Alberto Ferreiro

Simon Magus in Patristic, Medieval and Early Modern Traditions

Introduction 1. Simon Magus: The Patristic-Medieval Traditions and Historiography 2. Ten Years of Editions and Publications on New Testament Apocrypha 3. Typological Portraits of Simon Magus in Anti-Gnostic Sources 4. Simon Peter and Simon Magus in the Acts of Peter and the Passion of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul 5. Jeromes Polemic against Priscillian in his Letter to Ctesiphon (133,4) 6. Priscillian and Nicolaitism 7. Simon Magus and Priscillian in the Commonitorium of Vincent of Lerins 8. The Fall of Simon Magus in Early Christian Commentary 9. Simon Magus, Dogs, and Simon Peter 10. Simon Magus and Simon Peter in Medieval Irish and English Legends 11. Simon Magus, Nicolas of Antioch, and Muhammad 12. Vincent Ferrers Beati Petri Apostoli: Canonical and Apocryphal Sources in Popular Vernacular Preaching 13. Pope Clement I, Martin of Tours and Simon Magus in the Cathedral of Leon, Spain 14. Simon Magus and Simon Peter in a Baroque Altar Relief in the Cathedral of Oviedo, Spain 15. Artistic Representations of Simon Magus and Simon Peter in the Princeton Index of Christian Art: With Up-to-Date Inventory and Bibliography Bibliography Modern Author Index Subject Index

The siege of Barbastro 1064–65: a reassessment

Abstract In 1064 a large army of foreign troops, especially Normans and Catalans, fought against the Muslims at the fortress city of Barbastro, located in Zaragoza. The siege of Barbastro is, for several reasons, one of the most controversial battles of the early reconquest in Spain. Some of the problems that historians of the crusades and the reconquest have struggled with are: the indulgence letter that Alexander II allegedly granted to the soldiers at Barbastro and whether this makes Barbastro the ‘First’ crusade preceding the one called by Pope Urban II. In addition, the extent of involvement by Pope Alexander and the Cluniacs in propagating the ‘crusade’ has been debated. Equally problematic has been the identification of the leader of the Christian soldiers. Candidates chosen for the enigmatic leader have been Duke William VIII of Aquitaine, William of Montreuil, and the Norman, Robert Crispin. A review of the secondary and primary sources reveals that many long-held conclusions are in need of re-evaluation. A complete reassessment of these and other related problems is the intent of this study.

Vincent Ferrer's Beati Petri Apostoli: Canonical and Apocryphal Sources in Popular Vernacular Preaching

Vincent Ferrer was born in Valencia on January 23, 1350 and died at Vannes (Brittany) on April 5, 1419. He grew up in a devout family, and by 1367 had joined the Order of Preachers in Valencia. As a member of the Dominican Order, Vincent Ferrer underwent extensive academic and pastoral training from 1370 to 1378 in preparation for a life of scholarly teaching and preaching. He was a teacher of logic at Lleida (1370–71), philosophy at Barcelona (1375), and he completed his formal training at Toulouse (1376–78). These academic activities reflect only one aspect of his intellectual background.

Braga and Tours: Some Observations on Gregory's De virtutibus sancti Martini (1.11)

Gregorys narrative in his De virtutibus sancti Martini (1.11) has been the source of much discussion by modern scholars. The text bears directly on the process of the conversion of the Sueves out of Arianism to Catholic Christianity in sixth-century Gallaecia during the reign of the Suevic King Chararic (550?-558?), a personage unidentified by any other source, Gallic or Iberian. Most scholars have cited the text as wholly reliable without any sufficient critical analysis. E. A. Thompson, in a recent study dismissed the entire account as fictitious hagiography devoid of any historical value.This article is a first attempt to deal with the discrepancies between Gregorys text and those by Isidore of Seville and John of Biclar. The valuable works of Martin of Braga and Venantius Fortunatus are likewise given due consideration. The historical worth of Gregorys account is vindicated, as well as its rightful place as a critical source for events in sixth-century Gallaecia.

De prohibitione carnis. Meat Abstention and the Priscillianists

ZUSAMMENFASSUNG Priscillian von Avila zog in Gallien und Italien im 4. Jh. breite Aufmerksamkeit auf sich, was dazu führte, daß einige Bischöfe ihn aller möglichen Häresien verdächtigten. Unter diesen Häresievorwürfen findet sich auch der Vorwurf, Priscillian und seine Anhänger verträten hinsichtlich des Verzichts auf Fleischgenuß eine manichäische Meinung. Dieser Vorwurf, der sich in verschiedenen Quellen findet, hat bisher nur wenig Aufmerksamkeit bei modernen Forschern gefunden. Der Artikel untersucht diesen Vorwurf und geht der Frage nach, ob der Vorwurf berechtigt war. Dabei geht er den Hinweisen auf den teilweise kaum erkennbaren Manichäismus dieser Zeit in Gallien und Italien nach und berücksichtigt auch die im Westen vergleichsweise junge monastische Bewegung.

