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Sophia Xenophontos has successfully managed to render in fluid English a Greek text which is not equally fluid in its original form, and yet to reproduce in an almost perfect manner its stylistic peculiarities. Thanks to this great job both scholars and students are provided with a very useful tool for the study of Theodore Metochites and his work, as well as the intellectual affairs of the so-called “Early Palaeologan Renaissance.” Moreover, as it has already been observed, the book

For the teaching of Old English language and literature, for scholarship on early medieval healing practices, and for the study of premodern medicine more broadly, Medical Writings from Early Medieval England offers at once both an accessible point of entry and an invaluable resource for even the most specialized research in the field. This first of a projected two-volume set includes The Old English Herbal and Old English Remedies from Animals, Lacnunga, and Peri Didaxeon, as well as 101 miscellaneous

Alcimus Avitus (fifth–sixth century) is one of the most significant representatives of the so-called biblical epos of late antiquity. And Michael Roberts is one of the leading scholarly experts on this genre, which makes him an ideal editor for Avitus’s work. The translations are accurate and fluent, taking care to remain faithful to the Latin text while being readable and in a more natural form of English. Roberts’s work thus also has the merit of offering a new, full English

The aim of the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library series is to bring accessible modern translations based on the latest research to a new generation of readers. In this, Bruce L. Venarde’s edition and translation of four Aelred of Rievaulx texts succeeds admirably, providing an elegant and readable new translation of these important works. Placing these four texts alongside each other allows a reader new to Aelred to understand his personal preoccupations, relationships, and project of pastoral care. The inclusion of

Many Old English students will count Alfred’s prefatory letter to the Old English Pastoral Care among the texts that introduced them to the language; outside of Beowulf, Alfred’s stated aim to translate “suma bec—ða ðe niedbeðearfosta sien eallum monnum to wiotonne” [certain books—those most essential for all people to know] is perhaps one of the most quoted lines in the corpus of early English writing. Despite the apparent centrality of the Pastoral Care to early English translational practice, education, ethics,

There has been a growing interest over the years in Latin works dedicated to the study of Islam. The Latin lives of Muhammad, derogatory throughout, were written with the clear intention of undermining Islam by deriding its founder. In all likelihood, these works were based on the erroneous theological assumption – or rather Christian prejudice – that the life of Muhammad in Islam had a similar meaning to that of Jesus in Christianity, an obvious misapprehension. That is why the