imperien Mesopotamiens FRANCESCO PRONTERA L'Asia centrale nella geografia antica: prima e dopo Alessandro Magno 12.30 Discussione 16.00 presiede Didier Marcotte KERSTIN DROß-KRÜPE Semiramis. Eine orientalische Königin und ihre Darstellung in der klassischen Literatur VALERIO CAPPONI BRUNETTI La rappresentazione dell'India e della costa iranica nell'opera di Onesicrito FRANCESCA GRASSO La 'via' del Choaspes da Aristotele (Meteor. I 350a, 23-25) ad Alessandro Magno 18.00 Discussione

Galbert of Bruges's The Murder, Betrayal and Assassination of the Glorious Charles, Count of Flanders is one of the most widely read books of the Middle Ages. It recounts the assassination of Charles, count of Flanders, and the events leading up to and following the murder. Galbert was a resident of Bruges and had served in the count's administration for at least thirteen years by the time of the assassination in 1127. He was well-acquainted with Charles and many of the other actors in this drama, an eyewitness to many of the events he relates, and exceptionally well positioned to gather information about others. Galbert's chronicle takes the form of a journal, the only one that exists from northwestern Europe in the twelfth century. Edited by two of the world's most prominent specialists on Galbert today, Jeff Rider and Alan V. Murray, this book brings together essays by established scholars who have been largely responsible for the radical changes in the understanding of Galbert and his work that have occurred over the last thirty years and essays by younger scholars. The essays are written by British, Belgian, Dutch, German, Canadian, and American scholars of literature and history, and are divided into four sections--Galbert of Bruges at Work, Galbert of Bruges and the Development of Institutions, Galbert of Bruges and the Politics of Gender, and The Meanings of History. The book includes an extensive bibliography of editions, translations, and studies of Galbert's chronicle, and of works devoted to the reign of Charles the Good and the Flemish Crisis of 1127-28, to the government and institutions of Flanders in the age of Galbert, and to the topography and history of medieval Bruges. In addition to the editors, the contributors are Lisa H. Cooper, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Godfried Croenen, the University of Liverpool Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies; Bert Demyttenaere, University of Amsterdam; Mary Agnes Edsall, Bowdoin College; Martina Häcker, University of Mainz; Dirk Heirbaut, University of Ghent; Steven Isaac, Longwood University; Nancy F. Partner, McGill University; Robert M. Stein, Purchase College and Columbia University; and R. C. van Caenegem, University of Ghent.

Declared a Doctor of the Church in 2012, St. Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) is one of the most remarkable figures of medieval Latin Christianity. A visionary theologian and prophetic reformer, as well as a composer, artist, and natural scientist, her voice echoes across the centuries to offer today an integrated vision of the relationship between cosmos and humanity.

Completed in 1173, "The Book of Divine Works" (Liber Divinorum Operum) is the culmination of the Visionary Doctor’s theological project, offered here for the first time in a complete and scholarly English translation. The first part explores the intricate physical and spiritual relationships between the cosmos and the human person, with the famous image of the universal Man standing astride the cosmic spheres. The second part examines the rewards for virtue and the punishments for vice, mapped onto a geography of purgatory, hellmouth, and the road to the heavenly city. At the end of each Hildegard writes extensive commentaries on the Prologue to John’s Gospel (Part 1) and the first chapter of Genesis (Part 2)—the only premodern woman to have done so. Finally, the third part tells the history of salvation, imagined as the City of God standing next to the mountain of God’s foreknowledge, with Divine Love reigning over all.

For Hildegard, the Incarnation is the key moment of all history, willed from eternity to complete God’s Work. God’s creative capacity and loving mission are thus shared with the humans he made in his image and likeness—for Hildegard, the incarnate Christ’s tunic and the Word’s creative rationality, respectively. Containing all creation within ourselves, we are divinely called to cooperate in the Creator’s work, to enter into a fruitful and sustainable relationship with creation. The scope of Hildegard’s visionary theology is both cosmic and close—reflections of God’s loving self-revelation are both grand and utterly intimate, as the Work of God reaches from the very heart of infinity down into every smallest detail of the created world.

Hundezungen heilen Wunden: Nicht zuletzt aufgrund dieser medizinischen Funktion war die Zunge der Hunde in der älteren Literatur oft Metapher für die Sprache der Menschen. Vor allem die Hunde, die nach dem Evangelium die Wunden des armen Lazarus leckten, konnten auf das tröstende (,heilende‘) Sprechen von Predigern und Beichtvätern bezogen werden. Ein Gegenbild dazu ließ sich im Bellen und Beißen finden, wenn es um Tadel und Mahnung (etwa Ketzern gegenüber) ging. Sah man von der Heilwirkung des Hundeleckens ab, dann wurde meist die ,hündische‘ Schmeichelei kritisiert: eine der traditionellen ,Sünden der Zunge‘. Mit dieser Bedeutungsambivalenz der Hundezunge problematisiert ein spätes Gedicht Heines (,Jehuda ben Halevy‘) die Leistungen der (modernen) Poesie.

