Kirjahaku

Transforming Relations is a collection of original essays on the history of Jews and Christians in antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the modern era that honors the influential work of Michael A. Signer (1945-2009). Reflecting the breadth of Signer's research and pedagogical interests, the essays treat various aspects of the Jewish-Christian relationship through the centuries, from the divine law in antiquity to philosemitism in contemporary Christianity, from scriptural interpretation in the twelfth century to Christian Hebraism in the fifteenth, and from the presentation of Christianity in the Talmud and Midrashim to modern Christian understandings of Judaism. The essays are unified in their emphases on two principles that pervade Signer's own scholarly work: that the sacred texts shared by Jews and Christians serve simultaneously as a point of convergence and divergence for the two religious communities, and that modern practitioners of Judaism and Christianity must recognize and appreciate the other as part of a living tradition. A fitting tribute to Signer's wide-ranging work, the volume aims to complement and continue his passionate and learned work of transforming relations between Jews and Christians. It will appeal to a broad readership, including historians of Judaism and Christianity, scholars of the Middle Ages, students of the history of biblical exegesis, and systematic theologians.

The Devotio Moderna, or Modern Devout, puzzled their contemporaries. Beginning in the 1380s in market towns along the Ijssel River of the east-central Netherlands and in the county of Holland, they formed households organized as communes and forged lives centered on private devotion. They lived on city streets alongside their neighbors, managed properties and rents in common, and worked in the textile and book trades, all the while refusing to profess vows as members of any religious order or to acquire spouses and personal property as lay citizens. They defended their self-designed style of life as exemplary and sustained it in the face of opposition, their women labeled "beguines" and their men "lollards," both meant as derogatory terms. Yet the movement grew, drawing in women and schoolboys, priests and laymen, and spreading outward toward Münster, Flanders, and Cologne. The Devout were arguably more culturally significant than the Lollards and Beguines, yet they have commanded far less scholarly attention in English. John Van Engen's magisterial book keeps the Modern Devout at its center and thinks through their story anew. Few interpreters have read the Devout so insistently within their own time and space by looking to the social and religious conditions that marked towns and parishes in northern Europe during the fifteenth century and examining the widespread upheavals in cultural and religious life between the 1370s and the 1440s. In Sisters and Brothers of the Common Life, Van Engen grasps the Devout in their humanity, communities, and beliefs, and places them firmly within the urban societies of the Low Countries and the cultures we call late medieval.

These ten essays by John Van Engen situate religion in the history of medieval Western Europe: as an unavoidable presence in everyday life, as a conceptual framework for social and political life, as a force integral to its historical dynamics. Four of the essays are bibliographical and retrospective in nature, reviewing the field broadly, but also pointing toward a more dialectical approach to understanding the interaction of religion and society in the European middle ages. Other studies deal with large topics usually subsumed under the abstract term 'Christianization'. They grapple with learned sources as well as those associated with 'popular' religion, and show what can be gained from an imaginative use of all that lawyers and theologians said about religion in their society. The essays, finally, look for the quality and dynamic of change, even inventiveness, released by religious action and conviction in medieval European society.

These ten essays by John Van Engen situate religion in the history of medieval Western Europe: as an unavoidable presence in everyday life, as a conceptual framework for social and political life, as a force integral to its historical dynamics. Four of the essays are bibliographical and retrospective in nature, reviewing the field broadly, but also pointing toward a more dialectical approach to understanding the interaction of religion and society in the European middle ages. Other studies deal with large topics usually subsumed under the abstract term 'Christianization'. They grapple with learned sources as well as those associated with 'popular' religion, and show what can be gained from an imaginative use of all that lawyers and theologians said about religion in their society. The essays, finally, look for the quality and dynamic of change, even inventiveness, released by religious action and conviction in medieval European society.