Pre-Modern Encyclopaedic Texts

Proceedings of the Second COMERS Congress, Groningen, 1-4 July 1996

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Pre-Modern Encyclopaedic Texts presents the proceedings of the second COMERS congress, the successor to Centres of Learning (Brill, 1995). Like its predecessor it contains in ancient, medieval and renaissance Europe and the Near East. Although the genre of encyclopaedia was defined and named only in modern times, texts that aspire to the encyclopaedic ideals of utility and comprehensiveness are found throughout recorded history. They respond to and shape ideas about the natural world, human history, and the nature and limits of human knowledge.
The present volume comprises five extended essays on the problems and opportunities facing researchers into encyclopaedic texts, and 21 research papers on specific topics. It will be of interest to a general university audience as an interdisciplinary project, as well as to specialists in the various disciplines covered.

Contributors include: Wout Jac. van Bekkem, Maaike van Berkel, Peter Binkley, Robert L. Fowler, John B. Friedman, Geert Jan van Gelder, Guy Guldentops, Hilary Kilpatrick, Juris Lidaka, Ulrich Marzolph, John North, Brian W. Ogilvie, G.J. Reinink, Vincent C. Renstrom, Bernard Ribémont, Kimberly Rivers, Bert Roest, E.C. Ronquist, Catherine Rubincam, E.L. Saak, William Schipper, Frank Trombley, Michael W. Twomey, Jan R. Veenstra, and William N. West.

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Acknowledgements
Notes of Contributors
Abbreviations
Preface

ENCYCLOPAEDIA: DEFINITIONS AND THEORETICAL QUESTIONS

1. Encyclopaedias: Definitions and Theoretical Problems, Robert L. Fowler
2. Patient and Impatient Encyclopaedism, E.C. Ronquist
3. About the Definition of an Encyclopedic Genre in the Middle Ages, Bernard Ribémont
4. Preachers' Responses to Thirteenth-century Encyclopaedism, Peter Binkley
5. Encyclopaedism in Renaissance Botany: From Historia to Pinax, Brian W. Ogilvie

ORGANISATION OF KNOWLEDGE

7. The Organisation of Material in Graeco-Roman World Histories, Catherine Rubincam
8. Cosmic Correspondences: Songs as a Starting Point for an Encyclopaedic Portrayal of Culture, Hilary
Kilpatrick

9. Memory, Division, and the Organisation of Knowledge in the Middle Ages, Kimberly Rivers
10. The Attitude towards Knowledge in Mamluk Egypt: Organisation and Structure of the subḥ al-a‘sha by
al-Qalqashandī (1355-1418), Maaike van Berkel
11. Cataloguing Superstition: A Paradigmatic Shift in the Art of Knowing the Future, Jan R. Veenstra

EPISTEMOLOGY OF ENCYCLOPAEDIC KNOWLEDGE

12. Encyclopaedias and the Art of Knowing Everything, John North
13. Sailing on the Sea of Talmud: the Encyclopaedic Code of Early Jewish Exegesis, Wout Jac. van
Bekkum

14. Compilation as Theme and Praxis in Franciscan Universal Chronicles, Bert Roest
15. Henry Bate's Encyclopaedism, Guy Guldentops

CULTURAL AND POLITICAL USES

16. Compleat Men, Women and Books: On Mediaeval Arabic Encyclopaedism, Geert Jan van Gelder
17. The Taktika of Nikephoros Ouranos and Military Encyclopaedism, Frank Trombley
18. Communal Identity and the Systematization of Knowledge in the Syriac 'Cause of All Causes', G.J.
Reinink

19. The Limits of Knowledge: Hélinand de Froidmont's Chronicon, E.L. Saak
20. Public Knowledge at Private Parties: Vives, Jonson, and the Circulation of the Circle of Knowledge,
William N. West

21. Censoring Encyclopaedic Knowledge: The Case of Sahagún and Sixteenth-century Spanish America, Vincent C. Renstrom

RECEPTION AND TRANSMISSION OF TEXTS

22. Towards a Reception History of Western Medieval Encyclopaedias in England Before 1500, Michael W. Twomey
23. The Earliest Manuscripts of Rabanus Maurus' De rerum naturis, William Schipper
24. Albert the Great's Topoi of Direct Observation and his Debt to Thomas of Cantimpré, John B.
Friedman

25. Bartholomæus Anglicus in the Thirteenth Century, Juris Lidaka
26. Medieval Knowledge in Modern Reading: A Fifteenth-Century Arabic Encyclopaedia of omni re scibili, Ulrich Marzolph

Index
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