Visions of Community in the Pre-Modern World contains original essays by five leading scholars in the fields of history, art history, and literature on the ways in which communities were imagined and built between the eleventh and sixteenth centuries. These essays, which function as case studies, range geographically from Europe to Africa, the Near East to regions of Latin America. While acknowledging major factors that affect community-such as religious belief, imperial expansion, and warfare-these studies focus on precise examples and moments in the pre-modern world.

Giles Constable discusses the ways in which monastic vows of service to God served as the basis for communities of monks in Europe in the Middle Ages. Anthony Cutler explores the means by which Byzantine and Islamic communities were created and maintained through the use of visual and textual signs. Annabel Patterson draws on visual images and representations to explore how endangered Catholic communities struggled to survive in Reformation England. Richard Kagan offers a survey of city images and plans in the Hispanic world of Europe and the Americas. Pamela Sheingorn focuses on the attempts of fifteenth-century French theologian Jean Gerson to reinvent forms of religious community at a time of crisis. An introduction by Nicholas Howe places this work in its scholarly context.

The five contributors to this volume reveal the inherent complexity and variety of communities within pre-modern Europe. They offer a powerful argument against sweeping generalizations about the ways in which humans form themselves into groups, and encourage further scholarly research into the ways in which communities are formed and shaped.

About the Author

Nicholas Howe is professor of English and Director of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Ohio State University. He is the author of Migration and Mythmaking in Anglo-Saxon England, also published by the University of Notre Dame Press.

Reviews

"The essays in Visions of Community offer beautifully nuanced analyses of the ways in which various types of institutional and social identifications intersected and supplemented one another in the premodern period." -The Sixteenth Century Journal

"The admirable objectives and themes announced in Howe's introduction are met and illuminated. The malleable device of studying communities historically ways is done in model ways here." -Renaissance Quarterly

"Visions of Community in the Pre-Modern World is an enjoyable read." -HISTORY: Reviews of New Books

"... Fascinating and provocative...." -Utopian Studies

"The five contributors to this book reveal the inherent complexity and variety of communities in the pre-modern world. They offer an argument against sweeping generalizations about the ways in which humans form themselves into groups, and encourage further scholarly research into the ways in which communities are formed and shaped." -Ethical Perspectives

Book Information
ISBN 9780268028633
Author Nicholas Howe
Format Paperback
Page Count 192
Imprint University of Notre Dame Press
Publisher University of Notre Dame Press
Weight(grams) 291g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 11mm