Volume 11 (2024)

In 2013, a group of graduate scholars founded a journal named Ceræ, named after the ubiquitous wax tablets of ancient, medieval, and early modern societies. Considering the malleable and flexible nature of wax, it is fitting that the theme of volume 11 is ‘Metamorphosis, Transformation, and Transmutation’. If the last few years have taught us anything, it is that change and transformation are universal features of the human experience, as well as of the wider living world. At this current moment of great flux, we are proud to present a volume of research that expertly captures the significance of these themes in the medieval and early modern worlds.

Our journal itself continues to transform and grow. In April this year, Ceræ launched its inaugural online conference, a continuous single stream held over 28 hours to provide equitable access to participants across the world. Pairing the theme of the conference with the journal meant that we received a number of article submissions from conference presenters, two of whom (Russell and Styrt) are a part of the present volume. We plan to replicate the success of this conference next year and hopefully for years to come.

The three articles of this volume all approach the theme of Metamorphosis, Transformation, and Transmutation in very different contexts. Szilárd Kováč considers historiographical transformation in 14th-century Bohemia, exploring how a number of different chronicles diverged in the narratives they constructed about Břetislav I. Kováč demonstrates that although chroniclers consistently paid attention to the same stories about Břetislav I, the meaning drawn from these stories evolved and was refined according to contemporary political concerns. James Russell shifts focus to Pope Alexander VII’s extensively annotated copy of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili incunable. By analysing the Pope’s remarkable marginalia, Russell reframes the text as a three-dimensional architectural dreamspace upon which the Pope mapped his own experiences. In the final article, Philip Goldfarb Styrt applies the terminology and approaches of online fanfiction to Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale and Robert Greene’s Pandosto. In doing so, Styrt presents an innovative case study in using the rich analytical language of fanfiction to reconsider the relationship between play, source, and audience.

In addition to these excellent articles, it is an honour to feature two creative varia by Roxanne Bodsworth and Sam Corradetti. Bodsworth’s Meet Me in My World is a feminist prosimetric reconstruction of the eighth-century Irish tale, Aislinge Óenguso (The Dream of Óengus), that foregrounds the feminine experience to bring a new understanding to the early-medieval tale. Next, Corradetti’s ‘Retrograde’ is the short story of a sapphic couple set during California’s struggle for marriage equality in the 2000s and imagined with strong alchemical themes in the style of Chrétien de Troyes’ chivalric romance, Cligès.

The remainder of this volume comprises 19 book reviews that would surely put to rest any concerns about the strength or diversity of medieval and early modern studies. Subjects of books being reviewed range from pre-Roman Italy to the early colonial Americas, from Old Norse-Icelandic literature to Arabic science, with titles in English, French, and Italian. I commend Amanda Burrows-Peterson and Maria Gloria Tumminelli for taking on the gargantuan task of compiling and editing these reviews with great effciency.

This journal would not be able to function without our dedicated network of internal preliminary reviewers and external peer reviewers, who volunteer their time, effort, and expertise to help our authors develop their work. I am extremely grateful to them and to the larger Ceræ committee, especially Erica Steiner and Michele Seah for keeping the Ceræ ship steady. I must above all thank Deputy Editors, Lindsay Church and Ayaka Nguyen, for their invaluable assistance in putting this volume together. Finally, many congratulations to all the authors in this volume for their hard work and excellent scholarship. Preparation for volume 12 is already well underway and I look forward to watching Ceræ continue to flourish under the new committee.

Ashley Castelino, University of Oxford

Abstract: There is no doubt that Břetislav I (1005–1055) was one of the most important princes of the early history of the Přemysl dynasty. The earliest Czech chronicler, Cosmas of Prague, attributes to him not only outstanding successes and reforms, but also sees him as the saviour of the Přemyslid dynasty and the embodiment of the virtues attributed to rulers. It was therefore only natural that almost three hundred years later, when Charles IV commissioned the ‘official’ Czech court chronicle of the Luxembourg dynasty, Břetislav I was not absent. However, the narratives of the fourteenth-century sources show a surprising and radical departure from Cosmas, whose chronicle was certainly their main source. My research compares Cosmas’ narrative with that of Přibík Půlkava, the most successful and important author of Charles IV’s great historiographical project, as well as with the chronicle of the so-called Dalimil, a source written outside the court culture in Old Czech. In my paper I will discuss a case study of this comparative research, the relationship between Břetislav I and the Přemysl dynasty, consisting of the depiction of his illegitimate origin and his dynastic marriage with Judith of Schweinfurt.

