Portal:Middle Ages/Selected biography
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Portal:Middle Ages/Selected biography/1
Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343 – October 25, 1400) was an English author, poet, philosopher, bureaucrat courtier, and diplomat. Although he wrote many works, he is best remembered for his unfinished frame narrative The Canterbury Tales. Sometimes called the father of English literature, Chaucer is credited by some scholars with being the first author to demonstrate the artistic legitimacy of the vernacular English language, rather than French or Latin. (read more . . . )
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Sir William Wallace (c. 1270–August 23, 1305) was a knight and Scottish patriot, who led a resistance against the English occupation of Scotland during the Wars of Scottish Independence. He is considered the greatest hero in Scotland's history.
Wallace was the inspiration for the poem The Acts and Deeds of Sir William Wallace, Knight of Elderslie by the 15th century minstrel Blind Harry. The 1995 film Braveheart is based on the poem. (read more . . . )
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Margery Kempe (ca. 1373 – after 1438) is known for writing The Book of Margery Kempe, a work considered by some to be the first autobiography in the English language. This book chronicles, to some extent, her extensive pilgrimages to various holy sites in Europe and Asia.
She was born Margery Brunham in King's Lynn (then Bishop's Lynn), Norfolk, Kingdom of England and married at the age of 20 to a local man named John Kempe, with whom she had 14 children. Her father, John Brunham, was a merchant in Lynn, five-time mayor, Member of Parliament and merchant whose fortunes may have been negatively affected by downturns in the economy, especially in the wool trades, of the 1390s. (read more . . .)
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Geoffrey of Monmouth (Welsh: Gruffudd ap Arthur or Sieffre o Fynwy) (c. 1100 – c. 1155) was a clergyman and one of the major figures in the development of British history and the popularity of tales of King Arthur.
Geoffrey's birthplace is unknown, but he may have been born in Monmouth in Wales, possibly of Breton ancestry. Certainly he had significant connections to Monmouth, as his name suggests, and the descriptions of Caerleon in Historia Regum Britanniae indicate familiarity with the area. He studied at Oxford University, where he met Walter, who was Archdeacon of Oxford. On 21 February 1152 Archbishop Theobald consecrated Geoffrey as bishop of St Asaph, having ordained him a priest 10 days before. "There is no evidence that he ever visited his see," writes Lewis Thorpe, "and indeed the wars of Owain Gwynedd make this most unlikely."Geoffrey attested about six different charters between the years 1129 and 1151; the date of his death is recorded in the Welsh Chronicles. read more . . . )
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Snorri Sturlson (1178 – September 23, 1241) was an Icelandic historian, poet and politician. He was twice lawspeaker at the Icelandic parliament, the Althing. He was the author of the Prose Edda or Younger Edda, which consists of Gylfaginning ("the fooling of Gylfi"), a narrative of Norse mythology, the Skáldskaparmál, a book of poetic language, and the Háttatal, a list of verse forms. He was also the author of the Heimskringla, a history of the Norwegian kings that begins with legendary material in Ynglinga saga and moves through to early medieval Scandinavian history. For stylistic and methodological reasons, Snorri is often taken to be the author of Egils saga.
As a historian and mythographer, Snorri is remarkable for proposing the theory (in the Prose Edda) that mythological gods begin as human war leaders and kings whose funereal sites develop cults (see euhemerism). As people call upon the dead war leader as they go to battle, or the dead king as they face tribal hardship, they begin to venerate the figure. Eventually, the king or warrior is remembered only as a god. He also proposed that as tribes defeat others, they explain their victory by proposing that their own gods were in battle with the gods of the others. (read more . . . )
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Marguerite Porete (d. 1310) was a French mystic and the author of The Mirror of Simple Souls, a work of Christian spirituality dealing with the workings of Divine Love. She was burnt at the stake for heresy in Paris in 1310 after a lengthy trial, after refusing to remove her book from circulation or recant her views. The book is cited as one the primary texts of the medieval Heresy of the Free Spirit.
