The Middle Ages: a concise encyclopaedia (review)

154 Reviews the female body. The womb and internal female organs were seen exclusively as an inversion of the male penis. The clitoris was not identified, except incidentally, as a site for female pleasure and the Renaissance anatomist Gabriel Fallopio was able to claim, with some exaggeration, that he was thefirstto identify what he caUed the pudendum. In this way, anatomical discussion can be seen to be an extension of male interpretations of the superiority of their own bodies. Hdary Carey Department of History University of Sydney Loyn, H. R., ed., The Middle Ages: a concise encyclopaedia, London, Thames and Hudson, 1989; cloth; pp. 352; 250 Ulustrations; R. R. P. AUSS79.95. The General Editor here has undertaken a daunting task, and one to which it is easy to take exception in matters of detail. On balance, however, he and his team of 40 specialists have put together in a most usable manner an attractive and selective, rather than comprehensive, guide to the chief events, persons, achievements and institutions of the Middle Ages. The volume will suit the generaUst reader rather than the speciaUst Suburban or school libraries might well find it an acceptable alternative to a series of more speciaUsed volumes. There are many satisfying and useful general articles; for example, agriculture, alchemy, annals (and chronicles), armour, architecture, astrology, burial customs, calendars, cathedrals, Celtic Churches (and Catholic Church, and Church-Eastern Orthodox), chivalry, Christianity, climate, clocks, comets, education ( a n d Universities), Exchequer (English), famine, feudalism, glassstained , Islam, Jews, language and dialect, law, libraries (also handwriting, books in manuscript, manuscript illumination, manuscript studies), monasticism, music, neoplatonism, pipe rolls, plague, political thought (and Marsilius of Padua), ships and shipping, slavery, synods, towns, war (and W a r s of the Roses), wills and testaments, w o m e n (but not m e n or children). Renaissances figure well (Northumbrian, twelfth-century and Italian), but there is no liturgy, literacy or even, surprisingly, Bible. The coverage is broad and weU-balanced: Arab, Turkish, Byzantine, Mongol, Russian, and Slav entries occur. There is no Peking but, to compensate, we find Arpad, the chief of the Magyars c. 850-905! Ancient culture and the Renaissance are represented by such entries as Aristotle, Aetius Flavius, Plotinus, Fra Angelica, Pico della Mirandola, Cisneros (but do not look up the latter under Ximenes). Art, literature and thought appear in a number of entries as do the main Italian towns (for example, Florence, Reviews 155 Milan, Venice, Rome, but not Siena, and Bologna only gets in under Bologna University, although Genoa gets a good guernsey). Some rather obscure glossators get in (Accursius, Azo and commentators) together with a few deUghtfully specialised characters of Great British interest only (Llywelyn ab Iorwerth the Great, but not M a el g w y n , R or y O'Conor, John Balliol), who seem to exclude such obscure continentals as, for example, Otto of Freising, though his famous biography of Frederick Barbarossa gets in as a reference under the entry for that ruler. Readers will be comforted to know that Otto's English contemporary William of Malmesbury makes it safely, as does the much more obscure continental A d a m of Bremen. It is nice to see entries such as Etienne Boileau, Union of Calmar, and Declaration of Arbroath, if only to remind one of one's ignorance. Giano della Bella's inclusion seems excessive since even Dante does not name him! Stave Churches (Stavkirchen) get an entry and an illustration. Scotland and Wales are well covered and even St. Andrews University is included. However, only some kings, popes and similar rulers are included so that despite some tables (Hohenstaufen, Plantagenets, for example) the work is not useful as a quick reference for regnal years and the like. The one or two bibliographical items after most entries are usually useful; although, there are exceptions to the rule. N. M. Haring's The case ofGilbert de la Poree is presented as a book to consult but is, however, unknown to the author of the entry who fads to cite its correct reference: N. M. Haring, The Commentaries on Boethius by Gilbert of Poitiers (Toronto, 1966). The reference given in the...