The Measure of Multitude

TRAMA

This innovative study challenges the view that medieval thought was fundamentally abstract. He describes what medieval people 'thought' about population, studying the texts which contained their thought, and examining the medieval realities which shaped it, such as birth, birth-control, sex-ratio, marriage ages, length of life, and the population of the Holy Land.

NOTE EDITORE

By 1300, medieval men and women were beginning to measure multitude, counting, for example, numbers of boys and girls being baptized. Their mental capacity to grapple with population, to get its measure, was developing and this book describes how medieval people thought about population through both the texts which contained their thought and the medieval realities which shaped it. They found many topics, such as the history of population and variations between polygamy, monogamy and virginity, through theology. Crusade and travel literature supplied the themes of Muslim polygamy, military numbers, the colonization of the Holy Land,and the populations of Mongolia and China. Translations of Aristotle provided not only new themes but also a new vocabulary with which to think about population. In this innovative new study Peter Biller challenges the view that medieval thought was fundamentally abstract. He investigates medieval thought's capacity to deal with concrete contemporary realities, and sets academic discussions of population alongside the medieval facts of 'birth, and copulation, and death'.

SOMMARIO

1 - Introduction to Medieval Demographic Thought2 - Marriage and the Church's Marriage-Texts3 - William of Auvergne4 - Equal or Unequal Numbers of Men and Women5 - The Precept of Marriage and Sufficient Multiplication6 - Avoidance of Offspring (i): The General Picture7 - Avoidance of Offspring (ii): Canon Law and Sentences Commentaries8 - Avoidance of Offspring (iii): The Pastoral Picture9 - Inhabitation of the World10 - Animals and Life-span11 - The Politics (i): Reception12 - The Politics (ii): Age at Marriage13 - The Politics (iii): Multitude14 - The Bulging Circuit of Florence

ALTRE INFORMAZIONI

• Condizione: Nuovo
• ISBN: 9780199265596
• Dimensioni: 233 x 26.6 x 157 mm Ø 747 gr
• Formato: Brossura
• Pagine Arabe: 496