The Portable Medieval Reader

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 - Diaz de Gamez
The Murder of a Feudal Lord - Galbert of Bruges
The Battle of Poitiers - Geoffrey le Baker
A Knight-Errant of the Fifteenth Century - Joerg 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 Koenigshofen
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 Kirchenfuersten
The Near East: Pilgrimage and Crusade
The Great German Pilgrimage - Lambert of Hersfeld
The First Contact of Crusaders and Turks - Histoire anonyme de la premiere 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 - Ramon 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 a 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