Porete's life is recorded only in accounts of her trial for heresy, at which she was condemned to be burnt at the stake. Her biography is probably biased and certainly incomplete. She is associated with the Beguine movement, and was therefore able to travel fairly freely. Some also associated her with the Free Spirit movement, a group which was considered heretical because of their antinomian views. The connection between Porete and the Free Spirits is somewhat tenuous, though, as further scholarship has determined that they were less closely related than some Church authorities believed.
Unlike other religious figures such as Joan of Arc and Meister Eckhart, who were condemned and later rehabilitated by the Roman Catholic Church, it is unlikely that Porete will be so favored. This is partly due to her relative obscurity. Until 1946, it was not even known that she was the writer of the Mirror, which had been published anonymously since her death. (read more . . . )
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Paul the Deacon (c. 720 – 13 April probably 799), also known as Paulus Diaconus, Warnefred and Cassinensis, (i.e. "of Monte Cassino"), was a Benedictine monk and historian of the Lombards.
An ancestor named Leupichis entered Italy in the train of Alboin and received lands at or near Forum Julii (Friuli). During an invasion the Avars swept off the five sons of this warrior into Illyria, but one, his namesake, returned to Italy and restored the ruined fortunes of his house. The grandson of the younger Leupichis was Warnefrid, who by his wife Theodelinda became the father of Paulus.
Born between 720 and 725 at Friuli in Italy to this noble Lombard family, Paul received an exceptionally good education, probably at the court of the Lombard king Rachis in Pavia, learning from a teacher named Flavian the rudiments of Greek. It is probable that he was secretary to the Lombard king Desiderius, the successor of Rachis; it is certain that this king's daughter Adelperga was his pupil. After Adelperga had married Arichis, duke of Benevento, Paulus at her request wrote his continuation of Eutropius.
It is certain that he lived at the court of Benevento, possibly taking refuge when Pavia was taken by Charlemagne in 774; but his residence there may be much more probably dated to several years before that event. Soon he entered a monastery on Lake Como, and before 782 he had become a resident at the great Benedictine house of Monte Cassino, where he made the acquaintance of Charlemagne. About 776 his brother Arichis had been carried as a prisoner to France, and when five years later the Frankish king visited Rome, Paul successfully wrote to him on behalf of the captive.
His literary attainments attracted the notice of Charlemagne, and Paul became a potent factor in the Carolingian renaissance. In 787 he returned to Italy and to Monte Cassino, where he died on April 13 in one of the years between 794 and 800. His surname Diaconus, shows that he took orders as a deacon; and some think he was a monk before the fall of the Lombard kingdom.
The chief work of Paul is his Historia gentis Langobardorum. This incomplete history in six books was written after 787 and at any rate no later than 795/96, maybe at Montecassino. It covers the story of the Lombards from 568 to the death of King Liutprand in 747, and contains much information about the Byzantine empire, the Franks, and others. The story is told from the point of view of a Lombard patriot and is especially valuable for the relations between the Franks and the Lombards. It begins:
The region of the north, in proportion as it is removed from the heat of the sun and is chilled with snow and frost, is so much the more healthful to the bodies of men and fitted for the propagation of nations, just as, on the other hand, every southern region, the nearer it is to the heat of the sun, the more it abounds in diseases and is less fitted for the bringing up of the human race.
Among his sources, Paul used the document called the Origo gentis Langobardorum, the Liber pontificalis, the lost history of Secundus of Trent, and the lost annals of Benevento; he made a free use of Bede, Gregory of Tours and Isidore of Seville. (read more . . . )
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Hildegard of Bingen (German: Hildegard von Bingen; Latin: Hildegardis Bingensis; 1098 – 17 September 1179), also known as Blessed Hildegard and Saint Hildegard, was a German magistra who founded two women's communities (Rupertsberg in 1150 and Eibingen in 1165) in the 3rd quarter of the 12th century. Although today she has commonly acquired the title of abbess, it is important to note that she never held that title during her lifetime and remained under the jurisdiction of the abbot of her parent monastery at Disibodenberg.
Hildegard of Bingen was an artist, author, counselor, dramatist, linguist, naturalist, philosopher, physician, poet, political consultant, prophet, visionary, and a composer of music. She is the first composer for whom a biography exists and one of her works, the Ordo Virtutem is one of the first known liturgical dramas. Some have mistakenly linked this work as the precursor that led to opera, but there is no plausible link between Hildegard and the Florentine Camerata, the creators of opera.
