Histories of the Middle East: Studies in Middle Eastern Society, Economy and Law in Honor of A. L. Udovitch

Abstract

who “brought the vague individual into the realm of angelic cognition” (p. 291). Bearing in mind the idea of the angelic applied to ancient categories of knowledge, it is fascinating to then approach Fumo’s analysis of late-medieval English work on Ovid for its own inquiry into medieval readers’ philosophies. As Black asks how Avicenna’s work – itself deeply concerned with angels’ cognitive power and their relations with people – meets with new arguments from Christian interlocutors, so Fumo asks how English writers used ekphrasis and manuscript illumination to introduce moralising dimensions into ancient texts. This gives the reader the opportunity to take a schematic long view: what theological and philosophical impulses were at play in medieval Europe and reveal themselves most distinctly when writers work directly with Classical texts to produce a new intellectual frame? In other words, what ideological work does medieval transformation perform? There are, of course, a great many other critical questions that readers from a range of disciplines might draw from the volume, an observation that speaks well of the project overall. If there is one revision to be suggested, it is for more argumentative work from the contributors, so that questions are met with answers, even if provisional. A group of accomplished scholars such as these might offer eighteen provocative studies, but in some cases the essays describe research without producing a set of analytical statements that coalesce into a thesis. Overall, however, the volume is a solid achievement, broad in scope and admirably reaching out across disciplines. It is encouraging to think that the research group at the helm of this project will continue its valuable work in organising workshops and publishing scholarship.