Szilárd Kováč, Eötvös Loránd University

Abstract: Pope Alexander VII (Fabio Chigi, 1599–1667) extensively annotated a copy of the 1499 incunable Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (hereafter ‘HP’), printed by Aldus Manutius, which is in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. The HP, an architectural dream narrative crossed with an encyclopedia, has attracted scholarly attention primarily due to its elaborate architectural woodcuts and to speculation as to the identity of its anonymous author. This study reorients the focus towards its readership, reframing the HP as a used text as evidenced by the Pope’s marginalia. Prior studies have noted the resemblance of a woodcut of an elephant-and-obelisk in the HP to the last sculpture by Bernini in Chigi’s lifetime, outside Santa Maria sopra Minerva. This paper, the first extended study of Chigi’s marginalia, shows that the Pope’s engagement with the HP went beyond this one sculpture. Chigi thought of his journey through the architectural dreamspace by analogy with his own actual progresses through Baroque Rome under construction. The Pope marked the locations of characters and objects within the HP’s three-dimensional diegetic space. Moreover, Chigi also took interest in the rhetorical structure of the HP’s descriptions of its visual marvels, drawing on the traditions of imprese and acutezze.

James Russell, Rio Salado College

Abstract: The connection between early modern drama and contemporary online fanfiction is frequently mentioned — on both sides — but rarely analyzed in detail. In particular, the rich analytical language developed by online fandom for issues of adaptation, transformation, and intertextuality has been relatively neglected and underutilized by literary scholars. This paper uses William Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale and its relationship to Robert Greene’s Pandosto to show how this analytical language can help us better understand the relationship between play, source, and audience in ways that go beyond traditional source analysis.

Since the connections between The Winter’s Tale and Pandosto have been extensively studied, what this article contributes is not original research into how Shakespeare used Greene’s play, but rather a new analytical approach that draws on the terminology and approaches of online fandom. In doing so, it demonstrates how we can better understand Shakespeare’s adaptation of Greene through this lens: for example, how the pacing of the play can be viewed as a function of canon-divergent fanfiction, or how the play’s reversal of Greene’s Bohemia and Sicilia relates to alternate universe fanfiction. In demonstrating the usefulness of this new lens for existing observations about the connection between the two works, this article distinguishes the fanfictive reading from other related interpretations, highlighting the value of adding this approach to those already used to analyze early modern texts.

Philip Goldfarb Styrt, St Ambrose University

Abstract: Aislinge Óenguso (The Dream of Óengus) is an eighth-century Irish tale extant only in the sixteenth-century MS Egerton 1782. A woman visits Óengus in his dreams and he subsequently develops a love-sickness. A search is instigated by his family for the woman, and they learn that she is Caer, the daughter of Ethal Anbúail in the region of Connacht. However, Caer exists sometimes as a swan, sometimes a woman, and this animistic duality places her outside paternal or political control; she cannot be given to Óengus. Instead, Óengus undergoes a metamorphosis into a swan so they can be united. While this is the nucleus of the tale, the greater part of the discourse is given over to Óengus, politics, and battles, such that the female experience is rendered subsidiary to the male journey. In this prosimetric reconstruction called Meet Me in My World, the tale of Aislinge Óenguso is retold in desegmented syllabic quatrains that echo the strict formulations of medieval Irish poetry, while the lacuna of the female experience is excavated in free verse. This serves to foreground the feminine and thus alters the discourse from one of phallocentric satisfaction to female autonomy while retaining the framework of the eighth-century traditional tale.

Roxanne Bodsworth, Victoria University & Charles Sturt University

Abstract: Alchemy is the intersection of science and magic; it invites the audience to question their own assumptions and expectations of how the world works. The contemporary short story ‘Retrograde’ is created in the style of Chrétien de Troyes’ chivalric romance Cligès, where paramours undergo trials reminiscent of alchemical processes to become one pure soul – a metaphorical transmutation to gold. In ‘Retrograde’, these trials appear in a contemporary context via California’s struggle for marriage equality in the 2000s. The introduction outlines how medieval alchemical themes, imagery, and processes are translated into this setting.

Sam Corradetti, SUNY Binghamton University

Philippa Byrne and Caitlin Ellis, eds, Maritime Exchange and the Making of Norman Worlds, Transcultural Mediterranean Studies 3 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2023). Print, x + 230 pp., €75.00, ISBN: 978-2503-60217-2.

Reviewed by: John Aspinwall, Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg

Olivier Hanne, Adélard de Bath: Un passeur culturel dans la Méditerranée des croisades [Adelard of Bath: A Culture Conveyor in the Mediterranean at the Time of the Crusades] (Turnhout: Brepols, 2023). Print, 324pp., €85,00, ISBN: 9782503605708.

Reviewed by: Wajih Ayed, University of Sousse

Michele Bacci, Gohar Grigoryan, and Manuela Studer-Karlen, eds, Staging the Ruler’s Body in Medieval Cultures: A Comparative Perspective, Studies in Medieval and Early Renaissance Art History (Turnhout: Harvey Miller Publishers, 2023). Print, 351 pp., €75.00, ISBN: 9781915487087.

