PIMSPontifical Institute
of
Mediaeval Studies

May 2024

Salome and the Kin of Jesus: The Treatises of Maurice of Kirkham and Herbert of Bosham

With the assistance of Samuel Baudinette and Rina Lahav

Forthcoming.

Studies and Texts 237; British Writers 8 • cxxx, 226 pp. • ISBN 978-0-88844-237-6 • Cloth • $125

In the twelfth century a matter was debated that still confronts readers of the New Testament, namely, just who constituted the kin of Jesus? The question held considerable significance, politically as well as theologically. It was popularly held that St Anne, mother of the Virgin, had had three husbands, and that James the Less, James the Great and John the Evangelist were all descended from her. However, this story, proposed by the Carolingian commentator Haimo of Auxerre, included the belief that Salome, the mother of the disciples James and John, was in fact a man and St Anne’s third husband.

August 2020

From the Vulgate to the Vernacular: Four Debates on an English Question c. 1400

Studies and Texts 220; British Writers 7 • cxxxvi, 216 pp. plus 8 b&w plates • ISBN 978-0-88844-220-8 • Cloth • $150

Co-published with The Bodleian Library (ISBN 978-1-85124-563-5)

Translation is at the centre of Christianity, scripturally, as reflected in the biblical stories of the Tower of Babel or of the apostles’ speaking in tongues after the Ascension, and historically, where arguments about it were dominant in councils, such as those of Trent or the Second Vatican Council of 1962–64, which privileged the use of the vernacular in liturgy.

April 2015

John Prise. Historiae Britannicae Defensio / A Defence of the British History

Studies and Texts 195; British Writers 6 • liv, 336 pp. • ISBN 978-0-88844-195-9 • Cloth • $150

Co-published with The Bodleian Library (ISBN 978-1-85124-436-2).  

The present work brings John Prise’s Historiae Britannicae Defensio back into print for the first time since 1573, when an edition was published by the author’s son, Richard Prise. The 1573 printing forms the copy-text, critically edited in the light of the one surviving manuscript (Oxford, Balliol College, MS 260) of a version which is very close to it, and drawing also on an earlier draft (in BL MS Cotton Titus F. III). The facing English translation is the first published translation of the Defensio. The work is accompanied by an extensive introduction and elucidatory notes.

July 2013

Peter of Cornwall's Book of Revelations

Studies and Texts 184; British Writers 5. 2013. xvi, 616 pp., plus 2 b/w plates
ISBN 978-0-88844-184-3 • Cloth • $150.00

This volume aims to introduce to a wider audience Peter of Cornwall (c.1140–1221), the diligent and methodical compiler of monumental works, of which one, the Liber Reuelationum, preserved uniquely in Lambeth Palace MS 51, is the focus for this study.

NOTE: Co-published with The Bodleian Library (ISBN 978-1-85124-254-2).  Customers in Europe, including the United Kingdom: please order this title from Bodleian Library Publishing.

July 2013

William Caxton. The Booke of Ovyde Named Methamorphose

Studies and Texts 182; British Writers 4. 2013. viii, 652 pp.
ISBN 978–0–88844–182–9 • Cloth • $150.00

William Caxton’s translation of the prose Ovide Moralisé was the first English version of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Caxton's translation can be used as an entry point into the complex textual tradition of Ovidian commentaries. The present edition seeks to renew interest in Caxton’s text and to encourage study of it in its own right.

NOTE: Co-published with The Bodleian Library (ISBN 978–1–85124–253–5). Customers in Europe, including the United Kingdom: please order this title from Bodleian Library Publishing.

View prelims and contents 

March 2011

John Gower. Poems on Contemporary Events: The Visio Anglie (1381) and Cronica tripertita (1400)

Edited by David R. Carlson, with a verse translation by A.G. Rigg. ST 174; British Writers 2. 2011. viii, 420 pp. ISBN 978–0–88844–174–4 • $150.00

NOTE:Co-published by The Bodleian Library (ISBN 978–1–85124–290–0). Customers in Europe, including the United Kingdom, please order from Bodleian Library Publishing

July 2010

John Leland. De uiris illustribus / On Famous Men

With the assistance of Caroline Brett. ST 172; British Writers 1. 2010. clx, 868 pp., with 8 black-and-white plates. ISBN 978–0–88844–172–0 • $175.00

NOTE: Co-published by The Bodleian Library (ISBN 978–1–85124–367–9). Customers in Europe, including the United Kingdom, please order from Bodleian Library Publishing