What did Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada Know About Islam?

This article considers into what conceptual framework Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, archbishop of Toledo (1209-1247), placed the information he knew about Islam. Did he view Islam as a religion, a polity, a heresy, a law, or some combination of these? It answers this question first by showing the role Islam plays within the archbishop’s historiography and then by exploring particular terms the archbishop uses to discuss Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, including, religion, sect, faith, perfidy, heresy, and law. It concludes that Islam, like Judaism and Christianity, was viewed as a law by Rodrigo, a term that encompasses much of what our modern term religion conveys, but eliminates the dichotomy between faith and practice, and minimizes the importance of elective assent to the community

Sculptors, architects, and painters conceive of depicted spaces differently

Sculptors, architects, and painters are three professional groups that require a comprehensive understanding of how to manipulate spatial structures. While it has been speculated that they may differ in the way they conceive of space due to the different professional demands, this has not been empirically tested. To achieve this, we asked architects, painters, sculptors, and a control group questions about spatially complex pictures. Verbalizations elicited were examined using cognitive discourse analysis. We found significant differences between each group. Only painters shifted consistently between 2D and 3D concepts, architects were concerned with paths and spatial physical boundedness, and sculptors produced responses that fell between architects and painters. All three differed from controls, whose verbalizations were generally less elaborate and detailed. Thus, for the case of sculptors, architects, and painters, profession appears to relate to a different spatial conceptualization manifested through a systematically contrasting way of talking about space

Primary progressive aphasia: a clinical approach

This work was supported by the Alzheimer’s Society (AS-PG-16-007), the National Institute for Health Research University College London Hospitals Biomedical Research Centre and the UCL Leonard Wolfson Experimental Neurology Centre (PR/ylr/18575). Individual authors were supported by the Leonard Wolfson Foundation (Clinical Research Fellowship to CRM), the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR Doctoral Training Fellowship to AV), the National Brain Appeal–Frontotemporal Dementia Research Fund (CNC) and the Medical Research Council (PhD Studentships to CJDH and RLB, MRC Research Training Fellowship to PDF, MRC Clinician Scientist to JDR). MNR and NCF are NIHR Senior Investigators. SJC is supported by Grants from ESRC-NIHR (ES/L001810/1), EPSRC (EP/M006093/1) and Wellcome Trust (200783). JDW was supported by a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellowship in Clinical Science (091673/Z/10/Z)

Christians and Jews in thirteenth-century Castile, the career and writings of Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, Archbishop of Toledo (1209-1247)

grantor: University of TorontoThe life of Archbishop Rodrigo Jimenez de Rada offers a window on many of the principal issues of his day. He is best known for his role in the victory over the Almohads at the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa (1212) and for several works of history in which he traces the emergence of Castile, with Toledo as its political and spiritual centre. Rodrigo was also an important figure in the shifting relationship between Christians and the Jews in thirteenth-century Spain. He worked to protect the Jews of Castile from the restrictions imposed on Europe's Jews by the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) and by the popes. Rodrigo also undertook business transactions using Jews as his agents, causing the clergy of the Toledo cathedral chapter to complain that he was overly friendly with Jews. The Archbishop composed a treatise, the Dialogus libri uitae, to foster conversions from Judaism. The text survives in one manuscript, Salamanca, Bibl. Univ., ms. 2089 (saec. xiv\rm\sp{ex}{-}xv\sp{in}). The work attacks Talmudic and Midrashic predictions about the Messiah, and seeks to demonstrate the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies about the coming of Christ, using philosophical arguments, biblical exegesis, and patristic authorities. The text reflects the practical and philosophical stance of the most powerful prelate in Castile at a crucial juncture in Christian-Jewish relations, when the papacy was tightening its restrictive legislation against the Jews and attacking the Talmud. Unlike most treatises against the Jews, which demonstrate little knowledge of contemporary Judaism, Rodrigo's work displays an awareness of current Jewish concerns and beliefs. The work has attracted little attention hitherto, and no study or printed text of it exists. Writers of anti-Jewish polemic and prelates who had dealings with Jews were common in the Middle Ages, but it is unusual to possess documents by and about an individual who acted in both capacities. Considering the Dialogus against Don Rodrigo's day-to-day dealings with the Jews and his treatment of them in his historical works sheds new light on the state of Christian-Jewish relations in thirteenth-century Spain.Ph.D

What did Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada Know About Islam?

