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This collection brings together newly commissioned and cutting-edge essays on oral text and tradition ranging from the ancient and medieval world to the present day by a leading group of European and North American oral theorists. Using a range of materials including the Bible, Greek epic, Beowulf, Old Norse and Old English riddles, and medieval music, the contributors collectively work to refine, challenge, and further advance contemporary Oral Theory, an interdisciplinary school of thought heavily influenced by John Miles Foley, whose work provides the jumping-off point for this volume. The book includes a useful introduction to the history of oral theory and Foley’s ground-breaking and influential work. This book is available as Open Access.
This volume presents new research in medieval conceptions of magic, science, and the natural world, bringing not only medicine but also meteorology and navigation into the discussion. Ground-breaking theoretical chapters on theology, natural sciences, and the writing of history are presented by established experts in their fields. These are accompanied by case studies of interactions between magic, science, and natural philosophy. Each chapter offers new findings while contributing to a comprehensive survey of the shifting boundaries between natural and supernatural across both space and time. Emerging areas, such as the study of prognostics, are represented by challenging new work. This collection will prove fascinating to everyone engaging with this expanding field.
This study of the twelfth-century German abbess Hildegard of Bingen examines her understanding of the womb through her medical work Cause et cure and visionary work Scivias. Medieval tradition viewed female bodies negatively, seeing their porous nature as easily polluted. Women were considered weaker and more vulnerable to spiritual invasion. This volume shows how Hildegard’s revolutionary understanding of the female reproductive body reversed these assumptions. She connected female bodily flows not to pollution but to purification, presenting menstruation and reproductive fluids as vital components in natural cleansing and healing processes. The book concludes with a chapter showing how Hildegard's concept of beneficial bodily flow remains relevant in modern Western and non-Western alternative medicine, in which female bodily porosity and fluid exchange continue to be understood as sources of regenerative power.
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