Centres of Learning: Learning and Location in Pre-Modern Europe and the Near East(61 Brill's Studies in Intellectual History)

This text deals with the relation between learning and the locations in which that learning is carried out. It proposes that the character (and, in part, the content) of a particular aspect of learning is determined - or at least influenced - by the circumstances in which the learning process took place. The contributions in this book deal with various aspects of learning. Coverage is broad historically and geographically, ranging from ancient Babylon, via classical Greece and Rome and the Middle East (both Christian and Islamic) through to the Latin and vernacular cultures of the Christian West in the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance.

Table of Contents:
FROM AN ANTIQUE LAND On the Old Babylonian Eduba Curriculum, H.L.J. Vanstiphout Learning and Power during the Sargonid Period', M.E. Vogelzang The Family and Other Centres of Religious Learning in Antiquity, Jan N. Bremmer The Christian 'School' of Alexandria in the Second and Third Centuries, Roelof van den Broek The School of Edessa: Greek Learning and Local Culture, Han J.W. Drijvers EX ORIENTE LUX Eastward and Westward Transmission of Classical Rhetoric, John W. Watt 'Edessa grew dim and Nisibis shone forth': The School of Nisibis at the Transition of the Sixth-Seventh Century, G.J. Reinink The Koran and its Exegesis: from Memorising to Learning, Fred Leemhuis Arabic Didactic Verse, Geert Jan van Gelder The Classification of the Sciences and the Consolidation of Philology in Classical Islam, Wolfhart Heinrichs Baghdad, Bologna, and Scholasticism, George Makdisi CLOISTERS AND SCHOOLS Old Law and New-Found Power: Hrabanus Maurus and the Old Testament, Mayke de Jong Scientific and Spiritual Culture in Hugh of St Victor, Jan W.M. van Zwieten Andrew of St Victor (d.1175): Scholar between Cloister and School, F.A. van Liere Learning by Experience: Twelfth-Century Monastic Ideas, I. van 't Spijker The Development of Lombardian Theology, 1160-1215, Marcia L. Colish Academic Heresy and Intellectual Freedom at the University of Paris, 1200-1378, J.M.M.H. Thijssen Ludwig the Bavarian and the Scholars, Dick E.H. de Boer The Reclusorium as an Informal Centre of Learning, Anneke B. Mulder-Bakker John Bromyard and the Hereford Dominicans, Peter Binkley EXPANDING HORIZONS Classical Learning and the Building of Power at the Fifteenth-Century Burgundian Court, A.J. Vanderjagt Aucuns Petis Enseignemens: 'Homemade' Courtesy Books in Medieval France, Anne Marie De Gendt The Renaissance Household as Centre of Learning, A.A. MacDonald The Scottish Chapel Royal as Cultural Intermediary between Town and Court, Theo van Heijnsbergen 'Liberation from the Trivial Yoke': Dutch Renaissance Educators and their Cultural and Socio-Political Objectives, Catrien Santing Latin Literature in Early Modern Groningen, F. Akkerman Notes on Contributors

About the Author :
Jan Willem Drijvers, Ph.D. (1989) in Ancient History, University of Groningen, where he is Lecturer in Ancient History. He has published in the area of Late Antiquity, in particular on the Empress Helena (Helena Augusta, the Mother of Constantine the Great and the Legend of her Finding of the True Cross, (Brill, 1992). Alasdair MacDonald, Ph.D. (1978) in English, University of Edinburgh, is professor of English Language and Literature of the Middle Ages, University of Groningen. He has published on various aspects of medieval English (especially Middle Scots) literature.

Review :
"The book is persuasive and surprisingly detailed considering its great scope." Leonard R.N. Ashley, Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance, 1995.