Priscillian and Nicolaitism

Priscillian was censured of both doctrinal heresy and sexual immorality by his accusers. On the question of his alleged sexual exploits, this issue merits a closer look than has been previously done by modern researchers. Some scholars believe the conciliar decrees of the Iberian Peninsula regarding relations between men and women are a response, directly and indirectly, to illicit relations in Priscillianist circles. 1 It is further argued that these decrees reflect an episcopal attempt to bring women into greater submission to men within and outside of Priscillianist groups. 2 There has been, moreover, some discord among some researchers as to whether Priscillian was ever accused of Nicolaitism. 3 There are, however, other pressing questions that I will explore in this article that will shed light on these concerns in Priscillian scholarship. Specifically, my agenda is: (a) to identify precisely in the anti-Priscillian literature which writers were responsible for accusing Priscillian and his followers of sexual immorality; (b) In the same vein, to engage any evidence which identifies whether Nicolaitism was ever attributed to Priscillianists; and (c), Lastly, to distinguish between rumor based misinformation about sexual libertarianism as opposed to what was actually decreed officially in conciliar legislation.

Simon Magus: The Patristic - Medieval Traditions and Historiography,

Simon Magus, who is known from the Acts of the Apostles (8 :9-24), the Actus Petri cum Simone (Acts of Peter), and the Passio Sanctorum Apostolorum Petri et Pauli (passio), was used metaphorically ...

A) Collected Essays

This bibliography is a supplement to the five volumes previously published by Brill. This one covers material from 2013 to 2015. The chronology covers from the fourth to the eighth century. All of the Iberian Church Fathers are represented as in the previous ones. The book contains author and subject indexes and is cross-referenced throughout.

SANCTE AGNETIS, MÀRTIR E VERGE: A MODEL VIRGIN FOR LAITY AND CLERGY IN ST. VICENT FERRER’S CATALAN SERMON

St. Agnes of Rome became one of the most celebrated martyrs of the fourth century. Her passion story was popularized by several Church Fathers, most notably Pope Damasus, Prudentius, and Ambrose of Milan. In the Middle Ages, Jacobus of Voragine widely disseminated her hagiography through his Legenda Aurea. St. Vicent Ferrer (1350–1419) dedicated a sermon to her entitled Sancte Agnetis, which he preached in late medieval Catalan. In this sermon he relied very little on Jacobus and the bulk of the previous passion stories about Agnes, which is unusual for Vicent’s hagiographical sermons. Vicent was more interested in promoting the saint’s virginity as a model of holiness for laity and clergy. This article seeks to identify the provenance of the hagiographical material that he did include. It also explores how Vicent proposed the virtue of virginity as a model of holiness to his target audience.

The Modern Origins of the Early Middle Ages: Wood, Ian, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 400 pp.,

also the ways in which politics were actually practiced in urban communities. His often minute reconstructions of street battles alert us to the need for a pragmatic understanding of everyday politics in which, at times, the layout of a neighborhood could be as important as a fiery pamphlet. Politics continue to play a role in Jerram’s next chapter, in which he addresses women’s actual spatial practices in Europe’s cities of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Instead of ascribing the predominantly middleclass demands for the right to vote or access to higher education as of prime importance to women, Jerram argues that “for most women in 1900. . .their goal was a safe, comfortable, happy home in which they could raise their families free from material privation” (104). He focuses on working-class women and how they, with the experience of industrial and domestic labor, urban life, and family demands, negotiated their material and spatial status, rather than their legal position, with laboring men, employers, and the state. Popular culture and urban sexualities constitute the topics of the subsequent chapters. Rightfully identifying the city as the central space for the emergence of sites where Europeans could find entertainment and sociability, as well as experience the shaping, liberation, or oppression of their sexual identities, Jerram urges his reader to acknowledge people’s “lived culture” (177), rather than dismissing popular culture simply as leisure. The author challenges the conventional periodization of European sexualities, because “it is, in fact, the second half of the century that impresses for its order and systematization of the individual, as even in the moment of clearest liberation, the newfound freedoms of the city have served merely to put people into a ‘more stately closet.’” (316). The final chapter, “Building Utopia,” analyzes the ambivalent significance of planning, which, in the twentieth century, promised unprecedented progress and improvement but also led to the calculated and industrialized mass killings of millions of people. Combining intellectual history, urban planning, and conceptualizations of race and hygiene with the political and physical realities of Europe’s cities from the late nineteenth century to unparalleled violence and destruction and reconstruction in the twentieth century, this fifth chapter might be the book’s most engaging. Streetlife is consistently captivating reading, especially well suited for college-level courses on modern European and urban history. Jerram traces his actors, their actions, and their spaces in a way that brings to life a vast array of stories and addresses crucial questions about the layout of cities and the history of the political battles, social negotiations, and cultural developments that have informed the daily lives of millions of city dwellers living together—at times, in harmony, at other times, in conflict and indifference. Despite his promise to tell the untold history of Europe’s twentieth century, the author does not introduce new evidence and draws heavily from the published works of other scholars. Nevertheless, no comparable book on the market covers such a wide range of time and spaces and focuses on Europe’s urban history from the perspective of people’s everyday lives. Jerram has, thus, delivered a fresh and important take on the recent past of Europe’s cities, its people, and the where of their daily lives.