Reviewed by: Kim Bergqvist, Stockholm University

Minjie Su, Werewolves in Old Norse-Icelandic Literature: Between the Monster and the Man (Turnhout: Brepols, 2022). Print, 227 pp., €80.00, ISBN: 9782503596006.

Reviewed by: Ashley Castelino, University of Oxford

Jessica Barr and Barbara Zimbalist, eds, Writing Holiness: Genre and Reception across Medieval Hagiography (Turnhout: Brepols, 2023). Online, 281 pp., € 85.00, ISBN: 9782503601991.

Reviewed by: Eylül Çetinbaş, Bilkent University

Didier Lett, L’infanzia violata nel Medioevo. Genere e pedocriminalità a Bologna (secc. XIV-XV) [Childhood violated in the Middle Ages: Gender and paedocrime in Bologna (14th–15th centuries)] (Rome: Viella, 2023). Print, 324pp., € 29.00, ISBN: 9791254693230.

Reviewed by: Lorenzo Curatella, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg

Dan Armstrong, Áron Kecskés, Charles C. Rozier, and Leonie V. Hicks, eds, Borders and the Norman World: Frontiers and Boundaries in Medieval Europe (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2023). Print, xx + 395 pp., £110.00, ISBN: 9781783277858.

Reviewed by: Simon Egan, Queen’s University Belfast

Siân Grønlie and Carl Phelpstead, eds, The Medieval North and Its Afterlife: Essays in Honor of Heather O’Donoghue (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2024). Print, xi + 306 pp., £98.50, ISBN: 9781501524837.

Reviewed by: Tom Fairfax, University of Nottingham

Gerald Schwedler, ed., A Cultural History of Memory in the Middle Ages, A Cultural History of Memory 2 (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2021). Print, xiii + 212 pp., £72.00, ISBN: 9781474273381.

Reviewed by: Matthew Firth, Flinders University

Ann Giletti and Dag Nikolaus Hasse, eds, Mastering Nature in the Medieval Arabic and Latin Worlds: Studies in Heritage and Transfer of Arabic Science in Honour of Charles Burnett (Turnhout: Brepols, 2023). Print, 292 pp., €100.00, ISBN: 979-2-503-60448-0.

Reviewed by: Emma E. Horne, University of Nottingham

Costanza Gislon Dopfel, ed., Maternal Materialities: Objects, Rituals and Material Evidence of Medieval and Early Modern Childbirth (Turnhout: Brepols, 2024). Print, 372 pp., €125.00, ISBN: 9782503605739.

Reviewed by: Pamela Kask, University of Oxford

Emilio Bonfiglio and Claudia Rapp, eds, Armenia and Byzantium Without Borders: Mobility, Interactions, Responses (Boston: Brill, 2023). Print, xiv + 360 pp., USD $117.00, ISBN: 9789004677869.

Reviewed by: Cassandre Lejosne, University of Lausanne (Switzerland) / Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Paris, France)

Jeremy Armstrong and Aaron Rhodes-Schroder, eds, Adoption, Adaption, and Innovation in Pre-Roman Italy (Turnhout: Brepols, 2023). Online, 282 pp., €110.00, ISBN: 9782503602332.

Reviewed by: Nicholas J. Odom, University of Toronto

Marco Bartoli, La forza dei fragili: Poveri ed esclusi nel Medioevo [The strength of the fragile: The poor and the marginalised in the Middle Ages] (Rome: Carocci Editore, 2023). Print, 130 pp., €12.00, ISBN: 9788829022557.

Reviewed by: Daniele Ottolenghi, Università degli Studi di Milano

Jonathan Hsy, Tory B. Pearman, and Joshua R. Eylerand, eds, A Cultural History of Disability in the Middle Ages (London: Bloomsbury, 2022). Print, xvi + 288 pp., CAD $160.00, ISBN: 9781350028715.

Reviewed by: Lynn Riehl, Purdue University

Curtis Runstedler, Alchemy and Exemplary Poetry in Middle English Literature (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023). Print, xii + 205 pp., USD $129.00, ISBN: 9783031266058.

Reviewed by: James Russell, Rio Salado College

Corinne L. Hofman and Floris W. M. Keehnen, eds, Material Encounters and Indigenous Transformations in The Early Colonial Americas (Boston: Brill, 2019). Print, xxii + 399 pp., USD $210.00, ISBN: 9789004392458.

Reviewed by: Dain Swenson, Independent Scholar

Basil Arnould Price, Jane Bonsall, and Meagan Khoury, eds, Medieval Mobilities: Gendered Bodies, Spaces, and Movements, The New Middle Ages (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023). Online, xiii + 260 pp., £87.50, ISBN: 9783031126465.

Reviewed by: Maria Gloria Tumminelli, University of Cambridge

Victoria Flood and Megan G Leitch, eds, Cultural Translations in Medieval Romance (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2022). Print, viii + 282 pp., £80.00, ISBN: 9781843846208.

Reviewed by: Malek J. Zuraikat, Yarmouk University, Jordan