This article considers into what conceptual framework Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, archbishop of Toledo (1209-1247), placed the information he knew about Islam. Did he view Islam as a religion, a polity, a heresy, a law, or some combination of these? It answers this question first by showing the role Islam plays within the archbishop’s historiography and then by exploring particular terms the archbishop uses to discuss Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, including, religion, sect, faith, perfidy, heresy, and law. It concludes that Islam, like Judaism and Christianity, was viewed as a law by Rodrigo, a term that encompasses much of what our modern term religion conveys, but eliminates the dichotomy between faith and practice, and minimizes the importance of elective assent to the community

Forum: Pauline Stafford\u27s Queens, Concubines, and Dowagers Thirty-Five Years On

This forum grew from a realization that virtually all medievalists who work on medieval women, family, or gender, or on early medieval history, admire the scholarship of Pauline Stafford, particularly her seminal book Queens, Concubines, and Dowagers: The King’s Wife in the Early Middle Ages (QCD), published in 1983 by the University of Georgia Press and reprinted with a new preface in 1998 by Leicester University Press. Over the years, all three editors have talked excitedly with colleagues, sharing stories of how we first read the book or the influence it has had upon our own work. Pauline’s scholarship has spurred many to become medievalists, to study women, queens, and their families, and indeed to see women as a part of the fabric of the medieval world, not as a separate or lesser subject. To younger generations of medievalists, QCD was already a classic and often served as the benchmark against which to measure one’s own scholarly contributions. For these reasons, as the thirty-fifth anniversary of the publication of QCD approached, the editors of Medieval Prosopography uniformly agreed that the journal wished to commemorate the publication of such a distinctly prosopographical book and to honor its influential author. These remembrances of Pauline and her scholarship were first presented in 2018 at the Fifty-Third International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan and at the International Medieval Congress in Leeds, United Kingdom to large audiences. The excitement of those present, their accounts of their own memories of the book, and the questions that Pauline’s body of scholarship continues to raise further testified to the enduring legacy of QCD. The contributors below revised their presentations for this publication in honor of Pauline Stafford and her extraordinary contributions to medieval history. We dedicate this publication to her in gratitude. This forum includes the following contributions: Pauline Stafford—A Heroic Journey, by Janet L. Nelson, King\u27s College London The Influence and Importance of Pauline Stafford’s Queens, Concubines, and Dowagers, by Charlotte Cartwright, Christopher Newport University Reflections on Pauline Stafford’s Book, Queens, Concubines, and Dowagers, by Theresa Earenfight, Seattle University The Lessons of a Serious History, by Valerie L. Garver, Northern Illinois University Pauline Stafford and the (Other) Empresses: Inspirational Figures, Then and Now, by Phyllis G. Jestice, College of Charleston Pauline Stafford, Queens, Concubines, and Dowagers, by Simon MacLean, University of St. Andrews Here’s to the First Edition!, by Penelope Nash, University of Sydney Arguing With Pauline Stafford, by Lucy K. Pick, Independent Scholar An Expelled Princess, a Slandered Empress, and an Abandoned Wife, by Dana M. Polanichka, Wheaton College (MA) In Which a Research Student Meets One of her Heroes, by Katherine Weikert, University of Winchester Pauline Stafford’s Queens, Concubines, and Dowagers Thirty-five Years Later, by Megan Welton, University of Utrecht (Continuing) Inspiration from Stafford’s Innovative Approach to Queenship, by Elena Woodacre, University of Wincheste