The Hermetica are texts attributed to the legendary Hellenistic figure Hermes Trismegistus, a syncretic combination of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth. These texts may vary widely in content and purpose, but by modern convention are usually subdivided into two main categories, the "technical" and "religio-philosophical" Hermetica.
Middle English Bible translations covers the age of Middle English, beginning after the Norman Conquest (1066) and ending about 1500.
Hugh of Saint Victor was a Saxon canon regular and a leading theologian and writer on mystical theology.
Peter Comestor was a 12th-century French theological writer and university teacher.
Alexander of Ashby was a celebrated English theologian and poet, who flourished about the year 1220. Scarcely anything is known of his history, except that he appears to have been prior of Canons Ashby, in Northamptonshire. Some writers make him a native of Somersetshire; others of Staffordshire; and some have confounded him with Alexander Neckam.
Peter of Poitiers was a French scholastic theologian, born in Poitiers around 1125-1130. He died in Paris on September 3, 1205.
Thomas Gallus of Vercelli, sometimes in early twentieth century texts called Thomas of St Victor, Thomas of Vercelli or Thomas Vercellensis, was a French theologian, a member of the School of St Victor. He is known for his commentaries on Pseudo-Dionysius and his ideas on affective theology. His elaborate mystical schemata influenced Bonaventure and The Cloud of Unknowing.
The Glossa Ordinaria, which is Latin for "Ordinary [i.e. in a standard form] Gloss", is a collection of biblical commentaries in the form of glosses. The glosses are drawn mostly from the Church Fathers, but the text was arranged by scholars during the twelfth century. The Gloss is called "ordinary" to distinguish it from other gloss commentaries. In origin, it is not a single coherent work, but a collection of independent commentaries which were revised over time. The Glossa ordinaria was a standard reference work into the Early Modern period, although it was supplemented by the Postills attributed to Hugh of St Cher and the commentaries of Nicholas of Lyra.
Haimo of Auxerre was a member of the Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Germain d'Auxerre. Although he was the author of numerous Biblical commentaries and theological texts, little of his life is known today.
The Bible Historiale was the predominant medieval translation of the Bible into French. It translates from the Latin Vulgate significant portions from the Bible accompanied by selections from the Historia Scholastica by Peter Comestor, a literal-historical commentary that summarizes and interprets episodes from the historical books of the Bible and situates them chronologically with respect to events from pagan history and mythology.
The Meditations on the Life of Christ is a fourteenth-century devotional work, later translated into Middle English by Nicholas Love as The Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ.
The Chronica Naierensis or Crónica najerense was a late twelfth-century chronicle of universal history composed at the Benedictine monastery of Santa María la Real in Nájera. In Latin it narrates events from Creation to its own time, with a focus on the Bible, classical history, the Visigothic in Spain, and the kingdoms of Castile and León. It was an important model for later Spanish Latin historiographers, notably the De rebus Hispaniae of Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, the Chronicon mundi of Lucas de Tuy, and the Estoria de España of the patronage of Alfonso X of Castile.
Stjórn is the name given to a collection of Old Norse translations of Old Testament historical material dating from the 14th century, which together cover Jewish history from Genesis through to II Kings. Despite the collective title, Stjórn is not a homogeneous work. Rather, it consists of three separate works which vary in date and context, labelled Stjórn I, II and III by scholar I.J. Kirby.
Bible translations in the Middle Ages went through several phases, all using the Vulgate. In the Early Middle Ages, written translations tended to be associated with royal or episcopal patronage, or with glosses on Latin texts; in the High Middle Ages with monasteries and universities; in the Late Middle Ages, with popular movements which caused, when the movement were associated with violence, official crackdowns of various kinds on vernacular scripture in Spain, England and France.
Guyart des Moulins was a medieval monk. He is famous for being the author of the first Bible translation in French, the Bible Historiale.
The General estoria is a universal history written on the initiative of Alfonso X of Castile (1252–1284), known as el Sabio. The work was written in Old Spanish, a novelty in this historiographical genre, up until then regularly written in Latin. The work intended to narrate the world’s history from the beginnings until the time of Alfonso, but it was never completed. The extant work covers from the creation until the birth of the virgin Mary, in the biblical section, and until year zero, in the history of the non-Jewish peoples. For the writing of this huge work, many older books were used as sources. Most of them were written in Latin, but there were French and Arabic sources, as well.
Robert of Cricklade was a medieval English writer and prior of St Frideswide's Priory in Oxford. He was a native of Cricklade and taught before becoming a cleric. He wrote several theological works as well as a lost biography of Thomas Becket, the murdered Archbishop of Canterbury.
Gyðinga saga is an Old Norse account of Jewish history compiled from translations of a number of Latin texts. Beginning with an account of Alexander the Great's conquests, it proceeds to cover around 220 years of Jewish history from Antiochus IV Epiphanes's accession in 175 BCE to Pontius Pilate becoming procurator of Judaea in 26 CE. The main manuscript source for Gyðinga saga concludes with an epilogue which attributes its translation into Old Norse to Brandr Jónsson, bishop of Hólar. In this manuscript Gyðinga saga follows Alexanders saga, which is also attributed to Brandr Jónsson. The saga is untitled in all manuscripts; the name Gyðinga saga appears to date from the 19th century. Árni Magnússon referred to it as both 'Historia Judaica' and 'Historia Macchabeorum'.
The Acre Bible is a partial Old French version of the Old Testament, containing both new and revised translations of 15 canonical and 4 deuterocanonical books, plus a prologue and glosses. The books are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, Judith, Esther, Job, Tobit, Proverbs, 1 and 2 Maccabees and Ruth. It is an early and somewhat rough vernacular translation. Its version of Job is the earliest vernacular translation in Western Europe.
The Asclepius, also known as the Perfect Discourse, is a religio-philosophical Hermetic treatise. The original Greek text, which was likely written in Alexandria between 100 CE and 300 CE, is largely lost and only a few fragments remain. However, the full text is extant in an early Latin translation, and fragments from a Coptic translation have also been found among the documents discovered in Nag Hammadi.
