Contemporaries of Erasmus: A Biographical Register of the Renaissance and Reformation

Contemporaries of Erasmus: A Biographical Register of the Renaissance and Reformation

Weight 0.00 lbs
By P.G. Bietenholz and Thomas B. Deustcher
University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division © 2003
World Rights
1495 Pages
Paper
ISBN 9780802085771
Published Sep 2003
$118.95
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In The Book Unbound, scholars and editors examine how best to use new technological tools and new methodologies with artefacts of medieval literature and culture. Taking into consideration English, French, Anglo-Norman, and Latin texts from several periods, the contributors examine and re-evaluate traditional approaches to and conclusions about medieval books and the cultural texts they contain - literary, dramatic, legal, historical, and musical. The essays range from detailed examinations of specific codices to broader theoretical discussions on past and present editorial practices, from the benefits and disadvantages of digital editions versus print editions to the importance of including 'extratextual' material such as variant texts, illustrations, intertexts, and other information about a work's cultural contexts, history, and use. The Book Unbound presents important contributions to the discussions surrounding the editing of medieval texts, including the use of digital technology with historical and literary documents, while offering practical ideas on editing print and hypertext. The collection will be invaluable to historians, literary scholars, and editors.

Peter G. Bietenholz is a professor emeritus in the Department of History at the University of Saskatchewan.


Thomas B. Deutscher is a professor in the Department of History at St Thomas More College, University of Saskatchewan.

'Contemporaries of Erasmus is not only an excellent companion for any edition of Erasmus' writings and of utmost use to students of the period, but -- and one can pay it no higher compliment -- because of the high standard of the entries and the learning invested in them, Erasmus himself would have thoroughly enjoyed it.'

'If the editors of Contemporaries of Erasmus had done no more than track down the proper names found in the Collected Works of Erasmus, the Leiden Opera omnia, and the correspondence edited by P.S. Allen, that in itself would have been a tremendous work and a welcome volume to Renaissance scholars. How much more welcome is this scholarly work in which evey name having Erasmian connections is identified, subjected to intense and competent research, and presented, not only with clarity, but with a measure of grace and distinction? Most biographical dictionaries list and identify only men and women who have distingiished themselves in some way, or who have by birth merited a place in the book. Contemporaries of Erasmus does not shrug aside anyone whom Erasmus has met or mentioned in his works or letters. Adrian, an obscure messenger, Carolus, a non-clerical steward in a monastery, Margareta, the daughter of an acquaintance -- all these and many of their kind are given place along with the more important friends and patrons of the great humanist -- popes, kings, scholars, emperors.'