Malignus

Preserved in the Bavarian State Library in Munich is a manuscript that few scholars have noticed and that no one in modern times has treated with the seriousness it deserves. Forbidden Rites consists of an edition of this medieval Latin text with a full commentary, including detailed analysis of the text and its contents, discussion of the historical context, translation of representative sections of the text, and comparison with other necromantic texts of the late Middle Ages. The result is the most vivid and readable introduction to medieval magic now available. Like many medieval texts for the use of magicians, this handbook is a miscellany rather than a systematic treatise. It is exceptional, however, in the scope and variety of its contents—prayers and conjurations, rituals of sympathetic magic, procedures involving astral magic, a catalogue of spirits, lengthy ceremonies for consecrating a book of magic, and other materials. With more detail on particular experiments than the famous thirteenth-century Picatrix and more variety than the Thesaurus Necromantiae ascribed to Roger Bacon, the manual is one of the most interesting and important manuscripts of medieval magic that has yet come to light.

Nedward Simmons is living a regular Earth life when he stumbles across an artifact from an alien civilization. Its protective powers are more intriguing than useful to him, until the aliens themselves arrive. Unable to hand over the power he has unwittingly acquired, Ned decides instead to travel with them in an attempt to defeat the Anacron army, which threatens their freedom. But Ned soon learns that his Plasma Crystal is not the only source of mysterious power in the galaxy. Ned and his comrades must deal with a vast space armada, enemy Plasma Masters, and even a monster or two as they search for a way to penetrate the enemy fortress of Venom and restore peace to their empire.

In this powerfully argued book, Knasas engages a debate at the heart of the revival of Thomistic thought in the twentieth century. Richly detailed and illuminating, his book calls on the tradition established by Gilson, Maritain, and Owen, to build a case for Existential Thomism as a valid metaphysics. Being and Some Twentieth-Century Thomists is a comprehensive discussion of the major issues and controversies in neo-Thomism, including issues of mind, knowledge, the human subject, free will, nature, grace, and the act of being. Knasas also discusses the Transcendental Thomism of Mar chal, Rahner, Lonergan, and others as he builds a carefully articulated case for completing the Thomist revival.

First ever edition of the Latin translation of Ptolemy’s masterwork This is the first edition ever of Moerbeke’s Latin translation of Ptolemy’s celebrated astrological handbook, known under the title Tetrabiblos or Quadripartitum (opus). Ptolemy’s treatise (composed after 141 AD) offers a systematic overview of astrological science and had, together with hisAlmagest, an enormous influence up until the 17th century. In the Latin Middle Ages the work was mostly known through translations from the Arabic. William of Moerbeke’s translation was made directly from the Greek and it is a major scholarly achievement manifesting not only Moerbeke’s genius as a translator, but also as a scientist. The edition is accompanied by extensive Greek-Latin indices, which give evidence of Moerbeke’s astonishing enrichment of the Latin vocabulary, which he needed both to translate the technical scientific vocabulary and to cope with the many new terms Ptolemy created. The introduction examines Moerbeke’s translation method and situates the Latin translation within the tradition of the Greek text. This edition makes possible a better assessment of the great medieval translator and also contributes to a better understanding of the Greek text of Ptolemy’s masterwork.

England in the fifteenth century was the cradle of much that would have a profound impact on European music for the next several hundred years. Perhaps the greatest such development was the cyclic cantus firmus Mass, and scholarly attention has therefore often been drawn to identifying potentially English examples within the many anonymous Mass cycles that survive in continental sources. Nonetheless, to understand English music in this period is to understand it within a changing nexus of two-way cultural exchange with the continent, and the genre of the Mass cycle is very much at the forefront of this. Indeed, the question of ‘what is English’ cannot truly be answered without also answering the question of ‘what is continental’. This book seeks, initially, to answer both of these questions. Perhaps more importantly, it argues that a number of the works that have induced the most scholarly debate are best seen through the lens of intensive and long-term cultural exchange and that the great binary divide of provenance can, in many cases, productively be broken down. A great many of these works, though often written on the continent, can, it seems, only be understood in relation to English practice – a practice which has had, and will continue to have, major importance in the ongoing history of European Art Music.