The Measure of Woman

The Measure of Woman

By the end of the Middle Ages, the ius communethe combination of canon and Roman lawhad formed the basis for all law in continental Europe, along with its patriarchal system of categorizing women. Throughout medieval Europe, women regularly found themselves in court, suing or being sued, defending themselves against criminal accusations, or prosecuting others for crimes committed against them or their families. Yet choosing to litigate entailed accepting the conceptual vocabulary of the learned law, thereby reinforcing the very legal and social notions that often subordinated them.

The Measure of Woman

We Have No King But Christ

We Have No King But Christ

Drawing on little-used sources in Syriac, once the lingua franca of the Middle East, Philip Wood examines how, at the close of the Roman Empire, Christianity carried with it new foundation myths for the peoples of the Near East that transformed their self-identity and their relationships with their rulers. This cultural independence was followed by a more radical political philosophy that dared to criticize the emperor and laid the seeds for the blending of religious and ethnic identity that we see in the Middle East today.

We Have No King But Christ

Flavian Epic Interactions

Flavian Epic Interactions

This volume on the three Flavian epic poets (Valerius Flaccus, Statius, Silius Italicus) for the first time critically engages with a unique set-up in Roman literary history: the survival of four epic poems from the same period. The interactions of these poems with each other and their contemporary context are explored by over 20 experts and emerging scholars. Together they offer new perspectives to the still increasing readership of Flavian epic poetry.

Flavian Epic Interactions

The Pen and the Cross

The Pen and the Cross

This incisive and perceptive new book concerns `Catholic Literature’ in Britain since 1850. To many people, Roman Catholicism is culturally foreign and `other’. And yet some of the most outstanding writers of recent times have been Catholics – often converts, such as Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, Muriel Spark and David Jones. In every case these authors’ Catholicism was integral to their creative genius and they represent an important strand in any account of English literature.

The Pen and the Cross

British Forts in the Age of Arthur

British Forts in the Age of Arthur

When the Romans left Britain around AD 410 the island had not been fully subjugated. In the Celtic fringes the unconquered native peoples were presented with the opportunity to pillage what remained of Roman Britain. By way of response the Post-Roman Britons did their best to defend themselves from attack, and to preserve what they could of the systems left behind by the Romans. The best way to defend their territory was to create fortifications. While some old Roman forts were maintained, the Post-Roman Britons also created new strongholds, or re-occupied some of the long-abandoned hill-forts first built by their ancestors before the coming of the Romans.

British Forts in the Age of Arthur

Meals in the Early Christian World

Meals in the Early Christian World

In the past 20 years, a new paradigm has emerged around the study of festive dining as a seminal social practice that functioned as the matrix for the social formation of a variety of groups in the Greco-Roman world, including earliest Christianity and pre-Rabbinic Judaism. Most recently, an international team of scholars, organized as the Society of Biblical Literature Seminar on Meals in the Greco-Roman World, has developed this paradigm in a series of groundbreaking studies. This volume provides a collection of those studies in four areas of focus: The Typology of the Greco-Roman Banquet; The Archeology of the Banquet; Who Was at the Greco-Roman Banquets?; and The Culture of Reclining. Together they establish festive meals as an essential lens into social formation in the Greco-Roman world.

Meals in the Early Christian World

Romans, Barbarians and the Transformation of the Roman World

Romans, Barbarians and the Transformation of the Roman World

One of the most significant transformations of the Roman world in Late Antiquity was the integration of barbarian peoples into the social, cultural, religious, and political milien of the Mediterranean world. The nature of these transformations was considered at the sixth biennial Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity Conference, at the University of Illonis at Urbana-Champaign in March of 2005, and this volume presents an updated selectin of the papers given on the occasion, complemented with a few others.

Romans, Barbarians and the Transformation of the Roman World

Routledge Companion to Ancient Philosophy

Routledge Companion to Ancient Philosophy

The Routledge Companion to Ancient Philosophy is a collection of new essays on the philosophy and philosophers of the ancient Greek and Roman worlds. Written by a cast of international scholars, it covers the full range of ancient philosophy from the sixth century BC to the sixth century AD and beyond. There are dedicated discussions of the major areas of the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle together with accounts of their predecessors and successors.

Routledge Companion to Ancient Philosophy