The Making of Memory in the Middle Ages

This substantial collection of essays offers a welcome overview to the rich field of memory studies, serving to expand scholarship into countries less well studied, including Scandinavia and Central Europe. Stemming from a workshop held in Prague in September 2007 called Medieval Memories; Case Studies, Definitions, Contexts, the papers have all been written in English by contributors based throughout Europe, including several at the Charles U. in Prague and the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic which co-sponsored the workshop. The 25 papers are divided into topics that include memory in practice, mnemonic aids, literary strategies, forgetting, and constructing the past, with studies on such subjects as Skaldic poetry, crusader accounts from 12th-century Iberia, landscape as a form of memory construction in Petrarch's Latin works, and memory as proof in trials by the Inquisition in 14th-century France. The contributors teach a variety of subjects, including art history, medieval theology, Jewish studies, Slavonic studies, and Old Norse. Annotation c2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Lucie Dole?alova, Ph.D. (2005) in Medieval Studies, Central European University in Budapest, is Assistant Professor at the Charles University in Prague. She has published on medieval reception of 'Cena Cypriani' (Trier 2007) and on medieval mnemonics and 'artes memoriae'.