Negotiating Community and Difference in Medieval Europe

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The Astrolabe

An ancient instrument for solving problems of location and distance, as well as time

Astrolábon órganon is the word used in Ptolemaeus Syntaxis 5.1 to describe a form of armillary sphere consisting of both fixed and rotating rings for determining the ecliptic co-ordinates of stars. Also called astrolabe were two-dimensional representations of the celestial sphere: over fixed disks with a representation of the horizon of the earth (in each case for a specific geographic latitude) and its parallels up to the zenith lies a rotating representation of the heavens (called ‘spider’ or ‘net’) with zodiac and indicators for some of the brightest stars. On the back is an indicator (‘alidade’) with visor plates for calculating the height of the stars. The astrolabe allows its user to determine the hours of day and night, the positions of stars, and the height and depth of objects on earth (mountains, buildings, wells). The oldest extant descriptions of the flat, planispheric astrolabe come from Iohannes Philoponus, 6th century AD, and (in Syrian) from Severus Sebokht, c. 660 AD. Indirect references may date back as early as Theon (4th cent.). Between the 8th and the 9th centuries the Arabs appropriated the knowledge of the astrolabe. At the end of the 10th century and again in the 12th century, they passed it on to Western Europe, where astrolabes were constructed up until the 17th cent. Today, one Byzantine astrolabe (from 1062) is extant, as are some 750 Arabic-Islamic astrolabes and approximately the same number of European astrolabes.

This information is abstracted from Brill's New Pauly, the English edition of the authoritative Der Neue Pauly, Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World. The encyclopaedic coverage and high academic standard of the work, the interdisciplinary and contemporary approach and clear and accessible presentation have made the New Pauly the unrivalled modern reference work for the ancient world. For more information see www.brillsnewpauly.com or visit our website catalog: www.brill.nl/bnp
Brill’s New Pauly and the complete original Der Neue Pauly, the recognized standard reference works for students and scholars of the ancient world are also available online. This dual-language edition offers basic and advanced search facilities and is fully browsable. New English translations are added as they become available. See www.paulyonline.brill.nl for more information and a demo version.

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Publications & Services> Books> Book Series> Negotiating Community and Difference in Medieval Europe

Negotiating Community and Difference in Medieval Europe

Gender, Power, Patronage and the Authority of Religion in Latin Christendom

Edited by Katherine Allen Smith and Scott Wells

Books

Available
Publication year: 2009


Series:	Studies in the History of Christian Traditions, 142
ISBN-13 (i)The ISBN (International Standard Book Number) has been changed from 10 to 13 digits on 1 January 2007:	978 90 04 17125 1
ISBN-10:	90 04 17125 8

Cover:	Hardback
Number of pages:	320 pp. 16

List price:	€ 99.00 / US$ 158.00

Table of contents

List of Illustrations

Preface: Gender, Power, and Patronage – The Impact of Penelope D. Johnson on Medieval Studies, Katherine Allen Smith & Scott Wells

List of Contributors

Introduction: Penelope D. Johnson, the Boswell Thesis, and Negotiating Community and Difference in Medieval Europe, Katherine Allen Smith & Scott Wells

PART I. SHAPING IDENTITY THROUGH SACRED SPACES AND TEXTS

1. Living with a Saint: Monastic Identity, Community, and the Ideal of Asceticism in the Life of an Irish Saint, Diane Peters Auslander
2. A Tale of Two Dioceses: Prologues as Letters in the Vitae Authored by Jacques de Vitry and Thomas de Cantimpré, Christina Roukis-Stern
3. “Within the Walls of Paradise”: Space and Community in the Vita of Umiliana de’ Cerchi (1219-1246), Anne M. Schuchman
4. Architectural Mimesis and Historical Memory at the Abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel, Katherine Allen Smith
5. Holy Women and the Needle Arts: Piety, Devotion, and Stitching the Sacred, ca. 500-1150, Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg

PART II. PARTNERSHIPS AND DEVOTIONS ACROSS THE GENDER DIVIDE

6. The Politics of Gender and Ethnicity in East Francia: The Case of Gandersheim, ca. 850-950, Scott Wells
7. Noble Women’s Power as Reflected in the Foundations of Cistercian Houses for Nuns in Thirteenth-Century Northern France: Port-Royal, les Clairets, Moncey, Lieu and Eau-lez-Chartres, Constance Hoffman Berman
8. “Inseparable Companions”: Mary Magdalene, Abelard, and Heloise, Susan Valentine
9. Book, Body, and the Construction of the Self in the Taymouth Hours, Kathryn A. Smith

PART III. BLOOD, EMBODIMENT, AND DEFINING SEPARATION

10. Abbot Erluin’s Blindness: The Monastic Implications of Violent Loss of Sight, Susan Wade
11. Blanche of Artois and Burgundy, Château-Gaillard, and the Baron de Joursanvault, Elizabeth A. R. Brown
12. The Matter of Others: Menstrual Blood and Uncontrolled Semen in Thirteenth-Century Kabbalists’ Polemic against Christians, “Bad” Jews, and Muslims, Alexandra Cuffel

General Index
Index of Manuscripts

Readership

All those interested in hagiography, monasticism, Church history of the Church, gender and women's studies, Jewish Christian relations, art history and manuscript studies, comparative religion, and the European Middle Ages.
About the author(s)

Katherine Allen Smith, Ph.D. in History (NYU, 2004), is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Puget Sound. She has published articles on medieval monastic communities and their saints, relics, and images. Her current project is a study of representations of war in monastic texts of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
Scott Wells, Ph.D. in History (NYU, 2003), is Assistant Professor of History at California State University, Los Angeles. He is currently completing a book entitled From Chronicling Monks to Prophesying Nuns: The Search for History's Design in Medieval Germany, ca. 970-1180.

This collection builds on the foundational work of Penelope D. Johnson, John Boswell's most influential student outside queer studies, on integration and segregation in medieval Christianity. It documents the multiple strategies by which medieval people constructed identities and, in the process, wove the boundaries of inclusion and exclusion among various individuals and groups. The collection adopts an interdisciplinary approach, encompassing historical, art historical, and literary perpsectives to explore the definition of personal and communal spaces within medieval texts, the complex negotiation of the relationship between devotee and saint in both the early and the later Middle Ages, the forming of partnerships (symbolic, economic, devotional, etc.) between men and women across medieval Europe's considerable gender divide, and the ostracism of individuals and groups through various means including imprisonment, violence, and their identification with pollution.

Contributors include: Diane Peters Auslander, Constance Hoffman Berman, Elizabeth A.R. Brown, Alexandra Cuffel, Anne M. Schuchman, Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg, Katherine Allen Smith, Kathryn A. Smith, Christina Roukis-Stern, Susan Valentine, Susan Wade, and Scott Wells.

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