She wrote theological, naturalistic, botanical, medicinal, and dietary texts, also letters, liturgical songs, poems, and the first surviving morality play, while supervising brilliant miniature illuminations. A biographer, Carmen Acevedo Butcher, described Hildegard of Bingen as a polymath in the 2007 publication, Hildegard of Bingen: A Spiritual Reader.
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Moses Maimonides (March 30, 1135 Córdoba, Spain – December 13, 1204 Fostat, Egypt) was a Jewish rabbi, physician, and philosopher in Andalusia, Morocco and Egypt during the Middle Ages. He was one of the various medieval Jewish philosophers who also influenced the non-Jewish world. Although his copious works on Jewish law and ethics were initially met with opposition during his lifetime, he was posthumously acknowledged to be one of the foremost rabbinical arbiters and philosophers in Jewish history. Today, his works and his views are considered a cornerstone of Jewish thought and study.
Maimonides' full name was Moshe ben Maimon (Hebrew: משה בן מימון) and his Arabic name was أبو عمران موسى بن ميمون بن عبد الله القرطبي الإسرائيلي (Abu Imran Mussa bin Maimun ibn Abdallah al-Qurtubi al-Israili). However, he is most commonly known by his Greek name, Moses Maimonides (Μωυσής Μαϊμονίδης), which literally means, "Moses, son of Maimon", like his name in Hebrew and Arabic. Several Jewish works call him Maimoni, מימוני. However, more Jewish works refer to him by the Hebrew acronym of his title and name — Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon — calling him the RaMBaM or the Rambam (רמב"ם).
Maimonides was born in 1135 in Córdoba, during what some scholars consider to be the end of the golden age of Jewish culture in Spain, after the first centuries of the Moorish rule. Maimonides studied Torah under his father Maimon who had in turn studied under Rabbi Joseph ibn Migash. The Almohades conquered Córdoba in 1148, and threatened the Jewish community with the choice of conversion to Islam, death, or exile. Maimonides' family, along with most other Jews, chose exile. For the next ten years they moved about in southern Spain, avoiding the conquering Almohades, but eventually settled in Fez in Morocco, where Maimonides acquired most of his secular knowledge, studying at the University of Al Karaouine. During this time, he composed his acclaimed commentary on the Mishnah. (read more . . . )
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Nicolas Flamel (c 1330-1417) was a successful scrivener and manuscript-seller who developed a reputation as an alchemist that has overshadowed his historical reality.
Flamel was the attributed author of an alchemical book, published in Paris in 1612 as Livre des figures hiéroglypiques and in London in 1624 as Exposition of the Hieroglyphicall Figures. It is an exposition of figures purportedly commissioned by Flamel for a tympanum at the Cimetière des Innocents in Paris, long disappeared at the time the work was published. In its publisher's introduction Flamel's search for the Philosopher's Stone was described. According to it, Flamel made it his life's work to understand the text of the mysterious 21-page book he had purchased, and that around 1378, he traveled to Spain for assistance with translation. On the way back, he reported that he met a sage, who identified Flamel's book as being a copy of the original Book of Abraham also known as the Codex. With this knowledge, over the next few years Flamel and his wife allegedly decoded enough of the book to successfully replicate its recipe for the Philosopher's Stone, producing first silver in 1382, and then gold.
According to the introduction to his work and the additional details that have accrued since its publication, Flamel would thus have been the most accomplished of the European alchemists, who would have learned his art from a Jewish converso on the road to Santiago de Compostela. "Others thought Flamel was the creation of seventeenth-century editors and publishers desperate to produce modern printed editions of supposedly ancient alchemical treatises then circulating in manuscript for an avid reading public," Deborah Harkness put it succinctly. The modern assertion that many references to him or his writings appear in alchemical texts of the 1500s, however, has not been linked to any particular source. The essence of his reputation is that he succeeded at the two magical goals of alchemy -- that he made the Philosopher's Stone which turns lead into gold, and that he and his wife Perenelle achieved immortality. (read more ...)
