Authorship and Publicity Before Print: Jean Gerson and the Transformation of Late Medieval Learning Contributor(s): Hobbins, Daniel (Author) |
|
ISBN: 0812222741 ISBN-13: 9780812222746 Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press OUR PRICE: $33.20 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: November 2013 |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Religion | Christianity - Catholic - History | Europe - Medieval |
Dewey: 282.092 |
Series: Middle Ages |
Physical Information: 1.1" H x 6" W x 8.9" (1.25 lbs) 352 pages |
Themes: - Chronological Period - Medieval (500-1453) - Religious Orientation - Catholic - Religious Orientation - Christian |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: Widely recognized by contemporaries as the most powerful theologian of his generation, Jean Gerson (1363-1429) dominated the stage of western Europe during a time of plague, fratricidal war, and religious schism. Yet modern scholarship has struggled to define Gerson's place in history, even as it searches for a compelling narrative to tell the story of his era. Daniel Hobbins argues for a new understanding of Gerson as a man of letters actively managing the publication of his works in a period of rapid expansion in written culture. More broadly, Hobbins casts Gerson as a mirror of the complex cultural and intellectual shifts of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In contrast to earlier theologians, Gerson took a more humanist approach to reading and to authorship. He distributed his works, both Latin and French, to a more diverse medieval public. And he succeeded in reaching a truly international audience of readers within his lifetime. Through such efforts, Gerson effectively embodies the aspirations of a generation of writers and intellectuals. Removed from the narrow confines of late scholastic theology and placed into a broad interdisciplinary context, his writings open a window onto the fascinating landscape of fifteenth-century Europe. The picture of late medieval culture that emerges from this study offers neither a specter of decaying scholasticism nor a triumphalist narrative of budding humanism and reform. Instead, Hobbins describes a period of creative and dynamic growth, when new attitudes toward writing and debate demanded and eventually produced new technologies of the written word. |