[ENG] The De rebus Siculis carmen or Carmen de motibus Siculis or Liber ad honorem Augusti, transmitted by a single manuscript, Bern Burgerbibliothek, Codex 120 II (B), is one of the three works attributed to Petrus de Ebulo, and is datable to the years 1194- 1197. It tells in elegiac verses the conquest of the Kingdom of Sicily by the emperor Henry VI of Hohenstaufen. The ms. it is preciously illuminated: unlike the other codes of the time, where miniatures are used to adorn the text, here they offer support for poetic narration and sometimes offer further information. The images are placed on the recto of each fol. and illustrate the verses that are placed in front, on the verso of the fol. next. The digital edition in xml is at the web address: http://web.unibas.it/bup/evt2/pde/index.html.

[ITA] Il De rebus Siculis carmen o Carmen de motibus Siculis o Liber ad honorem Augusti, trasmesso da un solo testimone manoscritto, Bern Burgerbibliothek, Codex 120 II (siglato B), è una delle tre opere attribuite a Pietro da Eboli ed è databile agli anni 1194-1197. Racconta in distici elegiaci la conquista del Regno di Sicilia da parte dell'imperatore Enrico VI di Svevia.Una delle principali caratteristiche del ms. è quella di essere miniato. A differenza degli altri codici dell’epoca, dove le miniature vengono utilizzate per ornare il testo, qui rappresentano un aiuto alla comprensione, facendo da supporto a ciò che viene narrato poeticamente e completandone a volte le lacune. Le immagini sono poste sul recto di ogni carta e illustrano i versi che sono posti di fronte, sul verso della carta accanto. L'edizione digitale in xml è all'indirizzo web: http://web.unibas.it/bup/evt2/pde/index.html.

Der als Fundbericht konzipierte Beitrag berichtet über die Wiederentdeckung einer seit mehr als 160 Jahren als verschollen geltenden besonders frühen Eckhart-Handschrift mit Übersetzungen vorwiegend aus dem "Opus expositionum", rekonstruiert die eruierbaren Zwischenstationen ihrer Tradierung in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts und skizziert ihre Funktionalisierung auf der Wartburg in der zweiten Hälfte des 19. und der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts (Stichwort: Immersion), die mitverantwortlich dafür ist, dass die Handschrift dem Blick der Forschung entzogen blieb.

In 1127 Charles the Good, count of Flanders, was surrounded by assassins while at prayer and killed by a sword blow to the forehead. His murder upset the fragile balance of power between England, France, and the Holy Roman Empire, giving rise to a bloody civil war while impacting the commercial life of medieval Europe. The eyewitness account by the Flemish cleric Galbert of Bruges of the assassination and the struggle for power that ensued is the only journal to have survived from twelfth century Europe. This new translation by medieval studies expert Jeff Rider greatly improves upon all previous versions, substantially advancing scholarship on the Middle Ages while granting new life and immediacy to Galbert’s well informed and courageously candid narrative.

“Jeff Rider’s new translation remains faithful to the journalistic organization and impulses of The Murder of Charles of Flanders, which enables him to bring out previously obscured elements of the text as well as the concerns that prompted Galbert to write his important chronicle in the first place. This is an outstanding piece of scholarship that all students of the Middle Ages will appreciate.”—Gabrielle M. Spiegel, Johns Hopkins University

“The 1959 translation of Galbert of Bruges by James Bruce Ross set a high bar for replacement, but it was time for one and Jeff Rider is the scholar who understands this crucial 12th-century text most thoroughly and profoundly. His lucid and readable translation rests on a deep foundation of historical and literary scholarship—all of which is made available to the reader. Rider has ensured that this fascinating book will remain central to medieval scholarship and teaching.”—Nancy Partner, McGill University

“More than just superseding the deeply flawed text of James Bruce Ross from 1959, this new translation is a serious contribution to knowledge, enhancing and advancing scholarship on the Middle Ages. Rider’s introduction is learned and thoughtful, adroitly establishing the context of the De Multro. His scholarly apparatus to the translation is wonderful, always detailed and rewarding to read, never descending into numbing pedantry.”— Mark Gregory Pegg, Washington University

"This is truly a splendid work. Users of the old translation by James Bruce Ross (1959) will be delighted by Jeff Rider’s text and adopt it for teaching. Rider’s unique knowledge of the book’s genesis and the historical figures that feature in it offers fresh insights without taking anything away from the pleasure of discovery that will await all readers."—Walter Simons, Dartmouth College

“This new English translation . . . is a triumph of scholarship . . . Essential.”—R. F. Berkhofer III, Choice

Rider’s translation is clear and accessible to students of all levels. The volume includes an in-depth introduction to the author, his complicated political context, and the character of his work, . . . It also boasts a short essay by Marc Ryckaert and James M. Murray on the history and physical features of the city of Bruges in the Middle Ages and copious notes by Rider to the translation itself. . . . The Murder, Betrayal, and Slaughter of the Glorious Charles, Count of Flanders is unlike any other historical text from the twelfth century available in English translation. The author does not fit easily into the medieval tradition of history writing . . . [T]he text is tremendously appealing for the immediacy of its voice and the clarity of its details; it demands our attention because it seems to speak in an idiom that we understand.—Scott G. Bruce, Speculum